Celebrate!!!

.:It's His Party, And He'll Cry If He Wants To:.

Elbert never quite knew what he walked into when he got to Kolumn Bar, and saw a sampling of some of his friends inside the bar. The celebrant most certainly was clueless all the while, and this is considering that his not-so-quiet friends were around him all this time.

So I went to that party with Camy, and since I had to drop by her house before we headed off to Kolumn, I was introduced to her cousine, Lianne. I was, err... stymied. Camy was reminding me she was 16, though. But yeah, enough of that. Haha.

So we got there, and soon enough, guests were arriving, albeit sporadically. Despite that, it was still a good turnout, as we had people like Alex, Camz, and so forth, plus by the time the celebrant got there, he was nothing short of stunned.

First bit of entertainment for the night was a dance number from Francis, my brother. It was really odd, since if you think about it, Francis and Elbert don't really know each other, particularly because they've prolly met only once or twice beforehand. Anyways, Francis performed “Like I Love You” by Justin Timberlake, and now, we pretty much know who got the dancing genes in the family. Sure as Hades wasn't me.

Elbert was still dumbstruck, and it hasn't really registered to him yet what was going on. Johan and Estelle took care of the hosting duties, and it was really cool that Johan proved exactly what I felt: he'd have made a great jock at NU if he just gave it a try. In between bits of entertainment, they were reading some very interesting testimonials from quite a number of people, and of course, Elbert was piping up in between the very amusing anecdotes. I especially liked Elsie's testimonial, for the record...

Anyways, after this one, Stanley Chi had a stand-up comedy routine for Elbert, and it was pretty hilarious, in my opinion. This was followed by poetry reading, and all the while, Elbert was getting all emotional, since that one came from his best friend, Gabby, who is currently in Singapore, if memory serves me right. In between these key points, we had the celebrant go upstage as Neil played for him to sing. Unfortunately, he decided to get me involved, and well, we ended up doing “Ang Huling El Bimbo”, by the Eraserheads, before I turned the mike over to him so he can sing “Panahon Na Naman Ng Pag-Ibib”. Pretty cool, really, as he ended up being a surprised number.

Afterwards, I went back to do my magic show, which was hampered by the lighting, although at least now, El knows that the reason I did magic again was for his party. Except for one trick (I just exposed the secret for them since it didn't work out.), everything went perfectly smooth. The whole X-Men patter worked to a “T”, and they especially loved the disappearing deck box, Indecent, and Liquid Metal. Throughout the rest of the night, I was doing magic tricks for other friends of Elbert, and even for Ciudad, who really enjoyed Mindbender and Liquid Metal. I was glad I brought a lot of forks that night...

So anyways, performances continued, and lo and behold, Narda was there, with the inimitable Ca2 Librando. It was my first time to see her perform live, as it was her first time to see me perform my magic as well. Well, c'est la vie. Narda was such a joy to listen to, and this was considering how the band was already supposedly disbanded, but since it was El's birthday, it didn't matter and his friends really just pulled out all the stops. He was especially teary-eyed upon hearing that there was going to be a performance from Narda, and I think he got even more struck by the acts to follow.

All El really wanted was that Estelle would, for once, sing in public, but this was more than his wildest dreams could've ever hoped for. Not only did Estelle sing a divine set, she and the rest of El's friends even made this huge gathering possible. Since Estelle and Johan were a bit winded after that bit and they were buying time for Ciudad to get there, April and I ended up taking over for hosting duties a bit, which resulted in a lot of laughs, especially when I went on the homoerotic tangent once again. They were laughing when I said I declined to host because I felt I was going to end up getting overexposed, and it turns out I was right.

After a while, it was Ciudad's turn, and Elbert melted on the spot, especially when he got the chance to jam with them during the song called “Strawberry Jam”. You just had to be there, seriously. El was really giddy like a five-year old kid let loose in a candy shop, and there was no better sign that the party was on the right track, by my estimate.

Elbert even got Vin, Andrew, and Jamie, who were his backup singers for his acapella segment, where he sang Jason Mraz's “You And I Both”, followed by Billy Joel's “The Longest Time”, and what without any practice whatsoever. It was definitely cool, to say the least. =)

The last performance for the night was really just from the heart, as we sang “With A Smile”, and I humored them by hitting the high falsetto notes to the detriment of my voice... heh.

All in all, it was an awesome night that I'm sure would remain with El for a long, long time. His speech at the end of the night really said all that needed to be said, and I was more than happy for him... it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.