Me & Gary V.

Several years ago, through my then boyfriend, I discovered Gary Valenciano, Filipino pop star extrodinaire. He has a beautiful voice. Ballads might be what wins him awards but dancing is what made him a household name. He performed here in Nashville this weekend and did a couple of routines with his 18-year-old son Gabriel. Um, wow. ("My daddy can pop-and-lock better than your daddy!") It was fabulous fun.

Early on, in my "Gary V. discovery" stage, two songs in particular stole my heart: Sana Maulit Muli (Tagalog) and Could You Be Messiah. The first is a love song about loss. The second is about a guy who's grappling with whether or not to accept Christ. I've been a fan ever since. (Love stories and Jesus--Ha! Does anything else matter?)

The last time Gary & co. (wife Angeli, et al.) were in the area, I had a chance to share a meal with them. They are such fabulously approachable people, very humble and very kind. It's so strange to think that they get mobbed when they're in the Philippines! It was nice seeing them again and seeing that their graciousness had nothing but increased in the past four years.

If nothing else, check out the video of Gary and Gab. Very cute. (Yeah to house music remixes!) It's a brief taste of the show they gave Sunday night.

[Read it in The Tennessean.]

Monday Eye Candy

From Dabboo Ratnani's impossible-to-get-your-hands-on '07 wall calendar. [link]

Need a reason for wide-eyed wonderment?

Just when you thought there was nothing good to watch on the internet...

Check out this toddler wrestle a cobra. I'm not sure what language they're speaking but all I'm saying is where's the Department of Child Services when you need them?!

Everybody loves/hates Jerry

I don't even like Jerry like that but the news still made me kinda sad.

I guess it's because he's like the mascot for my college years. I have this memory of him hemming up one of the speakers at convocation. Dude said something smart and Jerry like picked him up off the ground. That and crowd surfing. He would crowd surf every now and again. Very amusing stuff.

Television evangelist Falwell dies at 73

[Jerry's one thing but once Billy Graham dies, it's SO over.]

Feeling Filmi!

I haven't had enough time to squeeze in any 3-hour viewings as of late. I'm already past the point of withdrawal, so it's easier to be at peace with myself. At any rate, I've resolved to filling my filmi cravings with movie music.

eMusic will forever be on my Good List for their 25 free downloads promotion. They have a nice collection of international music. I got some sweet tracks from Mali, the Israel and--you already know--India. They actually have a seperate category just for Indian Filums.

I tried not to overdose. Seriously, there's 4100 albums filed under Indian Film. I grabbed a couple of tracks from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, skipped that fabulous cult-classic Disco Dancer, but most certainly got my Dil Se on. If you like that old skool, super raw, pre-master mix string orchestra sound, definitely check out the tracks from Mother India and Kabhi Kabhie. ;) I might have gotten my Bluffmaster tracks from there too or it could have been some other unpaid location. Hmm, my memory fails me...

Anyhoo, just thought I'd share the love! I miss my cotton candy.

Monday Eye Candy? - updated

Eye candy might not be the right classification for this one but at the very least, true R&B fans should find this slightly amusing. This is what America has done to Asia--specifically Korea.

Presenting Rain (Bi), the manchild whose fans pummelled those of both Stephen Colbert and Sanjaya Malakar to make #1 him on the Time 100 poll.



BONUS
My imeem tracks from Rain. If that first track doesn't make you wanna dance, I don't know if we can be friends! LOL. [The girl he's singing with--Ai--used to be a backup dancer for Janet Jackson. She's Japanese. Anybody know which language this track is in?]

Run Don't Hide

If like me, you eschew cable television and/or have aged out of MTV, you may have missed the first two seasons of Run's House, a reality show following the mostly ordinary lives of 1/2 of the pioneering hip-hop group Run D.M.C., his wife and five kids.

Outside of the fact that the family lives in a mansion and Run's brother, Russell Simmons stops by every now and then, the fact that the family has more than 2.5 kids makes them unusual. The fact that Run is an ordained minister and didn't buy his mansion with money from the church makes them remarkably unusual. ;)

Anyhoo, I've only seen one episode of the show so I'm not quite sure how I came across this article the other day. It may have been the headline: Death Comes to the Reverend that got my attention. And this quote that stuck with me:

I told them, ‘This is what life is about. I may be famous, I may be rich, I may have bling, but tragedy comes to my door just as it does anybody else’s, and that’s a message that cannot be pressed hard enough in today’s society where celebrities are so much on a pedestal.’

Basically, Run and his wife Justine found out mid-pregnancy that their child had omphalocele, an often fatal condition which causes the baby's organs to grow outside its body. They decided not to share the news with their kids or the MTV crew and staff. The baby was born prematurely and lived only two hours.

MTV asked if the family wanted the cameras turned off. Their answer: no. “How could I let the TV cameras in when me and my family were out bowling and laughing and not let them in when we suffering and grieving? Life does not work like that,’’ Simmons told NEWSWEEK.

Wow.

“We knew of families that had similar bad news before their babies were born and everything turned out fine,’’ says Justine. “We had our faith, and our faith told us that God could give us a miracle and this baby could be a healthy baby born with no problems. That’s the attitude we took.’’

A faith that cannot withstand sorrow, cannot stand at all. I agree wholeheartedly with their decision. There's another quote in the article about not wanting other people's negative opinions about their choice to weigh them down. I'll not engage a discussion on the morality of abortion here but I will say this: I applaud their courage and tenacity at weathering the storm and seeing it through, rather than seeking an artificial resolution.

Who's eyes? - updated

John West, one of my favorite independent artists has a songlette on his October LP called "Butterflies."

Check the lyrics:

You give me butterflies...
Took time to realize
You got my children's eyes
That's what you got

Dang that's good.
I'm glad that's in a song so I won't fall for it later...

Listen to John on MySpace [update] or check out the track below!

Monday Eye Candy

Today's Hrithik moment is courtesty of our friends at Sony.
When they're good, they're very, very good but when they're bad, they're hor-rid.

Keeping It Real...

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how to keep it real as a Christian, particularly as a modern protestant. I belong to a denomination that ascribes to no particular outward signs of holiness. We don’t wear any particular headgear, hold no food restrictions and from the best I can tell, most of us look normal.

Our services are quite another matter. We hail of the Pentecostal persuasion. Not quite Jesus Camp, but we’re no hymn singers either. For the uninitiated, I imagine it might be a bit much but I don’t go by “hype” for nothing. I generally bring the same level of energy to a “religious” gathering as I would in other areas of life.

So herein lies the rub: All of my closest friends are Christians. They’re the only people I’ve felt like I could share all of my life with. I’ve always believed secular folks would dismiss any conversation that began with, “Can I just tell you how awesome God is? When thus and so happened…” linking causal effect with an immaterial yet personal being. Perhaps I’m maligning the mass hordes of intellectual and worldly persons I’ve yet to meet. Question of the month: Do I want to know the answer?

The past few months have increasingly brought me into working relationships with non-Christians, some of whom hold other faiths. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve been censoring myself. I’ve been stifling my “God rocks!” commentary. He does. :) And I’ve lost some street cred with myself. Me and I are asking Myself what’s going on. [I’m still sorting through that.]

As for the intellectual hordes, are you among them? I would imagine, though I might be wrong, that God talk makes little difference between faiths unless someone were making a point to highlight areas of theological difference. This is also a point for discussion. The floor is open.