I’d like to talk about political issues, about social concerns, things of that nature.  Heck, I’d like to work on lyrics translations of Bon Jovi.  Uh… no, not today.

For the past few days, I had a rather unhealthy preoccupation with old showbiz.  My status message in Facebook began with a bad epiphany: if the name “Lindsay Custodio” still rings a bell, you’re probably old.  True enough, some of my friends responded to the affirmative; hey, we all grew up watching Ang TV. That, and having a good memory of the opening tune of Showbiz Lingo.

The highlight of last week’s jolography (so to speak… not of the jumping form) was Stefano Mori, so much so that I actually changed my Plurk display ID from “Marocharim” to “Stefano Maro.”  Yes, Stefano Mori; one-third of JCS.  While you’ll still hear of John Prats and Carlo Aquino today, you’ve probably forgotten about Camille Prats’ love interest in G-Mik.

If you’re willing to admit your age and stop blaming things on cultural milieu, you very well know that Stefano Mori played “Borj,” Camille Prats played “Roni.”  That tandem, for a time, was the backbone of G-Mik. More than that, Stefano Mori was a mainstay in Mula sa Puso (if my memory serves me right, he was the kid brother of Claudine Baretto), and also played a few anak roles in Maalaala Mo Kaya.

So, whatever happened to Stefano Mori?

Continue reading →

I’ve been a wrestling fan since I was a kid, and grew up to be a bit of a mark for it.  Never mind that it’s fake and scripted; there’s always something about professional wrestling that keeps me riveted to every storyline, every angle, and every match.  I guess it’s the element of spectacle in pro wrestling; in so many ways, a pro wrestler icon is larger than life.  Why wouldn’t you be, when you’re supposed to be at the peak of physical fitness?  Why wouldn’t you be, when you lead entirely different lives in and out of the ring?  That difference, I think, is the underlying theme of The Wrestler.

I’m going out on a limb in saying that this could very well be one of the best movies of the year.

Continue reading →

Ah, yes… 25 things you have to know about me.  I don’t like answering Friendster surveys and Facebook memes any more than my next Facebook friend… I may have jumped the gun there.  Of course people like answering memes!

Rather than snub meme-happy friends, I decided to overshare some of my quirks – all true – just so that people will stop tagging me in their Facebook notes/memes.  Quirks like:

• Sleeping with stuffed toys.
• I’m more comfortable unbuttoning my fly than zipping it.
• I have delusional thoughts about pink elephants.
• My favorite animated feature film is “An American Tail: Fievel Goes West.”

If that’s not enough, here’s a gem of a MaroFact:

18. I have a thing for all things jologs.  I am a Rovic-Eds fan for
life.  I believe that Jolina Magdangal and Marvin Agustin should be back
together.  I believe that Bojo Molina’s acting talent was squandered
because of a stupid action flick… I believe it was “The Mariano Mison
Story.”  I believe that the most emotionally empathic song ever made in
the 1990s was not “Halik” by Aegis, but “Pag-Ibig Ko’y Metal” by Jograd
dela Torre.  Chances are, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about.

You would think that the mere mention of Jograd dela Torre would stop the Facebook meme madness, but nope.  I should have mentioned Jao Mapa, the Dragon Katol commercials, Referee Pwisto, “Saigo No Iiwake” (the Ted Ito version from Maskman) and the greatest hits of Renz Verano.  I should have mentioned Amanda Page, for the heck of it.

Why stop there?  Why not post videos of Jamie Rivera’s “Tell the World of His Love,” or proclaim to the entire world that your favorite thing in a lunch pack was them chili-filled hot dogs?  Or those triangle-shaped juice boxes?

Point!  You can overdo oversharing every now and then.

No, not in this generation of Leona Lewis listeners, point!

The way I see it, Facebook is making its way to the long gray line of jologs-ness because of memes.  I’m now waiting for the animated, colorful, CSS-based GIF profile backgrounds that have Cynthia Patag polka-dots.

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, and I’m starting to feel the itch for remotely-romantic love songs.  For tonight, before I take a much-needed, healthful snooze, here’s one of my favorites:

And we were trying different things, and we were smokin’ funny things
Makin’ love out by the lake to our favorite song
Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinkin’ ’bout tomorrow
Singin’ “Sweet Home Alabama” all summer long…  

It’s that time of the month again, and in case you’re one of my new readers, you very well know that I freaking hate Valentine’s Day.  But rather than bore you with more month-long post-a-thons about how much I hate the Love Month, I’ll just post videos about Valentine’s Day, just for the hopeless romantic in me.

And no, I’m not going to translate lyrics… yet.

From the Maro Jukebox of Songs I Deem To Be Romantic, here’s one of my all-time favorite love song-like songs.  Some of you may be familiar with it.

Love’s the greatest thing, that we have
I’m waiting for that feeling, waiting for that feeling
Waiting for that feeling to come…

Watching The Wrestler sort of got me back in touch with the reason why I love professional wrestling.  I’ve been watching the fake sport since I was a kid, but these days I find the product stale.  WWE is not something I watch as often as I used to: John Cena has five moves, the Hardy Boyz angle is getting stale, and the outcomes of matches are starting to get really old, really fast.

Then I saw Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) get into a hardcore barbed-wire match with Necro Butcher in the movie… now that’s a pro wrestling match I’d pay to see anytime.  I swear that Rourke should win the Academy Award for that performance alone.

Over the weekend, I watched a lot of hardcore wrestling matches over at YouTube as a way to decompress.  There’s just something about hardcore wrestling that I can’t explain; maybe it’s the tendency of twenty-somethings like me to watch canned athleticism combined with the gross-out power of real blood.  Forget tetanus, forget the risk of hepatitis.  There’s just something almost visceral, gladiator-like even, about setting people on fire, putting people through thumbtacks, and watching them bleed.

Yup, I think that hardcore pro wrestling has turned into my version of Gossip Girl.  XOXO, fuckers.

All this talk about “real fighting” and mixed martial arts is all good, but I want extreme theater when two or more people fight each other.  There is a science behind a takedown and a choke, but lots about fighting is not scientific.  I’m sure that Freddie Roach would probably cringe at the footwork of a John Zandig vs. Nick Gage match at Combat Zone Wrestling, or the sick Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka match at the first ECW: One Night Stand pay-per-view.

These days, I no longer think of “strategy” during combat.  I now think of fights in terms of delivering a piledriver on your opponent on top of a semi-explosive land mine while your partner whacks the other guy and cracks his skull open with a lead pipe.  Now that would seem a bit extreme, but when you’re a professionally trained athlete, that shouldn’t cause a big problem.

Would watching all this wrestling be the cause of all my unhealthy anger whenever I’m writing about politics?  Well, not exactly; it’s just one way to channel all the pent-up rage; the very reason why screaming voices from death metal albums are perfect for smoking…

But that’s another story.

I’m posting Marian Rivera’s picture here because I feel like it.

Anyway, PEP.ph – my source for fair and balanced reporting in local showbiz – reports that on February 2, 2009, GMA-7 will launch its newest primetime soap offering: Ang Babaeng Hinugot sa Aking Tadyang. It’s an adaptation of a Carlo J. Caparas graphic novel, which was first made into a film in 1988 starring Vivian Velez…

Wait a second; let’s run by that again: Ang Babaeng Hinugot sa Aking Tadyang. That’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?  And in an online showbiz community that thrives on abbreviations (like, “MSKM” for Maging Sino Ka Man, “IPL” for Iisa Pa Lamang, among other things… sorry for using ABS-CBN examples), could the abbreviation “ABHSAT” work?

Before anything else, let me explain something about Pinoy television.  Here in the Philippines, there is no such thing as a soap opera – or a TV program, most especially a noontime game show – that fails.  There are only ratings that say one channel is better than the other.  Those ratings, in turn, are one of two things: unreliable, or rigged.  If you’re watching a locally-produced TV program that fails, that is not number one, or does not have high ratings, you’re not watching Filipino TV.  You’re probably getting aerial reception from our Taiwanese friends.

But yeah… ABHSAT?

Continue reading →