Fish Coliseum

---

Is there anywhere, apart from a traffic jam-bound second-hand BMW, where a person of some cultural and musical nouse can legitimately enjoy Elefunk amongst friends?

Dick went to Bayawan to rescue Bob Marley, his dealer, who had run of funds and was trapped there with the weed. Bob met Dick at the bus station. Dick bought some chicken and some beers and they trailed down alleyways between plywood houses to Bob's friend's place by its babbling sewer. Dick knew these situations well from Brazil and immediately dispatched a semi-toothless friend of Bob for a couple of big bottles of Red Horse and got out his papers and pipe. Papers, real papers with glue, are an exotic and much prized luxury in the Philippines. Dick had about half a packet of Rizla Slim Blue Kingsize. They elicited many Oohs and Ahs from Bob's massed friendhood. People came by just to see the beautiful papers the stupid foreigner had brought, and then later to examine Dick's beautiful pipe, which had never looked so fine to Dick. A random amount of time passed either too slowly or too quickly and Dick was very stoned. "Got any tunes?" asked Bob and Dick became acutely aware of the absence of music. Dick had 7000 tunes on his netbook and Bob's friends had a gaming sound system with a huge subwoofer. Dick played a samba compilation which went down well, but not great. They drank beer with two cups between six or sometimes ten and sat in the street beside a tiny fish tank on a wrought iron plinth, with the sewer foaming under the table. This was not a Brazilain party. Loud samba in a favella* on a Tuesday afternoon would attract an orgy of fliratation, dancing and boozing. In the Philippines people stare at each other thinking about money and guns. Elefunk went down much better. Everyone was retarded.

In the tiny fish tank, exactly at Dick's eyelevel, was a small silver fish, about the size of a nickel, hanging motionlessly in a clump of weed. Dick tried to work out the place and purpose of this fish, in a house full of stoners, in the kaiskwateran*. As Dick wondered one of the more thuggish of Bob's friends appeared with a small plastic bag containing four small guppies with beautiful tails. He removed the clump of weed from the tank and introduced the guppies. For the next 30 minutes, to the strains of Led Zepellin II, the gourami slowly tore and battered the guppies to death, accompanied by many small bets. As soon as the guppies became inert, the gourami lost interest. Dick was mesmerized by the spectacle.

Staggering back to the bus station, via the beach, Dick noticed that at least half the dwellings had similar tiny fish tanks. "Cocks no good in the kaiskwateran. Fish fights Friday nights." says Bob.

*slums

http://s7.zetaboards.com/PPooDD/topic/8413365/1

---