Gil Street blues

This is an announcement: Everyone is invited to the wake of Good Taste. Good Taste suffered a fatal heart attack one Sunday afternoon. It lies in state at Funeraria Eternia. One reason for its death was this: It turned on the radio and listened to nothing but cover tunes (delivered with annoying R&B vocal acrobatics by winners of American Idol-style local contests) crappy DJ surveys (sample: "Who will you choose – the one who loves you or the one you love?"), mall punk (from lackluster bands that make Green Day sound like freaking Beethoven) and annoyingly endless talk. Avril Lavigne… like, uh… she rocks… totally!

Another reason was that Good Taste turned on the television set, tuned into a showbiz talk show and watched the newest love team in tinsel town – Eddie Gil and Madame Auring, who will be featured in a movie. This is an alliance that may have prompted Bible-belters to scour the skies for telltale signs of the Apocalypse: the numbered beast, the sun turning as black as sackcloth made of hair, etc.

For what it’s worth, this is a love team that has a strong mass appeal. The duo of Eddie Gil and Madame Auring could be ranked with immortal tandems like Romeo and Juliet, Florante at Laura, Guy and Pip, Bonnie and Clyde, Beavis and Butt-head, assault and battery, Scylla and Charibdes, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.

Who knows? Maybe the love team from Hades is going to resuscitate a half-dead movie industry. The public has had its fill of the usual punks, plotlines and props of local cinema.

Why do action stars wear leather jackets in broad daylight, under the blistering afternoon sun? Why is the sidekick always stupid? Why do villains wear denim jackets, laugh menacingly and mutter words like epektos and kargamento? Why do their bosses call them "Mga bata"? Why do action stars and villains chat like housewives in a beauty parlor and exchange threats (sample: "Hindi ka na sisikatan ng araw!") before blasting each other’s brains with guns that never run out of bullets? Why do policemen arrive five minutes after the whole encounter’s over? Why do politicians appear at the end of the movie to offer that golden piece of advice: "Huwag tularan!"

Why do comedians always fight syndicates at the end of the movie? Most of the scenes show the lead comic running on the beach toward the love interest (usually the bold actress of the moment), engaging in silly slapstick, figuring in a dream sequence, or dancing like idiots in Alma Moreno-style production numbers. But at the end someone always, always gets kidnapped and the comic hero has to do every trick in the book to defeat the sindikato. And then everyone starts singing and dancing on cue.

Why do romantic comedies have the sheen of unreality to them? The common plot: Beautiful boy falls in love with beautiful girl in beautiful Metro Manila. Sigh, if we could only live in movies…

Comedy warps into action, action warps into fantasy, fantasy warps into comedy, and we get warped brains for sitting through all that shit.

And how come all we see on the boob tube are imitations of the Idol contest? Since that is the trend, maybe instead of problematic and chaotic elections, the presidential candidates should’ve competed American Idol style. The public could’ve chosen via SMS, voting off the undesirables until only one candidate remained. You never heard William Hung complain of cheating.

As for judges, we have a plethora of Simon Cowell clones on local TV – like the ones who dress in black, talk authoritatively and bitch around just for the sheer hell of it. We’re doing fine in the cloning department. We always do. Look, we even have our own royalty and title-holders for musical genres we didn’t invent – "R&B Prince," "R&B Princess," "Mr. Acoustic" and a thousand and one varieties of divas.

Reality shows are big nowadays. Maybe that’s why personalities (who may or may not have anything to do with showbiz in the first place) are being thrust into the limelight, like Eddie Gil and Madame Auring. Gil with his absurd presidential campaign, formaldehyde pompadour and hallucinations about helicopters, and the Madame with her, uh, whatever she has.

Admit it, they’re funny because they are so unreal. Or real, depending on which side of the reality fence you’re sitting on. They amuse us. They make us laugh. Something that is hard to do for residents of this hell hole called Metro Manila. Rare is laughter nowadays. Rare as an honest public official. Rare as a lawmaker who doesn’t doze off, use the cell phone or look stumped in the middle of a session. Rare as streets that don’t get flooded. Rare as buses free from muggers or love offering salespersons. Rare as progress.

So, let us attend the wake of Good Taste, eat the obligatory green peas and be grateful for all those who make us laugh. Those who put a smile on our faces because admit it or not we are so much like them. Those among us who are not laughable or a little batty can cast the first stone. Remember, what is perfectly normal to us may come across as totally screwed up to others.

Sanity is relative. And so is good hairstyle.

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For comments, suggestions, curses and invocations, e-mail iganja@hotmail.com.