Thursday August 14, 2014
6:30 a.m.

Not much going on at the 7-11 this morning. When I came in, all the chairs and benches were still up on the table. I had to clear my own table first and I learned how heavy these friggin’ chairs are. They’re made of square steel tubes welded together. Built to last. The music is blasting like a night club. I’ve mentioned before that the Filipinos seem to be immune to loud sound. Nothing in the way of noise bothers them. The louder the better. And their taste in music tends to the cheese. The cheesier the love song, the more they go crazy. (Rat just ran down the sidewalk.) Got a foreign dude sitting nearby. Not surprisingly, he sat down on the bench on the opposite side of this air conditioner tower. He needs a backrest just as much as I do. Interestingly, with him sitting there, the air conditioner is not moving at all. He’s careful that way – just like I am. When a Filipino sits there, the air conditioner rocks like there is an earthquake. Filipinos tend to be unaware of their surroundings and move around and bump into things like crazy.

I’m waiting to see what will pop into my head this morning, and, so far, nothing has. Nothing much is happening around me to trigger any thoughts. It’s the usual stuff. There was a beggar woman sitting on the curb outside my window. The rat ran right through her feet. She just sat there and watched it go past. There’s one of the jeepney volunteers a short distance away washing his feet and face with water from a jug. I often wonder how these guys and beggars deal with certain life tasks. Across the street from my old Internet café is a popular stretch of sidewalk for street people. Entire families live there – sleeping every night on cardboard that they put down over the sidewalk. There are a few children, and the little girls simply squat in the gutter to go to the bathroom. I’ve watched all their activities as I sat on the steps outside the Internet café waiting for them to open. But I wonder where the adults go to the bathroom. I know that the men pee anywhere and everywhere. Cebu is a giant urinal basically. But I have no idea where they all go to take a dump. I’m not getting much of a view this morning because some kind of delivery truck is sitting on the street right outside my window and blocking my view. The driver leans out the window and spits ever twenty seconds like clockwork. Filipinos also like to spit. They’re not as bad as Koreans and others I’ve encountered, but I’ve often had spittle splash against my feet and lower legs. Luckily, I’m a gentle soul or I’d have flattened a few men with a sharp fist to the jaw. Spit if you must, but don’t spit when I’m right in front of you, please.

One random thought that has crossed my mind since I’ve been in the Philippines is how accustomed we have become in general to experts. We are a media people in modern times, so whenever we see anyone doing anything, we are generally watching the best in the world. We watch movies and generally see the best actors in the world. We listen to the radio and hear the best singers. We watch professional sports and the Olympics and we see the best athletes. So I think we tend to get a distorted idea of all these things. We think it is easier than it is. I just take it for granted that people can open their mouths and sing beautifully. BUT (and this is a BIG but) most people can’t sing. At all. And you learn that in the Philippines. As I’ve mentioned many times, karaoke is everywhere, so I’m constantly bombarded with the worst singing you’ve ever heard. It’s worse than you can even imagine. And over time, I’ve realized that that is normal. That is what most people would sound like if they sang into a microphone. So, in an odd way, I’ve learned to appreciate real singers. Being exposed to horrible singing so much has helped me appreciate good singing.

I think about this when it comes to most things now. I’m a big fan of MMA. I watch the UFC events whenever I can. I’ve recently gotten caught up by downloading them in Internet cafes. The problem there is after a while you lose appreciation for the skill involved. You only watch the best fighters in the world. What I need to see is an ordinary guy getting in the ring with these UFC fighters and seeing what happens. I need the contrast to really appreciate it. I think I’ve thought this because many recent UFC events have not been terribly interesting. That’s because most of the fighters have perfected their jujitsu techniques and can defend against it. So they have neutralized each other. Plus, and I hate this, the “sport” has become more and more commercial. Even more than before, it has become about money. And ordinary fans don’t appreciate real technique. They just want to see two guys throwing wild punches at each other – like a schoolyard brawl. They think that is exciting. When two really skilled fighters face each other, the audience starts to boo. The fighters themselves talk about how MMA is as much about entertainment as fighting. It’s moving more and more toward the professional wrestling model. It’s a horrible trend.

Have I mentioned that jeepneys are changing? They started out as modified American jeeps. They lengthened the bodies and put benches in the back. And then they decorate them. Those are rapidly disappearing and are being replaced with a cheaper and lighter mass produced vehicle. It looks like a regular van, just larger. And they are produced already “jeepnified.” They come out of the factory with paint jobs and other decorations already on them. And the paint jobs aren’t personal anymore. They are Western pop culture images – Batman, Superman, Spiderman, the Smurfs, Winnie the Pooh, Angry Birds, and that sort of thing. I don’t much care, to be honest. I say good riddance to jeepneys. I never ride in them because they are the most uncomfortable and the most poorly designed form of transportation in the world. The are horrible from every point of view and clog up the streets. They make riding a bike a nightmare. I’ve noticed that the few cyclists in Cebu have started to ride right down the middle of the street. They put their tires right on the double lines at the center and stay there. It seems crazy, but it is the safest and most convenient place to be. I ride on the right, as usual, and it is horrible because the jeepneys cut you off and stop in front of you all the time. You can’t make any progress at all. I think part of the problem is that Filipinos are also very averse to walking. That seems to be another trait common to Asian countries. To walk anywhere is a horrifying thought to them. The camera store I used to visit is about two kilometers away and I walk there and back without thinking twice. No Filipino would ever do that. The mere idea would horrify them. During my awful hospital visits, I had to go from the actual hospital to something called the Medical Arts building. I asked over and over again where this building was. And I was told over and over that there was a shuttle bus at the front of the hospital. No one would tell me where the building was. They would only tell me about the shuttle bus. So I got in the shuttle “bus” all hunched over and uncomfortable and waiting forever for the damn thing to fill up with passengers. It cost three pesos. And then we finally left and went around two corners and stopped! It was insanely ridiculous. The building was just around the corner. I could have walked there and back twenty times in the same amount of time as I waited for the shuttle bus to leave, but it was a hot and sunny day, and no Filipino would walk that far.

A jeepney accident just happened outside my window. No big surprise. The miracle is that there aren’t far more accidents. I’ve witnessed a number of them actually happen, and it seems to me that, other than absolutely horrible driving, the main cause is poorly maintained brakes. These jeepneys can’t come to a stop. They have to coast for a long time before the brakes will take hold and stop them. Then they try to scoot through a yellow light turning red at an intersection. A jeepney will pull out in front of them on the green light and I can see the accident as clear as a bell about to happen. A normal vehicle would simply come to a stop when the driver hits the brakes. But here, the brakes don’t work. It’s like an accident in slow motion. I see the offending jeepney drifting through the intersection, slowing down but not fast enough, and, inevitably, slamming into the side of the other jeepney. It often looks like the film of an accident that has been slowed down for analysis. But the real speed is in slow motion.

There is a big grocery store on the corner across from the 7-11. I generally buy big bottles of water there. There is a huge red and white banner stretched across the front: “5% off Pork & Beef Products 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. only.” That sign always amuses me. Marketing genius.

Scary beggar heading this way. He’s the scariest of all the crazy street dudes in this neighborhood. I can’t even describe him. Crazy hair and beard – all matted. Snaggly teeth. Black from head to toe with encrusted dirt. Wears nothing but a tattered and dirty pair of shorts with a split button and zipper. He’s pretty fat and has a big belly hanging over his shorts. He looks vicious and mean and scary. One thing I’ve noticed about these crazy street dudes is that they almost all wear shorts that are too big and have broken zippers and they hang down so far that they are almost naked. Full frontal city for these dudes. I wonder if this is an accident in that they just don’t realize that they are exposed and flashing everyone or if they are doing it on purpose out of some perverted sexual urge to shock people. It could be just because they have no money and can only wear old worn-out clothing. But the pattern is so strong that it seems to be a deliberate behavior.

That appears to be end of my stream-of-consciousness thoughts for this morning.

Tags: MMA, music, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, UFC