Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Leafing through a newspaper or magazine, one is sure to come across an article or two on the favorite topic these days.
New Year’s Resolutions
One is sure to read in them also a singular theme or message and that is, in one word, change.
Change for the better, they say. They have been naughty the past twelve months and so now they promise, resolve, to be nice this year.
Notice, too, that the New Year’s resolutions being trumpeted are mostly, if not all, those of celebs. Why them? Well, celebs make good copies which are sure to be read by star gazers.
A scary, jostling, crying and clapping, stomping and shrieking millions, enough to elect, and in fact, have put into public offices many a ham from the stage, film and tv screens.
That’s another story, however.
Why not, indeed, make public the otherwise private and personal New Year’s resolutions of celebs when even the most trivial about them are lapped up by their star-struck fans?
Never mind if their present list of resolutions to better their careers are but a rehash of some of those of last year and the years before.
Never mind if it is the same with the industry, that is, the entertainment industry.
To be fair, there were more thespians and less hams on stage and film and tv screens last year.
Perhaps challenged by the presence of an Aunor or a Bembol, the fresh crops of young talents have been holding their own in tear-shedding and face slapping scenes..
To be fair, also, there were films worth plunking a couple of fifties for and they were not of the rat-atat- tat, kabisote and Magnificent Seven kind. The indie films, for example, were revelations where viewers found unheralded actors delineating roles like the pros.
But some of the resolve to change for the better supposedly have been abandoned by the wayside. Boob tube telenovela plots remain lachrymose. The tears shed in every episode could fill a couple of drums enough to wash a week of laundry.
Alas, resolutions, like promises of politicians, have been broken, unfulfilled.
Speaking of politicians, have you heard of one making New Year’s resolutions?
Have you heard ‘honorables’ resolving not to dip their fingers into other people’s pockets?
That this time the ‘resolve’ is to be in for service, which is their mandate lest they forget or ignore, and not for the money?
Have you heard of politicians ‘resolve’ to stop treating their constituents like disaster victims? Discontinue their practice of having their ‘bosses’ line up and after waiting for hours insult them with grocery bags of NFA rice and a couple of small tins of sardines?
Abased as they are, the recipients in our little barangay – both from the informal settlers and the ‘regular’ residents – will never ‘resolve’ to thumb their noses at the give-aways (which mercifully occurs only during elections). For as with the proposed increase in pensions for senior citizens which could come down from 2000php to just 1000php or less, Ok na mabuti kaysa wala.
Now, do non-celebs make, or even bother or think, about New Year’s resolutions?
Of course, they do. But it won’t be about change. That would be asking too much and simply because it won’t happen
Less is the more apt operative word. Less alcohol after a night of beer binging and a terrible headline the morning after. Less gossiping after ‘Did you hear that?’ and ‘Did you know’ repartees at street corners turned into a full-blown barangay war among neighbors. Less intake of baby back ribs after the weighing scale groaned and broke down.
It’s status quo and same old me in 2016. Sometimes nice, sometimes cranky, makulit, maarte as the pretty librarian says I am with a pout. I will still be the incurable, great procrastinator, as like last year, my to-do list piles up and I miss my writing assignment deadlines every time.
Though I am an old dog I can still learn new tricks. But then it depends on what kind of new tricks are there for me to learn.
Photo: from handshake.uk.com