Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Close encounters with Manny's entourage

In between doing like seven different things at the same time, I managed to sneak in a few minutes to read another two chapters of Gary Andrew Poole's Pacman. I'm at the part where he talks about Manny Pacquiao's entourage. Any time I read and hear about that posse, I laugh and well, shake my head. I know two of them personally. One is a neighbor whose house is a minute's walk away while the other is a former officemate. The latter I got along with although some thought he was lousy at his job. The truth is, the odds were stacked against him and he didn't get enough support from his department (they only looked out for themselves). About a year after he was let go, I saw him at the Diamond Hotel during one dinner for the champ (that is an amazing and eye-popping story in itself that I have never written about) and I asked him what he was doing now. Boy was I surprised when he told me he was now a part of the entourage. "Doing what?" I asked. He smiled and answered, "Anything." I laughed but then I realized he had a nice and expensive watch on him and he had a bounce in his step. I asked if he was with Pacquiao when he went abroad for his fights. "Of course!" 

When I asked him to expound on the "anything" he simply said, "one guy buys the bread while another gets the cheese. One gets the drinks while another buys the snacks." 

"Marvelous." I remarked. "I already have someone doing my laundry. Will you clean my house for me?" 

"Only if you're the champ," he said as he got inside his Mercedes Benz (not from the champ but his own because he used to drive it when we were officemates). Then I noticed that he was wearing some pretty expensive clothes the type you see on those GQ-type magazines and the sort that he never wore before. What a makeover!

As for the other dude -- he's got a couple of SUVs filled with bodyguards trailing him all the time. That's all I will say.

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