backstage - she arched her eyebrows in disbelief and said "But, dah-ling, where've you been hiding?". Apparently, under a rock.

Well, right now I'm sitting on a stool beside the DJ's booth - his name's Ferdie, I think. Jerome Dalisay - Vivorah to Library habitues - is frantically tossing his long hair as he gets ready for his set. I have just wrapped up the relatively short tete-a-tete with him, and he has invited me to stay and watch a bit of how he and his friends are going to strut their stuff tonight. Vivorah asks me what I would like to drink. I order mango juice. When it finally comes, I sip at it plaintively and prepare to be blown away as Vivorah joins the three other comedians on stage.

Well, they're not exactly comedians. Vivorah and the other three - Bacci, Paula and Maria - are actually sing-along masters. Vivorah describes their job as a cross between a stand-up comic and a singer; "Parang in-e-encourage mo 'yung mga tao to sing ... tapos, mag-jo-joke-joke ka ... mag-ano ka ng mga punchlines para maengganyo sila." (You encourage people to sing and mix up your act with jokes and punchlines to lighten and liven things up.") In a way, you could say that sing-along masters are better than the likes of Jerry Seinfeld who are mere stand-up comics, because not only do sing-along masters have the responsibility of actually making their audience, or - in some nights when the level of reticence is almost palpable - just some of the audience, fall on the floor clutching their bellies and laughing hard or just make them slap their knees in amusement, but a sing-along master also has to know how to carry a tune. And carry a tune well. To this, Vivorah nods and adds, "Walang sing-along master na hindi marunong kumanta!" ("I've never met a sing-along master who didn't know how to sing!") And sing he does: on stage, Vivorah has just  finished plugging his show with Ai-Ai De Las Alas (who started out as a sing-along master, too) and is belting out the first stanza of a Lisa Stansfield song.

Vivorah discovered his talent for singing at an early age, and like kids who love performing in front of many people, he has joined a number of talent shows since he was a child. He went to Gregorio Araneta university in high school and took up a course in Mass Communication at Far Eastern University. During his college years, he was already working as a performance artist, doing stints for movies, television shows and theatre to earn money to support himself. I told him my observation about people who took up Journalism, Mass Communications and anything else under Arts and Letters, that is they usually end up doing theatre work and eventually "graduate" to the screen. He laughs - in an infectious way - and acquiesces, "Napansin ko rin 'yan noong nag-work ako with people from UP and Metropolitan Theatre." ("I noticed that, especially when I got to work with people from UP and Metropolitan Theatre.")

The Spanish Viper

I ask him about the origin of his stage name and footnote the query with the trivia about it being Spanish for viper. Vivorah laughs and tells me he knows what it means and then proceeds to synopsize for me the history of his alias. It was during his school years when his classmates would christen token gay guys with female names - much like any average school with a fair amount of token gay guys in it. And at that time,, Ms. Nanette Medved's Darna was the craze, which meant all the aliases would be taken from that treasure trove. "Meron kaming Valentina," he relates, "tapos, ako 'yung Vivorah. Kasi ako 'yung inaapi-api nila n'ong araw!" (We had someone named after the character Valentina, and I was Vivorah 'cause I was underdog back then." Anyway, the distinctive and somewhat original-sounding a.k.a. stuck and he began to use it during the early days of his stints at The Library.

Vivorah has been a sing-along master since 1994 ("Seven years!" he exclaims in realization and cackles yet again.), and he says that the job is quite lucrative. "Habang tumatagal, kapag nakikilala ka na, medyo malaki-laki na rin [ang bayad sa 'yo]." When you've been doing it for a while and people begin to like you, the pay gets better.") Performers are not paid weekly, but per night, which means that sing-along masters have to have more than twice-a-week gigs if they want to make it big and strike it rich. "Five times a week ako", expounds Vivorah, "pero dati minsan nakakapito ako. Pero ayoko na ng gan'on. Ngayon may dalawang araw na akong pahinga." ("I have shows five times a week, but when I was just starting I used to do seven a week. I don't like to have that kind of schedule anymore. Now I try to have two days off.

He won't disclose any figures, but he assures me that, at least for him, the cash keeps rolling in. And the source of that cash: lots of talent and lots of gigs. Aside from The Library, Vivorah also makes people laugh and sing with abandon at out-of-town shows and also over at Punchline, which is along Quezon Avenue, and at Adlib, which is "somewhere in Project 8."

So, to paraphrase a certain song, he does work hard for his money, but the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire question is, does the audience treat him right? Vivorah pauses a bit to rummage in his memory for some recollections of unpleasant situations, and then suddenly launches into an angst-ridden (this was obviously a hate-filled recollection) description of a girl who was "palengkera" (crass). Then I trigger yet another deluge of that funkalicious laughter when I correctly guessed who that girl was: "Gan'on ako kagaling mag-describe; mage-guess mo kung sino siya," he recalls. "Pero sa amin, 'yung nangyaring 'yon, biruan pa rin tapos punchline lang nang punchline. Tapos, kung sinong matalo, talo siya. Pero hindi ka talaga  s'ya tinantanan hanggang hindi siya bumaba!" ("She was just, like, teasing us. But I just kept on delivering the punchlines. That's what I do, and whoever loses,loses the game. Still, you know, with that girl, I never let up on her until she finally gave up and went down the stage!")

"May mga iba, nanunutok ng baril," he continues, "at saka nambubuhos ng tubig sa mukha ng host ... Pero sa iba 'yon; sa akin kasi hanggang talakan lang. 'Pag pinagtatawanan nila ako, lalo kong tinatawanan ang sarili ko!" (There are some who threaten with guns and who douse the host's face with water ... But that's with other hosts; with me, as much as possible, I keep it to just making jokes and outdoing their heckling. Sometimes, when they heckle me, I laugh at myself more!")

And that laugh, I think, is the thing that would always come to mind whenever I think of vipers and The Library. But when I ask him if he currently has a lover, Vivorah sighs deeply and audibly in between peals of laughter. not a good sign. He stalls in answering. Another not-so-good sign. Pouting, he finally says, "Dati meron ... pero ngayon wala na!" (I used to have one ... but now I'm loveless!").

I change tack and offhandedly ask him if he really loves his job. "Oo naman! Masaya siya talaga, masaya. Kasi nagagawa mo na 'yung gusto mo, kumikita ka pa. At saka marami kang ma-e-encounter, like different people with different personalities." (Of course, I love it! It's really, really, fun. You get to do what you like doing, at the same time you're making money. Plus you get to meet many people with different personalities.")

But nothing can beat Vivorah's personality: he sings like a pro, he makes people laugh, he has no qualms about laughing at himself and he can beat any "palengkera" who tries to claim the Library stage for her own. Top that with that contagious laughter and I think that's all one needs to survive in the world of sing-along masters.

mistresses