The Spinal Tap

“So which is it? Groundhog Day or [title of 1993 movie I forget at the moment]?”

My brother, Marvin, winces and makes a face as he surveys the posters. We’re in Glorietta, and this is the summer of 1993. The whole family was supposed to watch a Russian circus, but something had happened and the performance was canceled. And this being the pre-texting and pre-Internet age, we learned about it only when we’re already standing right outside the circus tent.

The circus had pitched their huge yellow tents in an empty lot at the corner of Buendia and Ayala in Makati. In 2008, this lot would be occupied by the RCBC Tower. Not wanting to waste what is an otherwise fun sunny afternoon, somebody suggests we see a movie. So the five of us troop to the nearby mall, then we split – Marvin and I to watch the movie we like, my Father, Mother and my baby sister to go eat somewhere, look at expensive things, and drool.

“This looks fun,” I say, my finger trailing tentatively on the glass case that held Groundhog Day’s poster. It looks Christmas-y: there’s snow, there’s Bill Murray with that sardonic bored-as-hell face, there’s Andie MacDowell who at this point reminds me of my high school crush. “Let’s watch this. Groundhog Day. It’s really funny.”

I have no idea what the movie is about, but I’m choosing it because of the woman in it.

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Marvin doesn’t put up a fight. We go and buy the tickets. Inside the cinema, it’s Christmas.

In the movie, as some of you know, Bill Murray is reporter Phil Connors, a TV weatherman who covers the annual Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pittsburgh. Somehow, something happens and he finds himself trapped in repeating the same day over and over. And like a normal person, he reacts to it by engaging in hedonistic pursuits. Then he gets increasingly desperate – he tries killing himself, only to wake up every morning at the same hour, on the same bed, to the tune of Cher and Sonny Bono’s “I’ve got you, babe.”

Well, you know the story. Things get resolved in the end. Bill Murray is able to re-examine the meaning of his life, and (this the movie doesn’t actually show but I’m sure) he gets laid in the end.

I remember all this because in 2004, 11 years later, having lunch at this French-themed dining place on the ground floor of the RCBC Tower, I am thinking of how Bill Murray, knowing he couldn’t die, wolfed down all those donuts! I am thinking about the Russian circus, and how this fancy new building – some say the equivalent of an entire IT Park – was a dusty lot sprawled with huge yellow tents. The tarpaulin flapping in the wind. The dry dust of a summer afternoon swirling, the air shimmering in the heat.

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“This is a big project,” the woman seated across my table says now. “We get this, we’ll split the fees fifty-fifty.”

A Fistful of Dollars on dvd “Uh-uh.” I steal a glance at her legs; she’s wearing a mini-skirt and any slight movement inevitably shows more skin. If she moves in the right way, I’m sure I’ll see underwear. If this day repeats itself, like in the movie, there are things I can choose to do. I’ll sit in another chair, knowing fully well where to get a “good view.” Or I’ll hide under the table until she settles in her seat. Or I’ll push the table over, scream like crazy, and cartwheel my way out of the restaurant. I’ll grab that guard’s firearm and shoot the glass walls, as glass walls are fine shooting target. Or I snap a rubber band at his ear and run like hell. Or he shoots me down, killing me in a fantastic hail of bullets. No worries there; I’ll still wake up at 7 in the morning, Sonny and Cher singing “I’ve got you, babe” on the clock radio, me going through the motions of annoying everybody.

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I ask about the project’s deadline. She says three or four months, give or take a month. We quickly wrap it up and agree on a couple of “professional things.”

“You know the movie Groundhog Day?” I ask as we walk out. She glances at me sideways, does that thing with her mouth that brings to mind the act of trying to eat a well-cooked snail.

Rated X trailer “Mmmmmm.”

“Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, early 90s?”

“I’m not sure.”

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“Uh-uh.”

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We stand by the curb waiting for a taxi.

“I only know one movie,” she says.

“And what’s that?”

“It’s called Don’t Fuck With Me

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.”

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