Give it to me, baby!

WHAT a shame that there's no Rome Season 3 no? I just finished watching Season 2, although to be fair, the ending was really perfect. It could stand on its own and not have another season. But damn, HBO allowed The Sopranos to go on for seven seasons why couldn't it give the same lifespan to Rome? The latter is basically The Sopranos BC!

Still, I can't get enough of hottie James Purefoy who played Marc Antony so brilliantly in this drama series. (Actually even Ciaran Hinds who played Julius Caesar in the first season had some old guy appeal as well.) To this day, there's still an ongoing petition for HBO to revive the $8-million-an-episode series. With that kind of budget needed, la talagang pag-asa for us to see a revived series.Sayang talaga. Why Lord why?

Too bad James fucked up his audition as James Bond and now we're stuck with that ugly blondie Daniel Craig. Sexy James would've given Sean Connery, THE ultimate James Bond, a run for his money.

Anyway, check out this sizzling video of my darling on YouTube. It won best video last year in some obscure amateur awards in the UK or something.

Superman returns...not!

I wasn't able to watch Superman Returns when it was shown in Metro Manila's theaters last year for some forgettable reason. I finally got to watch it on HBO last night and although the film's plot was pencil-thin and still cheesy, I actually felt a wave of sentimental pleasure coursing through me.

Starring Brandon Routh who I've never heard of before this movie and who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late Christopher Reeve (the real Superman to many for his valiant battle against his disability), the film's first action sequences with Superman saving the passengers of an airplane (which included Lois Lane played by Kate Bostworth) made the hairs of my arms stand on end.

I fondly remember the first Superman movie with Reeve and Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, with a really great cast of supporting actors like Marlon Brando (as Superman's father Jor-el), Gene Hackman (as Lex Luthor), and Glenn Ford (as Clark Kent's father). It was the late 70s and I was still hung up on popular drama anthologies, impossible love stories, and cornball acting (yeah, whatever happened to Kidder's career right?). When you're young and stupid, you think you need a Superman to save you from all the idiots around you. This was the milieu I grew up in so I suppose that was the reason Superman Returns stirred up a lot of childish silly notions in me again. (You don't wanna know!)

It was fun watching Superman Returns albeit the bleah acting and idiotic storyline. (I mean Superman can't have a child with an earthling! In my child's mind, that's just too alien and immoral. He should remain pure and unblemished by thoughts of a woman's flesh. A man who's out to save us from ourselves can't have any human attachments.) I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more as another mind-numbing exercise if I had watched it on the big screen. Still, it was nice to have Superman back on the screen, even if it was just on the idiot box, just because it made me remember a part of my young life when I still believed in 18th century notions on true love. Ah well...

Colbert for President!

(...of the U.S. that is. Read the column of Bill O'Reilly's alter ego in the New York Times' Sunday op-ed page. Maureen Dowd sorta got lazy today? Hee-hee)

A Mock Columnist, Amok
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: October 14, 2007

I was in my office, writing a column on the injustice of relative marginal tax rates for hedge fund managers, when I saw Stephen Colbert on TV.

He was sneering that Times columns make good “kindling.” He was ranting that after you throw away the paper, “it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade.” He was observing, approvingly, that “Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into The New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann’s skull.”

I called Colbert with a dare: if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit, he should try it. He came right over. In a moment of weakness, I had staged a coup d’moi. I just hope he leaves at some point. He’s typing and drinking and threatening to “shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.”

(Continued at NYT)

Wassup por yu?

Something Like Life
Oct. 12, 2007

I’VE been sick again and, after finally consulting a doctor on Sunday, I was basically told to shut up for 24 hours to rest my inflamed throat, which I probably got from cheering excessively during the La Salle-Ateneo game two Sundays before, then downing half a bag of microwave popcorn that night. (During the championship game against UE, all I could do was clap my hands silly. But yay, Green Archers! Animo La Salle!)

So I was pretty much sidelined in the last two weeks, unable to meet my deadlines because I was also feeling fluish. I was downing all sorts of drugs and incessantly gargling with Bactidol to help ease my discomfort. Because my greatest fear in my life is to die from sheer hunger, I still ate meat and all sorts of yummy chewy treats, which my doc eventually told me were no-no’s. (“Soft foods only!”) Great. That meant lots of lugaw and chicken noodle soup with crackers, but I was too afraid to follow the doc to the letter, lest I become runny like Romy Neri. Ick.

So during the past weeks I was away from the real world, I was occupied with the cyber/video world. I watched the first episode of Private Practice (the “bleah!” Grey’s Anatomy spinoff), the first episodes of the new seasons of Grey’s and Ugly Betty, and now I’m deep into the sex, blood and gore of Rome, the first season. Needless to say, I got involved in the online debate regarding the real or imagined slurs against Philippine medical schools and former President Cory Aquino.

Frankly, I don’t watch Desperate Housewives. I find it a ditzy, boring and brainless show. I watched it only for two seasons, because of James Denton, the actor who plays the sexy hotbod hunk of a plumber who falls for the ridiculous Susan Meyer, played by has-been actress Teri Hatcher. (I hear that Denton’s character is now in a coma and is under the covers most of the time, so why anyone still bothers to watch this show mystifies me.) Out of curiosity, I downloaded that premiere episode of Housewives which contained the allegedly inflammatory remark against local medical schools. Truth to tell, I didn’t find it that offensive.

It’s only a TV show after all, and it was a joke. Susan Meyer is supposed to be an idiot who probably wouldn't even know how to find the Philippines on a map even if it was as large as North America. Besides, I can tell the difference between reality and fantasy because I’m well-educated and because of my own experience with Filipino doctors and nurses. All races and nationalities are always stereotyped or insulted on TV...the arrogant waspish American, the poor hip-hopping Black Americans, the noisy cliquish Chinese, the British and their bad teeth, the Vietnamese and their extended families, the Italians and their mob connections, etc. But these nationalities don’t gnash their teeth or pull their hair over these supposed insults because they know, in TV land, everyone is fair game.

Even our own local TV shows are riddled with all sorts of regional insults — the Visayans who always confuse their “e’s” with “i’s”, the Capampangans who reverse their “f’s” and “p’s”, the kuripot Ilocanos and the angry Batangueños with their balisong, among others. Where are all the online petitions against these TV stereotypes?

Now, if you read the comments left by our kababayan on YouTube and on the Desperate Housewives web site, it showed how some of them are even more racist than the clueless writers of the show. Invectives and slurs were all over the place, not the least of them the anti-American everything! I cannot help but feel ashamed there are Pinoys like that.

The management of ABC has already said sorry along with the promise to delete the offending scene from their reruns, international editions and DVD version. Malacañang has already accepted the apology. Still, some of our kababayan continue to scream for blood! Instead of being gracious enough to accept the apology, we continue to curse Americans, the writers, Teri Hatcher, ABC. There was this old lady who was even crying hysterically about how uneducated Americans are compared with Filipinos during an LA Fil-Am TV show’s phone-in portion. It was so sickeningly OA! If you think so lowly of Americans, why the hell are you killing yourselves trying to get a US visa or even buying their products?

(It's a fake news show, people! Notice the Comedy Central logo at the bottom right corner of your TV screen? Sos.)

Riding on the Housewives controversy, some people also tried to pick on a month-old episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, who is my husband by the way, so lay off! If the aggrieved – led by Sen. Noynoy Aquino, who seems so desperate to have his 15 seconds of TV airtime that he has to use his poor mother to generate news – actually watch The Daily Show, they would know it is a political satire. The piece by Samantha Bee in a Sex and the City format on whether Americans are ready for a woman president was actually poking fun at Americans themselves. Here are these countries — the UK, Israel, the Philippines — which are many light-years ahead of the US in having elected their own female heads of state. It played to female stereotypes—idiots, tramps and sluts — and because most intelligent people know that in real life Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher and Cory Aquino are not, they get the joke. Sadly, the rest don’t. Hello? Have you eaten your galunggong today? If you didn’t get that one either, here’s a gun and go shoot yourselves.

C’mon, do you ever hear the White House complaining every time David Letterman puts out his piece, “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches,” which basically portrays President Bush as a bumbling idiot? In the first season of Ugly Betty, Mark, the gay assistant of Wilhelmina, persuades Betty to be his fake girlfriend. In trying to memorize facts about each other, he asks the eternally unfashionable Mexican Betty, “You’re from the Philippines, right?” Naku, how dare these Americans mistake us for Mexicans! Or what about Will & Grace? Karen to her maid Rosario: “If it weren’t for me, you’d be flying back to Cucaracha on Air Guacamole with live chickens running up and down the aisles!” Any diplomatic protests from El Salvador or Mexico? As Fil-Am comedian Rex Navarette jokes, “Wassup por you?”

What does this say of us and our relationships to other cultures?

We often ridicule others and make stupid jokes just about every political issue (“AB-ZTE-FG!”), but we cannot take a joke about ourselves. We can dish it out, but we aren’t so accepting when we’re on the receiving end. We are pikon, because I’d hate to think that we are bobo instead and just don’t get the joke.

We have such fragile egos that if anyone makes fun of us, we automatically lash out. It’s as if we love reveling in acting api-apihan to foreigners, so we strike at them by pushing online petitions, rallying, sending diplomatic protests, and demanding for the moon and stars to assuage our hurt amor propio, instead of proving them wrong by being on our best behavior. Was this attitude formed because we were colonized by foreigners, so we have some sort of superiority complex that masks our actual feelings of inferiority toward other cultures? Other nationalities, especially Americans, know Filipino doctors and nurses are among the best health-care professionals in the world, never mind that Liz Taylor has banned the latter around her hospital room. (Anyone picketing her by the way?) So how can 10 seconds in a 45-minute episode of an idiotic TV show change that opinion and fact?

Sadly, I can only blame Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano for these unfunny events. If he had only continued the ZTE broadband hearings, we would be happily texting more ridiculous jokes or poking fun at Ateneans, Ben Abalos’s Viagra prescription, JDV3’s high forehead, Romy Neri’s intentional flu, Mike Arroyo’s dirty finger, and Presidentita’s Victoria Court ad (“shhh”). Get it?

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. Main photo from BusinessMirror.)

Not from my pal Dave but still hilarious

I got this email from a friend in the States with a joke that has been making the rounds since September. It's been erroneously attributed to David Letterman but I thought, in the light of all the gnashing of teeth and hairpulling over Desperate Housewives and now The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, maybe it's time to publish this. Btw, to the real author of this joke, kudos. You should enter it in Dave's Top Ten contest.

So chillax people, don't take yourselves too seriously.

Top 10 Reasons Why There Couldn't Be a Filipino-American US President

10. The White House is not big enough for in-laws and extended relatives.

9. There are not enough parking spaces at the White House for 2 Honda Civics, 2 Toyota Land Cruisers, 3 Toyota Corollas, a Mercedes Benz, a BMW and an MPV.

8. Dignitaries generally are intimidated by eating with their fingers at State dinners.

7. There are too many dining rooms in the White House - where will they put the picture of the Last Supper?

6. The White House walls are not big enough to hold a pair of giant wooden spoon and fork.

5. Secret Service staff won't respond to "psst... psst".

4. Secret Service staff will not be comfortable driving the presidential car with a Holy Rosary hanging on the rear view mirror or the statue of the Santo Nino on the dashboard.

3. No budget allocation to purchase a karaoke machine for every room in the White House.

2. State dinners do not allow "Take Home".

AND THE NUMBER 1 REASON WHY THERE COULDN'T BE A FILIPINO-AMERICAN US PRESIDENT IS...

1. Air Force One does not allow overweight Balikbayan boxes.

Cory Aquino, a slut?

HERE'S the video clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart which some quarters are trying to get you incensed about the way you got pissed with the Desperate Housewives item on Philippine medical schools. I say to all of these people who apparently have nothing better to do: GET A LIFE! Lahat nalang ba papatulan nyo? This is a comedy show for pete's sake! (Then again, we do know which politician in this country is the real slut don't we?)

And pls. lang, to those people waving around the yellow banners calling Cory Aquino a saint, maybe you should go to Hacienda Luisita and talk to the families of those farmers who were shot to death last year. Then she had to praise ex-Comelec chairman Ben Abalos at the height of the ZTE scandal?! Shet naman. It's already bad enough she gave birth to Kris Aquino. Okay, actually I feel sorry for Tita Cory because of Kris...I'm sure she has suffered enough humiliation for the kalokohan of her daughter.

Btw, this episode was shown on Sept. 18 ha. Ngayon lang kayo umangal? Sos, obvious ba gusto n'yo lang mag-ride sa Housewives na gulo. Oy, Sen. Noynoy, try to pick some other issue naman para sumikat ka. Boo to you for using your poor mother to get your 10 seconds on TV!

While this isn't the best from Samantha Bee, it is still funny. Check out the surprise ending. Gads, I sure hope the greasy guy beside Mystery isn't Pinoy.



My comments on The Daily Show may also be found in the previous blog entry on the apology made by ABC regarding its Housewives' line.

We asked for it, we got it (Update: The Daily Show)

ABC apologizes for slur vs Pinoys

"The producers of 'Desperate Housewives' and ABC Studios offer our sincere apologies for any offense caused by the brief reference in the season premiere. There was no intent to disparage the integrity of any aspect of the medical community in the Philippines," the statement said.

"As leaders in broadcast diversity, we are committed to presenting sensitive and respectful images of all communities featured in our programs," it concluded.

Read on at Desperate apology from ABC.

Maybe they should post the apology on their web site noh?

UPDATE: Look guys, if you're gonna send your comments to ABC or YouTube re: the Desperate Housewives episode, pls. keep your own racist comments about Americans to yourselves. It pains me to read all your angry messages about how Americans are this and that, you're equally bad as the writers of the show! And pls. check your grammar before posting anything! We don't want to look like sore uneducated api asses out there.

And can you try to separate Teri Hatcher's real life from her character Susan Meyer in the show? Ngayon lang 'yan sumikat ulit, anoh? She probably wouldn't know a good script from a bad one if her life depended on it. So get a grip!

Btw someone else is trying to equate this issue of the Desperate Housewives Pinoy slur to a recent segment of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart where a photo supposedly of former President Cory Aquino was stamped with the word "slut." The segment was about female heads of state and if the U.S. was ready for one. (I haven't seen the said episode but I watch the show almost every night on Jack TV or on CNN so I know his kind of humor.)

Now unlike Desperate Housewives, which is a drama, The Daily Show is political satire/comedy. Stewart makes fun of everybody, even their own US President, calling him even worse names than "slut." But Americans are not pikon when it comes to this kind of comedy. Even those people who have been hit by Stewart or David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, or Jay Leno still guest on their shows. Kasi they know it's all in good fun.

I actually wish we had an intelligent show here in the Philippines like The Daily Show because our politicians need to see how silly they can be. I can think of a description or two about JDV3's Presidentita GMA. (Someone pls revive the brilliant Sic O'Clock News?) So tama na, pwede ba? Kumita na 'yang tactic nyo sa Housewives. Leave Jon Stewart alone!

****

OH hey! La Salle vs UE today at the UAAP games. You know which team I'll be rooting for!

Oh darn. Bangko Sentral Monetary Board meeting on policy rates also today! Choices, choices.

The controversy over Desperate Housewives

HERE'S the clip of Season 4 episode 1 of Desperate Housewives where Terri Hatcher's character, Susan, disses Filipino doctors/Philippine med schools. Frankly, I've stopped watching this series a long time ago. I thought two seasons were enough. The writing is no longer funny. I only watched it for watshisface yummy plumber's hotbod.

Anyway, easy your heart, as my friend Jodass says. And if you want to complain, here's the URL of Desperate Housewives (ABC) where you can post your comments on their message board.

Private Practice falls flat

Tim Daly as Dr. Pete Wilder and Kate Walsh as Dr. Addison Montgomery in Private Practice

DOWNLOADED the first episode of Private Practice from the universe of torrents and watched it the other day. For those still living on some other planet, Private Practice is the spinoff of Grey's Anatomy, starring Kate Walsh who plays OB-GYN Dr. Addison Montgomery (used to be Shepherd when she was still married to the insufferable Dr. McDreamy).

The new show also stars the multi-talented Taye Diggs (he sing! he dances! he acts!) and who Ellen Degeneres has already christened McChocolatey. He plays internist Sam Bennett recently separated from his wife, Naomi (Audra McDonald) and also a partner in the private clinic where Addison now works. Others in the cast include Amy Brenneman (remember her from NYPD Blue and Judging Amy?) who plays the slightly edgy shrink Dr. Violet Turner; the still-sexy seasoned actor Tim Daly (he played wacko Waco cult leader Davide Koresh and an alcoholic screenwriter in The Sopranos), who plays alternative medicine specialist Dr. Pete Wilder; Paul Adelstein, last seen as the scary government agent Paul Kellerman in Prison Break, who plays the sex addict and cybersurfing Dr. Cooper Freedman; and finally, Chris Lowell, who plays the token hotbod in this cast, receptionist and midwife-in-training William "Dell" Parker.

Unfortunately, Private Practice's first episode disappoints. I think it's still struggling between trying to be funny and dramatic, and trying hard not to be a Grey's Anatomy clone (well, so far, none of the docs have had sex yet with each other, although a kiss did pass between Addison and Dr. Pete in the Grey's Anatomy episode). But it still has that back and forth, smart alecky banter that is so Grey's Anatomy that it's hard not to be compared to its parent show. And I think Addison's character just makes so much effort to be loopy...dancing around naked, etc., the comedy actually falls flat. I had more laughs watching a Grey's Anatomy episode (which is basically a drama) than Private Practice (which is being promoted as a sit-com).

Well, let's see if the next episode's any better.

Why I love my guy Dave (and SNL's homage to Iran's president)

I actually watched this interview two nights ago on Jack TV and couldn't stop from rolling down the aisle from sheer hysterical laughter. David Letterman is just relentless in his interview of hotel heiress Paris Hilton, pressing her to talk about her time in the slammer. (I didn't realize she was actually that dumb. All the while I thought it was just an act – something like Ruffa Mae Quinto does – pretending to be stupid and all but actually isn't? But just look at her empty eyes...there's no sign of intelligent life there! As sister Juneza says, Josh!)

Paris squirms from Dave's torture and he just doesn't care! Talk about interview technique – Dave shifts between patronizing her, to get her to talk some more, and then makes fun of her by asking her more questions about her jail time. Boy is she really sorry now to have promoted her new fragrance on Dave's show. All she could do was pout. Oh what fun!

Anyway, enjoy this clip.



OH, and here's a sweet one from the SNL guys spoofing president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was recently in New York and had declared in a speech at the Columbia University last week: “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.” The music video stars that cuddly Andy Samberg, Fred Armisen, with major backup vocal from yummy Adam Levine of Maroon 5 (and no, he's not gay ok?) and a cameo by Jake Gyllenhaal (he of Brokeback Mountain and who btw, did a fabulous spoof of the Dreamgirls song "And I'm telling you..." on SNL just this year). Funny, aren't all these guys Jewish? Well, President Mahmoud does deny the Holocaust happened as well...nuts!

Hail British comedy!

IF you loved Absolutely Fabulous, you'd know that Joanna Lumley's sidekick, Jennifer Saunders (the pill-popping, boozing designer Edina Monsoon) was, for the longest time, actually the partner of another British comedienne Dawn French in the hugely successful British TV sketch French and Saunders. These funny ladies revive their routines in A Bucket O' French & Saunders, whose first season just started this month.

I tripped over this clip at PerezHilton.com (don't ask me why I was there in the first place...ick), and it's really a hilarious spoof of Tyra Banks' America's Top Model. Oooh...Ms. Saunders looks like she's had some retouching done wot? Forget the ZTE scandal for the moment and let's enjoy the brilliance of British comedians. (I miss my Little Britain...sigh.)

Bushisms

IN case you missed it, here's a Reuters video on US President George Bush's gaffes at the APEC summit in Sydney last week. Ahh, to have a cartoon character as head of state...some countries are just too lucky!



Sep. 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush makes light of his slips of the tongue, during an APEC address.

U.S President George W. Bush, renowned for his mispronunciation of words during his speeches, once again made audiences laugh during his address to the business summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum in Australia.

Within the first seconds of his speech, Bush referred to the gathering as the OPEC summit, the acronym for the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and then quickly rectified it to APEC, causing the gathering to erupt into laughter.

He later referred to Australia as Austria, but failed to pick up on it or rephrase the comment.

Throughout the rest of his speech he mispronounced several words, including Australia's capital Canberra, Kuala Lumpur and Jemaah Islamiyah.

And as if things weren't bad enough, when he had concluded his addresses, he made his way to the wrong exit, prompting Australian Prime Minister John Howard to make finger gestures at him, to show him the right way off the stage.

More histrionics and drug-crazed musings

Something Like Life
June 29, 2007

INFLUENZA sucks.

I say this with the little strength I can still muster while I lie in my bed, half-upright, half-comatose, tapping on my notebook. No energy. No exclamation point.

My bones are all achy and creaky, while my breath is ragged and shallow, in between the hymen-breaking coughs that spare me no mercy throughout the day. My nose constantly drips, even as my sinuses are congested. I try to seek relief in sleep, but then I wake up tired and sluggish as if I’ve downed a whole bottle of Rivotril.

So too bad for you, dear readers, there will be no advice to the lovelorn nor intimations of other people’s slutty behavior. I shall bore you instead with ague-laden details of the past three days (I write this on a Tuesday evening) as I lie feverish and pained on my 100-percent jersey cotton bedsheet (yes, the kind that’s used for T-shirts and just what Oprah likes), surrounded by my fluffy pillows which, sadly, now hardly provides me any comfort. And as every sixth hour of my illness is marked by a round of paracetamol (1,000 mg), carbocisteine (500 mg) and antibiotics (625 mg), you can bet that this piece will be chock full of histrionics and drug-crazed musings.

I don’t remember the last time I had been downed by the flu. I’ve been pretty lucky. I hardly get sick despite my lack of exercise and a mostly unhealthy diet. I make up for that by eating lots of veggies now and then, and having seafood every chance I can, walking a distance, and downing loads of vitamins and minerals. Then, as you recall, I did go back to the gym. Which is pretty ironic. Now that I’ve decided on taking the path to a healthier lifestyle, I get the flu! A friend of mine thinks I could have picked up the virus in the shower. Ick! Remind me next time to take a bath at home after my workout.

The illness just crept on me, not giving me any fair warning at all. One day I was up and about doing my yoga poses at the gym, the next day my muscles were sore to the bone, my body wracked with the chills, a cough and the stuffy nose. Of course, in between all that, I had chomped down a whole bagful of cheese-flavored popcorn. And as is the usual, my throat got all scratchy the next day despite the glasses of water I guzzled in between the fistfuls I shoved in my mouth.

Normally, the scratchy throat goes away after I gargle with warm water and salt, and suck on two or three zinc lozenges for a day. This time, it didn’t. I started sneezing like mad, one, two, three blasts in succession. Then my scratchy throat gave way to full-blown hacking. Soon thereafter, my bones were groaning like an old lady’s and the chills started.

It’s driving me mad. I go under the covers for a few hours, trying to seek protection from the cold permeating through my entire anatomy. Then the next minute, I am sweating. I switch on the air conditioner to give me some relief from the mugginess that's making the dogs outside my window pant their poor little tongues out, but also because of the heat that running the course through my poor defenseless remains. Then I get the chills again. What’s worse is that my mouth is always dry, and my taste buds have given up the ghost. Despite the hunger pangs, it’s pure and simple torture not being able to taste any of the food I eat. So I quit after a few spoonfuls. I have no joy.

The last time I got this sick, I was bored out of my wits watching afternoon soaps and endless repetitions of HBO and Star Movies. My saving grace this time around is my torrent downloads of Little Britain, Entourage and Ugly Betty. (Yup, that’s Betty La Fea to you, telenovela fans of yore.) And, of course, I had just finished the much-talked about, endlessly debated finale of The Sopranos. Was Tony whacked or not? (I think he was; after all, that’s how mob bosses are supposed to go. And for someone who has suffered a whiny wife like Carmela, death would surely be a welcome release.)

If not watching my torrents, I am catching up on my reading. Not books, unfortunately, because I can hardly keep my eyes open while I’m shot up with all these drugs, but Vanity Fair. If there is any magazine that you must subscribe to in your entire life, it has to be VF. It has a bit of everything. Heavy investigative pieces of criminal or political activity (yes, crime and politics now seem to be synonymous with each other), lavish spreads of gorgeous celebrities with in-depth interviews, and lots of amusing sections and sidebars along with gorgeous photography.

(VF cover of US President George Bush and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. Why couldn't I have gotten the George Clooney cover?!)

But here is a spoiler alert: get your copy of the July issue. It’s all about Africa and is guest-edited by Bono, who says he had always wanted to become a journalist. Now how cool is that? I just hope you have more luck than me getting a better cover. (VF shot 20 separate covers for this issue—Oprah Winfrey, Don Cheadle, Madonna, Barack Obama, Iman, Bono, of course, among others—with celebrated portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz at the helm.) I got George Bush, yes, a first on the cover of a usually anti-administration publication, with a prayerful Archbishop Desmond Tutu. You can guess who he’s praying for. (They have Condi Rice, too. Wipe that smirk off your face. You must understand, this is how Bono gets his philantrophic work done. He sucks up to the right people in power. I love Bono but he is human just like the rest of us.) All I can say is, I would have been happier with the George Clooney cover in my hand.

Okay, I’m off rambling more than usual. I just hope I get well by the weekend. My back is killing me from all this lying down. And I’m afraid my hard drive will give out from all this downloading. I’m also running out of VF issues to read. Mother! I need my drugs!

****

MY deepest condolences to the family of the late Renato Faustino, “Mang Ato” to all of us reporters who had covered the agriculture beat. Mang Ato was an old-time government publicist who endeared himself to the journalists who made it their business to investigate every piece of BS coming out of the mouths of his often lofty-minded bosses. (True, there have been one or two exceptional heads at the Department of Agriculture, the present dispensation not one of them, though.)

Mang Ato just did his job, disseminating information to the reporters, getting officials to explain themselves out of the messes they got themselves in, ringing up editors to ask for some support to the agency programs. Even when his beloved DA was dragged in the mud a few times in the last few years, Mang Ato never cast aspersions on the motives of the reporters or the columnists for the negative stuff. He knew they were just doing their job as well.

The last time I saw Mang Ato was last year, at a friend’s wedding. We had joked that he became teary-eyed because our friend was getting married for the second time. I imagine the buckets he would have wept if I had been the one who got hitched! But that was how Mang Ato was. He was always a softie, and I have never once heard him utter a harsh word about anyone or anything, even if he was the one put at a disadvantage. He was truly a friend we could always go back to for a few laughs as we reminisced about the good times at the DA.

Thanks, Mang Ato, for being the kind of person many of us can only hope to be.

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. Photo from BusinessMirror – nope, that's not my bed!)

Monday bitching...Ruffa, the woman with 9 lives

(Photo from The Filipino Express)

I don't know how you guys are taking the weekend pronouncements of Ruffa Gutierrez, the latest Pinoy celebrity who has confessed to having been physically abused by one's spouse.

Normally, I feel sympathy towards women who have been abused and violated by their husbands, or men in general. But in Ruffa's case, I somehow find some of her statements almost unbelievable. (This woman, after all, was involved in the 1994 Manila Film Fest scam, along with her mother, the irrepressible Annabel Rama, brother Rocky, and that woman with the truly unforgettable name...Viveka Babajee.) I mean, being physically abused for 15 hours daw? Buhay pa sya? Then she says she was electrocuted by hubby Yilmaz Bektas while she was in the bathtub...again, buhay pa din sya? My God! This woman must have 9 lives, like a cat!

So the beatings began even before she and Yilmaz were married...so what possessed her to marry him? That's awfully stupid isn't it? I mean, all this time I thought she had some brains to go with her beauty...Baka nasilaw sa dami ng carats na binigay ni "lovee" anoh? Ayan, nainggit kasi ke Greta.

Btw, how come not one showbiz TV host has actually pinned down Ruffa and gotten a real honest answer on whether or not she was married to one Richard Daiola prior to Yilmaz? Who the hell is this guy and why, despite the massive resources of both GMA News and ABS-CBN/ANC News, he has yet to be unearthed. No one has secured even one photo of this mystery man.

Naku 'dong, bet you there's gonna be a Ruffa Gutierrez Story film out soon. Heh!

A mother-daughter relationship in perspective

Something Like Life
May 18, 2007

ON Mother’s Day, we were treated to what was perhaps the most spectacular outburst ever made in Philippine showbiz history. Those immortal words uttered by the still unparalleled stage mother of all stage mothers, Annabel Rama, were truly unforgettable and will likely be the gold standard by which all other stage mothers will have to measure themselves. With tears streaming down her face, facial tissue in hand, Annabel—in her trademark Waray-accented Tagalog — implored her celebrity daughter Ruffa Gutierrez on national TV: “Kung gusto mo akong matigok, pumunta ka sa Maldives. Kung gusto mo pa ako mabuhay ng matagal, mag-stay ka sa akin. [If you want me to die, go to Maldives. If you want me to live long, stay with me].”

Emotional blackmail? It sure sounded like it. What kind of mother would directly sabotage her child’s efforts at making a marriage work by saying that she would keel over if the child left her side? To those who missed another stirring performance by the one-time showbiz starlet, Annabel last Sunday was interviewed by a fumbling, verbally challenged Pia Guanio on the state of Ruffa’s marriage to Turkish businessman Yilmaz Bektas. Annabel was trying to prevent Ruffa from going on a vacation with her estranged husband where they were supposed to work out their troubled marriage.

Of course, everybody suspects ulterior motives on Annabel’s part as she tried to put herself between her daughter and a son-in-law whom she admits to have grown to love. Was she trying to force Ruffa—virtually incoherent on another channel, with tears as big as the diamond earrings she wore—to give up on her marriage to Bektas, and resume her very profitable showbiz career? In turn, Annabel would reassume the role as her daughter’s manager and thereby reap the benefits that she had to forgo for seven years? Wasn’t this woman content with the earnings she was receiving from managing the acting careers of her handsome twins?

But for anyone who has ever been a mother, and who has sacrificed so much for her children, and gone to great lengths to keep her family afloat, Annabel’s outburst was quite understandable.

Sure, the accusations from some quarters about her being “materialistic” could be true in part, but Annabel can never be blamed for trying to look after her children’s welfare. And for someone who never had real acting talent herself, Annabel has actually been pulling off what is probably the greatest performance of her life for the past decades—being the strong foundation and guiding light of the Gutierrez family. She has singlehandedly built up her children’s careers despite the fact that some of them probably don’t even have the real goods to justify their huge talent fees.

More than Annabel’s OA threats of dying prematurely, it is perhaps due to those reasons cited above that the well-poised and polished Ruffa decided to stay with her mom and turn her back on her husband. Ruffa was reported to have expressed her continuing love for Bektas, despite the rumors of physical abuse, and to which Annabel herself hinted at. And what kind of mother would she be if she didn’t try to put an end to her daughter’s suffering? “Gabi-gabi ’yan, tumatawag sa akin umiiyak [Every night she would call me crying],” was how Annabel succinctly described the condition of her daughter’s marriage.

Despite all her instincts that her daughter’s union with the English-challenged businessman with a doubtful background was headed straight for the rocks, Annabel, to her credit, allowed the marriage to push through. She perhaps realized how much her daughter was in love with her Turkish Prince Charming, so much so that Ruffa even converted to the Islam faith. Besides, she knew that Ruffa would have the material comforts that the latter could never have, and all her child was to do was sit pretty beside her “Lovee” and bear his children. It may be argued as well that this marriage could have been Ruffa’s way of struggling out of her mother’s firm grip, although we don’t know much of what goes on 24/7 in the Gutierrez household to safely conclude that.

But, surely, Annabel didn’t want her own daughter to experience the hardships that she herself suffered, selling pots and pans to her neighbors while living in the US, just to put decent meals on their dining table. And while Ruffa is indeed beautiful, statuesque and articulate, Annabel knew that an entertainer’s life is harsh, and fame all too fleeting. Just look at what happened to her husband. Naku, mahirap, ’dong!

So with Annabel’s blessing, for seven years, Ruffa did get to live out every young girl’s fantasy of being fabulously married to a handsome rich husband, living in a palatial home and giving birth to bundles of sweet joyful children. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that the white picket fence, so to speak, was missing. The harsh realities of a cultural divide finally impacted on her marriage, and while she did try to make things work, Ruffa had to finally admit that despite her strong love for her husband, she was no longer happy. “Hindi ko na kaya [I can’t take it anymore]” was what she answered when Boy Abunda asked if her husband abused her.

After trying to shake off what we imagine as her mother’s tons of advice and dire warnings across miles and miles of fiber-optic cable, Ruffa finally decided to listen to Annabel and come home where she was safe and well-protected by those who loved her. And all her mother wanted was for Ruffa to stand firm in her decision and to choose a life of freedom, though she may not be fabulously rich, instead of a miserable existence with her wealthy husband and his never ending gifts of diamond-studded jewelry. We can just imagine her mother getting tired of repeating herself and advising Ruffa what she should do if she was unhappy with her marriage.

With the bearing of a sage now, Annabel said Ruffa was still young and could start her life all over again. She would surely meet someone who would make her happy. The bad marriage happened. End it. Then move on. Ever the practical woman, Annabel even advised her daughter not to waste her in-laws’ money by making them fly all the way to Manila only for her to tell them that she wasn’t going back to Turkey with them.

And so Ruffa has realized the universal truth that all women must come to acknowledge at some point in their lives. Mothers know best.

UPDATE: As of press time, rumors are swirling around that Ruffa has left for the US—to meet with her estranged hubby perhaps? Oh, well, the heart chooses what it wants. And Annabel Rama will surely live another day to give her daughter—and us—a piece of her mind.

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday, in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. TV grab from BusinessMirror)

Victor Mature on my mind

Something Like Life
April 5, 2007



HOLY Week has never been a big thing for my family.

For us, it usually just meant the annual Visita Iglesia, where we were rounded up by my super-religious father and hauled off to seven different churches in the evening of Maundy Thursday. But we were never forced to go to confession, although we did see our parents disappearing behind the mysterious purple curtain hanging over the confessional boxes. Nor did we ever go and make the Way of the Cross, while everyone else in the churches we visited did. Our parents just told us to pray seven Our Fathers, seven Hail Mary’s and seven Glory Be’s. I made it like a game and rushed my prayers to try to beat my siblings or our parents out the church door, all the while trying to look very solemn.

We were never big on fasting and abstinence either. If we wanted to, we could abstain from eating pork like the old folks, but we never felt we were going to hell if we pigged out. But on Good Friday, we always looked forward to the delectable Bacalao ala Vizcaina my grandmother (and now my mother) cooked for us. We ate it at lunch with steaming white rice, then once more at dinner. Then on Easter Sunday, we would have the beef and chicken pochero.

Growing up in an era when cable TV and iTunes were still to be invented, Holy Week also meant being bored out of our wits. It meant no TV, no radio, not even newspapers. This was an era when going on frivolous vacations to the white sand beach of Boracay to party ‘til the wee hours of the morning was still unheard of. I remember gingerly sneaking off to switch on our humongous black-and-white Radiowealth just to see if the Good Lord above had taken pity on a restless little girl like me and somehow miraculously aired my favorite TV programs.

But, of course, I would be crestfallen as there was only the characteristic “snow” showing on all three channels then. I would stare at the screen for what seemed like an eternity trying to will Sesame Street to pop up on the tube. No such luck. It was a good thing, though, that Poltergeist had yet to be thought up by Steven Spielberg; otherwise something else might have made its presence felt on that TV screen.

Sure, it wasn’t all snow and static—and, yeah, I may not actually have been bored until Good Friday itself. During the first few days of the Semana Santa until Holy Wednesday, then again on Black Saturday, I would be tormented by Fr. Patrick Peyton and his beloved Family Theater “Rosary Crusade” series. To the young kids who have never heard of him, Fr. Patrick was the priest who tried to promote the praying of the rosary through dramatizations of the different chapters in Jesus’ life. Of course, the series had no effect whatsoever on me, not even if I did study in an all-girls Catholic school. I still don’t know how to pray the rosary on my own.

After the short dramas usually featuring some well-known celebrities of those times — was that Raymond Burr playing Simon of Cyrene? — Fr. Patrick, in his cracking whiny voice, would make a little speech about the lessons we were supposed to have learned from watching the episode, then he would pray the rosary which we were all obligated to say with him. Then each episode would end with the line—say it with me, people...“A family that prays together, stays together.” Oh, brother!

(Victor Mature...ooof! From IMDB.com)

But if I wasn’t suffering in silence from Fr. Patrick’s melodramas, I was secretly swooning at the swarthy good-looking Victor Mature as the Greek slave Demetrius in The Robe, then in its sequel Demetrius and the Gladiators. Who cares that Richard Burton was in both films, and that he won an Oscar for his role as the centurion Marcellus?!?! Yeah, so Jean Simmons, Anne Bancroft and Ernest Borgnine starred in those films, too! For me, both films were all about Victor Mature...such strength of character...and the way he carried himself (this guy never looked one bit the slave that he was supposed to be)...and oh, how he tried to resist the charms of the hussy Messalina played by Susan Hayward, wife to the emperor-next-in-line!

Of course, watching those films now, I realize that Victor Mature was no great shakes as an actor. In fact, his face hardly changed expressions from one scene to the next. He looked constipated most of the time. Yeah, much like Kris Aquino in all her movies. (Now here are some fun facts: The Robe was the very first movie ever filmed on Cinema Scope, and Demetrius and the Gladiators was actually released on TV seven years before The Robe due to some business kinks in Hollywood. And you thought George Lucas was the genius who created prequels! Hah!)

To make me guilty for secretly pining for Victor Mature, there was of course The Miracle at Garabandal. The film was creepy and frightened the daylights out of me because of the seeming supernatural events that they documented.

In The Miracle at Garabandal, the four young girls to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared apparently never scraped their knees even though they knelt in a swoon on jagged rocks. Their heads would tilt back and their faces enraptured in what many described as “angelic.” I distinctly remember the hairs on my forearms and nape standing as the host miraculously appeared on the tongue of the child Conchita, as she received communion from some invisible being. So scared I was of these otherwordly happenings that I prayed never ever to be chosen by the Good Lady for an “honor” such as the children received.

My suffering would eventually end, much like Jesus Christ, on Easter Sunday, when all three TV stations returned to their regular programming. Thank God that these days, cable TV has given us more viewing choices for the Holy Week. And with the our DVD players handy, we can choose to ignore the idiot box’s offerings altogether. Hmmm...now where did I put my Jesus Christ Superstar DVD?

(My column, Something Like Life, appears every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror.)