A Day in the Life of Chaos

Trinoma Mall I have traveled around the planet but I have found no place on earth that hosts more massive shopping malls then Manila, Philippines.  Even the names speak of enormity.  Mega Mall, Mall of Asia, Power Plant, Shangri-la, the list goes on and on.  It seems like no matter where you are, there is an enormous mall near by.  They seem to sprout like mushrooms in a lawn sometimes seemingly quite out of place.  Around them areas of extreme poverty cower in their shadows.  Massive parking garages often abut the main buildings typically bursting at the seams with cars.   The garages themselves are virtual palaces with parking floors coated in shiny epoxy and lights over the head of every space turning green when vacant, red when full.  Women dressed in bellhop type uniforms with white gloves spend their days in the elevators pushing the button for you. Everywhere you look in Manila condominiums are rising and the malls all owned by the same development corporations, have isl

At forty-four years of age I can say I have had haircuts all over the world.  While lately in the declining years of my hair follicles this has become more and more of a challenge, it is still a necessity of life.  I never want to be accused of  being the sad pathetic man trying to desperately cling to his last few three feet long strands. On of the most terrifying haircuts I ever had was in a tiny barbershop in a small town in Egypt.  The barber executed his craft utilizing only a single straight edge razor blade.  During the process at any moment I could have become a flaccid ball of flesh, my life blood oozing out into a pool at on the floor. Another inauguration into the world of the third world haircut came in the Philippines during my first visit.  The... I shouldn't call him a barber, perhaps stylist, was so gay I wondered if he would break into a rendition of a Barbara Streisand song as his scissors snipped and snapped.  I have never had a problem getting a haircut from