of kokak and cruises

i trooped to guadalupe for my obligatory night out at joni's. i first detoured at robinsons pioneer, where i picked a modern american poetry anthology for just 75 bucks. not bad for an edition that featured such poets as louise gluck, philip booth, elizabeth bishop, among others. going to guadalupe, i crossed the rickety, vehicle-embattled infrastructure that not quite prevented people from falling off into the murky pasig river below, but that surely provided little help in masking off the dead river's stench. my grotesque bridge situation reminded of of one of the lower bolgia scenes in dante's inferno.
i was the first gay to arrive in joni's place. even papa edwin wasn't around, according to mama joni, whose tootache didn't seem to affect his usual convivial self. two ponstan 500 must have helped him get through the night with his faggoty sense of humor intact. we ate spuds while waiting for philippine idol to air over channel 5. in between our chitchat, the phone would ring to confirm to mama joni the prospective arrivals for the night.
the night wore on and the visitors were slow to arrive. to liven up the solitary house, we made comments on the contestants of the fox-franchised talent search. seeing how dashing a lad joseph pastor was, joni exclaimed that should the sam milby deadringer would screw me up, i do not have any right to be choosy. why, the muscular pampango guy was hot and spicy in his latino number, complete with an open-chested white polo and blue jeans so tight i could make out the contours formed by his leg veins. midnight was approaching, and no visitor yet. i casually said that three hours more and i'd launched in my customary 3 o'clock habit. at this point, joni told me of the latest gay hangout in the neighborhood: the rice-and-gas dealer betwixt two sari-sari stores a stone's throw away from joni's. he regaled me of last weekend's happening, when the wee hours had cruising gays being whipped into frenzy by a game help from the dealer, at the comfort room of which the handsome help was flirtatiously calling on for some lecherous lips to get his rocks off. oh. must i have missed on the great fun? my horny will and the game boy's be done, then.
to while the time more, i asked joni to enumerate classic pinoy films which he would like to see the remake of in the near future. he mentioned sharon cuneta's p.s. i love you, but the remake of vilma santos' tagos ng dugo was one that i found remarkable. he wanted claudine barretto, his favorite young actress, to star in it. it was sad that at the fap luna awards night concurrent with the idol show, claudine's nasaan ka man best actress performance was eclipsed by zsa zsa padilla's ako legal wife comic showing. better luck next year when claudine's sukob acting piece gets noticed anew, to the chagrin of her co-star kris aquino, who naturally wanted to be recognized for her acting (or non-acting, as the case may be). for my own list, i put temptation island on top, if only for the sheer campiness of the dina bonnevie starrer. the gradually increasing drips of kabaklaan made for a full-pledged queer avalanche when we rattled off other camp movies as secrets of pura k, virginia p, akin ang puri, nights of serafina, madonna ang babaeng ahas, etc. what brought the house down was the outrageous sex-fantasy kokak, wherein my kababayan rachel lobangco transforms from a slimy amphibian into a voluptuous woman of the world. talk about a camp version of the frog prince. in which case we suggested a number of starlets--has-beens before they reached full stardom--who might do justice to a kokak remake. the nomenclature yielded such flashes-in-a-pan as tina paner, marilyn villamayor, jennifer mendoza, jobelle salvador, joanne quintas, guila alvarez, nikka valencia, jan marini alano, and their ilk. by the moment we finished the list, we were doubling over in laughter and i hardly gave a hoot when other gay visitors started trickling in.
as there were no pamintas to incite my interest, i led an informal beauty pageant q&a, asking beautifully bronzed tantan and mestiza jay their thoughts about the possible social, economic, political, ecological and moral repercussions of such diverse issues as pluto's planetary disenfranchisement, the swapping of subic rape case with jocjoc bolante's agri-scam case, the aftermath of the guimaras oil slick, and the pregnancy of kris aquino. their answers sparked hilarity, especially when sir jay made a disclaimer that "to answer that question, i need an interpreter."
3 o'clock ticked, and i along with four other gays was ready to check out the rice store help. however, a tall hunk in grey muscle shirt captivated our attention, and the ever-domineering jelay asked us to stay behind as he cruised the guy. miracles indeed descend from the heavens, for a few minutes after, jelay was returning and coaxing me into going after the guy, who expressed his intent to meet me. it felt like the stars were about to fall from the heavens to serve as confetti to a newly-crowned beauty queen. what racy homoerotica occured after? that's a different story altogether.