‘Dream wedding’ in Boracay

Don’t look now but a popular TV-movie actress (recently separated from her live-in partner) is planning to have a "dream wedding" with her foreigner boyfriend (actually a Filipino based in Australia) in Boracay sometime in December. Nothing wrong with it, really, because she’s single and eligible and has never been married even if she has a love child by her former partner.

The trouble is that the actress (gifted with one of the most beautiful pairs of eyes in showbiz) wants to keep everything confidential while she and her boyfriend are drawing up the entourage (principal and secondary sponsors), the guest list and all the other details a big event like that entails.

But as fate would have it, the wedding planner whom she commissioned happens to be a good friend of her (the actress’) former live-in boyfriend and that’s how he got wind of it. And how did this little piece of (happy) news get into Funfare?

As they say, a little "birdie" told me.

Here’s wishing the actress and her husband-to-be an advance "good luck and best wishes." (Is the ex-boyfriend invited to the "dream wedding" in Boracay?)

Just Once repeats set

I’ve been swamped with reactions from around the world (no kidding!) after my piece on the Just Once concert (starring Rico J. Puno, Marco Sison, Rey Valera, Hajji Alejandro and Nonoy Zuñiga) came out last Tuesday. Many of those who e-mailed to me regretted not having been able to watch the show at the Big Dome, asking if there’s going to be a repeat performance.

Here’s the good news (from June Torrejon who produced the show for Viva Concerts): Just Once (to be retitled Greatest Hits: Just Once More) will be restaged on Sept.12 at Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City and on Sept. 26 also at the Araneta Coliseum, so better buy tickets now before it’s too late. Tickets were sold out last Saturday and the Big Dome was filled up, with not a single seat empty.

Some of those who reacted wanted to know if the "Fabulous Five" (Rico and Marco and Rey and Hajji and Nonoy) will come out with a VCD/DVD version of Just Once and, according to June, Viva Concerts will, definitely! So watch for it.

The show is open for booking abroad and any producer interested may e-mail June at [email protected].

Meanwhile, I’m printing one of the e-mailed letters, from Juliet Palpal-latoc Johnson who is based in Australia. Here it is:

Dear Ricky,

I was reading your column in The Philippine STAR this morning about the concert of five of our best Pinoy singers. I am so jealous of you all because I wasn’t there to see them. I was a very big fan of Nonoy during his early years. I used to work at Hotel Mirador and requested the DJs to play his songs. One of the DJs at DWMM was Rico’s former manager and he never played any of Rico’s songs after they broke up. But on his last show before moving to the US in 1983, he played Rico’s The Way We Were, which was my favorite.

I wished I was in Manila during their concert because it would have been good to see and listen to my idols after all these years. Do they still sound like they did over 20 years ago? It’s also good to know that the kids of these great singers also ended up being good singers except for Nonoy. Did he ever get married? I live on the Gold Coast, Queensland, which is about 75 km. from Brisbane.

The Filipino associations here had organized concerts for Nonoy and Rico but I missed both of them because I was very busy working and lost touch with the Filipino association for a while. I read The STAR regularly especially when I feel homesick and it makes me feel good to hear news from home. I hope they will bring some of the Filipino great singers together again soon. Maybe, ask Sharon Cuneta and Pilita Corales to join them. Or maybe bring the concert to Australia. What do you think?

Sorry for bothering you with this e-mail, but I really miss our Filipino talents. I am planning a holiday to the Philippines in December this year and I hope there will be some good concerts I can attend. Do you know how I could get in touch with Nonoy? I have met him a couple of times while I was working at Hotel Mirador in 1982. I don’t know if he would still remember me but I just want to say hi to him.

By the way, my sister used to be a reporter for Malaya in Manila and Hong Kong Standard; her name is Lou Palpal-latoc. I don’t know if you know her. My brother Jerry Palpal-latoc also works for The STAR.

I think I have poured all my homesickness to you now and you might already be bored with me so I’ll part for now and hopefully there will be a next time.

Cheers,

– Juliet Palpal-latoc Johnson

Many of those at the Big Dome last Saturday (and, I’m sure, those of you out there) would like to know the lyrics of the song Sa Aking Panahon which Rey Valera sang during his solo portion.

Here’s the song (find out for yourselves how very sadly true the lyrics are):

Sa Aking Panahon

Ang ating bayan mahal ng kalikasan
Palaging may araw maghapon ang kwentuhan
Sa aking kahapon
May formalin ang gulay
Mangidnap ng tao

Parang hanapbuhay
Mayroong kaming Xerex
Gigisingin ka sa sex
"Morale" nami’y babang baba
Nangre-rape pati bata

Chorus:
Ito ang bayan ko ngayon
Ito ang aking panahon
Kung naalala nyo kami
Ito ang aking panahon

Sikat ang Pinatubo
Umalis mga Kano
Ngunit ang isip namin
G.I. Joe pa rin

Pagkatapos mag aral
Takbo ay Amerika
Tingin namin sa bayan
Ay walang pag-asa

Salitang pagkakaisa
Ay narinig na namin
Ngunit di alam ang gagawin
At anong ibig sabihin

Chorus:
Ito ang bayan ko ngayon
Ito ang aking panahon
Kung naalala nyo kami

Ito ang aking panahon
Sa aking panahon
Uso ang mag-Saudi
Pag uwi ay mayroong TV

May "Blue Seal" ang barkada
May ilang linggo
Magbebenta na ulit
Pinayaman ibang bansa

Pamilya’y iiwanan
Kung marami sanang maka-Diyos sa gobyerno
At hindi na Diyos ang pera
Baka merong pag-asa

Chorus:
Ito ang bayan ko ngayon
Ito ang aming panahon
Kung naalala nyo kami

Ito ang aming panahon
Kung maalala nyo kami
(Sana nga) Kabataan
(Ito ang aking panahon)

Another Jewel ‘victim’

So you thought that I was the only one who was "victimized" by Jewel’s disquieting habit of, maybe, "taking journalists for a ride" during one-on-one interviews. Read the following letter from Adel Gabot:

Dear Mr. Lo,

Hello, I am Mr. Adel Gabot, the IT Editor for Flip Magazine, former columnist for the Manila Times and former Station Manager of DWKX-FM. (I add the "Mr." to my name not to inflate my own importance, but because I always end up being referred to as "Ms." because of my first name.)

I read with interest your piece on meeting and interviewing celebrities in the anniversary issue of The Philippine STAR last Monday. I found the part about Jewel Kilcher most interesting, because I too have interviewed her previously and have received virtually the same treatment.

Reading your article, I felt that it could have almost applied word for word to my own experience with Jewel. As part of my former job in radio, I flew to Taipei several years back to watch her perform and promote her first album and have a few minutes of her undivided attention for an exclusive interview for my station. In fact, I was with Erwin Romulo of your newspaper in the same trip. I don’t know how Erwin’s interview went, but mine was eerily similar to yours.

She was grouchy, uncooperative, sarcastic, and answered my questions with a disdain I couldn’t dispel with any amount of charm or bonhomie. I had thoroughly enjoyed watching her perform the night before, and onstage she was warm and charming and unaffected. But the next day it seemed like a different person was in front of me. She slouched in her armchair in that nice hotel suite in Taipei and acted as if she couldn’t wait for me to get out of there. I should have cut it short because that was the one thing we both had in common that afternoon – I couldn’t wait to get out of there too.

But my sense of journalistic duty prevailed and I gamely struggled to use up my allotted time with Ms. Kilcher. I felt I owed Warner Music Philippines, my kind sponsor for the trip, at least that. Apparently the down-to-earth aesthetic, southern friendliness and folksy honesty that comes through her music and poetry are confined there and not in life. I got my interview, but just barely. Suffice it to say that those few minutes with her were the some of the longest in my life.

Like you, my admiration for her had been seriously dampened by this experience. My interview with Jewel happened early in her career, and I thought that the intervening years might have tempered her attitude, but time and success seem not to have changed her much.

Just wanted to share my experience with you. Apparently not all Jewels are that precious, right?

– Adel

(E-mail reactions at [email protected])