Went to Intramuros last Sunday with Cess and Selina, Ces’s Mom and her sister and her nephew and nieces. DICK GORDON transformed the walled city into a Disneyland equivalent of ANIMATRONICS land. The whole city was one big
DINER / CAFÉ joint. Everywhere you go there are hundreds of tables and waiters and barbeque pits! The sheer volume of smoke coming from the combined grills out gun the biggest factories in the nearby area.

We rode a calesa for the astronomical sum of 250pesos for a forty-minute ride. HIGHWAY robbery sponsored by and backed by DICK! I rode up in front and was reminded why I prefer the steel oiled counterparts of the horse. The stallion took a giant crap that fell into a small bib attached to his anus. No problem but for the smell. But the thing is, his tail gets soaked on the shit bin and when it flails it hits the front passenger’s knees.

In that instance, I WAS THE FRONT PASSENGER. Imagine that. It happened during the first few minutes of the trip. So I had to spend the entire ride knee deep in shit.

HORSE DRIVER: “ Its ok sir. It would wash with water.”

FLIM: “ Easy for you to say. You don’t have shit on you.”

HORSE DRIVER: “ Oh worse things happened to me sir. My horse kicked me in the chest when I tried to clean his balls. That was my first horse.”

FLIM: “ Job hazard I guess.”

HORSE DRIVER: “ Oh we stop here sir. This is one of the dungeons in INTRAMUROS where the Japanese captured guerilla’s are kept.”

FLIM: “ HMMMM interesting.”

HORSE DRIVER: “ Now in this other building is where LAPU-LAPU was held by the Japanese.”

FLIM: “ How come I’m not surprise.”

Then he wheeled his horse towards an intersection.

FLIM: “ Hey don’t speed up. There are 3 ladies at the back. We don’t want to run into a car.”

HORSE DRIVER: “ Oh don’t worry sir I know this place around.”

FLIM: “ Have you had any accidents? With a car I mean? “

HORSE DRIVER: “ Ohh no. But there were horses that were hit by cars.”

FLIM: “ what happens to them.”

HORSE DRIVER: “ well sometimes the horses are ok but the cars get dented. But there are other times when the horses break their legs and… we just slaughter them.”

FLIM: Turn them into glue I suppose.”


HORSE DRIVER: “ No we eat them. Horsemeat is very good. Specially when you dry them and turn them into jerky.”

FLIM: “ I don’t eat horse meat. Tried once in Japan. Horse sashimi. UGHHHHHH! “

HORSE DRIVER: “ But you still eat horse meat sir.”

FLIM: “ What do you mean? “

HORSE DRIVER: “ You eat corn beef sir? If you eat corn beef you also eat horse beef. It’s not 100 percent cow beef you eat there. 70 percent is horse beef. That’s why ots so good.

FLIM: “How would you know its horse beef? How? “

HORSE DRIVER: “ My brother in law works for the local food company that makes corn beef. And when my horse died He said that I should sell it to the factory. You don’t think that they would sell you cheap corn beef with 100 percent beef in it? Beef is expensive.”

FLIM: “ Cess did you hear that? “

CESS: “ Yes.”

FLIM: “ No more corn beef! “

I didn’t know if I was going to be sick because of the shit I had on my knees or that I have been devouring BLACK BEAUTY all that time without even knowing it.