What Bublé should know

Curtain-raisers:
• Yes, what you read in The STAR’s Foreign News Section a few days ago is true: Dayanara Torres, 29, filed for the dissolution of her three-and-a-half-year marriage to Marc Anthony, 35, last Jan. 20 in Dade County, Florida, calling their union "irretrievably broken." Dayanara is accusing Marc of marital infidelity after a woman (reportedly a waitress) claimed that the boy named Anthony Luis whom she delivered was sired by Marc. According to Funfare’s Florida/Puerto Rico DPA, Dayanara is seeking alimony and child support for their two sons, Cristian, 2, and Ryan, five-months old. Marc also has a 10-year-old love daughter by his former girlfriend. The Wall Street Journal reported that should the divorce go through, assets to be divided will include the couple’s 7,000-square-foot condo on Miami’s exclusive Fisher Island purchased nearly a year ago for $3.9 million. The un-couple renewed their vows in Dec. 2002 after a five-month separation.

• Could it be true that ABS-CBN gave Arnell Ignacio an offer he couldn’t refuse – to the tune of, hold your breath, P1 million!?! – that’s why he didn’t have any second thought about quitting as host of GMA’s K! The P1 Million Videoke Challenge in favor of a possible slot on the ABS-CBN noontime show MTB. "GMA didn’t match the ABS-CBN offer so we decided to get Jaya as Arnell’s replacement," said a GMA insider. "The company policy is that if a talent and/or star wants to go, we let him/her go." Was it goodbye or, ehem, good riddance?

• Please pray for the speedy recovery of Ronnie Ricketts who was rushed to a Quezon City hospital a few days ago writhing in pain. It turned out that there was something wrong with his kidneys and he had very high uric acid. Ronnie should be back home by this time.

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There was a fly in the ointment in the second coming of Michael Bublé last week for a concert in Manila and Cebu. During the presscon, Michael, who’s being touted as "the new Frank Sinatra," mentioned his own album entitled Totally Bublé and warned everybody against buying it, dismissing the album as – pardon the language, I’m just quoting Bublé for impact – "Totally shit!"

Of course, the respected recording bigwig Ramon Chuaying, whose company is distributing Totally Bublé, was offended. He isn’t taking Bublé’s tirade sitting down.

Here’s Ramon’s side of the non-issue, verbatim:

Michael Bublé should know better!

Many music industry insiders were surprised by the way Bublé criticized his own work, an earlier album entitled Totally Bublé, containing songs from the Totally Blonde movie (starring Reese Witherspoon) and released by Universal Records.

The album was actually one of the first big breaks of Bublé’s slow-moving career. When that opportunity came, he could have instantly grabbed it. Now here he is, bad-mouthing his own album.

Being in this business for 11 years, Bublé should know better. Universal Records licensed the Totally Bublé album last year from an independent record label, DRG Records (the same label which produced the Flower Drum Song soundtrack, topbilled by Lea Salonga), which includes master rights and artist royalty. It is DRG’s responsibility to do accounting with Bublé or to any of its artists.

It is standard business practice that we report royalty earnings to DRG Records and not directly to anyone or any individual artist. Whatever deal Bublé had with DRG, Universal Records was not part of it.

So it is clear that Bublé has no right to destroy the reputation of Universal Records with his false accusations.

One more thing. When Bublé passed by a big record outlet prominently displaying Totally Bublé albums, he demanded that they be removed from the store, commanding the store-keepers to stop selling the album. How arrogant of him!

None of his demands was granted since it was Universal Records which spent for the display. Besides, Bublé didn’t own the store so he had no business ordering people around or telling them what to do.

More than 6,000 people have bought the Totally Bublé album and not one of them ever complained or asked for a refund.

There. Enough said?

Ask Ruffa And She’ll Answer

Although her life is a wide-open book, there are many things about Ruffa Gutierrez that many people don’t know.

On Sunday, Feb. 8, Ruffa will launch her official website, www.ruffagutierrez.com, and she’ll answer everything that you’ve always wanted to know about and ask her, things about her family, etc. The website will include photos from her and husband Yilmaz Bektas’ wedding, her beauty secrets, everything about her!

But if you’re a detractor or have nothing better to do, kindly refrain from sending "hate" mail to Ruffa.

Ruffa’s website was done by Ernest Barton and Christine Wymore of EC Web Services.

Meanwhile, Ruffa is reminding lovers and other lovestruck people of her own Royale ERA Entertainment’s Valentine show Love is in the Air at the grand ballroom of Intercontinental Hotel, starring Pilita Corrales, Eddie Gutierrez and Bobby Soul (of The Platters) on Feb. 13 (with Diana Zubiri as guest) and Feb. 14 (with Aubrey Miles), for the benefit of the Asilo Medalla Milagrosa Orphanage of Cebu. Sponsors are Play and Display, Kookabar N’ Grill, Danny Dolor and My Little island Hotel. For inquiries, call 727-2534 or 727-2536.

What’s Up?

• Mapua 1979 graduates are invited to a grand alumni jubilarians homecoming on July 10. Homecoming chairman engineer Deng Ngo Orial are requesting batch members to call him at 0917-5283046 or e-mail at [email protected]

• Celebrity alumni of La Salle Greenhills are among those featured in the grand alumni homecoming hosted by Batch ’79, on Saturday, Feb. 7, at the La Salle grounds on Ortigas Avenue. Dubbed Silverde: Return to the Green, the show will feature such La Salle alumni as Ogie Alcasid, Edu Manzano and homecoming chairman Randy Santiago, with Rowell Santiago as director. Guest performers are Ara Mina, Jackie Lou Blanco, the Rage Band, Kundirana and other celebrity alumni guests. The affair coincides with the 25th anniversary celebration of La Salle Batch ’79. Presented by Silverde Foundation Inc. and Stagecraft International in cooperation with San Miguel, Beneficial-PNB Life and Stage Riggers, Silverde is for the benefit of the La Salle Adult Night School and other association-sponsored projects such as Knowledge Channel, Gawad Kalinga and Give A Life PGH.

• Moomba Bar and Restaurant (Mother Ignacia corner Roces Avenue, Barangay Paligsahan, Quezon City) will present a "Valentine treat for lovers" on Feb. 14, with Rico and Franco Aquino, Francis "Wings" Soriano of Synergy Records and Mike Bon of Universal Records with his Backbones as performers. Showtime is l2 noon onwards. Early diners between l2 noon and 5 p.m. will get a 20 percent discount. There’ll be free Valentine treats for the first 100 guests. Acoustic performers will be around to sing the guests’ favorite love songs. For inquiries, call 373-2487, 371-1973 or 431-9431.

(E-mail reactions at [email protected])