Dick Astley
The only purpose showbiz celebrities have in our lives I think is to make us feel sorry we’re not celebrities ourselves. This explains the sadness we feel every time we finish watching a movie.
It’s not our return to the real world that makes us sad. It’s not the pile of laundry that needs washing back home. What makes us feel low is the realization that we’re not hot like Robert Pattinson, Colton Haynes or Liam Hemsworth, none of whom I’m familiar with because I just copy-pasted their names from some website’s “Top Ten Hottest Actors Under 30” to make me sound millennial.
So, we idolize celebrities because: 1) they make us feel sorry for ourselves; 2) they help us forget the laundry; 3) they make us Google top ten hottest celebrities under 30.
This is the very core of our existence as non-celebrities. So, you can just imagine being in the same room with your favorite stars, which happened to me last week while having dinner with my family and some friends in Manila.
As hosts, our friends picked a restaurant called Provenciano in Teachers Village, Quezon City. This place, because maybe it was our friends’ way of highlighting my being a probinsyano and a teacher, and my not being a big fan of Manuel “Tagalog as National Language” Quezon.
As the waiter ushered us inside, the crowd convinced me this was not a place frequented by probinsyanos and teachers. We couldn’t afford this place. It’s upscale enough to be a hangout for celebrities like… What the... who’s that guy at the next table? It’s… Roderick Paulate!
Oh, my God, the hero who brought laughter to my life as a teenage loser, my Inday sa Balitaw, my Binibining Tsuperman. I wanted to scream, “Kuya Diiiiick,” but I didn’t because a real fan doesn’t scream, as screaming widens the gap between the fan and the idolized. And I don’t like the word “dick.”
But I kept him within peripheral vision, acting as if celebrity encounters are a routine for me. I also made sure my phone catches him as a photobomber in my selfies. While doing all these, Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” was on loop in my head.
Oh, that song. Paulate’s rendition of it was so perfect I sometimes doubt if he’s not the original and Rick Astley was the one who recorded a cover version.
Then my five-year-old blew it. “Why do you keep taking pictures of him, tatay?” he said in a voice loud enough to be heard by picnickers at the Quezon Memorial Circle. Everyone at our table burst out laughing. When I turned to check Paulate’s reaction, he was giving me his Kumander Gringa look, the one in the movie where you don’t know if it’s anger or flirtation.
I gave Paulate an apologetic look, which also asked, what’s the real score between you and Jacquie Aquino? He shot back with a look that said, “Don’t be so eighties, dude, I’m a Quezon City councilor now.”
I rolled my eyes, whipped my hair at him and left the room dancing “never gonna give, never gonna give, never gonna give, never gonna give…”