Who is Cebu Man?
My first trip to the Philippines was back in September of 1997. Before that time, I didn’t know much about The Philippines.
Scratch that…..I didn’t know ANYTHING about The Philippines.
I grew up the youngest of seven kids in a working class family in a small town in Massachusetts, USA. Throughout the first part of my life I pretty much just kept within my small circle of friends and relatives. World travel was only a dream. Not something I ever really thought I would be able to do. So, concerning myself with far away places sort of felt like a waste of time.
ENTER THE CORPORATE WAGE SLAVE
For years I worked a full time job at a local print factory. I started out as a floor boy, or “jack trucker” as the job was titled. Throughout my years of employment, I worked my way through many different positions at this factory until I finally ended up in the position of Product Engineer.
More and more printing jobs were going overseas and a lot of print shops in the US were closing shop. I could see the writing on the wall and I knew I needed to shift careers.
Eventually, I left my employment there and took a position as an Account Manager at a telecom company where we installed Nortel telephone systems for businesses. This was right after the dot com bubble had burst, so I moved to three different companies as each previous one closed.
I’ve worked other less than glamorous jobs since, but because those jobs are even more mind numbingly dull, I wont bore you with those.
Hell….I’m surprised if you’re even still reading at this point!
THE LONG HAIRED HEADBANGER
I love music! Always have. Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Classic Rock, Blues. I love it!
So all the while as I was I was working full time jobs, I was also the guitarist and promoter for the Heavy Metal band Osiris.
We hated playing other band’s songs so we wrote and performed our own music. We had an original sound for the time and we were building up quite a strong following in our area.
Eventually, we started getting interest from magazines and record companies both national and international. Very cool huh?
It was cool. I wouldn’t trade those days in for anything. But, unfortunately money and fame wasn’t in the cards for us.
The entertainment business is a very tough business to break into even when you have the talent and the right connections, which we did have. It takes a lot of luck as well…. and luck was the one ingredient that we did not have.
SO GET TO IT METALHEAD! HOW DID YOU BECOME CEBU MAN?
Well, one thing I picked up on in my years as as the guitarist and promoter of Osiris, was an interest in world destinations. I loved getting snail mail (Remember snail mail? We just called it mail back then kids.) from fans and other bands from other countries and making friends with these people and hearing about their lives and cultures. It made me want to get out and experience these places for myself.
I had a huge interest in Asia. It seemed so exotic and different to me and what I was use to. I had also been corresponding with a girl from The Philippines and after finding out as much as I could about the place from books and friends I made that had either been there and/or were married to Filipinas, I decided to take a trip to meet the girl who eventually became my ex-wife.
Yes. we got married and sadly, it didn’t work out. Not her fault totally. Not my fault totally either. After being together for many years, it just didn’t work. But, that’s another story for another time.
MY FIRST TRIP TO THE PHILIPPINES
Anyway, I booked my first trip to The Philippines a month before my 30th birthday, in September of 1997 (You want to know how old I am? You do the math). Before that time, the furthest I’d ever been from home was a three hour bus ride to New York City. Also, I had only flown for maybe an hour or so in a small single engine plane doing sightseeing of my local area.
Now, I was taking a 26 hour trip to the other side of the world.
To say it was a life changing experience for me would be an understatement.
Like a bite from a radioactive spider changed Peter Parker into Spiderman, or an accidental overdose of gamma radiation transformed Bruce Banner into The Hulk. The trip I took morphed this (not so) mild mannered Metal guitarist into…….
Cebu Man!!! 🙂
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