The year that wuss

Time goes so fast when you’re not having fun.

Here we all are, holding hands and whistling a happy tune as we walk closer to the Apocalypse, about to let the freaky old year make way for the freaky new year. Imagine humming Wake Me Up Before You Go Go while everything turns crimson as the Whore of Babylon keeps her appointment and does The Jitterbug.

For me, 2006 is (or was) a year that could only be invented by Samuel Beckett, or Larry David. Ah, Larry… who in the fifth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm encounters everyone – from a sex offender who moves into the quiet neighborhood, to a "racist" dog, to a former Japanese kamikaze pilot who exacts his revenge on Larry during a bingo game. Everything seemed ordinary, all right. Ordinarily odd, that is.

Bingo!

We read about the constitutional assembly kerfuffle (for the meaning of the word "kerfuffle," look up Little Britain). Wait, "con-ass" sounds to me like a donkey getting bamboozled or screwed. Semantically, it evokes something sinister and hilarious at the same time. Like The Three Stooges creating the world in seven days. Sure, it may be entertaining to see our lawmakers ham it up on TV, grandstanding like performers at the Luneta Grandstand, until we realize our country is going nowhere fast – economically, politically, etc. Again. Yet again.

We Filipinos live in so much hardship. In the old neighborhood that I lived in, a housewife was shocked to find out somebody nicked her small pot of rice that she had left near a window. How do you report something like that to the police? Have a cartographer do a sketch of the rice thief? Ironically, that night, we saw on TV the daughter of a former senator obscenely flaunting her lobster dinner. Lobsters the size of cats! No one choked, though. Unfortunately.

Year after year, we encounter floods that make us want to build an ark the size of Noah’s (and let animals like illegal recruiters, embezzlers, extortionists and child molesters drown). Weird: our streets are flooded because of the non-stop rains, but there is nary a drop from our faucets. You could practically hear the air sing from the water-less pipes. And it is not a pretty song.

Speaking of unpleasant sounds, New Year’s Eve is the time all the macho men in the neighborhood decide to buy more than their usual cache of firecrackers. I don’t get the logic: Why risk losing your fingers with those dangerous Judas Belts when your neighbor is already whipping his own sinturon ni Hudas? Can anyone really make noise noisier?

(And come to think of it, why is it always Judas who doesn’t pay the jeepney fare? He got the silver, to paraphrase a Stones song. And how come jeepney drivers are always sweet lovers? What about bus conductors? They impress the ladies with their origami tricks using P20 bills, don’t they?)

What devils are we driving away from our houses with pyrotechnics?

Maybe it’s Billy Corgan with his book of poetry Blinking with Fists. The guy was brilliant with "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness," but then things went haywire when he started wearing leather skirts and flirting with the dark side like a rock ‘n’ roll version of Uncle Fester. I wonder what poetry book is more coma-inducing: Billy’s or Jewel’s A Night Without Armor? How the two evoke Sylvia Plath and Dylan Thomas with guitars – albeit with despicable poems.

Maybe they’re entertainment news staples Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. Paris, Britney and Lindsay partying together is like Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler sharing tea and crumpets with Benito Mussolini while talking about new varieties of orchids. Who among the three had the worst record? Don’t dare say, "Hitler." What I meant was album.

Maybe it’s Eva Longoria, who is always – always! – on TV. Allow me to make a confession: I have seen (accidentally, of course) that desperate housewife on TV every day since September. And the streak has remained unbroken. There she was with Tony Parker. There she was without Tony Parker. Eva on the red carpet. Eva on Google Earth. There she was with other cast members of Sex in the City, uh, Desperate Housewives. (Aren’t they both spin-offs of Nip and Tuck?) There she was with Tony Parker again. There she was building an ark for charity. There she was hitting Billy Corgan on the head with it.

Speaking of hits on the local front, the guys from Kamikazee provided the much-needed spark to a music scene inundated by pogi rockers. My favorite track on that APO tribute is Jay Contreras and company’s rendition of Doo Bi Doo. A stroke of genius. We all can’t wait for new albums from the Radioactive Sago Project and Up Dharma Down.

In the west, the Red Hot Chili Peppers made one hell of an album, "Stadium Arcadium." So did The Beatles, through the magic of remixes. "Love" is a better, wiser version of "Stars on 45." "The stars on 45 keeps on burning in your eyes, huh, huh…" and then segue to "Listen – tan, tan, tan – do you want to know a secret."

James Brown, the self-styled "Hardest Working Man in Show Business," passed away. The flesh dies, but the funk goes on. And the James Brown groove lives on in every hip-hop and R&B sample for all eternity. Syd Barrett exited this dark globe and has gone to play The Great Gig In The Sky. They will be missed.

Wait, there’s more.

Director Tim Burton made a great video for The Killers, featuring skulls and various skullduggeries. Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas came out with a solo album and a bunch of videos. Or was that Gwen Stefani? I think they both get hand-me-down ideas from Madonna. John Mayer stepped out of the shadow of Dave Matthews and into the shadow of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Queen recruited Paul Rodgers to replace Freddie Mercury. Wrong move. It’s like replacing Morrissey with Bruce Springsteen in The Smiths. American Idol Carrie Underwood’s Jesus Take the Wheel is nominated in the Grammy Song of the Year category. Somebody should write a song called Hudas Not Pay. And one of the most popular songs this year is My Humps. Weird year.

Ah, another year, another toss-off article from yours unruly. Heck, even Billy Corgan would be appalled.

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For comments, suggestions, curses and invocations, e-mail iganja_ys@yahoo.com.