Josefino Ymzon Cenizal

Uncle Pepe Cenizal was honoured with the first “Gawad Dangal ng Filscap Award” tonight at the SM SkyDome. He had sat delightedly as the 12 finalists of the Songwriting Competition entertained everyone. But Uncle Pepe didn’t realize he was part of the program till the emcees announced it. Marissa, Maui, Kim and I were teary-eyed as the video highlighted his musical legacy — Hindi Kita Malimot, Lahat ng Araw, Pagsamo, among so many more.

Robert Sena and Isay Alvarez came out in boldly printed outfits singing Pobre, Uncle Pepe’s latest composition which was also a finalist in Filscap’s competition, and ending with his most famous song Hindi Kita Malimot.

When  he was asked onstage, Uncle Pepe seemed to be skipping along in a brisk pace with his alalays, his son-in-law Eki Gonzales, and another guy, beaming brightly. He seemed to have regained his youthful vigor and sounded rejuvenated almost instantaneously, perhaps with the excitement of the occasion. (He seemed much weaker the last time I saw him at a morning event just a little more than a month earlier.)

The audience remained standing even when he asked: “How long do you think did I take to write the song Hindi Kita Malimot?” We could only guess. It took me only 5 minutes. He sang the first phrase, in a quite strong though wobbly voice and explained, that he added the second stanza later.

Hindi kita malimot, alaala kita
Hindi kita malimot, minamahal kita
Na ikaw lamang ang tangi kong minamahal
Hindi kita malimot huwag kang manimdiman
Hindi kita malimot manalig ka sinta
At kung ikaw man ay lumimot
Iyong alalahanin mahal pa rin kita

Sa pangarap ko lamang lagi kang nakikita
Dahil sa nawawalay ka sa akin sinta
Ako’y dumadalangin lalo na kay Bathala
Upang huwag kang lumimot
Pagkat mahal kita.

(Repeat the first stanza)

I remember from my childhood that a line in the song included the word ‘Bathala’, and Uncle Pepe had sang it too tonight. When I had searched the net for the lyrics, I realized that the more recent version sang by Carol Banawa had deleted the second stanza. Took me a while to find the complete lyrics, as sang by Rick Manrique.

Momi would drop me off at their house almost every Saturday, after ballet class at Filipinescas,  so Moppet and I could play house or theater, sometimes together with Minnie Rualo. We loved donning Moppet’s mom’s shoes and clothes and pretend being princesses or dalagang bukid, or roughing around with the huge dogs.  Queenie the gentle Great Dane was my favorite. Other times, we would ruffled and read through Moppet’s collection of Archie comic books.

After a sumptuous merienda of local delicacies or brownies prepared by Auntie Glo, we would lounge in the living room and listen to Uncle Pepe play ditties on the piano. Every now and then, he and Moppet, or he and I, would play a duet. But I remember that he was the very first live pianist I knew that played the timeless Rhapsody in Blue in full. I would always perk up when he played Take Five, so memorable that whenever I heard Lito Molina and his jazz band play the piece years later, I would reminisce those comfortable moments with Uncle Pepe.  I was always mesmerized when he played the piano, and would often just lie tucked in a comfortable bean bag, and fall into an afternoon nap soothed by his playing.

Such sweet comforting memories.

The Philippine Star’s article on the occasion.

I’ve always loved surprises. Who doesn’t? Today’s most pleasant surprise reminds me of those sleepless nights, 14 years ago, when I created my very first website.

The Dance Addict’s Guide is still online. Once hosted on Geocities.com between October 1997 to October 2009, it can now be found (in static form) at Reocities.com.

Geocities.com had been the home of some 7,000,000 websites when entrepreneurs were just starting to discover the power of online promotions and marketing. Its basic html frames technology may be considered “jurassic” in the age of css, xhtml and php, but it was the best option for amateur interpreneurs to create presence online.  Geocities.com too was the forerunner of the social networking sites that proliferate these days, we had webrings for sites with similar categories, and helped bring visitors to each other.

Thus in spite of the tedious process of site creation, my 140-page website entitled The Dance Addict’s Guide had created a presence in the field of ballroom dancing in the Philippines.  In fact it was the first and primary dance site in the Philippines for a while, (until I was locked out of the back office for not updating my email address). And it continued to bring me a good number of inquiries and clients from all over the world.

In October 2009, years after Yahoo acquired Geocities.com,  site owners were informed of the site’s closure by October 26, 2009. We were all asked to backup our site and download full copies if we wanted to keep any of our pages and images. I frantically searched for a site download program and utilized Teleport, a simple program that can duplicate any website, and create a browseable copy offline saved on one’s computer.

I hadn’t known then that someone who had recognized the many gems and treasures found on the millions of geocities.com web pages, and the need  to record the “historical artifacts” of the internet and the world wide web, was also frantically trying to backup all the sites that Yahoo was about to obliterate.

Thus, I am truly grateful to David Feinman for allowing us to reminisce our “youth” on the net, and continue to keep our presence online, though simulating a museum of sorts. (I wonder why I had chosen the “Museum” neighborhood in geocities back then.) Read about David’s miraculous efforts at saving the dinosaurs relics on the net.

Hands-on at web design

I had decided back in 1997 to seriously consider a career in dance, again, in spite of my increasingly excited interest in promoting my passion online.  That was the problem. I had wanted to do too many things all at the same time, as if I had just been let out of a prison cell.

So to combine my two major interests in one project, I decided to create a website on dance. The main objective was to interest more Filipinos to get interested in social dancing, and thus promote my own dance teaching business.

The whole website was practically done from scratch except for the fact that I used the free hosting from Geocities.com (many of the amateur web entrepreneurs back then did too) and utilized its simplified web designer program to upload the pages, images and other files online.

I had found an external program that I can’t now remember, to create the actual web layout. I experimented with columns and frames, grabbed free graphics from sharing sites, created my own graphic icons for the navigation bar, and even utilized some minor scripts for a running marquee bar, a guestbook, and a few tricks.

Over the next 6 months, I labored every day (and night), created metatags and links to many other sites, uploaded pages as they were completed, and started to promote my baby all over the net. I guess most of the basics I have obtained about web design, web management, SEO came from those few focused months. I worked mainly with CorelDraw, MS Word, and a web design program that skips my mind now. Checking how each change and improvement in the lay and design of the site took so much time (compared to what we can do theses days), but all that hard work did pay off.

Pretty soon, so many sites were linking and linked back to The Dance Addict’s Guide, a comprehensive resource to ballroom dancing in the Philippines, hosted by Geocities, with web address http://www.geocities.com/Soho/Museum/6962/.  I continued to submit my site to various search engines, and even created nickname URLs from some free sites available back then for free.

I had also attracted fellow dancer teachers online, including several who have made truly expansive contributions to the dance world. We exchanged information, ideas, and even dance books (oh, did I mention I also have portions of my dance book Victoria’s Dance Secrets on my website). I even got offers to work and manage a dance studio in South Africa, Singapore, and Denmark. And I made friends with so many lovely souls from all over the world and the Philippines,generated tons of emails and inquiries for dance lessons, and acquired hundreds of clients who are all my friends still.

Unfortunately, I had inadvertently locked out of my own site’s back-office and couldn’t update the site  since October 1999. I had decided to change email addresses when I changed my ISP, and failed to inform Yahoo about it. Yet, for the ten years, I continued to receive hundreds of email and phone inquiries emanating from The Dance Addict’s Guide.

Where to from here?

So, now I know that my site is still up, I am quite relieved that I can refer my friends to the site again. Unfortunately, though, the metatags don’t seem to work as they used to. Looks like I will have to mirror the site, update some pages, make it interactive again, and promote it again online. Hope to find the time to do that soon.

Perhaps too, I should convert my dance book Victoria’s Dance Secrets (originally titled Secrets to Modern Ballroom Dancing) into an ebook or, as at least  3 of my writer friends have suggested, into a series of ebooks. The current one just has too much information. One friend insists I should finally get rich selling information that I’ve known for so long and improving so much on.  I know I will have to take this most valuable advise soon.

When one in great company, in a restaurant with flavorful food and exquisite ambiance, the mood can be nothing but perfect.

I tasted perfection for a few hours tonight, at the despedida for Peter Lourence, Joji’s lovey-dovey, at Cafe Juanita (West Capitol Drive corner United Avenue in Pasig City).

The small company was composed of Lia Seelin, Marcy Rivera and Cierlene Benipayo, Peter and Joji, and myself. We missed Atty. Deng Cordero and Maita Gomez, who both had a litle time complication then. But that gave us the best excuse to get together again, this time on Deng’s tab.

The ambiance and decor of Cafe Juanita is quite difficult to describe in words, and is best experienced.  Got to convince Mari and the girls to explore and have dinner for sometime soon.

After more than two years of rest, I am teaching dance again. Have partnered up with Diliman Preparatory School to offer social dance/couple  dancing classes for everyone.

DANCE for fun, exercise, a new skill
Non-competitive dance for beginners, aged 9 to 90

We’ll be learning those dances that often make wallflowers out of many otherwise confident men and women after wedding dinners –

Swing, Boogie, Chachacha, Mambo Salsa, and a few others. Then they can look forward to having a real great time during those after dinner parties.

Twelve dance hours in 8 sessions –
April 10 -May 29 Saturdays only,
3:15 – 4:45 pm
Diliman Preparatory School
Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City

Fee: P4,200 per person
10% discount for senior citizens (with official card), couples who enrol togther, Diliman Prep students, alumni, faculty & staff.

Enrol and reserve your slot(s) now.
Call Vikky at 4559230 or 09286148600
or Diliman Prep at 9519403

This means, I will also have to upload my Dance Addict’s Guide Website which used to be hosted by the defunct geocities.com. .. and perhaps edit my book Victoria’s Dance Secrets. Soon.

One of my works in progress, continuously changing, and evolving, to suit my disposition and situation for the month or quarter. Today this is my favorite room, and Missy’s too. Welcome to my web.

Outside the doorway. Missy welcomes only the select ones.

Only two of the black items are real. The others are sticker paper.

Left turn to the main area, with the messy dresser on the left.

Rest area. I coudn’t get a decent shot at this angle.

Rest area pa rin.

Work station #1.

Work station #2.

Almost on the way out.

On the way out, to the right. Now you can see
which are the real items, and which are the stickers.

Not exactly the stuff for a home style mag. But I’m glad I took some time to record these nooks and angles of my favorite room.  Now I can see which needs more improvement, a light here, a decorative artifact there, rearrangement in that corner, de-messing of the dresser, and lots of cleaning everywhere.  It’s not a matter of hiding stuff, but a matter of combining various elements into interesting groups. Perhaps I’ll be able to find some extra time soon.