I got excited because one design I did way back got inked for the first time.
A pinoy asked me If I have an image of sabong or cock fight. I showed him the drawing and he said that’s exactly what his friend was looking for so he ran and called them.
Two friends came. They’re all around 60 years old. Darius saw one of them wearing a shirt with the Philippine map printed in front. Darius hollered, ‘hey! wer’d ju get dat shirt?’
‘Pilipins, Pilipins.’ Why?’ The guy answered feeling a bit agitated on how Darius approached him not even saying ‘manong’ ‘po’ or ‘ho.’ You know how mainland pinoys see Fil-ams as hambugs or ‘mayayabang.’ Darius is a Fil-am who understands tagalog and ilocano but cannot speak it. Darius answered, ‘oh, because I have one here’ pointing to his temple. The Philippine map was tattooed on the left side of his forehead.
I noticed the guy calmed down because he only got the map on his shirt while Dee’s (Darius) got it on his forehead.
The guy liked the cock fight design and got it inked by Ariel. I did the design as outlines only then Ariel filled in the colors. I really made it outline only so that the tattoo artist can play with the colors.
The guy was very particular with the colors. He showed us a cell phone picture of the kind of cock or rooster he wants.
I know the other one is ‘talisayin’ but I didn’t know what they call the red one. ‘Talusapi’ he told me which my brother commented that’s bad luck because the name suggests ‘to loose.’ Talo or talu means ‘lost’ or ‘loose’ in tagalog.
I was really amused when I met the 3 sabungeros because I know their kind. My father used to own a cock fighting farm back in P.I. They remind me of my father’s friends with their polo jack, sparkling white sneakers, pomade and blue jeans. We hit it off right away.
I translated quite a few names in baybayin or alibata. We have this printed guide where there are Spanish letter translations. You won’t find Spanish letter translations in the internet like ‘ra,’ cha,’ fa,’ ‘ca’ or ‘ja.’
I also learned how a consonant can be just the consonant like instead of ‘ba,’ it will be read as ‘b’ only by adding an accent. Without accents the character will always be read as BA, KA, DA, GA and so on. Accents make the characters read as BE, BI, BO, BU or KE, KI, KO, KU.
Our group was international meaning there were two Irish, a Brazilian, Korean, Mexicans and Filipinos.
Ricky, a Mexican-American whose whole body was filled with Mexican pride tattoos told me, ‘hey Mel I can tell you’re a nice guy.’ I told him ‘yes, I always try to be.’ ‘No, no.’ he said. ‘I can tell you have a good heart just like most Filipinos. That’s why I have 3 stars and a sun tattooed on my arm.’ He showed me the tat. A small sun and 3 stars in a sea of Mexican pride tattoos. That made me feel proud and good.
I was only able to go Saturday because I had to babysit Friday and Sunday. As always, I enjoyed the company and the experience.
