Last year, at the Pistahan Festival in SF, I was honored as one of the awardees for Outstanding Achievement among the Filipinos in the Bay Area. I was asked to ride on a float in a parade in downtown San Francisco. At first I refused bec. I thought it was cheesy but the organizers really wanted me to do it. They even gave me the best and the last float. So, I decided why not? My motto is I'll try anything once.

So, the whole thing was a big pageantry as only Filipinos can do. Among the distinguished individuals on my float were a Pinay boxer, a kulintang master, a playwright, my vocalist Lori Abucayan, her brother and champion beatboxer Leejay, and of course moi at the very end and center.

I agreed to bring my guitar but only for props. No way I was going to play high on a float, on a moving vehicle, out in the open, and among the traffic noise. Pretty much every classical guitarist's nightmare. So, NO WAY I was going to play.

So you know what happens, right? Of course, I played.

BUT, in a manner that was TOTALLY FUN, required very little work, receiving lots of appreciation and thoroughly satisfying. The driver of the float had one of those gigantic speaker systems meant for stadiums, and he pops in my CD Tipanan in the system. I've never heard my music played that loud ever, I think people in office buildings can hear it. I mean you can hear it all the way through Market Street. I mean it was way, way louder than the usual rap music you hear from cars. And this was harana music!

So, I just absent-mindedly played along with my guitar, slightly amused. Suddenly, after one piece ended, I heard people applauding. I started up. Wait, did they think I was actually playing? They did! And they were showing their appreciation!

Next track on the CD was 'Sa Kabukiran', a fast virtuosic piece. Uh oh, I better ham this up. So, I called upon my show-off frame of mind and decided to really ham it up. So, there I was lipsynching on a float, having a "concert" in the middle of downtown San Francisco, with lots of people watching and enthusiastically applauding piece after piece.

I say to myself "Wow, why can't I get this kind of audience in a real concert setting where I work so hard, subject myself to all kinds of stress and half the time they can't even hear me, when lipsynching requires very little work, it's a lot of fun, they can hear me VERY well, and people are more appreciative?".

Yes, my motto still is I'm willing to try anything once, but some stuff I can definitely do twice or more.