...The things you will say, and the clothes you will wear

They asked me to MC the Mission Holiday party with another co-worker, Tiny. And, no, I did not have to wear a Santa suit this time. Actually, to tell you the truth, it may have not been a Santa suit, but there is a whole story about what I wore.

The party was outside and I was scheduled to be there from noon time until it ended around 4pm, so I did not want to be hot and sweating in the Manila weather. I planned on wearing a short sleeved shirt. The problem is, I don’t OWN a short sleeved shirt that is still business attire. All my work shirts are long sleeved. So I told Lady Hiva I needed to go get one. As we went to the mall, she announced to me that I am “such a woman.” Now, it is not usually a good thing when your wife calls you a woman, so naturally I inquired why I qualified for that stereotype. She said, laughing this time, “You are such a woman. You want to look good on stage so you have to go buy a new outfit for the event…” HA! Whatever, the reason, I did not want to be hot on stage and as feminine as it seemed I am glad I bought a shirt because it was HUMID!

The day was fun. Of course there are those moments after the show when you think, “Did I just say/do that in front of the entire Mission?” YIKES! (Lady Hiva says that I already said ‘almost that exact line in another post…’ so I must say quite a bit of dumb things in front of large audiences) Like when I mispronounced one of the star’s last name (Arthur Manuntag) that I was introducing and then butchered it a second time when I tried to get it right…aye ya ya aye! After that I just referred to him as “Art.” “Good job Art. Welcome Art! Give a round of applause for ART!” YIKES! Or when I got tongue tied one some random word and said, what has to be the best line of the whole day, “alalalalalalal” while rolling my tongue to make a joke out of my folly.

Erik Santos

La Diva

Aside from that, it was a really great time. We had performances by celebrities here in the Philippines, Erik Santos that won the first season of  “Star in a Million,” La Diva, a trio of women who harmonized amazingly,  Arthur….Art, and Stephanie Reese. Being on the stage the whole time it was quite entertaining to see the crowd’s faces and the performances continued. Women were screaming and doing this heart symbol over their chests while Erik sang, and there was a line of men ready to take photos with the La Diva girls when they finished singing!

Art

Stephanie Reese

All the entertainers were wonderful with the crowd. They all walked down off the stage to the people during their performances. I was glad that I was not on the front row though. All of the front row people, at one point or another, were chosen to dance on stage or sing solos of a song…there was no escaping, they held the microphones right in their faces!

There was one surprise guest, Apl. De. Ap. from Black Eyed Peas, who came to say hello.  Apl. De. Ap. is a Filipino-American who was born in Pampanga and immigrated to the States.  The crowd went wild when he entered the stage. He walked down the stairs to the crowd and within minutes there were clawing women AND men vying to touch him and/or take a photo! Now that was entertaining. There was one older lady, who is normally quiet and sitting at her desk, grab the girl next to her by the arm and literally ran across the muddy grass in high heels and white pants with the other girl flailing in tow! This is SERIOUS business! As we were standing on stage I looked out at Hiva and nodded to her to take a photo of me with Apl. De. Ap. on stage—thankfully she was willing to take photos so I can share with you, and thankfully she and I can understand each other’s small non-verbal communication in the middle of a whole group of people. After the event she came up really excited and said, “I got some really great photos of you with Apple of My Eye…or whatever his name is!” HAHAHA!

Then there was the dance off competition between departments again. Both groups did exceptionally well, again I was left wondering when they all had time to practice.

It was a really great opportunity. All the hard work of those that prepared the event really paid off. I enjoyed getting to know some colleagues that I had not met before and all of the celebrities were so down-to-earth and that was really refreshing to see. Even when there was an awkward moment of technology glitch and we all waited while they got a new CD to play for the artist. I had, one song earlier, leaned over to a co-worker standing just off the stage with me and said, “Of all the jobs at a big event like this I would NOT want the sound system/music job.” She asked why, and my reason is that if something goes wrong or it does not sound right, it is the sound guy that gets the pressure, the glares in the silence and the blame. So when the glitch happened she turned to me and said, “You jinxed it!” oops! But as it turns out, the artist had given him the wrong CD and had the real CD in her purse! HAHAHA

So even though I may have said some things into the microphone that had people shaking their heads, at least I had a new shirt!