round three

there is a new enemy of the state once again, and this time around, it's mr. jimmy kimmel. another person whom i'm a fan of. not as much as jon stewart, but i like jimmy kimmel's work. he's always been entertaining, especially on the man show. i don't worship him like a god or something but i don't hate him either. i'm just a fan. i like his work.

anyway, the deal is jimmy kimmel made a racist (it sucks to be politically correct sometimes) comment towards us while interviewing josh hartnett, who just happened to finish shooting a movie in davao. kimmel joked with josh that had he been kidnapped in mindanao, we wouldn't be able to read the ransom note because "they probably don't speak english in the philippines."

wow.

for the first time, yes, i am offended by this comment. but! yes, there is a but. because i'm a level-headed person. but 1) i'm not offended to the point of making a death threat, 2) there is some truth to his statement (the truth does not lie in us not speaking english, but us not speaking english right), and 3) i understand the inner workings of comedy enough to take it like a man. because there will always be racist jokes as long as everyone has a little racist inside of them. and when you have a little racist inside of you, you will laugh at racist jokes. not all of them, but you will eventually laugh at one once in your life. hell, most filipinos discriminate fellow filipinos. who hasn't made fun of a visayan accent? or the skin color of an aeta?

so it didn't really take long for me to get over kimmel's statements, because hell, i'm already countering him as we speak just by writing this entry. see folks, this is the better way to profess your anger. drop the pitchfork.

what really bugs me is this tabloid opinion article pertaining to the issue. it's by a certain jojo gabinete, who says he is currently living in the US. mr. gabinete, i'm calling you out. why? because you're an idiot.

you see, mr. gabinete took the time to write up an article to counter jimmy kimmel's comments. of course, knowing the nature of filipinos, when i say "counter", i really mean "talk shit and bash the person". while mr. gabinete does acknowledge the fact that most filipinos are totally "teh suck" at grammar and diction, it is only common sense that surely, this guy knows what he's talking about, and surely, he's better than most filipinos and doesn't suck at grammar. or diction. i don't know about diction but can i just say that his article only made us look even dumber than smarter (by, in fact, knowing how to speak english). the article started out just fine but towards the end, it was already looking like a twisted-metal car accident on the autobahn, and what's more annoying was his self-righteous air, writing all that stuff like he was some poet laureate. fail.

and because of his disastrous english, all his fiery thunder and rage were totally fucked up by him not knowing how to write in grammatically proper english. any american can read your article and tell that it's an ugly piece of writing and tell you that you fucked up your sacred english. so where does that put us now? sure, you did prove that we speak english, but you didn't make us look any smarter, jackass. next time, leave the holier-than-thou act to those who can do it right. and don't publish it on a tabloid, because it screams small-time and irrelevant. sorry, but that's just the way it works.

if you can't walk the walk, don't talk the... fuck it, if you can't even talk the talk, don't talk.

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Now playing: Luther Vandross - Dance With My Father
via FoxyTunes

part two! part two!

have you heard the latest? jon stewart calls cory aquino a slut!

and here i call it once more:

SO WHAT?

i have said earlier that you're not supposed to take desperate housewives seriously. guess what: ALL THE MORE you're not supposed to take jon stewart seriously!

to all of you calling him the "worst comedian ever": have you ever even watched a single damn episode of the daily show? do you know how many times he rags on each and every politician, including dubya himself, in one episode because they fucked up on real news? do you see each and every politician sending him hordes of forum and blog posts telling him to stop it with the damn daily show? no, you don't!

you think he really meant it deep down to call cory and thatcher a slut? you think he's really picking a fight? it's part of the show, people! learn to live with it! he's a comedian, and his political views haven't been more right than any straight political show on tv. all of you who are anti-bush, watch the show and see how he rags on bush, in the funniest ways ever.

jesus, philippines, learn to differentiate the damn difference, i'm getting sick and tired of everyone's all-caps "WE DEMAND A PUBLIC APOLOGY" bullshit. you might as well send a letter to the screen actors guild and tell them to put "don't put filipino jokes in movies and television" in their guidelines.

guess what, guys: i've seen the clip, and i have found it funny. call me whatever, but just by being level-headed, i win and i totally own everyone who wants a public apology. it's funny because it's funny, it's funny because it's not trying to be as tongue-in-cheek as DH was. it's funny because it wasn't trying to generalize on every one of us, it's funny because it was targeting a political figure, one whom we've already targeted before.

oh, and for the uninitiated: the daily show is on comedy central, not on CNN. yeah, you lose, you're owned because you were fooled.

music philosophy

picture this.

a typical 16-year-old is at a music store, and he has P500 to spend on one cd. of course, he could come back next week with another 500 to spend on another cd. however, the focus is on the now. he would be bragging telling friends about his purchase later on, and of course this typical teenager would be conscious of his purchase, which would be in direct relation to his music tastes, which would be in direct relation to his social standing. (i.e. [bleeding heart] emo = laughingstock. or something like that.)

so what does he buy?

3 out of 5 times (okay, so i just made up that stat but hey) he will buy a cd of a band that the number of people who have heard of them is less than or equal to the fingers on your hands. why? because it looks cool. however, that answer would be too broad, and this is the real answer: you start listening to a band almost no one else knows, you tell people about it, it will generate curiosity, it will become a new trend, and you feel accomplished for having discovered gold.

of course, the average teenager will not realize that. he'll just stick with the answer of "yes, it does make me look cool."

despite that, almost all the time, he will get into the music he chose to listen to, but deep down it's a forced feeling, and almost all the time, when he hears once more the music he gave up, it'll be like a sort of homecoming reunion that he's not gonna drop those songs just yet, before going back to ol' pretentious, nonconforming him.

wait, there's a term for these people. ah, yes. poser. however, i am above such terms, though such people do exist, trust me.

anyway.

be it for the reason that you are trying to look good, or you are into bands no one else knows, or you hate pop, the thing is, nonconformity (at least in music trends, i'm not sure about other trends) is starting to become the new conformity, whether it is intentional or not. i've noted such a trend, and it did emerge passively.

i'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing - well, maybe it is for those who don't like being called conformists - but what it does is create an amusing paradox, that goes like this: if you are a nonconformist, then you would have to be a conformist now - but being a conformist defies the definition of nonconformity.

so what are you?

anyway, there is a corollary (for lack of a better word) to all this, which i'll talk about in the next post. enjoy.