Cafe Alvarado

Hear Direk Freddie Santos

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Makati, the premier financial district of the Philippines has always been about the business. In the 2000’s, rules relaxed allowing more and more food establishments and lounges to profligate within its sky-kissing structures.

At the heart of it lies Alvarado Street (now named Carlos Palanca) and in the mid-80’s, some smart people pulled the right strings and got themselves a permit to open Café Alvarado – coffee shop by day, lounge club by night. Because it was partly below street level, it was able to have its own entrance and for Makati workers unwilling to dive into happy hour traffic, this was hang-out heaven.

But clubbing wasn’t anything back then and by 9pm, the place was snoresville.

The owners, needing to give business a boost, decided they would try a stand-up night.

Main draw would be my stage actor friend, Junix Inocian, who didn’t have a single serious bone in his body. His appearances on television gave his name some clout and word was pretty much out that on a bad night, he would still be hilarious. He asked me if I could help out with some of his acts.

Dates were set, hands were shaken, we were go.

Then the news: Junix had another performance that night for Repertory Philippines. He would still come, just “a little late”…like 9pm? In short, he was going to make “lagare”, or the act of a saw going back and forth in the hands of a carpenter, “lagare” being Pinoy for saw.
The owners panicked. They didn’t think the audience would care to wait that long so then they turned to me – they had heard of my song/comedy gigs at Tita Lola’s – and asked if I could PLEASE be a front act? Just a few songs, keep the audience amused until Junix got there. Thought about it for a nanosecond…no prob! I brought in my pianist from Tita Lola’s, Lito, and we worked out a set. Boy, did we end up with a work-out!

Junix’s arrival just kept getting later and later and since Lito and I only knew a limited number of songs from my 30-minute gigs at Tita Lola’s, I found myself doing instant stand-up stretching my spiels from here to everywhere and back. At first, I was a little shaky. The full house had heard that Junix was going to be late and I wasn’t exactly welcomed with cheers. But right in front was none other than feisty cinema queen, actress Miss Rita Gomez (the “Miss” was always in her contract).

This lady was the original Cougar and she had a laugh that could shake the Serengeti. I spotted her during my first song and right after the so-so reception, immediately acknowledged her beauty. That did it. Any joke I said, planned or otherwise, she heartily laughed at and the audience, something about Pinoys always needing a second opinion, began laughing with her. And laughing…and guffawing…then cheering with much applause. I talked so much that by the 2nd hour, I was still only into my 6th song but I didn’t care. Junix was nowhere in sight and as far as I was concerned, he had become the back act.

On my 10th song, my last, Junix turned up and I was only too happy to introduce him despite the audience yelling “More!” from me. What “more”? Lito and I only knew 10 songs! So I quickly turned the microphone over to Junix and the reception, admittedly, was a bit chilly. His first joke, and a good one it was, too, garnered 4 and half titters. Pretty much like the way the same audience greeted me two hours before but to Junix’s credit, he dished out one punch line after another, dazzled the audience with his resonant tenor and managed to turn the night around and make it his own.

Besides, how could you not love and laugh at a guy like that? Junix could sense the audience was pissed and already a little tired but he kept trying out all kinds of jokes until he got a good response from one of them. He built up on that until he got the audience going. 20 minutes into the show, they were eating out of the palms of his sweaty hands.

For his final act, something he and I thought up on one food-filled night, he played a Sexy Dancer (that’s what they were called) who had 10 gigs in one night in 10 different clubs (you got it, “lagare”, a common practice in the 80’s). Try to imagine Junix’s 200-plus very soft lbs. jiggling and wiggling from one end of the stage to the other, his dance deteriorating by the gig, and you’ll understand why the audience was cheering by the time his Sexy Dancer character collapsed on stage.

3 days later, there was a huge review in the broadsheets, not about a stand-up show but about 2 “great” shows that Makati had been treated to. This “instant front act” was literally half the review.
Junix has since become a full-time performer at London’s West End essaying lead roles (Engineer and Old Deuteronomy) in that city’s productions of Miss Saigon and Cats. I’d like to think his time as a Sexy Dancer at Café Alvarado making “lagare” between shows had something to do with it.

As for me, soon after that night, Café Alvarado asked me to become a regular there but I didn’t want to do the same act that I had at Tita Lola’s. So instead, I was conceptualized to be a host heading a Talent’s Discovery night every Wednesday. I wasn’t really expecting much from this – no such thing as karaoke back then – and true enough, we didn’t really discover too many exciting talents.
Until the 3rd week. Next blog explains it.

Direksions (with thanks to songwriter Stephen Bishop):
1. Something’s telling me… – if you’re a person who listens to your own heart, good for you. If you’re someone who listens with equal passion to the hearts of others, namely, your audience, even better. The more sensitive you become to what they respond to and the more flexible you are to adjust as you go, the more effective your act becomes.
2. …it might be you. – what you see is never all you get. You sign up as a director, you become the front act. You take the change without resentment, you end up being regarded as the main attraction. You think it’s all over, it ends up leading to another job. You think it’s just a job, you end up embracing one of the greatest bands of all time. You just never, never know.