Crazy Guy on the Veldt

I went to my first FFP meeting last night.

Gather around the monitor while I spin my tale.

Now first, I had to get from point A to point B. Point A being Blumentritt and point B being Xocolat near Katipunan. Okay, easy enough landmarks and directions are provided and I could always google it to find out where it's at.

Here's where sleep deprivation becomes a factor. I was on night duty the day before and when I got home I thought; "screw sleep I'm going to watch Monty Python instead"... so 5 episodes or so later it's time to go. I hastily googled "map B. Gonzales" and right of I noticed a search result "Mirriam College is a place etc." and I says didn't c z a r mention something about Xocolat being near Mirriam college. So I click there and I find a map...and look there's an LRT2 station near there. Lucky. I then hastily scribbled down directions from Katipunan station to the nearest B. Gonzales...it went something like this;

"from LRT station L to along katipunan, L to xavierville, 3 kanto from katipunan corner xavierville"

Now those of you who know where I'm headed are obviously laughing right now. My judgment was a bit hazy what with the being-awake-for-20-hours and all, besides I've firmly believed that the best way to get familiarized to a new place is to get lost. And my definition of walking distance is fucked up, as most of my friends say, because walking distance to me is Blumentritt to Luneta. I once walked from Greenhills to the National Center for Mental Health just because.

So much for getting to point A to B. So back to the story. First time I'm going to ride the LRT2 line, but I knew there was a walkway from the D. Jose station to Recto station. No sweat. So I disembarked at Katipunan station and prepared to get lost. And there's nothing better to listen to when beginning to get lost as Kashmir by Led Zep. And so with Led Zep blasting away I began to walk (Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd)
...and walk (Wish you were Here by Pink Floyd)
......and walk (You Better, You Bet and Baba O'Riley by The Who, Purple Haze by Hendrix, Black Dog by Led Zep, Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple, Changes by David Bowie.)
Then I reached a B. Gonzales street and I asked around there for a Cafe Xocolat the security guard was kind enough to point out the building across the street...but obviously my X didn't come across clearly enough as I found a cozy Cafe Chocolat instead.

No biggy it's bound to be around here, I mean how many chocolate themed cafes can a place support ( around 3 or 4 as I've seen). I asked inside the Cafe (Behind Blue Eyes by The Who in my ears) and I was directed that there was a Cafe Xocolat ( now with eXaggerated X ) around the next street over. Seems like I'm walking some more (Instant Karma by John Lennon)
...and some more (Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane, Me and Bobee McGee by Janis Joplin, Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer, She Loves You by The Beatles) right about here I'm turning in to another corner (Got My Mind Set on You by a Beatle, Wild Night by Van Morrison, Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult, Hair of the Dog by Nazareth, Tush by ZZ Top) and then I come to... a gate. A GATE!, seriously rich people are pretty inconsiderate towards people getting lost like me, barring perfectly good roads with gates and guards who start conversations like;

"Saan po kayo sir"

"Dito" I says

"Saan po kayo papunta"

"Doon" I says... right about know I'm waiting for an armored knight to enter off screen and clobber me with a chicken. (T.N.T. by ACDC...and I seriously have these songs set up like this on my MP3 player) I smile and ask directions to Cafe Xocolat ( with an even more eXaggerated X) and I'm told it's on the next road over with the ever so helpful hand-pointing-in-a-curve indicating my next path.

And now for something completely different.... me walking (Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, Up Around the Bend by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Paperback Writer by The Beatles, Old Man by Neil Young, Your Song by Elton John, The Joker by the Steve Miller Band, Some Kind of Wonderful by Grand Funk Railroad, I Can See for Miles by The Who, Aqualung and Cross Eyed Mary by Jethro Tull, Dream On by Aerosmith) Now, isn't that a highway I see? There was a bank on the other side with another Manong Sekyu outside and I was told that "Nakalampas ka na ayun sya sa kabila oh".

And then I arrived.