A Day With Ricky Martin

Before I begin, let me say something. According to BBC, I could only be headed on a one-way road to “success”. And mind you, very soon at that. So to all the usual suspects laughing at a once has-been teenybopper, you just wait. I could be having that last laugh very soon.

On that note, let us begin. I apologise for being a little disruptive.

I first saw Ricky Martin on television as this she-male who could work that pelvis better than any normal functioning man could. I say ‘she-male’ because if you’re anything like me, you’ll know that moving like that’s just not the norm. Men walk. Men run. Men sit on couches. Men do not dance anything like Ricky Martin.

The thing about Ricky Martin is that he doesn’t just dance… and I suspect I’m going to come across as terribly gushy, but what the hell. For a man, he plays with his hair a lot. Too much. Pushing it to the left, and then to the right ever so often in a half rapturous state. The only time I would even fiddle with hair is when I have them in my mouth. Period.

He asks for it
This is why I think the man has only himself to blame for this whole talk behind his sexual preference. Any one who moves like that has got to send both straight girls and gay men wanting to gnaw their teeth at those bon bons - which has a rightful following in itself – for all its worth.

Three years ago, Ricky tells the New York Daily News, "The homosexual community wants me to be gay. The heterosexual community wants me to be straight. They pull and push and pull and push."

Yeah well, we get the thrust of that.

Four Seasons with Ricky
So I park my butt at the front row of the press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel. There’s this plush couch on the stage in front of me, obviously where Ricky was going to sit. Since I’m small and often a little inconspicuous, I figure it would be necessary to get front row seats. I don’t want to have him looking over my head. Not healthy for the self-esteem. The ego needs to be validated every once in a while.

In the next few minutes, I see people who I think are journalists walking into the room. An observation: Some can be a little insecure. Upon entering the room, their eyes desperately dart about the room for familiar faces. When that happens, they coo, “Heeeyyyyy!” Otherwise, they reside to a quiet corner; make no eye contact, start scribbling on their notepads, and check that the batteries in their recorders aren’t leaking lithium. Most also have very nice shoes.

Before I can continue on my case study, sultry-voiced Denise from Power 98 booms into the microphone, “Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s welcome Mr Ricky Martin!”

On Ricky’s attention span
All 6’2” of him walks in.

6’2” sounds overwhelming, but it didn’t seem so, even from the closest seat.

And this, and I promise I’m not making up, Ricky looked at me. Ahem, I’m not going to push it if you’re a Doubting Thomas, but the truth of the matter is Ricky and I did make eye contact the moment he walked in.

And girls (and gays), I’m sorry to say that the guy has the attention span of a gnat.

An actor first, a dancer and musician second
He points to 1 camera, takes on an attitude and poses. The camera feeds off that energy. Flash bulbs go off. Click. Click. Click. He directs his attention to another camera and adopts yet another attitude.

It’s then that I remember that Ricky’s first foray into showbiz was through acting.

When host Denise from Power 98 F.M. hastened to get started on the press conference, Ricky cuts her short.

“Wait, wait, let me say hi first!” Jaded regional journalists roared approvingly. As celebrity reporter Robert Nisbet from BBC would say, it came down to:

Celebrity: 1. Naive reporter: 0.

Are my opening remarks now making sense?

Despite that, benefit of the doubt should be given to Ricky. In all honesty, the guy has no airs or even hints of pretentions about him. He comes across very “real”, and although, good looking, never in the intimidatingly beautiful and untouchable sense.

No celebrity could have a publicist do that for him.

Every bit Latin
Here to promote his latest Spanish effort Almas del Silencio (Souls Of Silence), Ricky Martin looks distinctly more Latin than ever - as compared to his Latino compatriot, known to all only as J. Lo, who gets whiter by the day. He looks a little beefier, a little darker this time in contrast to the clean-shaven glistening teeth Ricky we saw at the 1999 Grammys.

Not that his teeth wasn’t shining under the spotlight on Friday afternoon.

Maybe it’s the fringe benefit. Maybe it’s the chest size. Heck, maybe it’s India.

The teaser
He told New York Post’s PageSix Gossip column in June: “I transform when I'm in India. I wear a robe and turban and let my hair grow, and I forget about things like wearing underwear."

Oh Ricky. Ever the teaser.

Later, when I ask what advice he would give to someone who dances like a broken puppet, he looked at me like that was the most ridiculous question anyone could ever ask a Latino (next to questions about his sexuality) and say, “Just dare to feel. And never mind looking a little ridiculous while at it!”

So I didn’t get the quote that I wanted.

I tried again - this time asking if he was proud of what he’s become, in reference to the Rolling Stones mag quote where he said it was “important to go back to the child within and ask if he’s proud of what’s he become”.

“I have my moments,” he says, pausing for effect.

“Moments where I feel really proud and moments of fear and weakness. And I beat myself up a lot,” he says, with a slightly pained expression.

Ricky sucks you in with his words, and eyes. He speaks very slowly. Very deliberately.

Like a Sage. Ricky the Sage.

“It’s all about growing. It’s all about pampering myself now. Right now, I want to please myself. So many years, I would be pleasing everyone else. I was a caretaker, now I want to take care of myself. I want to please everyone with my attitude towards life, hopefully. But then again God is God, and He’s not pleased and loved by everybody.”

After the press conference, I went away feeling like maybe I’ve gotten the quote that I wanted after all. Until I realise that it wasn’t anything that people didn’t already know, but that’s Ricky Martin – all about “spirituality”, “beauty”, “life” and “love” – and artful media handling.

And I still have an afterglow from that eye contact last week.

Agnes Teh was student editor of UrbanWire.com in the Jul 2002 semester. She now interns at Straits Times Interactive, where she contributed an earlier article [http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/mnt/html/webspecial/gallery/ricko/ricko01.html] on her encounter with Ricky Martin.