The MTV Video Music Awards 2009 is probably the weirdest to date.  Supposedly, the highlight of the show was the much-awaited tribute to the late Micheal Jackson by his sister Janet and the queen Madonna herself.  But there have been numerous scores that really eclipsed the opening number in memory of Jackson. For one, you get a very interesting medieval rendering from Lady GaGa which shocked audiences (as usual) and then another asshole stunt from (the guy who I thought was scratched off the guest list after the last fiasco), Kanye West took place. Again, acting like a complete hillbilly, he grabs the mic from Taylor Swift as the 19-year-old accepts her Best Female video award to tell audiences that Beyonce’s video was the best of that year. Of course, Beyonce looks shellshocked by this unexpected turn of events and West is booed off the stage, the works.

Kanye the douche

Way to crush a teenager’s self-esteem. West was reportedly scolded by Swift’s mother to which he later apologized on his blog.

In other  news, the US Open semifinals concluded with an ugly unsportsmanlike display from Serena Williams, a disruption that caused her a crucial point to the game.

Here’s the report that ran on Yahoo Sports news:

Defending champion Serena Williams was charged with a point penalty on match point after yelling at a line judge for a calling a foot fault on her previous serve. The ruling gave Kim Clijsters a 6-4, 7-5 victory in their semifinal match, which had been delayed 32 hours because of rain.

After the line judge called the foot fault with Serena, the youngest Williams sister intimidatingly stared her down before screaming at the official with a jabbed finger. After a few seconds, Serena turned back around to serve, thought better of it and resumed the badgering. The chair umpire then called over the line judge to ask what Serena had said, rules officials were summoned, a brief summit occurred at the net and it was determined that Serena would be assessed a point penalty for a conduct violation. The point gave Clijsters the match.  Williams was quoted saying, “I’m going to shove this ball down your fucking throat”.

It got worse from there. There were multiple profanities, more threats and a lot of pointing. Serena was soon defending herself against accusations that she had threatened to kill the lines judge. Even John McEnroe said it was a bit much.

Even if the foot fault was a wrong call from the line judge, it should not have been enough excuse for the outburst.

Oh well, cheers for my namesake for bagging the US Open grandslam!  Clijsters is indeed the queen of come back.

Kim Clijsters with her daughter enjoying the award ceremony of the US Open

Ironic Belo ad

Now since my sensationalist title actually worked, I would like to announce my strong suspicion that the Senate’s involvement in this scandal courtesy of Bong Revilla Jr. has siphoned our attention from the creeping in of the arbitrary constituent assembly (ConAss, for short – it being a charming pun intended) to the general public.  Sadly, I have been aware of this sneaky consortium for more than a year now but have rarely caught it on the local news.  How everyone managed to sit on the fence on ConAss until now remains a mystery even to its long time opponents.  I figure that it must have been all the side-shows that took place over the last two years that have kept people entertained but abysmally uninformed.

Speaking of side-shows, since the Kho-Halili sex scandal broke out I held myself back to comment on the issue because firstly, I would have to illegally obtain a copy of the video from a sidewalk banketa in order to observe its implications to either party.  I, as a student of the social sciences could not liberally incur analysis whether social, criminal, psychological or otherwise without having a full observation of the party’s behaviour and circumstance down to its naked facts.  However, to admit that I have the materials in aid of analysis would be held against me presumably under anti-pornography laws and anti-piracy laws. Incidentally these are the two contentious issues being discussed in lieu of this so-called scandal, apart from Kho Jr.’s small but legendary wang.

What we could discuss without having to comment about small male appendages is that on the street, there is a somewhat peculiar status to the media crimes involving the sex scandal.  Although the Optical Media Board’s (OMB) crusade was to obliterate all forms of illegal media distribution, it has come to a point that piracy has become a huge counter-culture it is virtually impossible to stop even on Edu Manzano’s watch.  Hence, the DVD kiosks remain and raids are not as habitual and effective: from a policy standpoint, crackdowns turn out to be a lousy way to stop piracy per se.  Even when you pull out the roots, you have a full plantation to dispense.  What would be more reasonable than targeting the source is to stop the raids altogether and start investing money on promoting and protecting independent media.  Such is the case in India where people pay to see the movies and prefer it over the DVD.  That’s a different story but the point is since piracy is so popular and the public is more sympathetic to their friendly suki it is futile to spend taxpayer’s money on raids, when our police force ought to be out there fighting more worrisome crimes like rape, corruption and theft. One philosophy professor from Ateneo de Manila supports piracy because it makes media more accessible to people. Media is one way of educating people and piracy has made one kind of education cheap.  In the Philippines, if any harm is done because of piracy, it’s the loss of profit by our local movie industry especially independents and then there’s the proliferation of child pornography.

When it comes to pornography, I have a very specific stand on this issue and that is that any pornography ought not to exploit children and ought not to involve any man or woman who was forced or trafficked.  The latter is harder to distinguish from the numerous role-play sex videos readily available through the internet or the DVD stands.  And so what the OMB does is it confiscates ALL pornographic materials and puts the blame on the piracy culture.  They summon international anti-trafficking statutes to justify their confiscation.  These allegations are partly true.  Although pornography is legal in the country for people ages 18 and above, the proper charge against the confiscation of pirated pornography ought to be piracy alone, if the OMB has no evidence that the materials they’ve accumulated in the raids do not include child pornography.  They are revisited by the same legal gray area that questions the efficiency of piracy crackdowns in the first place.  I once asked a vendor how they managed to survive all the raids and that person told me that the “mayor” was okay with them selling pirated movies but pirated pornography was a complete contraband.

My advice to wankers out there is to stick to the internet because I would rather not have any of you get your grubby paws on any of the real contraband which is child pornography (that means screen starlets aged below 18: remember Barely Legal? Aha!  Then you are guilty as charged!)

Going back to the real topic of this post, the Kho-Halili sex scandal sprung so many questions that easily put limelight-seeking actors-turned-public-servants to the media fray perhaps because of vested interests.  Is it because of the elections that people are begging to be noticed on TV?  None of these fools have even made a lucid comment in aid of legislation.  This whole scandal is fuelled by VANITY so you be true to yourselves you vain shits. Stop talking and make your own movie!

And by the way, this scandal is really about invasion of privacy.  Can the media roll over and stop the frenzy?  Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of this trial’s exercise altogether?

I was able to do a phone trial for WOMWorld for the new Nokia E71. I wrote an extensive review on my other blog which I hope you guys should check out. Here’s an excerpt:

Their E71 model inspires enthusiasm among Nokia consumers especially among the growing number of people who have jumped in to the Wireless LAN bandwagon. Personally, it’s about time that mobile phones began to fully embrace the internet and enhance its flexibility and capability to surf it.

It also has its own built-in music player which comes in handy if you don’t have your own mp3 player like in my situation. I use the phone to listen to the Music I’m in to at the moment so I’ll let you in on some of the songs on my current list.

• Ellen Allien & Apparat - Do not break
• Sigur Ros- Gobbledigook
• Trentemoller – Miss you
• De la Mancha – Lotus seven

By the way, the song from Sigur Ros on my playlist from their newest album entitled in a long Icelandic name I can hardly pronounce. The album is a bit happier than the more epic tunes we’re so used to hear from the band like from the original soundtrack of the movie Vanilla Sky. Speaking of movies, the movie The Fountain which is a personal favorite features the song from Trentemoller, a pensive new age tune. Check ‘em out.

Y’all have a nice weekend!

And so was I.

You can’t blame me for loving the month of July. This month has been packed with so many things I hardly have time to go online and type one of ‘em posts for the birthday of this brainchild.  Anyway, brief history:  Southisms used to be and was supposed to be (exclusively) a music blog.  The rise of the niche blogging hype had called this space for that purpose initially.  However, the writer has transformed over time from the booze-guzzling musicionado to the tube-whirring, film-powered “student” of life, the universe and everything.  So now this must be a blog about the universe and everything, as far as my media brain cell is concerned.  But can’t help drifting back to music-related events since it’s still pretty much part of my nature.

Say for instance, I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about the upcoming Muzika del Sur Music Awards 2008 for August.  Unfortunately I had an ear infection so I wasn’t able to cover their preliminary events. 

I’ve heard the nominations have closed and that’s where the fun usually starts.

In my experience working for the Research Team before, the awards features a range of categories namely: Best Music Video, Rock, Ragga, Metal, Pop, Hip-Hop, and The Mindanawon Award.  Each band in the final roster goes through a nomination process and goes through an extensive review by a panel of jurors.  Last year, we incorporated an SMS system which allowed fans to vote for their favorite artists to be awarded the People’s Choice.  Unfortunately, the process was inevitably problematic and faced a slight amount of controversy when misinformation about the texting information was proliferated.  Thankfully, the bands were such sports about it.

This year’s music awards event had also its own set of problems this year such as the controversy surrounding an Idol Grill (Davao) gig.  My friend Shieka, who was part of the production of the said event had this to rant on the Friendster bulletins:

IMAGINE IF THIS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU:

** YOU HAVE THIS EVENT THAT YOU PREPARED FOR ALMOST A MONTH PROMOTING AND DOING ALL THE STUFF JUST TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.

YOU INVITED LOCAL ARTISTS FROM CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY ( GASULINA) AND TAGUM CITY(KEYK) TO PERFORM JUST TO PRESENT UNITY AMONG MINDANAO ARTISTS, NOT TO MENTION SOME LOCAL DAVAO BANDS WHO ALSO EAGERLY PARTICIPATED JUST TO SHOW SUPPORT ON THE VISION OF MUZIKA DEL SUR.

** MOST OF THE LOCAL ARTIST ORGANIZATONS FLOCKED DURING THE EVENT JUST TO SHOW SUPPORT ON THE DRIVE OF PROMOTING THE MUSIC SCENE OF MINDANAO.

**FRIENDS,FAMILIES,TRI-MEDIA WENT TO WITNESS THE FIRST PRE-EVENT ACTIVITY OF THE UPCOMING MUSIC AWARDS 2008. THEN HERE COMES OUR HERO!

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PROGRAM OUR IDOL COMMAND AND HIS JUSTICE LEAGUE DECIDED TO PULL OUT OUR EVENT BACK DROP STREAMER BECAUSE HIS IDOL LOGO WILL NOT BE SEEN (A. BY THE CAMERA, B. BY THE PEOPLE, C. BY HIS EMPLOYEES, D. BY HIS DRINKING BUDDIES, OR E. ALL OF THE ABOVE). AND WHEN WE ASKED HIS HIGHNESS TO JUST RECONSIDER OUR EVENT BECAUSE SOMEHOW WE PAID HIM TO HAVE OUR EVENT IN HIS KINGDOM… WHOOOOSHHHHHH!!!! OUR IDOL WITH ALL HIS MIGHT POINTED HIS MAGIC WAND TO HIS “CLOWNS” AND ORDERED ONCE AGAIN LADIES AND GENTLEMEN …ONCE AGAIN WITH(DRUM ROLL PLEASE..) ” I COMMAND YOU TO STOP YOUR EVENT! BY THE POWER OF MY MAGIC WAND MAGSITIGIL KAYOO MGA MAHADERA!! KEVERRR KUNG SINO PA YANG MGA MEDIA AT SPONSORS AT BISITA AT BANDANG NANDIYAN, WIZH KO EL! MAGDUSA KAYO MGA BRUHA! ” SO WITH ALL THE SHAME AND DEGRADATION WE PACK OUR THINGS,OUR PRIDE,OURSELVES, AND OUR HATRED HOME.

WE SOUGHT OUR REFUGE AT THE DURIAN BAR (THANKS PAOLO).

Being a musician and part of the media myself, that is NOT an ethical way to treat people from the media and music industry.  The fact that the event organizers have already paid for the place secures their discretion to manage the setting and materials to be used for the event.  Moreover, once the place is paid for, the event organizer and the outlet comes into an agreement that cannot be revoked under any circumstance.  The adage the show must go on is a practical truth because it’s too expensive to flush out the production when it is happening and it insults the professional integrity of all people involved in the production just because one person had a little problem.

Moreover Idol Grill never apologized to the production team and the bands for this horrible treatment.  Publicly or otherwise.

Anyways, I hate how there should always be politics in these events. Why can’t people be fun-loving and just listen to some friggin music?

You can only relate to this if you’re a Filipino and watched TV most of the day like I did.

A particularly odd segment followed this commemoration: the media coverage of the funeral service dedicated to Rudy Fernandez, a Filipino action star. We’re not close or anything, but since he’s dead I guess it’s okay to say at this point, “Too bad we never get to see a movie starring Rudy Fernandez and Lorna Tolentino”. If Rudy was well enough there was a script waiting for him and his wife. I don’t own the rights to the script but the premise of the story is based on a woman’s unwavering love for her partner despite her own personal desires. This would have been their life story. Anyway, what is my conclusion about Rudy’s death? I roughly quote my friend, “Reality is more unbelievable than fiction. Fiction (film) is there to convince us that they are unbelievable indeed.”

My condolences to the actor’s family.

Anyway, did Noli de Castro turn his back on his ABS-CBN family, finally? By smashing the oligarchs no less! Smash, smash, smash. Why are you talking just now de Castro? Are you disappointed in how they’re handling the Ces Drilon kidnapping? I’m glad you could air your testimonial about being kidnapped by the Abusayyaf yourself. He throws a caveat, “Never let the station handle the negotiation with the group.” When he says this you can just see the traces of disappointment in his voice. He’s making parinig ABS-CBN twice in one day! Wow. I wonder if PGMA promised him a cut in the Meralco hostile takeover…

So much for a free nation. Cheers to the social entrapments we are in and the bright box that tells us all about it.