We like to drink every night And smoke Winston Lights, But we're stuck here on our edit night.
We'd like to watch a movie, Or maybe go to a party, But we're stuck here on our edit night.
We like to go bar hopping Or maybe even shopping But we're stuck here on our edit night.
We like to go to the parlor We like to sing in the shower But we're stuck here on our edit night.
Oh, GaaaamePlaaaan, We loooove yooou too much. You're killing us.
Haha! Bow.
*** Gretchen once told me in the MRT, "Isn't it amazing that God put all of us weird people into one show?" Yes, my dear happy camper. So amazing, we can even make songs together!
The winners of the MTV VJ Hunt were finally announced last week. The new MTV VJs Johan and Patty are now the reps for the Filipino MTV generation. So how pinoy are they exactly?
Now Johan Ekedum's definitely not a pure pinoy. Apparently he's part Nigerian, but he comes off witty with a pinoy sense of humor and is pretty knowledgeable of music. Then there's Patty Laurel, the horrible UAAP sportscaster turned VJ. Objectively speaking, she cannot report about basketball to save her life; but VJ-ing for a music channel is different, so I hope she does better in this field. She can speak Tagalog, but so can Reema, whom I felt was the most pinoy female in the VJ Hunt bunch. Perhaps she was too pinoy, though. Jologs rather. So they still opted for the more sophisticated and oh-so-girl looks of Patty. It still bothers me that she's so white, though. I hope she gets a tan or something.
In all honesty, I haven't seen these two VJs on TV yet. I hear they're ok, and people have been raving about how Johan is the perfect representative, having come from the land of the free (In other words, UP. :); and then there's Patty who's kind of white and kikay-looking but pretty ok according to some. They seem to be light-hearted happy people, so they look like they're going to do ok..
But what is it really to be Pinoy?
All I know is that I hope VJ Johan and VJ Patty (Wow, they've earned the right to be called such) come off down to earth, less Westernized than KC, good in Tagalog and English without the funky (or fake) twang, and up to date with the music scene in the Philippines and the rest of Asia. You can't be a VJ of MTV Philippines if you've no love for the local scene, right?
It really doesn't matter whether a Philippine representative is white or brown, yellow or red, half this or half that, or pure in all aspects. What matters is that they represent the country well in whatever field they're in. It'd be nice if they looked pure pinoy, but admit it, majority of Filipinos are mixed breeds, including me. (Nye, parang aso!)
There are only a few who look pretty pure. Take Efren "Bata" Reyes for example. Yup, he's pure, and people joke about his driver/ sugalero looks, his curved back and his habit of picking his nose in international tournaments. But hey, he's "The Magician" and he's got respect in the world of billiards. People can joke all they want about how he's the perfect example of the disgusting pinoy, but he's wonderful in pool, he kicks ass and shakes hands with his booger fingers. He rocks!
Then there's Akiko Thomson whose huge pinoy heart carries not a single drop of Pinoy blood. She's a Japanaese-American, but in order to compete for the country she loved most, she had to become a naturalized Filipino citizen. When asked what her most precious possession was, she showed us her certificate of naturalization because it took that one piece of paper to legally send her to compete in future competitions such as the SEA Games and the Olympics. Until now she still inspires little athletes to compete for the country. And when I think about it, she's more pinoy than most pure bloods. (I'm making htis sound like Harry Potter. Muggles!)
I think that people with big hearts for the Philippines are worthy of representing the country, no matter what color or foreign bloodlines they have. Once a pinoy, always a pinoy. And as long as you're proud of living here and being called a Filipino, than you'll do fine.
*** I dislike people who live here and complain about the country all the time. 'Pag minamaliit tayo, nyeta, umalis na lang kasi sila eh. If their country in whatever foreign land they're from is so cool, then why didn't they just stay there?!
You'd think that, the way music video channels rely on VJs, they'd at least give them some kind of public send-off. But no, they just quietly and suddenly disappear, and they leave no trace of themselves behind, and no one ever mentions them again: it's as if they never existed...
Working at home was useless yesterday. Our electricity was out for half the day, and all my batts only got me to shot listing one tape. One tape! Ay caramba.
So I took a trike and a jeep to Town Center to see So Close and to my horror, it was dubbed in English. Egad! I don't like dubbed movies anymore. Ever since I started working for GamePlan, videos that aren't in synch with the audio piss me off, or distract me a great deal. In So Close, I couldn't stand watching their mouths speak Chinese to English audio. So I did my best to just watch the characters' eyes instead.
The story was kind of cheesy, and the cuing (Is that correct? "Cuing"?) of the music was so "Dear Ate Helen". But the action was pretty cool! Really, it was! Hehe. Girl fight! Yeah! I liked the sword fight with the villain, and at least the women weren't so invincible throughout the movie. They were human and they got hurt, shot, and slashed through their lovely clothes. Kind of like Jackie Chan who makes ouch faces, and not like Steven Seagal whose hair hardly gets messy in a fight (I saw his bangs fall loose his gelled ponytail once. Just once!).
I still hope to see this again in Chinese with English subtitles instead. I remember watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with my sisters in Festival Mall and I hated it. I still cried, and the English dubbing didn't sound that fake, but it was still dubbed. Ugh. It was only when I saw the subtitled one in Marc Abaya's house that I fell in love with it.
I finally ordered for my 7th editing master. Wow, I've 7 masters already!
Every producer has editing masters, big 60s Sony Betacam tapes, where all the raw edits during all-nighters go. Producer in the weekly line up edit one segment each, and it's during assembly when all these segments from the different masters are edited into one final airing master.
All our masters have different names. Although I think Boss Joy has so many that she stopped naming them already (She's been working here for 5 or 6 years, starting with CLP). They're just Joy's Master 9, Joy's Master 10, etc. Her masters have simpler designs nowadays, while other producers have pretty vibrant ones, sometimes colored with pens or decorated with pictures and stickers.
My 7th Master is dedicated to my chat with Meg this morning. Haha! Also because she got me into YM (Yeah, in na ako!). So there you go, Meg! Meet I've A Lubak On My Skull. Hahaha! Yey!
It'll be baptized by my Camp Coleman segment next week, and 2 segments from the Del Motne 202 race. So you guys please watch out for our eps this June. :)
You value a drama free relationship, one which a natural pleaser Libra can provide. Your Libra wants nothing more than to be in love with you - and make you happy. While indecisive Libra may take a while to fall for you, once he / she does ... it's forever.
To catch a Libra, simply be over the top romantic. Flowers, chocolates, wine, and bubble baths will give your Libra the luxury he / she craves. And you'll get pampered back in time.
Libra may seem a bit cold and unresponsive at first. After a while Libra's become less and less guarded... And in the end, the most playful lover you'll ever know!
Aw, that's nice. Hehe. This is actually from an online quiz called What Sign Should Your Lover Be?, which I didn't feel like taking because a lot of the images were, um, porn-y. Haha! But hey, if you wanna take the quiz, then go ahead.
I was going to write something about how 2 years later, life after college has been so darn tiring. It's nothing like I imagined, but exciting, draining, and fulfilling nonetheless. My future in this business, and in life in general, still scares me sometimes, though.
But I'm tired. So you can just read Nono's "Fighting the Future" entry on this topic for now. It's a pretty good read.
Four years ago, we were in junior year college. I was busy then with a dot-com parallel to university life. Back then, I didn't imagine LL working for a publications company, moreso the country's biggest. I didn't think of Katz as a teacher, moreso in the Ateneo. I never saw Joepi as this bad-ass store manager whose mercy her employees always beg for. I never saw Elpee and Alia putting in more than twelve-hour days just to survive in the media industry. Eric never struck me as a high school teacher, moreso a daddy. Che was my climbing friend, we would spend hours in Redpoint going through different walls and different routes. Now he's working for an NGO. Jam was there in the bench with me each morning at six. Now he's about to graduate from his masteral course, something which I've been dreaming of for myself. I never saw Quark directing a local softporn flick, moreso with Maui Taylor. There are a hundred more names I can mention, but I guess the point being back then, we never saw life coming fast at us...
The crew and I arrived from Cebu yesterday morning. Manila was wet and the rain was still light, but we entered a dark office with no power and the street to Paprika was starting to flood. GamePlan still ate lunch there, but after that, we all decided to take our work home. Aside from my Cebu stuff, I had the DV Walkman and 13 Del Monte tapes for shot listing; so Mama was nice enough to send Mang Gaudio to pick me up. Commuting in the rain would’ve been a disaster.
Since I had to wait for my family to get off work, I went to Greenbelt to see Matrix Reloaded again, except this time in a THX theater. I liked it better the second time. I think the THX system made a huge difference, so I enjoyed the action more. I still disliked the fight scene of Neo and the Smith clones. Horrible music and distracting CG. The talkies were still boring, so during the ala-Star Wars council meeting, I ran out to grab a burrito (I miss the Mega Mall burritos. The one I bought was the real kind with no rice.) and a coke. I went back in the theater for the mansion fight and by the time I was full and recharged with cola sugars, it was time for my favorite Trinity scene on the freeway. Woohoo!
I was supposed to meet a friend for the movie and coffee, but the rain kept him in QC. So I walked to Powerbooks on Pasay Road to wait for my family to pick me up and I think that the little bit of rain that I walked in got me feeling sick today. But it was really nice to walk on a rainy day. I like the steady sound of rain, and the memories I have with rain, and I like how some parts of Greenbelt are open to rain. Makes it look like a little village.
Rain also forces people to walk close together under their umbrellas. I kind of miss that, but it was ok because I didn’t have an umbrella to share with anyone anyway. But I did see a couple running together without an umbrella and I always found the thought of trying to shelter your partner with your hand or jacket really sweet. They both know that they’re still going to get wet anyway, but it doesn’t hurt to try. And the running always ends with laughter and relief in a shaded spot. Laughter and relief in the shade is always good.
It has been raining non-stop since yesterday, which means that I’ve been thinking of a lot of things since I arrived yesterday. After many weeks of work, I finally slept like a baby last night, and I woke up to the steady sound of pouring rain. It felt wonderful to wake up to rain rather than my alarm clock. And just as expected, the rain put me back to sleep.
I’ve been working all summer long and I haven’t had much time for friends and family. Some of the producers have been working even harder than me, but I really reached my burn-out limit last night and the start of the rainy season felt like the rain telling me to just stop and to give my body AND mind a break.
The rainy season always used to bring good things to me. One of my favorite memories was in the rain. I wonder if anything interesting is waiting for me this year.
*** All this still doesn’t keep me from feeling guilty that although I love the rain, some people are suffering from floods and sicknesses from dirty water. And God, I hope it doesn’t flood here again. And can mean people please stop cutting down too many trees? Ormoc had to die and come back to life to prove that excessive logging kills.
*** By the way, if you’re a Rurouni Kenshin fan, then you’d know that the title of this post is from the CBB of the Shishio Arc, which has been airing back to back on AXN this month. Way cool!
*** I decided to delete that last Matrix post. My writing was just sooo BAD. But I’m glad some people enjoyed my drunk writing, which I kept a bit of actually. Basta, I hated Matrix Reloaded the first time I saw it. Too slow and dragging with distracting CG. Yun yun. :)
All our masters have different names. Although I think Boss Joy has so many that she stopped naming them already (She's been working here for 5 or 6 years, starting with CLP). They're just Joy's Master 9, Joy's Master 10, etc. Her masters have simpler designs nowadays, while other producers have pretty vibrant ones, sometimes colored with pens or decorated with pictures and stickers.
