Archive
Season 03
Introducing Tetcho Suehiro: Sent away from Japan for a row with the government regarding something about human rights. We didn’t really focus on that since the more pressing issue here is Rizal’s seemingly girly drink. That’s a “whoa-gasp-no” case, right? Major concern.
Okay. Relax and stop pulling your hair, bros. What Joe Pro holds in this photo, as per our research, is called Billionaire’s Margarita. Made with Grand Marnier cognac (Cuvée du Centenaire preferred but they might have used Cordon Rouge in 1888), tequila, crushed ice, and lime juice. Goes well with suits suited for made men.
What seems off is probably the straw. Straws do make drinks look less manly, come to think of it. But at the time of this scene, these tubes were only recently patented and carried a manly name: Stone Straws. Straws. Made. Of. Stone! Whatup! Kidding. They were paper straws, patented by a man named Stone. Made with Manila paper, mind you.
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Passengers of the Belgic were prevented from leaving the vessel when it landed in California. The authorities claimed that it was due to a cholera scare from the Chinese coolies in the ship.
Right, USA, we understand. These were the days of your youth. You were just starting to become the global economic frontman, taking the limelight from Great Britain. But look back now that 2016 is near, USA. Do you realize what you have done then to the Chinese passengers? Did you not expect they’ll exact revenge? What will we all do when China seizes hegemony? Can we expect “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” from their rule book? Or did you not care back in 1888? So, what now? Are you happy, huh? Huh? What do you have to say when, as of 2009, 44% of your own people already believe China is already the top economic power? Look at this link:
And see that it is laden with the number 44! 44!
You screwed us all, United States of America.
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After leaving the Belgic at San Francisco Bay, Joe Pro and Barney boarded in the Palace Hotel. But before that, they spotted one of the very first commercially sold automobile in history: The Benz Patent Motorwagen from Germany.
The vehicle was three-wheeled and had tubular steel frame. It fires up via electric ignition and operated with rack and pinion steering, mechanically operated inlet valves, water-cooled internal combustion engine with four-stroke, 16mm Bore, and 160mm Stroke–know what? We all surely agree that this car was a breakthrough, so let’s all just whistle as if we all know what those engine-y terms mean.
On another note: You might have noticed Suehiro’s quotation marks. Those are because he barely knew how to speak English, and our researchers (go with it, okay?) found no sufficient data to decode what he was actually saying. Fortunately, our team is highly experienced in dubbing dialogues unto innocent passers by through context, forced or otherwise. Without that training, we wouldn’t have a complete dialogue in this phot–vide–audiovisu–draw–comic str–this. Rest assured it’s science.
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The BarZal Bros spent the first half of May 1888 in the USA. In their first days after getting out of quarantine, they went around observing the then bridgeless Bay Area, Market Street, Chinatown, and of course, California Girls.
Barney must have mentioned something about the correlation between scoring American girls and having cars because there is no other explanation why Joe Pro did this, this, this what ever the hell he drew on that board.
Technically, it’s not a rice rocket–it’s not offensive if an Asian uses the term–if it was modeled after a German car. But still. And “calcium lights”? Seriously, that’s gonna roast whoever rides that, that, that. That.
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They got caught. Luckily, they were not jailed. They were let off in exchange for their autographs in the SFPD copy of The Noli Code. So there, whew. Can you imagine them going to jail? Haha. Can you picture José Rizal in prison? Hahaha! Preposterous.
Okay, just throw that ridiculous thought away. Put this in your heads instead: Kato is a Filipino. Yes, Green Hornet’s Kato. Is a Filipino. Grasp that and gasp.
“But the Seth Rogen movie said Kato was from Shanghai!” you say, because you trust Hollywood. Sorry to break it to you but movies lie, unlike the Broing Up Rizal team of spies, detectives, and scientists who eat facts for breakfast. That means they burp facts, too.
Facts like these: When Green Hornet was created and first aired on radio in the 1930’s, the people behind it weren’t sure of Kato’s nationality. He was described vaguely as Asian, mentioned to be a Korean, and temporarily regarded as a Japanese butler because the voice talent was Japanese. However, in the July 18, 1939 broadcast, he started to be specifically identified as a Filipino. http://tinyurl.com/katoisfilipinodontargue
That means Bruce Lee is a Filipino! And China is probably saying, “Go ahead, you take Bruce Lee we take Sprat Lee!” Hahaha! Hahaha! Haahaa. Hah. Eh.
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Joe Pro and friends traveled eastward from California to New York through Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Illinois. Along the way, they saw mountains, plants, sheep, mules, Mormon boys (presumably in pairs and could speak Tagalog better than Joe Pro), deserts, other boring landscape stuff, rivers, trees, other boring nature stuff he compared to Philippine nature stuff, boats, cabins, tobacco shops, Native American statues, and waitresses. Nod nod. He took note of the waitresses.
In other diary entries regarding stopovers and mealtimes, he just wrote about food, prices and such; but here he mentioned the waitresses for some reason like it was the first time he saw occupational order-takers and servers of the female variety. We have no photos of this so let’s just all agree that they were hot, and wore micro minis and roller skates. Happy thoughts.
However, Rizal’s overall rating of American people was just about passing score. He admired their industry and the opportunities available to anyone willing to work; but he hated the racism, slavery, arrogance, and the way they asked for tips. Here’s a true story: One time, Joe Pro rode a train to Paris next to an American who was blabbering non-stop, comparing Europe’s shortcomings to New York’s greatness (no it was not Barney, honest). He was so irritated that he regretted knowing so many languages. That’s JPR, folks. He hated the Americans’ guts even before they were mainstream.
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People can always debate on whether or not José Rizal rightfully deserves the “first Filipino” title, but this photo here is clearly on the “yes”.
Unfortunately, they were not able to send photos to Calamba since they didn’t have a digital printer. Oh, if only Barney carried a Canon Pixma Ip 100 Mobile Photo Printer in 1888. With its 16 pages/minute printing speed, 9600×2400 dpi resolution, 1856 nozzles, and Auto Image Fix; Joe Pro would have been able to produce hundreds of crisp, high quality photos of his transcontinental trip. Because You Can on Canon. Wink.
Joe Pro also kept on comparing American sceneries to Philippine spots. He described the mountains in the middle of Salt Lake as” just like Talim Island in Laguna de Bai”, the Niagara Falls (he stood on its foot, true story) as “magnificent but not as pretty nor as mysterious as those in Los Baños (in Laguna, not the one in California, b-t-dub), and the Hudson River as “very beautiful but lonely in comparison to Pasig River”.
Side note: The place featured here, Broadway, was not as elegant as what you see in the photo. During the time this scene happened, the streets were a mess and the rooftops were a giant tangle of wires. Maybe New York really just looks a lot better in pictures than in real life.
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Spotted: JPR, BS, and their Japanese friend searching for the then nonexistent sundressed summer girls in the Upper East Side.
They lodged in the Fifth Avenue Hotel towards the end of spring, 1888, when it stood on the southwest corner of Madison Square. Not much drama happened during their stay, for there were not much over-privileged young adults who were trying to ruin their own lives through social scene scandals.
However, the popularity of the hotel, mainly due to its extravagance, tells us that the Manhattan populace loved grandeur and excessive luxury even then. The Fifth Avenue Hotel boasted of a fireplace in each room, private bathrooms, big function rooms, four hundred servants, and elevators aka “vertical railroad”. Its guest list included celebrities, presidents, royals, and some fat cats. Okay, with those kinds of people, there must have been some scandals there. I promise to share them as soon as I get my hands on some juicy ones.
But who am I? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. You know you love me. XOX—Uhurm! Yeah, summer girls! Sundresses and bikinis, whatup.
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In the old times, people used to swim in birthday suits regardless of gender. Then, some laws were implemented requiring opaque swimming gowns. Our research team is currently on leave so we can only guess that this happened around the time being stout became the in thing. It’s also fair to think that the authorities created the taboo of nude swimming so their cronies could profit from selling extra fabric, renting out “bathing machines”, and publishing swimsuit edition magazines. But the last idea obviously didn’t sell well. You know what sold back then? Paintings. Nude paintings. No wonder many dudes wanted to be artists: Artists win even if nobody bought their paintings.
We can also suspect that this move against seeing naked people live was a big conspiracy done by businessmen who pioneered strip clubs.
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“When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.” was the Barney Stinson quote that Joe Pro reminded Barney Stinson when 1888 NYC let them down.
Joe Pro also realized something: What if he did not meet Barney? Who would he hang out with? The other ilustrados? Haha, please. No, really, think about it: José Rizal would not have had any real friend if he did not meet Barney Stinson.
(This just in: Survey says nobody misses Tetcho. He was always there in the previous photos, just so you guys know, but nobody cared.)
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Horrible. That’s how Barney looks like in that stupid getup. As for his theory, we have no evidence to verify if it was a moment of acuity or of inebriation*. We are only sure that it was depression that caused it. Who wouldn’t be depressed? Just imagine being in your own house and everyone there is a stranger and a non-chick.
This scene happened on May 16, 1888, b-t-dub. That was the day Rizal left New York for England. Alone.
(Okay, Tetcho was with him so he wasn’t really alone. But come on, he doesn’t rate.)
*Rest assured that we are sparing no effort in researching on fluke-flux. We have a long line of Harvard graduates willing to do science stuff unpaid. Plus, there are several Google results on it and, if we search hard enough, maybe one of ‘em would point to the same fluke-flux we’re looking for.
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And so, the BarZal Bros went on separate ways. Barney, tired of the 1800s, stayed in America to construct a train that would take him back to the 2000s. Rizal, tired of America and of Barney’s oddity, rode the England-bound City of Rome.
Rizal felt that he was better off alone and bro-less. He had enough friends scattered around Europe, he thought; he had pen pals, he could bunk down in J Luna’s apartment (and he loved being in Luna paintings), he could discuss intellectual matters with the great speaker GL Jaena, and he was already good enough to score chicks without a wingman.
But then again, he thought: Pen pals couldn’t give him babe alerts in time, J Luna seemed to have murderous tendencies somehow, GL Jaena was too drunk 90% of the time (even when giving speeches, which he just winged because he didn’t really know about the subject at hand—well that was awesome cometothinkofit), and he admitted he never really scored until he met Barney.
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On board the City of Rome, and although he got seasick, Joe Pro met many people. He made acquaintance with a couple of pastors, some American newspapermen, and of course, beautiful girls like the one in the photo above. As Joe Pro listed, there was a lady singing on the piano, a pretty young woman who looked like a precious apparition in the moonlight, and a certain amiable Miss Holt with whom he had conversed in French. Yeaheheh, “conversed in French” probably was a double entendre.
According to Joe Pro’s diary, the ship trip was lively, and so he felt lonely being solo in his hotel when he arrived in Liverpool. He wrote, “…lonely life in a hotel is terrible. Liverpool is beautiful and pleasant. There are women who are a little bold.”
What up.
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“Bone Wars”. Heheh. Yeah, well, that really happened. It was part of why we have Jurassic Park and those Calvin and Hobbes classroom daydreams. The Bone Wars was a long, destructive battle between two American paleontologists in search of dinosaur fossils. Both sides were keen on proving who could dig more and who could cover the other in dirt better. Really. The war started in the 1870s and lasted until 1897. It left both men ruined, America full of holes, and 80s children with Denver the Last Dinosaur.
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In August, 1888, Joe Pro was admitted to the British Museum’s library. We’re not sure what “admitted” means in that sentence. Maybe he had to take an entrance exam, or pass a background check, or be sick because libraries are like hospitals, right? In both places; you can’t make noises, the air smells funny, people look dull, you feel like sleeping, there’s always a crabby old lady, and–according to porn, which in turn is according to the BarZal team of researchers–librarians and nurses do basically the same things. According to the researchers. That means other people. The researchers. Them.
After the episode in the photo above, Joe Pro started annotating the “Sucesos de Las Islas Filipinas” by Antonio Morga from the 16th Century. Rizal copied it by hand, word for word. He probably told Tetcho ,”it’s not plagiarism if it’s an annotation”, or something wise-ass.
In his annotation, Rizal pointed out how well-advanced the Philippine Islands were in–wait. Know what? We’ll just show you in the next episodes.
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Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas was written at the turn of the 16th century AD by Antonio
Morga. He was a lieutenant governor of the Philippines, a judge in the Real Audiencia, and a
captain general of a navy fleet. Word is he wasn’t really good in those jobs, but he was a
great historian.
Morga covered the happenings in the archipelago from up to 1493. That’s more than five decades before he was born, and a century before he arrived in Manila. How he managed to get materials for the book, we’re not sure. But we’d like to imagine he did it with a fedora, a whip, and a pre-teen Chinese sidekick.
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Antonio Morga’s two-volume Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas was first officially published in 1609. It was later translated by Lord Stanley (as Hon. Henry EJ Stanley) as “The Philippine Islands, Moluccas, Siam, Cambodia, Japan, and China, at the close of the sixteenth century by Antonio Morga”. Try logolizing that title.
While in England, Joe Pro read this translation while making his own annotation. Joe Pro’s version will eventually get published but not before he made revisions. Because of his emotional disposition then, his first manuscripts painted the pre-Spanish Philippines as too spectacular. We salvaged some of those papers and they will be available for viewing here–Broing Up Rizal exclusive!
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Here’s a sample scratch page of Joe Pro’s annotation of Morga’s work, translated and re-transcribed for the readers’ convenience.
Of course, he was overstating some claims here, so this was far from how the published manuscript turned out.
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See also about the Laguna Copperplate and Angono Petroglyphs. Too bad Joe Pro was no longer alive when these artifacts were discovered.
On another note, please excuse Joe Pro’s sarcasm and assumptions in his Morga drafts. He was under a lot of stress while doing it: There were news about social injustices and harassment against the Rizal family, a Spanish senator was badmouthing him, Juan Luna was always going, “dude, dude, include my drawings when you reprint the Noli Code”, and other Filipinos in Madrid were bugging him to direct their newspaper. On top of that, he was being hounded by this crazy-eyed woman named Gertrude Beckett, maybe.
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Was Joe Pro really that against the Spaniards? No. Not per se. He was against the destructions they brought here. In fact, in his published annotation, he mentioned some good guy Spaniards who were totally okay, like Salcedo (the grandson of Legaspi–and their surname is “Village Makati City” heeeheheh heheh heh eh).
Salcedo was a smart and brave dude who saved Manila from the pirate Li Ma Hong. He was also a member of the 27 Club. According to the annotation translations by historian Austin Craig: “(Salcedo) is the only encomendero recorded to have left the great part of his possessions to the Indians of his encomienda. Vigan was his encomienda and the Illokanos there were his heirs.”
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Kids, there is no way in hell we’re posting what they read here. No, you won’t get to read ’em, not in this totally wholesome page. But if you really want to, go ahead and visit these:
Enjoy, people!
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“Whoa! Is that Gertrude?! Is that Gertrude Beckett holding those scary intercourse paraphernalia that the reader wouldn’t understand unless he or she has read the previous one?!”
Sadly, there is no confirmation that that woman in the photo was Gertrude. Our in-depth investigation in Google Images seems to prove otherwise, too. So that probably isn’t her. Also it must be noted that Joe Pro was not glued in London during the time he was writing his Morga annotation. He roamed around nearby European countries. Who knows what kind of chicks he might have picked up during his travels then.
Anyway, he’s moving to Madrid. And there, he’s gonna meet The–
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–The Pons! And GL Cool J!
*Cue background music: Mama Your Boys–Wshkwshhhkwssshhk!–Wait, wait, waaaait a minute! That structure in the background. That’s the Columbus Monument. Which means this is not Madrid! This is Barcelona.Forget what was said on the previous photo. This is totally Barcelona. Hssh. Joe Pro erred. Good thing our keen team of historians saw that, huh? Okay. Where were we? Again:
The Pons! And GL Cool J!
*Cue background music: Mama Your Boys Will Find a Home*
Kids, story’s not over! Meeting the other Filipinos in Spain was a turning point in Joe Pro’s life. What else will happen? Will he meet Barney again? Do you really not know the answer to the first question, and if so, didn’t you learn anything from your history classes? Doesn’t matter! Season 4!
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Broing Up Rizal 