Imelda The Musical

from bbc news: Fatboy Slim makes Marcos musical. DJ Fatboy Slim and Talking Heads singer David Byrne are writing a musical about former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos, to be shown next March. Again found on Jessica Zafra's blog.

Best of Central Luzon - Behind The Scenes

I saved the best for last.



The Aurora National Science High School Dramatics Club were already preparing for the presentation a month before schedule. The club adviser is Ms. Rose Querijero and she also wrote the script of the Siege of Baler play.



John Arcilla was in town for almost a week to personally conduct a workshop for the kids and direct the entire play.



He's really an intense actor and director. He started as a student of Mrs. Querijero in Carmel. Teaching the kids is really a great payback act. Checkout this Raymond Red film, Anino, a Canne Film Festival winner starring John Arcilla, Ronnie Lazaro and Eddie Garcia.



He also sidelined as a percussion player aside from starring as the singing Mr. Pedro Aragon, the father of Doña Aurora Aragon Quezon. Thank God his character in GMA's Sugo died before all these things happened.



Two days before departure, the main rehearsal at the Baler Sports Complex. The Science kids were already in costumes. Great reception from the entire local tourism staff, 2 meriendas, a lunch, and a dinner for almost 500 people. You compute the expenses.



The folk dacing kids from Baler National High School waiting for their turn.



The live band accompanying the Komedya de Baler.



Guess who?



Back at Science High, a day before departure.



John still hard at work.



Motivation time!

More to come....

Halloween Wallpaper

Just right click on the image and Save Image As... or Save Target As.. for you IE users. This is a 1024 X 768 pixel image.

How Much Is My Blog Worth

My blog is worth $3,387.24.
How much is your blog worth?

At Php55 to $1 exchange rate, that would be 186,298.20 Pesos. Not bad. Buy now and you can have it for 180,000.00.

Must Read

This newsweek article is a must read: It's about the country's prime export and the brain hemorrhage it is causing.

via Jessica Zafra's blog.

Starbucks Baler

I'm not really misleading you peeps about the title of this post. It is partially correct. I just read this inq7 news that as a move of social corporate responsibility, Rustan Coffee the Philippine operator of Starbucks, with the help of the UNICEF, have setup a daycare center in Brgy. Buhangin. Good move! Expensive coffee!

Best of Central Luzon - Sabutan Fashion Show Part 2

I have megabytes of pictures of the sabutan show. I chose 29 pictures to post. Here's 16 to 29. Enjoy!

























The person seated is Mr. Ernie Herminigildo. He will also not mind if you call him Miss. He designed almost every sabutan dress featured in this presentation. He was also the Director of the Araw ng Aurora show. The two non-models flanking him are Johndale Mercado, the choreographer on the left and Mr. Aries Maniaol the Assistant Director of the show.





The end.

Out of Topic: Pinoy Big Brother Theme Song Scandal

I know this has been discussed in many blogs and has nothing to do with Baler or Aurora. I just want to experiment if this post can drive traffic to this site. And maybe some of the young browsers and Pinoy Big Brother fans of Batangbaler may find this interesting. I don't watch Pinoy Bigbrother. My favotire reality TV show has been going on for years and it never fails to entertain me. It's the Ang Dating Daan vs Ang Tamang Daan TV debate.

Most of you probably know that there's this brewing controversy about the Pinoy Big Brother theme song Pinoy Ako by Orange and Lemons, a band from Malolos, Bulacan that became popular because of their new wave sounding music. Some observers say that OnL is so much influenced by British New Wave that even their Tagalog songs have British accents. Almost immediately after the song was introduced in the PBB show, some listeners noticed a striking resemblance to the song Chandeliers by The Care, a short-lived 80s band from UK, more popularly known with their songs My Boyish Days and Flaming Sword. The topic was also discussed heavily in the Pinoyrock yahoogroup, shortly after another controversy about the Session Road song "Leaving You" sounding very much like Superdrag's "Garmonbozia".

Here's the band's stand about the thing, from the PBB entry at wikipedia:

Orange and Lemons and the song's composer Jonathan Manalo clarified that while Orange and Lemons may have been influenced by British rock, they stressed that the two songs are completely different from each other and assured that Pinoy Ako is a completely original one. Furthermore, in the creation of the song, there was no discussion about Chandeliers.

After hearing both songs, my opinion is that the PBB theme song is really a Chandeliers ripoff. They can deny it until Jesus returns and i'll still cry ripoff even in front of Jesus. There's too many points of similarity in the two songs that you can't dismiss them as chance coincidence. The intro and the verse are just too similar. But props to the band for coming up with an original chorus. At least they're not like Session Road who copied the entire song. Check out sessionroadzia for comparison. And as a contibution to the controversy, I whipped up a fast side by side mp3 of the two songs. Listen to this and be the judge. You can right click on the link to save it. It's not a complete song. I just used an audio editor to put Pinoy Ako on the left channel and Chandeliers on the right. I cut out some parts to line up similar sounds. The last part where only the OnL song can be heard on both chanels is my own ironic take on the lyrics of the song. Anong ipagmamalaki ko... na manggagaya ang Pinoy? Come on!

Check the following links for references:

• elf-ideas has a link to Chandeliers by the Care. Just scroll down the page to see.
• Rickey has the Pinoy Big Brother Theme and the Chandeliers on his site.

And while were at it, don't you think that the Wish Ko Lang Theme Song by Kyla is very similar to The Water is Wide? Why should we concentrate only on rock bands?

Best of Central Luzon - Sabutan Fashion Show

Note: after editing this post i noticed that it was corrupted during the publishing process. My long article about the sabutan was lost, and since it is has no backup, it is lost forever. I have restored the pictures but i don't remember what I wrote here two days ago. Anyway it was about the Sabutan Fashion Show at the Best of Central Luzon showcase, how it evolved, and that there's really no functional use for a sabutan dress aside from being used as costumes for street dancing and native attire competition in beauty contests. I also mentioned that most of these sabutan dress was designed by Mr. Ernie herminigildo of Baler National High School.



















This oily one is the current Ms. Baler.



Ms. Pantalunan, a Ms. Aurora runner-up.



Ms. Gonzales again.



Ms. Rosales, a Batangbaler regular.





More to come after the break....

Best of Central Luzon - Cultural Show Part 2

Here's more from the Cultural Show of the Araw ng Aurora:



The BNHS's Tinikling dance segues into the Siege of Baler stage play as reimagined by Ms. Rose Querijero and John Arcilla. The Aurora National Science High School Dramatics Club performs.



The itik-itik dance was a part of the play.



Tableau of the Philippine-Spanish No-friendship Day. Historically, this never happened.



Braveheart.



Men disguised as women - psychological warfare.



The Spanish soldiers surrendered.



And the Pinoys sang with joy.




The end.



The last part of the show was another group dance by the Wesleyan students.



The program started and ended with "Pagsibol"



The great photo op.




Zoom-in.