Last night I was priveleged enough to attend my mom's singing competition, entitled "Search for the Stars 2000". It was labelled as a Grand Championship contest, but apparently, there was no pre-contest you had to win before entering... So it wasn't a grand championship amongst all the mini-champions...it was a competition amongst anyone who wanted to join. At least that's what me and mam figured, seeing as how they let my mother in. She just entered on a whim. A very bad whim.

For weeks before she's been practicing her vocal talents, forcing her poor children to endure her relentless renditions of Whitney Houston's smash hit "Run to You", courtesy of the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. Not that her voice is unbearable...she's actually got a decent voice. But it's kinda annoying when I come downstairs and find her fast asleep on the couch, lulled to that unconscious state by her singing voice, blasting from the stereo system. Yes, my mother records herself singing then has it on perma-playback.

I understand that it was a big deal for my mom. Hell, her picture was on the poster. Although it was a picture of her 20 years ago, when she was still hot stuff. The horny judges must have been disappointed. She had a blazer specially made for the event...it was this sort of pea green colour with metallic gold designs imprinted on it. We even got into an argument over what I was supposed to wear. She dished out a runners and jeans ban. I thought, fine, I'll humour her, so I donned the nice gear, a rarity for me. Turns out it was in a real classy venue...yah, the Douglas College auditorium in New Westminister.

So I showed up with mam and my sister at around 7:30pm. Surprisingly, it was packed. Mamoser felt a little out of place, as she told me she was one of maybe five white people there. I looked around and saw she was right. Plus only half the dialogue was in English... I tried my best to translate for her, but I had a difficult time. Eh well. The next four hours were agonizing. The kiddies portion went by relatively fast, with the youngsters singing away in their tacky fashion-oblivious parentally chosen frilly frou frou outfits. This poor little boy was forced to wear a red satin puffy sleeved shirt (!) under his black vest. Cruel cruel mother.

The young adults (13-30) category went by much more slowly. Two of the contestants were so obviously over 30, but I guess they wanted to retain their youth for as long as possible so they lied about their ages to be categorized as "young". This one girl had extensions down to her knees! Terrible frizzy cheap-ass hair extensions. O yes, you do look beautiful indeed. Sigh...it was very slow going because two new hosts replaced the previous 8 year old host. At least she got to the point. These new fools tried to wow the audience with their lame banter. "O Jimmy! You are so funny!" "No estelle, you are funny!"

Then we had us a little Estelle and Jimmy intermission. Estelle sang. yay. Then jimmy performed. He was the only part of the night that I genuinely enjoyed. Estelle gave a nice little introduction, referring to jimmy as "she" and ranting on and on about how he must be referred to as "she" b/c that's what "she" really prefers. Yes, we filipinos really enjoy our gay boys. In fact, of the few filipino comedic movies I have seen, there was always the token gay filipino boy, who prances about giggling with his hand over his mouth. I think the best example was from this movie called Jack and Jill. Jill was the over-the-top femme-male. I remember this one scene where he had to take off his top and revealed that he had taped over his nipples with criss crossed band-aids. Yeah, anyways. So jimmy was parading his lanky body across the stage, shaking his booty at the crowd, encouraged by loud cries of laughter. He was so entertaining I was actually throwing my head back roaring away.

Ahh...on to the 3rd group... The over 30's. O god. This one woman came out in a skimpy red dress, not flattering at all...plus she was wearing a fucking tiara! Because yes, you look like a princess with your permed hair and obvious underbite. But she was a good singer. O yes, then the mama performance. She walked onto stage, brought the microphone up to her lips, then gave a performance I never thought I'd get through. It was very difficult to watch because she didn't compare anywhere near to the other contestants. Her voice was all wavery and quiet, unlike the others who belted out the tunes. There were times where she tried to reach the high notes and ended on a little screech. O god. I felt so bad for her.

When my mom came home later, I was ready to offer support for her bruised ego. I figured she'd been out with her friends, drinking her embarassment away. I was wrong. She came back around 3am and then proceeded to bitch about how the two guys who won second and third were talentless bastards (I thought they were splendid) and didn't I think she deserved third place, *at least*. "yes mom" I lied through my teeth. Wow, she's really disillusioned herself. She seriously thinks she's gonna be the next Celine Dion... who am I to take diss my mom's dream? Although she has no trouble at all telling me I'm going to ultimately fail in my career of choice, mechanical engineering, because it's a "man's job". Maybe I will tell her that her singing career's going fucking nowhere. Hmm...that's an option.