the sound of a thousand pigs in the slaughter house

i may have one of the worst neighborhoods anyone could ever live in. every weekend, the whole place is filled with the sound of what i can only compare to that made by a thousand pigs being slaughtered. if you're a filipino, yes, i think you know what i mean. i bet your neighborhood has been infested too, at least once, by this scourge of humanity, this evil, evil device only the devil could have invented, the karaoke, and its more modern incarnation, the ktv.

if you think hearing gloria saying "hello garci" is enough to make you sick, wait till you hear my drunk, potbellied neighbors' version of a classic karaoke standard, frank sinatra's "my way". i feel only one word is able to describe their rendition more fully, disturbing. the vexation resulting from their infernal howling is enough to make me want to burn the whole neighborhood down. i think i'd rather be a refugee than be subjected to this inhumanity.

to give justice to the song, i bet even mr sinatra would rise from the grave to try to scare them back to their senses. i can almost hear him say, "the nerve! how dare they murder my song!"

man, the karaoke should be outlawed by the geneva convention. the karaoke can be considered as a weapon of mass destruction, you know. thus, it can be covered by the articles of war.

hey, mr. kofi annan, sir, are you listening? this is a matter of world peace. you should have taken this up in the last UN general assembly.

hey, mr george bush, sir, if you're still sending troops running around in the deserts of iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction, you better come here to the philippines. there's a bunch of terrorists here in my neighborhood.

this karaoke thing has taken over the whole country in ways the abu sayyaf or the npa could never even dream of. today the philippines, tomorrow the world. i shudder at the thought.

but i have to admit, i too have once been on the dark side. and i enjoyed it. now ladies and gentlemen of the jury, before you condemn me to death by karaoke, allow me to plead my case. it was only once you know, during my company's last summer outing. our damned room didn't have any airconditioning, and there were a lot of mosquitoes, so i couldn't sleep. there was no more beer, the bar was already closed. so i had no choice but to spend the rest of the night singing myself hoarse till sun up. but at least everybody else was either too drunk or safely fast asleep to hear my wailing, so, no harm done right? at least i don't do it every bloody weekend for the whole damn neighborhood to hear. not guilty.