An Incomplete list of Famous Filipinos

In honor of Filipino American Heritage Month, and in the spirit of Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song, here’s a list of famous Filipinos just like you and me…

Actors/Stage/Film/TV Performers

Rachel Louise Grant De Longueuil aka Rachel Grant actress (Die Another Day)
Dante Basco (Rufio in Hook), director, producer.
Darion Basco, actor, director, producer.
Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World)
Phoebe Cates (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gremlins, Gremlins 2, Drop Dead Fred)
Mark Dacascos – actor, martial artist, The Chairman of Iron Chef America.
Tamlyn Tomita (The Joy Luck Club and The Karate Kid, Part II)
Hervé Villechaize (Tattoo from Fantasy Island)
Jose Llana, broadway actor, Drama Desk Award Winner.
Alec Mapa (Half & Half, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty)
Vanessa Minnillo, model, host MTV’s TRL.
Paolo Montalban (Mortal Kombat)
Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba)
Victoria Principal (Dallas)
Ernie Reyes Jr., martial artist (Rush Hour 2, The Rundown, Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)
Rob Schneider (Saturday Night Live, The Hot Chick, Deuce Bigalow) “Mom’s family had the better food; Dad’s family had the better jokes.”
Shannyn Sossamon (40 Days and 40 Nights, A Knight’s Tale)
Anna Maria Perez de Tagle – actress (Ashley from Hannah Montana).
Vanessa Anne Hudgens (High School Musical)
Lea Salonga, Tony Award winner (Miss Saigon, Princess Jasmine in Disney’s Aladdin and Mulan in Mulan)
Cris Judd, actor, choreographer, J-Lo’s ex.
Cheryl Burke (Dancing with the Stars)
Batista (WWE)

Music Industry

Apl.de.ap, hip hop musician, (The Black Eyed Peas)
Chad Hugo, producer (The Neptunes)
Cassie (Cassandra Vergara Ventura)– R&B, pop and hiphop singer, and former fashion model. She is best known by her stage name Cassie and for the hit song “Me & U”.
Jocelyn Enriquez
Enrique Iglesias
Julio Iglesias Jr
Nicole Scherzinger – lead singer for the Pussycat Dolls.
Kirk Hammett (Metallica)

Reality TV

Sandra McCoy – actress, former contestant in Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll.
Jordan Segundo – singer, American Idol semi-finalist (Season 2).
A.J. Tabaldo – American Idol contestant (season 6).
Jasmine Trias – American Idol contestant (Season 3).
Camile Velasco (1985–) American Idol contestant (Season 3)
Melissa Reyes – Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll contestant.
Asia Nitollano – Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll winner; she’s Joe Bataan’s daughter.

Joe the Plumber? Make way for Chad the Douchebag

Two of the main tenets of the Republican Party is that they’re in favor of small government (states’ rights) and a free market economy versus the Democrats who are largely in favor of federalizing: unifying the country under federal laws and creating federal programs to help the underprivileged, etc.  Ok, that might be oversimplifying but there’s a point in here somewhere.

One of McCain’s talking points in this campaign is that he wants the American people, like Joe the Plumber, to “keep your wealth” so that you can choose how best to spend it.  His economic plan and his health plan are both based on this idea.  Here’s the problem with that:  People don’t know how to spend their own money.  People are greedy.  People are hoarders.

Case in point:  Throughout the history of American culture, people have been dining out.  And despite a long history of slimy lounge singers and cheesy comedians reminding you to tip your servers, there are still a strong majority of people who don’t know how to leave a decent tip.  Consider this:  Chad the Douchebag and his four buddies are going out for a meal.  The bill comes to about $100 after appetizers, entrees, drinks, and dessert.  A good tip in this case would be about $20.  However, with the shitty economy and all the hard work he does to make his money, Chad decides that since he doesn’t feel like it he’s just gonna leave a few bucks and run out on the town to let the shenanigans ensue.  After all, this means more drinks and lap dances for Chad.  He’s not required to pay his server his $20, so he doesn’t.

[Let's take a quick look at the logic here.  He's already spending $100 on a meal when he could be home eating his ramen noodles or a totino's party pizza.  But no, he's decided to go out, bypassing the Micky-D's around the corner and knowing full well that there will be a person providing a specific service to him.  He's already spending $100 with his buddies, what's $20 more for the above average service he's just received?]

This might happen to the poor server a couple times a day (especially when times are tough like, say, nowadays), and he’s no longer able to make rent, pay bills, and he becomes a burden on the state and the taxpayers end up shouldering that burden.

The moral of the story?  Most people look after themselves before they even begin to think about their country or their society, as in ME first, Country second… or maybe third.  Letting you decide how to spend your money sounds great in theory.  In an ideal world we would all be benevolent citizens who know how to give credit where credit is due.  But in practice I, for one, have learned that when the chips are down, most people are looking out for #1.  And we all end up footing the bill anyway, so why not “spread the wealth around” by setting ourselves up to help each other out before things get dire?

Reason Filipinos are cool #329

We interrupt the regularly scheduled whiny post about being wronged (or somehow otherwise betrayed) to bring you this service announcement:

Filipinos invented the Yo-Yo.

Ok, this is an oft disputed fact, but the fact of the matter is that pre-colonial Filipinos are among the possible originators of the modern day Yo-Yo.  16th Century Filipinos used a weapon that consisted of a stone connected to a length of rope which they could drop from a tree to injure their prey.  If they missed, the could quickly retrieve the stone for a second try.  As the weapon evolved, the stone was sharpened, and eventually replaced by wooden disks that could be studded with either stone or wooden spikes.  This is believed to be the predecessor to the modern Yo-Yo, but this is where the kind of people who would argue about this kind of thing begin to disagree.  Did it come from China to the Philippines or the other way around before eventually travelling to Greece via the silk road?

What the historical-types can agree on is that the name Yo-Yo was coined by Pedro Flores, a law student and bellboy at a California hotel who is responsible for bringing the hand-carved toy (then called a bandalore) from the Philippines in the 1920s and starting the first Yo-Yo manufacturing company.  So either way, the community of Yo-Yo enthusiasts owe a lot to the Filipinos.

So the next time you see a kid with a Yo-Yo, TAKE IT AWAY FROM THEM.  Yo-Yos are dangerous weapons that should only be used for sport.

This has been a Wile E. Filipino Public Service Annoucement.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled complaining about life.

The Epiphany du Jour

I don’t know if I’d say I’ve been an idiot, exactly, these last couple months, but I’ve definitely become someone I’ve never wanted to be.  I’ve never wanted to be paralyzed by fear the way I have been since I found out that TGI(W)D kissed another guy.  It’s hard for me, the cheating thing I mean, because it’s become a common theme in my relationships.

This doesn’t excuse her behavior, but it doesn’t excuse my reaction to it, either.  When I found out about the other guy, it awoke in me a sense of entitlement.  As if I had punched the clock with this relationship and I was due some compensation.  I started to talk about what I deserve, and don’t get me wrong, I know that I deserve to be treated better than to be cheated on, but this newly awakened sense of “what’s in it for me?” was presiding over all my decisions.  And with that came the fear that if I were to put myself out there to be vulnerable, I’m risking too much.  It’s a knee jerk reaction like Turtles pulling their heads and feet inside their shells, or Squirrels darting up a tree.  And for me, it manifested itself as me sitting in my apartment and burning through my DVD collection and my roommate’s.  In some ways we are programmed by nature to react, or be conditioned, that way.  But one of the things that separates us from the other creatures of the world is choice.

And as I’ve been reading over some of my past posts, I’ve started to wonder what happened to that guy.  Why did that strong, level-headed, self-respecting guy turn into this pile of mush that would settle for “better than nothing.”

I’ve always been a What If kind of guy.  My peace of mind depends on whether I choose to focus on the negative What Ifs–the kind that keep you from doing or saying something, versus the positive What Ifs–the kind that encourage you to take a chance.  After living with the negative so long, it took me a while but now I know that the latter is the road less traveled.  That is where my strength has been hiding.

There will always be a reason not to do something.  And yet, things still get done.  The way I see it I have two choices:  I could start a Lord of the Rings movie marathon or I could go and live my life.

“Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying.”  –The Shawshank Redemption

Tick…

I found out recently that an X of mine got married this year.  What is this I’m feeling?  Jealousy?  No.  The feeling that she’ll never come running back to me?  Nope.  OH!  I know… it’s the feeling that accompanies the fact that I’ve seen this woman a number of times in the last year or so and she’s never mentioned it.  Yeah… that’s it.

We run into each other every couple months.  We’re not the best of friends, but she works in the backstage world of the theater biz and we run into each other and chat about what’s going on… life, work, etc.  Engagement and subsequent marriage would be something that might fall into the “etc.” portion of our Under 5 minute discussions.  “Oh, hey… how’ve you been? … Cool.  What have you been up to lately? … Me? Yeah… by the way I’m getting MARRIED.”

Maybe she felt weird about telling me because we dated for 2 years in college and until last year, she still had my high school class ring and my senior pin (do people even “pin” each other anymore? geez, I’m really cool for a guy in the 1950s).  Maybe she thought I already knew somehow.  I mean, he’s an actor around town and we’ve hung out after shows before.  He’s a good guy and after the first time I hung out with him, I already knew that he was perfect for her.

I know that women are the ones who are supposed to have the biological clocks that tick so loud that they’re like the alligator from Peter Pan, but when is my love life gonna uncomplicate itself and point in the right direction?  I know, intellectually, that I don’t want to rush into anything just for the sake of walking down the aisle, but I can’t help feeling like this is my own special dating purgatory where I’m headlining with Cheaty the Time-Waster! (Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!)

Enough of that.  Wow.

I’m happy for them.  It’s always good to know that someone has found their true love and made it honest.  But I still feel like some of the credit belongs to me.  After all, if I hadn’t gotten out of the way when I did, they might not have even met each other.  Maybe it’s like that movie Good Luck Chuck* and there’s a curse on me so if you date me, you end up meeting your soulmate after we break up..?

I guess we all have our roles to play.

*yes, I saw it.  It had Jessica Alba in it and she’s hot.  I didn’t see it in theaters or anything like that, but it was totally worth getting on netflix.

Mana Sa Tatay

My latest escape from reality is America’s Best Dance Crew.  I caught on to this show while I was in Cali and I gotta say it’s up there, especially in the guilty pleasure department.  One of the things I like about this show is that it highlights a lot of talented Filipino Americans out there doing what we do best–performing.

A couple of the stories hit me on a personal level because they have to do with the dichotomy that is the Filipino parent.  On one hand my parents have been very supportive of my career as an actor, while I’m doing shows or on TV.

“Mana Sa Tatay” is my dad’s catch phrase when we’re around other Filipinos.  Basically it means, “He takes after his dad.”  Both he and my mom are proud to brag that I’ve worked at the Guthrie, The Ordway, Chanhassen Dinner Theater, and any of the other major theaters in Minneapolis.  They wouldn’t necessarily put the smaller theaters on top of that list, even if I’m proud of my work in those productions…

On the other hand, my parents are the first to criticize me for not choosing a career where I could be making more money on a regular basis.  I’ve endured the arguments, the not-so-subtle nudges, the Five Year Plan (that my dad put me on without telling me), and the myriad moments of disapproval and worry about my future.  They used to tell me that they came here so I could have more opportunities and be happy, i.e. make money, and that I could always do community theater or act “on the side.”  But, recently, I’ve argued that if I had grown up in the Philippines I wouldn’t necessarily have the opportunity to live my dream and that I’m much happier doing that than making six-figures sitting in some cubicle.

Joesar Alva, a member of the Boogie Bots from Season 2 of ABDC, has a pretty unique story in that his father, who taught him to dance when he was little, went into a coma a few months before the show aired.  Below is a clip that hit me pretty hard when I saw it:

The other story that really nailed a familiar Filipino experience is the story that Ailyn Isidro of SoRealCru brought to the table.  In the first episode, she describes that her parents don’t approve of her wanting to be a dancer, and it becomes a theme for their crew throughout the season.  In the 6th episode, her parents decide to fly in from Houston to see her dance for the first time… EVER.  They smiled and appeared really proud of their daughter, but coming from that experience I’m skeptical that they’ve turned over a new leaf 100%.  I know this isn’t a story that’s strictly a Filipino experience, but I also know what can happen when the cameras and the spotlights turn off.  She’s still their daughter and if she doesn’t land something huge after this show, it could degrade back into the same disapproving discussions.

I love my parents.  They took time off work to come to watch me ride the pine at my basketball games in junior high; they’d come to high school plays, and even some of the really obscure things I’ve done in my career.  They’re my biggest fans and my worst critics.  I know that I could have it much, much worse, but it’s always good to see other Filipinos out there doing what they do and knowing that we, as artists, have similar struggles.

“I don’t want you to do the dishes… I want you to WANT to do the dishes.”

Ok keeds.

Let’s just say, hypothetically speaking, that you’d want your man to bring you flowers more often.  You know, try a little harder… actually woo you.  So you say, “honey, why don’t you ever bring me flowers?”  You might have a talk about it and, lo and behold, the next day what does this oh-so-thoughtful man do?  He brings you flowers.

[studio audience]: Aww.

As much as you might want to believe that this was purely an act of attentive consideration on the part of your beloved, you may be plagued by the nagging feeling that he just got you flowers because you asked him to.  Wholly unromantic.

This is the crux of the whole deal.  Most women want their men to be thoughtful enough to act on their own… and when they aren’t, they muster up the courage to mention it or have a “talk.”  Doing so, they risk giving up the element of surprise, which was the whole point of the thing in the first place, and suddenly the gesture doesn’t taste as sweet.

Ladies, we know as well as you that if you nag us enough we’ll eventually cave and do what it is that you’re nagging us to do.  But that isn’t what you really want, is it?  You want us to WANT to do things for you.  You want us to be considerate of your feelings, to be thoughtful, and put your happiness above our complacency.  Here’s how that conversation goes:

“Babe, can you help me with the dishes?”

“Sure… just let me finish this (level, quarter, inning, afterschool special)”

“Please, honey?  Let’s just do this real quick and you can get back to your thingy.”

“Ok, just give me a minute.”

“If you help me now, it won’t take as long and you’ll be back before you know it…please?”

“Yeah… why don’t you get started, and I’ll pop in when I’m done.”

“Fine. (sigh) Forget it.”

“No, I’ll be right in, ok?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, really, just one minute.”

“Whatever.”

“Ok fine, I’ll do the farking dishes…”

“No. I don’t want you to do the dishes.”

“You just said you did.”

[wait for it...]

“I don’t want you to do the dishes.  I want you to WANT to do the dishes.”

Guys, at this point, just shut the hell up.  What most of us don’t realize in this situation is that it’s a Lose-Lose.  The damage is done.  You cannot possibly win this argument.  It’s true, nobody really wants to do dishes.  But what she’s asking is for bigger than dishes.  She’s asking you to care about her enough to want to make her happy.  It’s a big-picture thing that applies to the big things as well as the little things.

I find myself, yet again, in the stereotypical female position of all things romantic.  Having been recently burned by love, I’m reluctant to get into any kind of romantic relationship right now.  The woman who did the most recent singeing has thrown herself on the mercy of the court and wants me to give it another try.  After calmly yet firmly explaining my position to her, she replied:

“What do I have to do…?”

Ahhhhh…. so.  The plot thickens.  I’m not gonna say I wasn’t tempted to make her hop on one foot and bark like a dog… a really big dog… but I digress.

I could run down the laundry list of things, in an almost Survivor Challenge way, that might bring me back to the table, but basically, it boils down to: You shouldn’t have done what you did.

Bottom line:  I don’t want her to do any of those things.  I want her to want to do those things on her own.  Or maybe more accurately, I want her to do things not to win me back, but as a statement to the universe (and to herself) that that’s not who she is anymore; that she regrets what she did and that she genuinely wants to square things with the universe first, knowing that by doing that she is putting faith in a world that will eventually bring her to where she wants to be.

Or, she could build herself a time machine, go back, and talk some sense into that girl who was on the verge of fucking things up with possibly the best guy she’d ever date.

As a parting gift to both the ladies and the fellas, I offer this suggestion:

When she brings up the talk about getting her flowers, resist the urge to do it right away.  Get out your calendar/palm pilot/blackberry and write it down a week, and then a month, from the day she brought it up.  Let some time pass, let her forget (a little bit) about the conversation you had.  Better yet, don’t even make it flowers.  Make it something that shows you know something about her that no one else knows.  Most importantly, let her know that you are capable of surprising her on your own.

My vote goes to the better actor

“They” used to say that Politics is show business for ugly people.  Although I don’t consider myself in “show business,”  I think I get what “they”‘re saying.

It’s a good thing that the internet affords you the opportunity to catch up on the events of the day because I’ve been watching the DNC speeches on YouTube and I’ve decided how I plan to select whom I will be voting for this November.

I will be voting for the better actor.

I’d like to consider myself someone who keeps his finger on the pulse of current events, but let’s be serious.  I don’t know shit.  I forgot that the DNC was even going on this week…til I saw people mentioning it on their facebook status.

They aren’t just up there making it up as they go along.  They have their speeches written for them by other people… they know when to really attack a line or build momentum with a particular cadence or sentence structure.  They are up there feeling their audience and trying to illicit a response… they hope to take people on a journey.

Some people talk about acting as “pretending to be someone else.”  I’ve always thought differently about it, and I’ve gotten into some heated discussions about it with a few barroom ignoramuses.  I don’t pretend to be someone else.  My job is to figure out what is real, truthful, and honest about a character and where that character and I intersect.  Then I can play that character as a real 3 dimensional human being.  It’s not about pretending to be someone who is different from you, it’s about finding the essence of someone, what is universal about their experience, and how they are affected by the human condition.

Very simply (and somewhat technically), if they don’t sound like they are saying these words for the first time, they’ll lose me.  A lot of Shakespeare’s speeches are rhetorical: stating a thesis, then providing various perspectives that shed light on the different aspects of that idea.  At its core, a good political speech is not that far off.

I want to be inspired, moved, caught up, invited to look in on an extraordinary event in one’s life, and to be affected.  That makes for a good night of theater, and we should, at very least, expect that much from our president.

Wile E.’s Theory of Relativity

The Minneapolis Fringe Festival is one of the biggest in the country.  Last night, as I willed my eyes not to bleed after seeing what can only be described as straddling the line of being possibly one of the most horrible shows ever OR the awesomest theatrical presentation I’ve ever seen, I had this very quiet thought:

Fringing is like dating.  You have to sit through the really shitty shows in order to appreciate the good ones.

If you really are out there…

I need to take a break.

I know that I’m supposed to be out there looking for you and whatnot, but I also gotta have faith that you’re looking for me too.  So I’m just gonna put myself on timeout and let you do the looking for a while.

It should be noted that this is really hard for me to do.  I’ve been looking for you since the 1st Grade, I think, and old habits die hard.  The thing is that I seem to keep finding myself exactly where I am right now, and this place sucks.  It’s like when you’re lost in the woods and you keep coming up on the same tree.  That’s where I am right now.  Same Fucking Tree, Same Broken Ticker.

I won’t hide from you; that’s not what this is about.  I just need a little me time.  Think about it this way:  I’m gonna work on being a better man so that when you come along, I’ll be ready for you and the awesomeness that will undoubtedly ensue.  So come find me if you can.