Songs and satire at 70: Willie Nep’s Senior Moments

MANILA, Philippines — It was almost midnight when Willie Nep did his impressions of musical legends before singing You Will Be My Music, to close Senior Moments, his latest coup at Music Museum. His cool rendition of I Left My Heart in San Francisco, a signature song of American icon Tony Bennett, reminded what this eternal singer of jazz, big band, show tunes and traditional pop standards wrote in his biographical book Life is a gift, the Zen of Bennet. Paraphrasing John Donne’s No Man is an Island, Bennett exhorted: You can’t go it alone. Friends are there to celebrate the good times with you, and to help you thru the dark times.

Senior Moments is such a time of celebration with friends who have followed him from the early years of searching until the present ones of reifying. It is a time for rejoicing with family, having daughter Frieda and granddaughters Sherrise and Ylla Karisse performing with him. Having turned 70, and bouncing back from a stroke that left small clots in his brain, impairing his balance and vision, he was finding the light at the end of the dark tunnel. He was in bed for almost two years, but with determination and therapy, is back to what he loves doing most: Entertaining while educating. Last July, he graced The Theatre at Solaire with Nonoy Zuñiga for Music and Laughter, where he did musical numbers to delight and stand-up routines to impart.  

For this show, he catered to the aches and atrocities of aging. His game segment (where he called on members of the audience) defined the era of his own coming of age. He did snippets of TV shows like Student Canteen, Tawag ng Tanghalan, Sebya Mahal Kita, Tang Tarang Tang and Nineteeners, which brought back a time long gone when life was as simple as the black and white television set that was the centerpiece of every household in the Philippines fortunate enough to have electricity in the ’60s.

The tete-a-tete between Juan Ponce Enrile and “Moccha Uson” was a sketch about stupidity and selinity, and how these can be mined to the advantage of crafty charlatans and devilish demagogues. The segment ended fittingly with the pepe-dede song and dance straight from the nightmare on troll street.

With keyboard musician Butch Miraflor

The classic Dolphy in heaven was updated with the quip: “Napakasaya po dito, walang murahan!” Jeep ni Erap zoomed anew with the apocryphal two birds with one stone bluster: “I will solve the garbage problem by dumping trash in the roads that need repair.” The signature Marcos video declaring Martial Law and the duet with Celine Dion sent shivers down the spine for two different reasons. Elvis gyrating to Pamulinawen, Victor wood yodeling La Historia de un Amor, Eddie Peregrina sobbing Ako’y Iniwan Mo, Lone Ranger’s Silver neighing to the blare of the wood wind instruments playing the theme song from the William Tell Overture (Willie doing the French horn, trumpet and trombone), Kermit the frog croaking Rainbow Connection (with Willie as the muppeteer) — what can this impressionist not do?

Counting 49 years of performing in all sorts of venues from fiestas to funerals, Willie Nep looks back to his nascence: “I was inspired by a comics character named Alyas Palos, whose adventurous life as a robber was spiced with his disguises of real-life personalities that allowed him to evade the forces of law running after him. Later on, I was mesmerized by the remarkable impressions of Frank Gorshin, who played the Riddler character in the Batman TV series. Then, I was influenced by the legendary Sammy Davis Jr. and lastly, by the impeccable humor of pianist Victor Borge.”

He further confides: “I actually wanted to be an actor or a singer but I fell short of its qualifications. I was not mestizo-looking so instead, I became a student activist, entertaining at rallies and demonstrations where I became a regular fixture in protest actions.”

Deftly changing from one character to the next — wigs, eye glasses and prosthetic noses lined up on a table, Willie Nep seemed unstoppable. What an inspiration to those in the sunset of life like this writer and her husband, to take each day as it comes, in sickness and in health! One can only look forward to celebrating his 50th year dishing out songs with joy and acting out satire with fire. After all, as he joked about his brain stroke, he discovered he has a brain after all.