Today was a very interesting day. !!!

I am still wondering where/how to begin – but I’ll try. I’ve just finished spending one of the funniest / weirdest nights in a tv station with my favourite sportsjournalist and listening to fans scream/shout/cry + watching contestants come up and tell us v.earnestly why entertainment and tv is good and why you should support M1 or M2 or M3 and so on and so forth. (M5 is our friend btw).

So we ended up watching Star Search because jan had to support a familyfriend who was participating (and wanted company). Now, I’ve never gone to things which involved fans having to wave and prepare banners WITH ONE’S FACE BLOWN UP TO THE SIZE OF A3 AND ABOVE. But I am digressing. I turned up, realised her familyfriend was my childhood art teacher, and half died of pai seh(ness) and amusement because of the coincdence of it all.

That jan and I did not mind sitting through the entire production was (in a way) thrilling + scary atthesametime. But that’s besides the point. The point to this whole story is how surreal it was as it felt like this:

Cos seriously, the fans (or family/friends) werecrazy. While we spent most of our time from 7-9pm trying to slouch and hide, everybody else around us waved their flags /banners/ posters/ water bottles/light sabers/ tissue papers. They screamed. They shouted. What you see here is NOTHING compared to what really happened.

When the show started, the host introduced the judges and I see hongkong actor Alex Man walking into view. I’m not sure how popular he is anymore. But he once acted in Golden Pillow with Zoe Tay and dearzoe won the best actress award in 1996 for her performance even though Mr. Man infamously screwed us all by ending up with the 2 leading ladies (zoe + fann) in that show. (!!) 

And then I knew that This Was It. It was my moment.  And I was in my element. I had spent my growing up years watching local tv for one sole purpose, and one sole purpose only. And life had presented itself such that after years of sneaking around + trying to master the art of turning off the tv + running up the stairs as quickly as possible when mom returned home- it had come to this. which was to

scream for his attention during a nondescript event and shout out : “Golden Pillow! Golden Pillow!”

I bet no one heard it tho- cos everyone there were either too young, too distracted by their kids/friends/bros/boyfriends becoming new starlets and/or were normal, matured grown-ups who would, naturally, have no idea that Golden Pillow was being (re)played on ch8 every saturday from 3.30pm (to mark mediacorp’s somesort of golden anniversary).

They don’t know all this. But I did.

I’m quite sure I heard Jan shudder in her seat.

(But I know she still loves me).