Last rites at Penguin

MANILA, Philippines - It’s like walking across a corpse, really. I mean trying to get a decent drink in Malate, now that last rites have been performed at Penguin Cafe’s old haunt near the Remedios Circle. But, you see, this place has been known to do an Adonai (see The Golden Bough) every now and then: rises up in its old spot under a new management, or will (probably in this case) bloom somewhere else, someday soon. Hopefully still in Malate — even if Malate doesn’t resemble the Malate of my corrupted memories.

I remember following this dancer around at the start of the ’90s. She taught literature in the royal and pontifical university in the afternoon, but followed the drums in the evening, gyrating like Tom Robbins’ Salome the belly dancer in the lyrical “Dance of the Seven Veils” pages of Skinny Legs and All. You swore while nursing your pale brew in Café Caribana — which used to be on J. Nakpil Street where the street parties were staged and where our gay friends marched in all their royal finery — how the world became less unwell after each dance, how you got drunker and drunker yet more aware of the essentials while encircled by her healing whirls. How you could scrounge around for enough pesos for one last beer, one last epiphany. How all your tomorrows don’t really matter but just that long endless now, and how you still get giddy even with just the re-memory of it all.

Then it would be Submarines in the Third World Café loft with its illuminated garden and those shell-cased shades. (Lourd De Veyra and Ramil Gulle would leave after a couple of rounds to go back to the Today office where they worked with Jessica Z. and “Bert Write,” leaving literature professors Ayvi Nicolas and Ricci Guevarra, and a younger jobless, pointless me.) Ah, the stories spun with each drop of the Submarine jigger. How the murder of crows would descend upon and kill a solitary crow, a “storyteller” it turned out. How mind-altering it was to journey to Dumaguete, where the Tiempos hosted the workshops and where giant Mickey waited with his stash of illegal greens on the boulevard of distorted dreams.

And then there was Penguin Café. 

It was there where we first met Ato Mariano with his island chimes, Benjie Juvero with his amplified hegalong, as well as those assorted legends, martyrs, strangers, ravers, painters, pipers, poets, seers of visions, miners of truth and delusion, and all-around crazy diamonds.

I was aware of its history — how the founders envisioned a sanctuary for artists, bohemians, the marginalized, those who live on the fringes; how genre-defying the exhibitions were (from Saint Santi Bose to Nunelucio Alvarado to all those relatively unknown ones whose visions run counter to the dictates of galleries and museums); and how the jam sessions (from indigenous grooves to electric jazz odysseys) straddled interstellar dimensions. But you cannot really quaff history down with peanuts. So you go there for the ice-cold beer, the Schublig sausage, the great atmosphere, and the curiosities you get to meet and never-ever forget to remember.   

I started going back to Penguin Café when I began working in the Port Area. The vibes were different. Gone were the artist-boho haunts on Nakpil Street, gone also were the bars that played brave new music like The Verve Room (Karl Roy in whatever group, Rubber Inc., and Radioactive Sago Project) and such, to be replaced by KTVs, Korean food joints, and bars heralded by lads in ill-fitting suits. Penguin was like one glinting shard left in the valley of darkness, the last piece of yarn that keeps Malate from tumbling into the abyss of a humdrum commercial area dotted with condos, kitschy disco-houses (ruled by Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas), and cranes that are always digging, digging and building something, anything, nothing. Constructing but not actually creating. Tonight’s gonna be a black night as you gaze into the world with your po-po-poker face.

Three (maybe four) years ago I became really at home in Penguin. My friends would drop in and the gang would all be there, just like in Cheers. Owner Butch Aldana would be on one corner, conversing with his musician friends. Tending the bar was the duo of Vic and Richard, who are always — always — happy to see you. Vic created these gorgeous tie-dye and Salvador Dali lampshade cum candle-boxes, while Richard silk-screened shirts with quirky designs.

I wrote these words many moons ago:

“Some of my best recollections about my favorite bands happened in Penguin. Lourd and Radioactive Sago covered Anakbayan’s Jeepney Rock. Upon my request, Johnny Alegre with Colby dela Calzada and Mar Dizon did a reading of Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life — which was technical ecstasy. It was such a joy to watch Johnny with his scowls, grimaces and jaw-dropping guitar-work. Lirio Salvador and Elemento with their Sandata pieces did one hallucinogenic jam ending with Bob Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe. And guitarist Noli Aurillo played Steely Dan’s Any Major Dude. All the melodies and harmonies created by piano, guitars, bass and probably angular banjoes were recreated by Noli with one Takamine acoustic, plucking and strumming his way into the pantheon of guitar gods, his spidery fingers across the fretboard. Aw, aw, aw! Get these things at Penguin: cheap beer, sausages with just the right spice, a view of engaging and agitating art, and Original Pilipino Music played with edginess and shambolic brilliance.”

What were actually the last orders at Penguin on the bar’s fateful last night on 604 Remedios Street? Was it Richard’s alchemical Kahlua tequila mix that onetime left me reeling like an albatross on acid? I managed to trudge home not knowing who I was and what the hell I was doing there. Did Ole Torbergsen the Norwegian regular buy a round of drinks for everyone? Did Ronnie Lazaro, Pinikpikan’s Billy Bonnevie, or Lav Diaz show up with illuminations tangled in their hair? Did the strange gravely woman (who never said a word until she saw Scott Garceau and suddenly transformed into Smiley Cyrus) sit at the bar and order her favorite Pale? Did anybody turn off the television set that beamed the eternal Mao? Were you there?  

Before the final curtain was drawn, Noli performed Michael Jackson and Steely Dan medleys. Never have I heard a guitar played that way — and I have seen John McLaughlin and Tuck Andres in gigs. (I’m not saying Noli is better, only he’s different.) In one passage you could almost hear Walter Becker harmonizing with Donald Fagen.

That was the night of the expanding man.

Then Emy Fortuno sang a Rolling Stones number with Noli, You Can’t Always Get What You Want. A fitting epitaph for a place on the scrap of land in Malate that we hoped would stay there forever.

Ah, this void created by Penguin. What I would miss the most — well, aside from hearing Noli Aurillo pluck the whole orchestral parts of The Beatles’ A Day in the Life, or Jayman Alviar’s persistent drumming in whatever group, as well as chatting with French, Spanish and Australian expatriates working wonders in art institutions and NGOs — are the people who make the place happen. Vic Mateo. Richard Cabig. Alex “Master Idol” de los Santos. Billy Flores. Yul who let us in for free on gig nights. Muses Cecile and Farge. Just the whole damn team.

So long, and thanks for all the fish crackers.