I guess by now, my co-jocks have said everything there is to be said about the anniversary of Monster Radio RX 93.1. And as you can see with the photo above, I’ve been with RX for a LOOOOOOONG time now. And hopefully even LONGER. So let me just let some of the old photos I dug tell some of the storytelling.
What’s up with all the ties? We look like a bad 80′s The Knack cover band. Notice how I USED TOdrink quite a bit. I noticed a lot of the party photos had me holding a drink or two…
And the fashion sense! I can’t say much about how homely my clothes were, but good lord, I miss how the clothes used to fit me so well! I hardly needed to suck my stomach in during picture taking!
Rude Dude Jude Rocha is that you? Cool beans! Notice the oh-so-hip folded jeans and the come-hither half-open mouth pose?
Boyzone in the house! That’s Fran with me in the photo! We interviewed the boys together, including the vampiric Ronan Keating. Awww, the late Stephan Gately wasn’t looking during the pic.
It’s the Planet X boyz!!! Yup, Jude and I were the original sparring partners. They called us Heckle and Jeckle, after the two mischievous cartoon magpies, because we had the habit of hosting events “mildly inebriated”.
Did I mention I used to drink “a bit”? Yes, I was a party animal back in the day. And yes, even then, my co-workers like to make fun of me. Poor Chico, such supportive co-workers.
Where’s the love, Jude?!? There I was, my consciousness snatched by copious libation, and you flip me the bird. Nice.
And let’s not forget the 2 DJ’s who, during one RX Halloween party, thought it would be a GREAT idea to come as bride and groom. TOINK.
Especially for those abroad who are having a hard time getting a copy of our book, we’re happy to announce that it’s now available digitally, so you can read our labor of love on your iPad, Mac, Android & Desktop! Of course you can still have someone ship the hard copy to you, but this makes reading it more fun! Actually, even if you have a copy already, it might be fun reading it again on your iPad! Actually I’m downloading my own copy after this. If ever, it’ll be my first ever digital copy of anything! So go ahead and get your own digital copy now, click on THIS.
When we met Bela Padilla during the press launch for the Yahoo! OMG Awards, we knew we had to guest her. She’s drop-dead gorgeous, and has a sharp wit about her to boot! So when she got to the station, she was rarin’ to go, and hit the ground running.
Of course we had to have our epic pic. I have no idea why i tried to fit my face into the kettle bell handle, but I guess I’m odd that way. I look like a shmooshed duck. As always, everybody else looks normal.
Then of course came our epic rap-off. We skipped a week and missed one rap-off, mostly due to my “Lindsay Lohan”-ish episode, so we promised to make up for it this week. Hopefully we didn’t disappoint. At least we got it in one take! Again, our endless thanks to @JRhyan for always recording our celebrity guests on video every single time, even though he hadn’t had a stitch of sleep. Duper kaduper thanks Jaime!!!
Bela actually sounds good enough to be on radio. She’s got this really nice “cool chick” timbre to her voice, and she’s got a really adorable laugh that sounds interminable cute on air. Talk about a complete package! Thanks again, Bela!!!
It’s been a busy and hectic week, so although it’s a bit late, here’s my post on the Yassi Pressman guesting with the Kikay Barkada! The girl is cray-cray. She fits in so well with the kikayness and the bitchiness that is the norm in the morning. She may be 17, but she can make sabayan with us whatever it was we were talking about. And she got the zingers as well. Since she’s a great dancer, we thought we should skip the rap-off, and go for a dance-off instead. Here was the hot mess that was the first ever Morning Rush dance battle!
I swear, she’s a ball of energy! As you can see, I went low batt towards the end of the routine! This half-British kid was a handgul, and that’s just the way we like it in the morning! Cray-cray!
Grabe naman ‘to, we all got misty-eyed watching this tribute video. I know it’s supposed to be fun and all, but we all got choked up that you guys would go through so much trouble just to come up with a video like this for us. So much effort, so much love put into it. Even evil Gino (joke!) got really all mooshy inside when we were watching it. Wow, super thank you to the SG Rushers for such a heartfelt video. Ika nga ni Ellen DeGeneres: “Back at ya!!!”
As I promised, here’s the more comprehensive account of our Yahoo! OMG Awards experience. When we found out about our nomination, we were so excited and so stoked at the idea of winning this award. It would be special because it’s not so much about the show, but about the supporters of the show and how they can propel any show or celebrity to win in their respective categories. So obviously, we really wanted to win.
(Photo courtesy of @DelamarArias)
On the day of the awards, we really went all-out, like we never really prepared for an event before. We’re all self-confessed fashion victims, so we were thrilled to be styled for the first time by @katerro who gamely rescued us from the fashion police prison. So if ever we seem a little more well put together than usual, it’s all thank to Kat Erro for guiding us to the straight and narrow path, fashion-wise. We’d also like to thank as well Fred Penales and Miguel of Hairshaft for updating our ‘do as always, ever so supportive of our awards-night-look rescue mission.
When we finally got into the SM Arena, we were welcomed by a wall of sound, one area thundering with shrieks of delight: the RUSHERS. We really had goosebumps seeing them there, cheering us on, even having cut-outs of letters forming their battle cry for us (thanks Butterbaby!). We knew they were joining us, but we were simply choked up to see that kind of energy and love coming from them. Here’s a video of them in action:
When the nominees were being flashed one by one on the big screen, my heart was pounding like a jackhammer by then. By the time the winner was about to be flashed, I had a split-second gut feel that we had lost. So when they flashed our show’s photo, the Rushers went wild! I swear, nothing can describe the sheer electric joy we felt at that very moment. It’s a blur to me now, but I remember it feeling SOOO good.
(Photo courtesy of Mark Cerbo of nextjam.blogspot.com)
We went backstage for the interviews with the winners, and by then we had tweeted the great news and we were getting a flood of congratulatory tweets from everyone. We also had our share of celebrity sitings. One went like this: I was sitting down when I felt a kalabit on my shoulder and a meek voice asking, “Excuse me, can I have my book signed?” I said sure and looked up, and it was Shamsey Supsu! Can you imagine how my jaw dropped? She said she listens to the show and so we begged her to have our picture taken with her as well. She was the nicest girl ever! What an unassuming, down-to-earth celebrity. I understand why people love her so much. I hope we can guest her on the show one of these days! She’s definitely on my wishlist.
Backstage, we saw a familiar face – Xian Lim! We said hi, and we could tell from his initial expression that he didn’t recognize us (maybe because we actually looked decent that night). But the moment the recognition clicked, he gave us the biggest smile and even took a picture with us. Such a nice guy.
Of course we took the opportunity to snap a photo with his love team, the beautiful Kim Chiu. Kim was telling us: “Grabe, sobrang fan niyo yan.” Xian was so cool he even took a picture of Gino with Kim. Such feel-good celebs!
We also ran into Gino’s friend Bela Padilla. We definitely squeezed out a promise from her to guest on the show, so I’m hoping she’ll spill some secrets of Gino on air! I can’t wait to have her guest too!
We had so much fun that night, also communing with our co-radio jocks who were there as well. Of course the ever gracious Nicole Hyala and Christsuper, whom we always bump into. There’s just a mutual admiration thing going on there, lots of respect for what each team does on radio. And major props to Boys Night Out, who gamely approached us to congratulate us on the win. Slick Rick even tweeted his congratulations to us. Such a class act, that’s why if ever we were going up against anyone in the industry, it would be quite an honor to be up against them. It was fierce competition, without ever becoming ugly or negative. It just has to be said, congrats as well on a good fight, Boys!
Okay, so we get to the blind item. ALL the celebs we encountered were SUPER nice…except one. She was on her way to her seat when we approached, so maybe she was tired or not in the mood, but when Delle asked if we could have a photo with her, she rolled her eyes and made a face as if she were annoyed. To be fair, she said nothing, but the face spoke volumes. At first I thought I read wrong, but as we were walking away, we all asked each other, “Is it just me, or was she a total *****?” Apparently when we saw her reaction, we all wanted to just say, “Look, if the idea is so offensive to you, then we’re sorry for the intrusion and never mind the picture.” We just assumed that since the whole OMG Awards was about the fans, that most celebs would be okay to approach. Honestly, I’ve met tons of celebs, local and foreign, and not everyone was friendly. I understand that sometimes celebs get tired and are not in the mood, but this is the first time I felt so small interacting with a celeb. She made us feel 2 inches small. In her defense, I’m sure tons of her friends and fans would swear that she’s actually a nice person, but what we saw that night was NOT nice. But then that’s OUR version, we could be absolutely wrong about her. We ourselves are often accused of being suplado/suplada, but it’s only because we’re actually shy. So we’ll think nalang that maybe she’s shy as well and awkward in social situations like us.
UPDATE: Someone told her about the incident and she said she doesn’t remember rolling her eyes at us and so didn’t mean anything by it. She said sorry and no offense meant. And the look was probably because her falsies were bothering her. So I guess that’s that.
But to end on a positive note, everyone else was good vibes that night, the other celebs, the people behind the OMG Awards, and most especially the RUSHERS!!! Even until we left the arena, we met up with them and had a great time taking pictures and chatting (and the occasional teasing about our plus ones). We ended up grabbing a bite to eat to celebrate the victory, and we all slept with the BIGGEST smiles on our faces.
Again, thank you to the OMG Awards, thank you to Monster Radio RX 93.1, and most especially thank you to everyone who voted for us, online and via text, we owe this victory to you guys! Congratulations to us!!!
Wow, has it really been that long? People are calling it the show’s sweet 16. Imagine, if Delle and I had a baby when we started working together, she’d be 16 years old now! What a freaky thought.
We went from this:
To this:
From FM radio’s love team, to the Kikay Barkada! It’s been quite a road, the one we’ve traveled. The highs were (are) high, like the one we’re riding as this very moment, but the valleys were low indeed. When I think back, I marvel at how we weathered the rough patches. Heck, we’ve outlasted many marriages! Someone recently told us: “This is like your fourth wind?!?” But this latest incarnation of The Morning Rush, The Kikay Barkada, with Ginoboi, the irrepressible latest member of the family, is quite the creature! This anniversary is EXTRA special, having been the 3rd in a string of blessings that washed over us like a tsunami of good vibes. To celebrate this in the wake of winning the Tatt Award for #trendingradio and the OMG Award for Best Radio Show (not to mention the unexpected success of the Top 10 book), the anniversary is the icing on the cake. I have never felt so fortunate and blessed to be doing what we’re doing that right at this very moment. To be quite honest, it makes wading through the muck of the difficult times all worth it. When we celebrated the rounded-numbered 15th anniversary, it actually felt like an ending. I had this fearful hollowness in my gut that something’s ending. With Delle having a baby, and our personal lives evolving at racing speeds, I actually didn’t know what the future had in store for us. Little did we know that this whirlwind we’re experiencing right now was about to unfold. Gino’s arrival, the birth of the Kikay Barkada, the book, the awards, the past 6 months have been the best of our lives. Not to mention the manic support of the Rushers who literally toil and trouble their days in support of whatever project we may have in the wings. The outpouring of love (and I don’t take this word likely) is breathtaking.
So here we are, the latest version of us, this weird, dysfunctional, but happy little family we call our own. How long will this last? Who knows. But while we’re on this ride, let’s all enjoy it. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!!!
The Morning Rush won last night as BEST RADIO SHOW at the Yahoo! OMG Awards!!! The event was held at the SM Arena at the SM Mall Of Asia! We are still floating as I write this, as I woke up to an overflowing of well-wishes via text, Twitter, and Facebook! It’s such an overflow of good vibes from all over! There are no words to express how happy we are right now, mainly because more than out of merit, we won this award because of all our listeners, family, and friends, who pitched in together to vote for us. Here’s a video from the vantage of our ROCK, the RUSHERS.
I will definitely post a more comprehensive account of our OMG Awards experience, with all the photos and stories, but for later. Today, the work doesn’t end, The Kikays are hosting a wedding in a couple of hours, so I can only compose a quick post, just to thank everyone for helping us bag this great honor. Again, thank you to Yahoo! OMG Awards for the incredible recognition, Monster Radio RX 93.1 for our home in radio, and of course THE RUSHERS and all our listeners who tirelessly voted for us, online or via text, without whom we wouldn’t be celebrating today. THANK YOU!!!
It was quite a treat having Rocco Nacino over to join the fun on The Morning Rush, because he was very much game to join whatever kulitan we had in store for him! Of course he had his fan sign for the Rushers:
And, every single time we have a guest in the booth, we cannot NOT have an Epic Pic, this one with Rocco gamely showing us his “abs”!
And of course, our now notorious Epic Rap-Off! This was a first, because Rocco joined the Rap-Off, the first guest of ours to actually join in the rapping!
We even had to do a take 2, but it’s all good, it all turned out funny in the end. I didn’t get to enjoy our little Magic Mike moment there, since I didn’t want to flub my part, so watching this was actually the first time I saw what actually happened. Special thanks to @JRhyan for documenting Rocco’s guesting, for posting it on YouTube, and for giving Rocco a copy of our book as a souvenir! Wow, he gets to think of the stuff that we should be on top of. Again, thanks Jaime! I do hope he comes back for seconds, and expect more guestings like Rocco’s in the future! Tell us who you want to have on the show, and if we can wrangle it, we will! Or better yet, if you have contacts to the celebs you want on the show, maybe you can help us out.
