Bourdain, Bocelli & ‘bobotantes’

A week before elections finds me here in Abu Dhabi where I’ve been invited to deliver a couple of talks at the International Book Fair. Tough to be so remote while the last two minutes of fevered campaigning are taking place back home, and my beloved OKC Thunder face up with the San Antonio Spurs.

I would’ve missed the first two hosted by the odds-on fave Spurs, meaning on live TV, and will have to rely on the Net for results. But the first and more major concern will also have to depend on cyber news, soc med updates and Viber.

Much work has also marked the past week, so that it seemed like a blur the way a couple of entertainment items happily came my way, as R&R breaks. No, that doesn’t mean going RoRo.

First up was the much-awaited premiere episode of Anthony Bourdain’s new Parts Unknown series on CNN, which first aired two weekends ago. A lot of friends had anticipated this episode since finding out about Bourdain’s Manila visit last December, then hearing of how the result was chosen to kick off the series.

While I missed the actual premiere on the boob tube, soon enough of course it was shared in full on FB by friends who had either just been curious about it, or who had figured in the shooting sessions with Bourdain. 

The lead-up to the airing brought us all up to speed on Bourdain’s association with our country. His daughter had enjoyed the ministrations of a Pinay yaya, and in fact had grown up and become fast friends with this yaya’s own son. And so the chef slash author slash TV star who travels the world not just for street food but hefty doses of culture has developed a particularly soft spot for our country.

In an interview with Richard Feloni for Business Insider, Bourdain said: 

 “I knew a little of the Philippines already, but this was a chance to learn about the Filipino character, and why so many of them end up as caregivers, essentially, looking after kids, looking after sick people — that instinct to give. There’s also a musical aspect that seems ubiquitous. We’re trying to tell a very personal Philippines story, and that was a highlight.”

Indeed, that all came out in the Manila episode: a mélange of familiar images of our metropolis, not exactly its underside, but sans the cosmopolitan physical attributes of malls, upscale restos, exclusive residential villages and central business districts with First-World-type high-rises. The imagery kept to the trivia curiosa of a bustling, Third-World capital: jeepneys and traffic cops dressed up as Santa Claus, Christmas motifs all over crowded streets, Yuletide and musical celebrations, scrawny kids, families and barkadas partying with our table staples and beer.

It’s a loving tribute all right, giving our local audience the warm fuzzies, as a friend said. It toasts the Pinoy spirit of camaraderie, hospitality, good cheer and musical talent. Of the latter, Bourdain makes much of the pervasiveness and cover-genius of Pinoy musicians. Much footage is devoted to a band that plays at Handlebar, home to the Mad Dogs motorcycle fraternity whose average heft and foreign looks simulate redneck road gangs in Texas.

Bourdain breaks bread with the same musicians, and others who express their dream of an ultimate gig in Vegas. He attends a company Christmas party and joins in parlor games, visits a Jollibee outlet where he consumes Chickenjoy and the sweet spaghetti with hot dogs, tries out the halo-halo on a street bench and dispenses the same to kids galore, and spends much time with a typical Pinoy extended family headed by a matriarch who has come back home after 30 years in the US.

She sings while whipping up her kare-kare, opens a balikbayan box that has everything for everyone, and caps the segment with a full a capella cover of Edelweiss. The OFW phenom is brought up often, with myriad shots of airport goodbyes complementeng the poignant elaboration on why 10 percent of our people conduct themselves as modern-day Hobbits. (No, he doesn’t say that.)

Thankfully, the Hobbit House isn’t featured, with Bourdain opting instead for the unnamed Oarhouse Pub of Manila, in Malate, for a serious if brief talk with photo journos Ben Razon and Mark Navales on the perils of journalism in our over 7,000 islands, especially in the deep South. Guns are shown and fired, at a shooting range.

Much ground is covered with the brisk editing, albeit I thought that an excess of image material rendered parts of it somewhat inchoate, if not repetitively cyclical. Well, that could have been the objective. Jeepneys, kids, rain, musicians and airport farewells do define the cycles of our urban lives.  

Bourdain is characteristically kind with the food he’s offered, even the spaghetti in Jolibee, which gets a terrific promo.  Its mascots dance outside to the delight of children held up by their mothers, while the famous traveler endorses it as “the wackiest jolliest place on earth.” The adobo he’s served at a musician’s pad is “amazing,” while the street sisig also gets high marks: “Nothing is getting in between me and this fatty, spicy goodness!” The lechon is still “the best pig in the world,” and Lola’s kare-kare, served at a terrace till rain brings everyone back in, seems to bless our homeland forever.

Oh how I wish that could be true. In a week’s time, the so-called, perhaps unfairly slandered bobotantes will troop to the polls, and from the looks of it, our street food might never be the same again. That’s how it is when Messiahs are spotted ’round a corner, and given the keys to cities and countryside other than his, even if he’s riding (or being) an ass.

Fret not as yet, countrymen. The mob of plurality may be taking over, but parts unknown should serve as another challenge to our national character. I just hope that what another friend has said that “Saviors are crucified when they don’t deliver,” doesn’t come true in this case. Por la patria!

Meanwhile, us “elite” can still have our cake and eat it, too. That’s how it felt like at the Mall of Asia Arena last Tuesday, when Andrea Bocelli’s Cinema World Tour came to town. With Maestro Carlo Bernini conducting the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Ateneo Chamber Singers backing up the divo in some pieces, Andrea Bocelli regaled everyone with yet another masterful performance.

The orchestra has so improved, in leaps and bounds, that it could be our best at the present. And the Ateneo Chamber Singers, who have made their mark abroad, was in full fine force for this one.

Ten terrific numbers composed the first half before a smoking and loo intermission: from the overture to Andrea’s first two solos, with La Donna e Mobile as the second, bringing me back to childhood Pinoy punning, i.e. “Hopiang di mabili…,” then soprano Maria Katzarava on her solo, back to Andrea with poetry text on the large vid screen behind him, then a duet, the orchestra and chorus together, and back to Andrea before two more duets with Maria. The images on screen enhanced the music, as it that could still be possible. But hey, Paris in the snow is always extra entrancing.

The second half featured more familiar music, obviously what gives this concert series its title, as the songs are from popular films, from West Side Story’s Maria to The Godfather theme, and on to The Music of the Night before Be My Love — with Mario Lanza onscreen again bringing me back to the ’50s… Flutist Andrea Grimelli does a solo with the theme from The Mission, and it is enough to make our night very special. That Morricone is bookended by Coppola and Webber fills our hearts.

Rightfully, Gerald Salonga takes over the baton for a two-piece medley featuring pop guest Christine Allado, a superb alto, with As If We Never Said Goodbye segue-ing to our fave Someday I’ll Fly Away. After Bocelli renders the Scent of A Woman tango number Por Una Cabeza, he does a couple of duets with Allado, Cheek to Cheek and Canto della Terra. Then a solo, the Gladiator theme Nelle tue Mani, with appropriate visuals onscreen including Andrea as a fine horseman.

It seems to be the finale, but demands for an encore bring out Katzarava for the final duet, what else but Con te Partiro. One last encore: the rousing finale with the Ateneo Chamber Singers contributing to make Nessun Dorma a lush, dramatic, grand culmination of an exhilarating night of music. 

Of such breathers are our days and nights occasionally studded or spiked. Vincero! — some voters will exclaim a week or so from today. But will we overcome the fanaticism of a plurality? It will be a singular failure if we don’t, no hoorays for mobocracy.