Hot air

If there’s one thing I can’t be accused of, it’s growing mellow with age. On the contrary, I’ve found that the opposite is true: the older one gets, the angrier one becomes. Often, friends (or worse, acquaintances) spew remarks to the effect that I must’ve gotten up on the wrong side of bed this morning, that I should lighten up and stop being in a foul mood. One must not piss off others just as one shouldn’t wake up the neighbors. The world is too small to have enemies. To such invective and colorful, if unsolicited, advice, my reply would always be: “Causing offense is the best motivation I have to get out of bed in the morning.”

That wasn’t a joke.

Any neighbor that can’t stand noise should move out of Manila or any city for that matter — the deaf would gladly welcome anything to break the silence. Plus, the world is already too damn small anyway to accommodate anybody but myself and those I’d like to hang out with in it.

But to be clear: I’m not a rebel.

I pay taxes and work for The Man — and I almost never say "no."

Of course, I don’t believe that anger is a gift: it’s entertainment. At times, it’s merely a cure for boredom — amphetamine rather than angst. (The latter is quite dull and has already gone stale since the 1990s.)

I get my kicks where I can. And I admit it doesn’t take the equivalent of Orwell’s boot in my face forever to get a rise out of me. Most of our pop stars and their videos playing ad nauseam on our TV screens will do. I’d rather watch Big Brother these days.

Today, music videos — not to mention the songs — on heavy rotation on MYX and MTV seem bereft of any imagination. The fact that the budgets of videos of artists like Christian Bautista, Sitti, MYMP, Kjwan and Spongecola are considerably large (as seen in the production design, costumes, post-production, etc.) just brings into sharp relief how impoverished the thinking behind these productions is. The elaborate set pieces only highlight the emptiness at their core.

Ironically, the best music video of this decade so far was made on a shoestring budget, used film stock past its use-by date and basic equipment for shooting, and had no star cameos. The video is Radioactive Sago Project’s Wasak na Wasak (from their recently released third album, Tanginamo Marami Nagugutom sa Mundo Fashionista Ka Pa Rin) and was directed by R.A. Rivera. Unconventional and altered in its humor, it’s not surprising that no major music channel broadcasts it. (If anything, it resembles an acid-damaged Mike Relon Makiling take on the 1970s Pinoy classic Tinimbang Ka’t Ngunit Kulang. That still isn’t loopy enough to describe it, though.)

The song itself offers up anarchic delights on its own. Wasak na Wasak is the appropriate admonishment to any indolent suggestion that Sago is a jazz band. Not that they don’t indulge in a bit of bop every now and then but that would be an inaccurate and selective assessment of one of the greatest music acts our country has ever produced. Equally adept at hardcore, funk, latin and instrumental freakouts of indeterminate origin, the band’s a bitch to classify. Plus, I wouldn’t dare insult them by labeling their music "jazz" (which — around here — means something abhorrent like the kind they play in clubs along Jupiter St. in Makati).

Of course, at the other end, there’s no topping the West for hubris. Perhaps the most offensive of all music videos currently enjoying airtime is the new one by U2. In it, they show legends from Elvis to Morrissey, Frank Zappa to Frank Sinatra miming along to their current single. This is the ultimate insult and most blatant form of self-mythologizing — perhaps even more grating for the fact that several of the artists featured have expressed contempt for the Irish pop band. (Patti Smith comes to mind immediately. During her speech to accept a lifetime achievement award of sorts from Q magazine, she lambasted U2 frontman Bono’s video tribute to her, appalled at being cited as his muse.) Given that the featured song’s pretty forgettable as well and it all just becomes worse. John Peel — God rest his soul — was right all along: they suck.

Maybe the right attitude to adopt when tuning in is to treat these music videos as essentially what they are: advertising. Some may achieve something more but those are few and far between. In the end, it’s the product that will ultimately matter — not even Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham or a Lyle Sacris can make you like a bad song. In any case, don’t believe the hype.

* * *

Director John Waters is the filmmaker behind such trash classics as Hairspray, Polyester, Cry-Baby, Serial Mom and — above all — Pink Flamingos. The latter features probably one of American cinema’s most iconic (and apt) images: that of overweight transvestite Divine collecting a piece of fresh doggie poo, putting it into her mouth and — after a few chews — flashing a filthy grin to the camera.

The book Shock Value is Waters’ autobiography — and it counts as among the best books about filmmaking ever written. (It is also probably the funniest and most illuminating of them all, offering a litany of subversion and subnormal behavior shot through Waters’ sympathetic eye and unerring penchant for finding glamour in the bizarre. This is probably the only filmmaking memoir that local independent filmmakers should read.

I got my copy at Fully Booked and smirked upon seeing it placed between "heavier" tomes about European cinema and a visual guide to Star Wars in the film section in the Rockwell branch.

The first lines are as follows: "To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits watching one of my films, it’s like getting a standing ovation." Classic.

If there was ever a greater entertainer than Waters in world cinema, that would be none other than Joey Gosiengfiao — the director of many of the best (and sadly neglected) Filipino films of the 1970s and 1980s. Best known for helming the camp classic Temptation Island and other films like Blue Jeans and Secrets of Pura, he took his cinema seriously but never himself. In the end, he made us laugh and enjoy watching movies. His contributions to Philippine cinema include helping and nurturing the careers of younger directors such as Jeffrey Jeturian, Rico Ilarde and Lav Diaz.

He died; he was 62 years old.

He will be greatly missed.