By Reymundo Salao
Oftentimes Disturbing
March 2, 2004
Evil eggplants have taken Muriel and Eustace prisoner. Courage, the cowardly dog rescues them by pouring the water from the dam unto the evil eggplants, thus, reverting the evil eggplants back to good. The story ends with the eggplants, Muriel, and Courage, as friends. Yes, cartoons can be very bizarre, and oftentimes disturbing. But at least they are a better alternative to listening to candidates yakety-yakking on their campaign BS. The corny jingles, the pretentious taglines, the crocodile promises, and the ridiculous poses both on their posters, and the campaign commercials. This is the season where a great sense of pretentiousness is in the air. If you could have a piso for every fake smile made this season, you would be a millionaire. I really don’t care. Many of us Filipinos must be pretty used of this kind of national aura, we’ve been into this chaotic upside-down universe of masks ever since our country has fallen off the “dignified” status and into third-worldness.
To cheer ourselves up from this national hype that can sometimes lead us into depression and hopelessness, I have tips to suggest to anyone whose willing to express their creative side in dealing with the election season.
1. DA CHART
This first suggestion is a bit more serious, and many people, even the political experts may do the same thing. What you have to do, is to list all the promises and the platforms of government announced by the candidates into a chart. This must be a chart that you are willing to keep during the duration or the term of office of the candidate who will win, because you will be following up the activities of this candidate if he does follow his promises and platforms. You can broaden the scope of your charts. On the chart you can study subject matters of: A. attitude towards Leftists B. attitude towards Muslim rebels c. attitude towards American government d. attitude towards Globalization, and e. attitude towards death penalty. Then, you can observe the changes or any other progressions that may occur. Note that by doing this, you will be developing skills in analysis. Who knows? Someday, you may be a great political analyst!
2. DA ALBUM
With all the dumb jingles buzzing around, try to get a copy of the different jingles of the candidates and compile them into one cassette or CD. You can do this by either actually acquiring a copy, or record those jingles via cassette recorders. Once you have a full album of campaign jingles, mark the CD or cassette “JINGLES OF THE 2004 ELECTION”, this now becomes a precious album which may be worth a lot ten years after. Try to keep it for not less than 10 years, and you’ve got something which is already a piece of history. You can someday tell your grandchildren, “Ey kids, look how gad-awful silly our ancestors are!”
3. DA LOOKS!
DO NOT THROW AWAY THE LITTLE Pamphlets, Cards, Calendars, and Posters that show the face of the candidate on a laughable pose. These are the pictures that should launch a thousand ballots. But to you, my dear creative young artist, these are pictures that will train you how good you are as a visual artist. In each picture, you may want to draw a moustache or a beard…even sunglasses or Zorro masks. For example, you have 5 pictures of Reymundo Salao for President. On picture 1, you can draw a Luna moustache; mark Picture 1 as “Reymundo Luna”. On pic 2, you can draw spiky hair on Reymundo’s head and punk shades, even groovy chain earrings… Mark pic 2 as “Punk Reymundo”. On pic 3, you can draw beastly facial hair and fangs on Reymundo; mark pic 3 as “Reymundo Halimaw”, and so on and so forth. There are many artistic variations that one can do. One just has to stretch their imagination to learn how far their creativity can go.
That’s just about it. Have a happy election season!
