after the infocomm meeting post-church, i headed to town to meet han an/sean for lunch at Thai Express, Paragon after we decided against queueing at the insanely crowded Din Tai Fung...
we left a little over an hour later, and i made my way over to the subway entrance of Shaw House, where i met Josh who was with Jake/Auyong and their busking band, and they were on shortly after...
this was an RJ affair for community fundraising, and i had already seen one of the bands at their other location outside Paragon...
anyhow, the unsettling bit of the day started just before they went on:
before i even had time to ask "WTF is that smell??!", this drunkard walks by with a bottle of liqueur in his hand, smelling like last night's meat left out in the sun, and he begins talking about religion to no one in particular...
i have no tolerance for this nonsense, and promptly distanced myself before i hurled from the stench, and had my finger on the dial button for the police hotline if he made any more advances to destroy what was a perfectly pleasant Sunday...
sam came by shortly after, and not a second too late either, 'cos he was seriously the only one with the patience to keep that guy occupied for the next half an hour before effectively seeing him off to the next stop on his happy hour tour...
this was certainly not the most unsettling part of the entire ordeal -
some of the RJ ppl rightfully phoned the security of Shaw House, and 15 minutes (which is 14 minutes too late) later, this plain-suited guy with an earpiece emerged and proceeded to stand around, occasionally leaning into his microphone and whisper something supposedly important...
one other security guard came along over the course of the half hour sam was talking to that guy, but he just walked away...
rightfully uneasy, auyong went up to said plain-suited pseudo-Bond and enquired as to why this nuisance hadn't been forcefully escorted from the premises and instead was talking the ear of one of our friends...
his reply was both priceless and tellingly endemic of the security situation in most public places - "my insurance doesn't cover injuries that i might suffer from confrontation"
all i can say is, i'm mighty glad it wasn't me who had gone up to him and asked, because faced with that pathetic response, i would probably have screamed him back to his sad little office and back...
i mean, honestly...
john fernandez was the drunkard's name, and he soon decided that his torment of us poor kids was sufficiently scarring and went on his merry, albeit unstable, way...
we did see him a few times later in various locations around town spreading his message of hopelessness and Eau De Stink to poor helpless bystanders...
apart from that though, watching the RJ buskers both at Paragon and at Shaw House was an utterly pleasant way to spend my afternoon, probably compounded by the warm feeling you get when you know something good is being done for the less fortunate...
it brought back memories of the 2 phukets last year, though those had less musical accuracy to them x)
huge kudos go out to Jake/Auyong (and their lead singer, though he left earlier and i was most impressed with the last few songs the both of them played), whose busking set was the best i've ever heard... i had no idea there was such a musical culture over in Bishan, and i'm duly surprised in the most positive manner...
listening to Wonderwall/Blind, i couldn't help but sing along, it's that atmosphere and song choice that makes for a nice feeling, you know...
of course, in between watching them play, josh and i walked between Paragon/Shaw House/Far East Plaza a few times, chatting about anything from U2 to apologetics and dropping by various places to get errands done/things bought, and it was one of the more carefree afternoons i've had in a long time...
now i've got to make sure i stay on top of my Calculus for Tuesday's test...
it's week 9, with rugby finals taking up my Monday...
have a good one ya'll =)
