Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Good-bye Yoyoy, Kuya Cesar

Just a few weeks ago I was thinking of buying one of his records and now Yoyoy Villame is gone. Yoyoy passed away noon today of cardiac arrest, he was only 69 years old. Broadcaster “Kuya Cesar” is gone too, 69, apparently of cardiac arrest too - just the other day, barely 2 days after his brthday.

Quite sad, really. I’m sure a lot of Pinoys of my generation remember both Yoyoy and Kuya Cesar, probably grew up with both media personalities. I remember Yoyoy becoming really popular in the 70’s (1977) with the hit “Mag-exercise tayo tuwing umaga” (Let’s exercise in the morning) at the early high of the OPM (Original Pilipino Music) revolution of the Marcos era. And for many who experienced the Japanese Occupation (like my mom and dad), “Mag-exercise tayo tuwing umaga” was a lighthearted re-take of the imperialist era.

Kuya Cesar was a bit later, although he was in broadcasting before the Marcos era, he left and returned in 1986 after the People’s Power revolution. I was in highschool then, and I do remember the popularity of Kuya Cesar’s ultra-slow-paced commentaries (especially when he appeared as commentator for a horse race in a comedy film).

The radio program “Dear Kuya Cesar” was really popular too - where Kuya Cesar read letters from heartbroken listeners and then offered advise. In the 80s and early 90s I listened a lot to AM radio because of prolific local wit, humor, breaking street news, local music from the 50s and 60s, and the genuine earthy Pinoy culture that florished it. I hated FM radio, in contrast, because it was horrific hollywood, billboard, top of the charts, Casey-Kasem-and-Pinoys with Kasem-esque accent pretending to be Americans.

I loved Yoyoy’s songs. An old BBS friend once gave me a CD of his songs as Christmas present and I played them over and over and kept people in the house chuckling. And I loved Kuya Cesar’s slow-paced commentaries. Too young, too bad they are gone too soon.

Visiting local news websites: Fear and trembling

That is what I feel whenever I go to a local news website. Why? Because of the horrible amount of advertising that I have to go through before being able to read any news. Add to that the horrible experience of your system freezing as all the useless multimedia content loads.

Today was unusual, though, when I visited the GMANews website to check out the news on the bomb explosion at a Cotabato bus station. I thought for a while, my good lord, local news websites have seen the light! There was still advertising of course but not as horrible as before. I thought, at least there is hope, as on-line media delivers the news without the garbage you helplessly avoid on television.

Then at the top portion of the news website, I saw this:

Well, so much for the jubilation. At least, there’s one good to come out of dreadful traffic!

EMail This Post This entry was posted by Fats on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Fats, Vitamins & Minerals > Media Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.