It was kind of depressing.
Where’s Black Sabbath? An Iron Man trailer without Black Sabbath is like The Noose without Michelle Chong.
In other words, it’s like Random Island, the new Channel 5 sketch comedy series that started last week not starring Michelle Chong.
But you know what’s most depressing? We won’t get to see the Iron Man 3 movie until next year in April.
What are we going to do for entertainment until then?
I mean, the biggest movie opening in Singapore last week was Trouble With The Chair starring Clint Eastwood.
So what if the title is actually Trouble With The Curve? It’s a movie about baseball - who cares? If it were Curve It Like Beckham, maybe we’d care.
Then on Monday, who should rescue us from the entertainment recession but Singapore’s “blogfather” himself, Mr Brown (who’s real name is Lee Kin Mun).
He “shared” a photo on Facebook with the comment: “Ex-DJ and Twelve Cupcakes boss Daniel Ong writes angry letter to neighbour doing renovations.”
At the end of the comment, Mr Brown added a word between two asterisks - “popcorn”.
The message was clear: Hey, everyone, got show to see!
The photo was of the “angry letter” written by Ong. Among other things, he wrote that a woman in the neighbourhood had died from the “noise and dust pollution” created by the neighbour’s renovations.Shin Min Daily News later reported that the woman’s son said that she was in her 70s and had died because of an illness.
At the end of the letter, Ong also offered an aesthetic critique: “The reno looks terrible. Esp your brown living room wall tiles. Hope the paint job can save it.”
Mr Brown was right. This was definitely popcorn-worthy.
Of course, there have been many such shows online. In this month alone, we've had the Amy Cheong show and the Alvin Tan and Vivian Lee show.
But those were like indie productions starring people we’ve never heard of compared to Daniel Ong, who is an actual, uh ... I was going to say “star”, but I can already hear the snorting.
How about “celebrity” then?
Lest we forget, apart from being a popular radio DJ, Ong was once the audience-preferred host over Gurmit Singh on Singapore Idol and even acted as Mr Kiasee, brother of Mr Kiasu, played by Chew Chor Meng on the Channel 5 sitcom Mr Kiasu.
Sure, Ong is no Terence Cao, but then Cao is in possibly the most boring sex scandal ever.A woman Cao had met in Shanghai claimed last week that the unmarried MediaCorp actor had fathered her child. I would like to tell you more, but I fell half asleep just typing that. Cao is no Jack Neo.
Cao is also not married to a former Miss Singapore Universe like Daniel Ong.
The Daniel Ong show is, of course, more than just about the letter.
His neighbour, Mr Sivalingam Narayanasamy, made a police report and claimed that Ong made fun of his name and culture.
Ong responded on Facebook: “Siva says I was racially discriminating and insulted his culture. That’s insane, I gave him a nickname. That’s it. Sivalinganamstyle (the hottest dance on the planet). It’s a cool cute nickname!”
Ong added: “And some of my best friends are both Indian and Malay. I hosted NDP…I love my multi-racial country!”
Hey, I’ve marched in the National Day Parade. Does that count too?
Aware of the attention he is getting, Ong also wrote on his Facebook page: “Many people are here to ‘watch a show’, have some ‘popcorn’ as they say, coz to them, it’s entertainment. It’s not, it’s my life.”
Still, not wanting to let the attention go to waste, the owner and CEO of Twelve Cupcakes couldn’t resist a little self-plug at the end: “Have a pleasant day, and if you’re feeling the blues like me…do what I do. Have a cupcake. It makes everything better.”Thanks, but I prefer popcorn. Less filling.
- Published in The New Paper, 28 October 2012
