Kyla keeps it wholesome, Joey serves up laughs,  PBB teen Beauty gets revealed

All of the above happened last Friday. I’ll be writing more and in detail about these artists separately, but for the meantime, allow me to share the highlights of our interviews.

Lunch was with “Pinoy Big Brother” teen housemate Beauty Gonzalez’s aunt, who closely resembled her niece, especially with the tisay looks and forthrightness. We learned that while Beauty grew up in Negros Oriental, where her family owns and runs several farms, she is actually half-Cebuana and half-Spanish (her father used to be a professional Jai Alai player from Spain who’s now based in the Philippines). On her mother’s side, she is a great-grandchild of a former mayor in Daanbantayan. Anyway, the point of the get-together organized by Ms. Bernadette Luche Tad-y, the younger sister of Beauty’s mother Carina, is to show that Beauty is actually Cebuana (in fact, she was even picked as one of Cebu’s Prettiest and became an image model of Ayala Center Cebu’s fashion hub The Maze last year) and so, she deserves the support of the many Cebuano fans of the primetime reality TV show.   

By mid-afternoon, we went to the opening of the newly-renovated Svenson Cebu Center at the Keppel Centre in Cebu Business Park, of which Joey Marquez has been tapped as endorser (“I practically begged them to be their endorser,” corrected Marquez, who turned to Svenson for his hair loss problems in the past). The moment we introduced ourselves as media reps of this publication, the comedian—who’s otherwise known in showbiz circles as a “ladies’ man” er, to borrow his words, “ladies’ choice”—playfully retorted, “I’m a ‘Freeman’ as well.”

The host of the reality-comedy TV show “Kung Ako Ikaw” likes to make the ladies laugh—and that is what he thinks is his secret to why members of the opposite sex “feel comfortable around him.” As one pretty lady editor from a different publication reckoned upon the conclusion of her own one-on-one with the actor, “I can now relate to Kris Aquino and Alma Moreno!”  

By late afternoon, we caught Kyla’s mini-concert promoting “Heartfelt,” her latest album under EMI Philippines, at SM City Cebu’s Entertainment Plaza. This was followed by a sit-down interview with the 20-something singer over dinner at the Bigby’s in Northwing.

I don’t know why, but even if Kyla has repeatedly reinvented herself, has gone “daring” (in a way) in her music videos, has talked about love and sundry in her albums, somehow, even with all that conscious effort, she has sustained her wholesome and sweet image. Even she herself can’t understand why, she admitted with a laugh. There are no deep, dark secrets to feast on, and even Kyla could only supply one as the worst intrigue ever made about her, and that was a claim made by a woman that she was her daughter. And that even smacks of wholesomeness compared to the degree of controversy attached to many of today’s young artists.  

But apparently Kyla doesn’t need controversy to create whatever fuss for anything she promotes. EMI Philippines reps told us that they’re very happy with Kyla as their recording artist for scoring successive and impressive sales with the six albums she has made with them—amid the “problems” that recording companies are now facing that make it difficult for them to sell an artist (like free online music downloading as well as piracy). Kyla, nevertheless, wants to be more experimental in future collaborations with EMI Philippines, like coming up with a dance album. And that’s not a bad idea as we’ve seen her strut her stuff in that department during a Valentine concert with Jay-R a couple of years ago at the Aliw Theater.

Last Friday, I was also surprised to receive a text from Mr. Boboi Costas all the way from New Zealand, where he’s now happily based with his wife. A former editor in another Cebu newspaper, this guy has a storehouse of information and ideas from heritage, history, the paranormal to pop culture! Anyway, he texted me about the appearance of world-class Cebuana designer Monique Lhuillier (who has designed wedding dresses for several of the world’s most famous like Britney Spears) as guest judge in the latest season of the hottest US reality series on fashion design, “Project Runway,” joining regulars Michael Kors and supermodel Heidi Klum. The newest season just premiered in Australia and New Zealand. Well, I’ve not seen the said episode/s featuring Lhuillier yet, but doesn’t this piece of good news make you all the more proud of her? Anyhow, many thanks to Mr. Boboi Costas for the exciting update and for taking the time out to check out news from home also through this column.