One Night in Smallville
In a way, the youth is simply wasted on the young.
I found this out last weekend when my wife Dulce Maria and I celebrated her birthday Saturday night at the Smallville, the famous gimik joint catering to overworked and beer-hungry young professionals in this city.
We were on our way out of the Pirates Disco when two young men started a ruckus at the comfort room area. Just in time, we were right there when the altercation started. The security guard mediating them was thrown off, so that he let them loose, and they scampered toward the narrow hall where they surprised people going to the CR.
After causing commotion from the comfort room [we found out that they belonged to two different groups at the Shipwreck restaurant], the group retreated out of the dining area towards MO2, the other establishment where they were chased by the guards. Later, when we managed to transfer to the Annex, as unruffled as we could be, we just heard two shots fired.
I did not know what else happened there. I, for one, chose not to get involved by seeming to ignore the ruckus, though almost everyone [it is human instinct to be curious of anything that is out of ordinary] seemed interested to find out what it was.
Whatever it was, I did not bother to find out anymore as Dulce became nervous about the whole thing. I just waited for her to go out of the Annex’s CR and calm down. Later, I asked the guard if it was okay to proceed to go out of the open street exiting to the Diversion Road.
I should say we were lucky that all these happened when we were already on our way out after enjoying a groovy hour-or-so routine of the D’Exposure Band who performed bubbly covers of Diana King, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and other R&B queens. In fact, the ruckus occurred past midnight so that Dulce even conjured it did not happen on her birthday anymore.
Of course, what was most important was that we were safe. But I think we were saved from trouble because we chose to be so. Despite that people there seemed bothered by the fuss, all I thought then was that it was all child’s play, knowing that it stemmed from a rather immature act.
I could say the ones involved were too young to be young professionals. They were, in fact, students having a nightout. I could surmise they were students, college or maybe even high-school dropouts [at least, based primarily on their behavior]—whatever the case, they are members of an academic community where they are supposed to be taught manners—at the very least, self-control—simply translated—“keeping one’s cool.”
Sadly, businesses such as discos cannot at all control and even contain their clientele. The offenders [or more plainly riot-makers] were kids. They’re yet on their way to grow up. And because they “can’t hardly wait,” so to speak, they are there to make trouble because that is how they know they will matter, at least to their peers.
There is some truth when we pause to value the importance of respecting the elders [and what they say]. It is they who usually tell us to keep away from trouble [literally and figuratively]; they are also the ones who insist that we be obedient and kind—all these, in brief, kind of translates into—we have to “keep our cool.”
It's funny that we young people perhaps find such pieces of advice too folksy—baduy, makaluma, or even obsolete. In fact, though, they are rather conventional. By this we mean, they stick to conventions, or they are done according to the way things are usually done.
Doing something conventional means doing the proper way things are done because they make sense and because they simply save us from trouble. Indeed, the youth is wasted on the young; and the old, luckily, are old enough to know better.
I found this out last weekend when my wife Dulce Maria and I celebrated her birthday Saturday night at the Smallville, the famous gimik joint catering to overworked and beer-hungry young professionals in this city.
We were on our way out of the Pirates Disco when two young men started a ruckus at the comfort room area. Just in time, we were right there when the altercation started. The security guard mediating them was thrown off, so that he let them loose, and they scampered toward the narrow hall where they surprised people going to the CR.
After causing commotion from the comfort room [we found out that they belonged to two different groups at the Shipwreck restaurant], the group retreated out of the dining area towards MO2, the other establishment where they were chased by the guards. Later, when we managed to transfer to the Annex, as unruffled as we could be, we just heard two shots fired.
I did not know what else happened there. I, for one, chose not to get involved by seeming to ignore the ruckus, though almost everyone [it is human instinct to be curious of anything that is out of ordinary] seemed interested to find out what it was.
Whatever it was, I did not bother to find out anymore as Dulce became nervous about the whole thing. I just waited for her to go out of the Annex’s CR and calm down. Later, I asked the guard if it was okay to proceed to go out of the open street exiting to the Diversion Road.
I should say we were lucky that all these happened when we were already on our way out after enjoying a groovy hour-or-so routine of the D’Exposure Band who performed bubbly covers of Diana King, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and other R&B queens. In fact, the ruckus occurred past midnight so that Dulce even conjured it did not happen on her birthday anymore.
Of course, what was most important was that we were safe. But I think we were saved from trouble because we chose to be so. Despite that people there seemed bothered by the fuss, all I thought then was that it was all child’s play, knowing that it stemmed from a rather immature act.
I could say the ones involved were too young to be young professionals. They were, in fact, students having a nightout. I could surmise they were students, college or maybe even high-school dropouts [at least, based primarily on their behavior]—whatever the case, they are members of an academic community where they are supposed to be taught manners—at the very least, self-control—simply translated—“keeping one’s cool.”
Sadly, businesses such as discos cannot at all control and even contain their clientele. The offenders [or more plainly riot-makers] were kids. They’re yet on their way to grow up. And because they “can’t hardly wait,” so to speak, they are there to make trouble because that is how they know they will matter, at least to their peers.
There is some truth when we pause to value the importance of respecting the elders [and what they say]. It is they who usually tell us to keep away from trouble [literally and figuratively]; they are also the ones who insist that we be obedient and kind—all these, in brief, kind of translates into—we have to “keep our cool.”
It's funny that we young people perhaps find such pieces of advice too folksy—baduy, makaluma, or even obsolete. In fact, though, they are rather conventional. By this we mean, they stick to conventions, or they are done according to the way things are usually done.
Doing something conventional means doing the proper way things are done because they make sense and because they simply save us from trouble. Indeed, the youth is wasted on the young; and the old, luckily, are old enough to know better.
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