ancestors, we invoke thee

a couple of months ago, i was able to channel the spirit of the great Tamriel god of ancestry, Xarxes. during the brief encounter (which, strangely enough, arrived while i was eating burger steak in Jollibee), Xarxes revealed to me the ancestry of four of my close friends and myself. the revelation was staggering, their truth made known only in some of our physical attributes. with great care, i shall share with you this revelation from divinity.

ernie james is of Spanish descent. well, this is not that unpredictable, considering ernie's grandmother (Mamang Patiño) is an española who speaks fluent español. ernie looks unmistakably like a spaniard. when ernie james enters any generic filipino barrio, you half expect the inhabitants to run amock screaming, "ang mga guardia civil, paparating!" Xarxes also revealed that from now on, ernie james shall adopt the song "livin la vida loca" as his personal anthem. Xarxes did not reveal if he has a penchant for ricky martin.

vanessa hails from an Indian ancestry. Indian, as in those living in India. this too does not come as a surprise. bunga's indian features have always caught everyone's attention, thereby prompting the II-Palma students to bestow upon her the distubingly provocative role of "court dancer" in their production of Aladin. as bunga danced her belly out in her rendition of Arabian Nights almost five years ago, i knew she was Indian. but i did not tell Xarxes this, lest he smite me with a ricky martin cd album. he then revealed banne's theme song: the theme song of the ginebra "bilog ang mundo" ad. the title escaped me, as Xarxes was busy dancing himself to its dizzying rhythm.

chamar is Chinese. i did not see the significance of this mind-boggling disclosure at first but then Xarxes directed my attention to chamar's Confucius-like goatie. indeed, upon seeing chammy's shoulder-length goatie (which is unusually straight for a goatie), he immediately invoked the vision of a chinese horde in attack stance ready to fight the mongolians. i asked the Illustrious One if chammy's mutant powers of sweating profusely after consuming large amounts of spicy food had anything to do with chammy's being chinese, but then Xarxes only looked at me and said that he hated spicy food, too. (sometimes, Xarxes could be just as incoherent as he is unfathomable). Xarxes then launched into a song, "Make a Wish" by the taiwanese sensation Hua Xi Lei, indicating that it was to be Chammy's theme song.

i was Italian. Xarxes revealed that i am descended from a line of rich Italian blue bloods of the hoity toity sort. He revealed unto me a vision of a castle which he said were the home of my ancestors. i did not believe this, i told him, since i do not feel Italian nor do i feel any "lukso ng dugo" whenever i watch Molto Mario on tv. He threatened to pull each one of my beard hair if i do not believe him. Xarxes said that my beard itself was evidence enough of my ancestry. he, however, did not give me any song since he said he did not speak Italian. huh?

gladys, now this is a difficult case. i swear i thought Xarxes' revelation was that gladys was a true-blooded Filipino. however, now that i have told them, gladys claims i am wrong. to her credit, now that i try to remember, Xarxes was suddenly disturbed as he was giving his vision of gladys. the result was mumbling audio and blurry video. i tried to sort the words out and managed to make out "pandaca pygmea", "bahay kubo", and "aeta". i thought then that the deity was referring to Filipino. gladys, perhaps with a bout of jealousy over our foreign bloods, berated me with insults with a strength of a thousand amazon women. until now, she claims she is Brazillian.