LIKE many of you, I’m frustrated.
I am frustrated that ex-president and dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos is set to be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. I’m frustrated that Sen. Emmanuel D. Pacquiao’s ignorance of the law, lack of common sense and propriety are now a regular spectacle at the Senate.
But enough of politics. Politics is incredibly frustratin,g actually.
What I mean by being a frustrated person is that I have a lot of dreams unfulfilled. Come to think of it, they’re less dreams and more delusions, actually. When I tell you what I wanted to be growing up, you will agree with me.
I’m a frustrated supermodel. Imagine, I grew up in the late 1980s to 1990s and it was the era of the glamazons. Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista led the pack. I really wanted to be them. Since there was no Internet at the time, at least the Internet as we now know it, I would rely on magazines to gush over their glory. Once in a while, they would appear in a news item and I would try to memorize how they looked and how they walked. My friend Caroline would send me VHS tapes of MTV shows, including House of Style, and every time these tapes would arrive, I would often shout something unintelligible in ecstasy.
But, of course, genes and my gender and my ganda (or lack thereof) prevented me from being a supermodel. Super-ilusynoda pa siguro.
Another frustration of mine is rapping. Among the tapes Caroline sent me had the music video of Blondie’s “Rapture.”
Seeing Debbie Harry for the first time with her large head, exaggerated make up and fierce attitude, I was hooked. And then, in the middle of the song, she started singing in a certain rhythm. I researched about the song and learned that style of music was called rap.
“Ang bongga! Ang unique naman!” was my first thought. A lot of rappers grabbed the spotlight thereafter, such as Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Salt N’ Pepa and, yes, JJ Fad (of Supersonic), so I thought I could be a rapper. After all, I thought rapping would be like second nature to me since I talk fast and I talk a lot. But of course, I learned the hard way that it takes more than that. When I first attempted to rap in front of my friends, I fumbled the lyrics and my friends laughed to my face and said, “You’re messing with the words! You can’t even memorize one stanza!” I screamed at them, looked up to the sky and vowed to never again attempt rap in my life.
But that didn’t stop me from adoring rappers, from international superstars to local exponents. Imagine my kilig when I first met Francis Magalona and, eventually, became close to him and his family.
In fact, his wife Pia is my BFF and I love her kids and her kids love me.
Of course, rap has evolved and one of its incarnations, fliptopping, seems to be the “in” thing now. Fliptopping is a battle between two rappers where they try to one-up each other through rhymes. It started out as an underground thing but now has worked itself to the mainstream. Fliptop-battle videos boast of millions of YouTube views, in fact.
That’s why it’s no surprise Mountain Dew has tapped fliptoppers for its latest campaign: DewmocracyPH. These fliptoppers—such as Shehyee, Looney and Ron Henley—will be joined by cool influencers, like Jugs Jugueta, Teddy Corpuz, Rachel Ann Daquis and Saab Magalona as they try to lure votes among Pinoys to choose which new Mountain Dew flavor they want: Live Wire or Blue Shock. The flavor with the most votes will then be available permanently.
People can just post on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtags #DewLiveWire or #DewBlueShock to fight for the flavor they prefer and they stand a chance to win a brand-new Mitsubishi Strada pickup truck. For more information, visit www.dewmocracy.ph.
Imagine if I had persisted in becoming a rapper. Maybe I would now be one of the fliptoppers that Mountain Dew and other brands would tap to be their endorser. Bongga, ’di ba!
Then again, I really doubt I would’ve become a top fliptopper. Flip lang siguro! Or baka nga flop!