Annicka Dolonius tells us about tea parties, being the middle child, and getting into fights with pirates

“My heart is black and white with a star on it.”

Annicka Dolonius leans forward, her voice getting tinged with excitement as she talks about KISS, her favorite band.

“I like Paul Stanley,” she says, “Most people like Gene, but I like Paul and Ace. They’re so argh!”

She makes a sound—part frustration at not being able to find the right word, part awe of the subject matter. She will end a lot of her sentences this way during the course of the interview: exhaled guttural sounds and emphatic yeahs—vague, but completely understandable.

This is not to say that she talks like this on a regular basis. She can be eloquent when she wants to, such as when discussing her favorite film, Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. “I used to watch it everyday. Then I lost the DVD. My favorite actor Gary Oldman is in it. I like the story and the music is lovely. The plot makes me cry.”

Her black eyeshadow is smudged, and her hair looks like it hasn’t been combed. “I like to look like I got dressed in the dark.” She looks dangerous. She looks like she could beat you up. She looks beautiful.

She is wearing a Day of the Dead t-shirt, pinstripe cigarette pants and an impressive pair of black and glittery silver boots with wedge heels, the same ones she wears for the shoot. The boots, it seems, are one of the few items of clothing she owns. This little factoid comes up when we talk about what it is she likes to wear. “What kind of clothes do I wear? Right now, other people’s clothes. I’m wearing [my boyfriend's] boxers.” At this, she pulls down the waistband of her pants to reveal a pair of black and gray shorts. “I don’t have anything right now. I used to go through my mom’s closet. [I'll wear] anything as long as it is comfortable.”

It also seems that Annicka will wear anything that’s a little crazy. “I remember I got these Chucks. They were leopard print, and I’d wear them in winter. My feet were freezing, but I looked good.”

This is sometimes a problem, considering the industry her family is tied to (aside from being model Sanya Smith’s half sister, she’s also a niece of “Uncle Robin [Padilla]” and “Tita Bebe [Gandanghari]“—“Tita Bebe is stunning. She’s a gorgeous woman. I salute her.”), an industry she could consider working in. Most members of her family like to stay on the safe side when it comes to outward appearances.

“My sister Maria wants me to… model, to grow my hair long and keep it brown, but,” Annicka pretends to mope, “I want purple hair. I want a Mohawk.”

Annicka, by the way, is the sister that comes in between Sanya and Maria. “That’s the Middle Child Syndrome. Nobody picks on me,” she says, “[The adults] always fight with Sanya or Maria. I’ll… (Pretends to push a vase off a table) smash something [and no one will care].”

Unlike most middle children, however, the lack of attention works in her favor. “It was good for me. I’d be like, ‘I’m gonna go get drunk now.’”

***

What do I want to do now? I want to get into acting and film… or theater.” In this respect, she’s already started, having been part of Pisay, Aurelius Solito’s semi-autobiographical Cinemalaya entry two years ago about a bunch of students in Philippine Science High School during the 1980′s. Annicka played the sheltered daughter of a diplomat who finds herself participating in the first EDSA revolution.

“I think [Pisay] got me because I look like a twelve-year-old. I was nineteen, playing a fourteen- to sixteen-year-old girl. It was so surreal,” she says, “We had costumes, and it was based in the 80′s, and they put my hair up all the time.”

She backtracks a bit, saying that while she’s considering working in the independent film industry, “I get nervous thinking about it—the future.” Then she pretends to hurl.

Meanwhile, she’s elbow deep in chocolate, working in a newly opened restaurant that specializes in the dark stuff.

I ask Annicka if she has any tattoos. “I used to have a tongue ring and a lip ring, but I had to take them off for the film.” She doesn’t have any tattoos at the moment, but not for lack of trying. “I almost got one of a really cute fly but I chickened out. What if people start teasing me that I’m a piece of shit, and there’s a fly on me?”

Talk turns to her upcoming birthday still a few months away. She’s turning 23 this October. “I love October. It’s the best month of the year,” she says before counting the reasons why, “There’s Halloween, the weather is nice, the Oktoberfest… and my birthday. Cheers!”

She stayed home the Halloween before last even though she really wanted to dress up and go out. Annicka goes by the wonderful belief that you don’t need a reason to dress up. “We (she and her boyfriend, who goes by the name Mr. Bones and is lead vocalist of psychobilly band Mr. Bones and the Boneyard Circus) dress up all the time. We have tea parties; tea parties with vodka in a garden, with chairs. [I wear] my underwear, a jacket, top hat, clown nose.”

Had she gone out during Halloween, she would have gone as Paul Stanley to complete Sanya’s KISS theme. Instead, another model went as Paul.

Since we’re back to KISS, I ask her how she discovered the band. Turns out she found them by accident, having swiped a KISS CD at random in a music store. “I put it in my CD player. The first song was ‘I’m a Legend Tonight.’ Oh my God, it was so good! I couldn’t stop listening to it. I was like, ‘Sanya, have this. Cherish it. Keep it warm. Keep it safe. Sing it lullabies every night because this is the shit.’”

“I have trouble listening to new music because it doesn’t have the same sound,” she admits, “I don’t know what it is.”

The only exception, it seems, is Mr. Bones and the Boneyard Circus, who she sometimes performs with, and whose music video she appears in, dressed in white, waiting for her zombie lover.

It seems like Annicka is always in a state of wonder. It’s quite endearing. It’s also—it turns out—physiological. “If it’s not ‘Whoa!’ I forget about it. I have the memory of a fish. I hit my head [in an accident when I was in high school. The bruising was pretty bad]. I used to tell people I got into a fight with a pirate. He had a gold tooth, but I got him. I got him good.”

Originally published in UNO May 2010 issue

Annicka Dolonius, niece of Robin Padilla and BB Gandanghari appears inside our May issue.

You also may have seen her with UNO editor Shawn Yao in Drip’s Bloodletting music video.

Starring Annicka Dolonius and Shawn Yao
Produced, written, directed and edited by Jason C. Tan
Co-Produced by Mads Adrias and Drip
Makeup by Yciar Castillo
Cinematography by Bernard Dacanay

UNO Magazine’s May issue (#UNOmay2010), out now in your local bookstore.

“In my country, everything has changed and nothing is different.”—Rio Gonzaga, The Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn

When we first heard about political unrest between Thailand’s “red shirt” protesters—supporters of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a bloodless military coup in 2006—and government forces that has led to some less-than-peaceful confrontations right smack dab in the heart of Bangkok, most of us Pinoys probably reacted the same way: a collective shrug of the shoulders. Sounds family naman e. We have been there, done that. And, at the rate that we’re going, we’re liable to do it again.

If the Thais think they’ve got it bad, tell them to visit the Philippines. We can show them the best of cultural landmarks and coup sites across Metro Manila because we’ve had revolutions—from bloodless to less than peaceful—up the wazoo.

After all, my generation have been (rather mute) witnesses to the game of political musical chairs that has been played since before we started sprouting pubic hair: the February 1986 EDSA revolution; the July 1986 Arturo Tolentino takeover of Manila Hotel, which set the gears turning in the mind of a 15-year-old Anthony Trillanes who told himself “I wanna take over a hotel someday. Maybe even two.”; the August 1987 Honasan-fueled insurrection; the bloody December 1989 return of the comeback; the January 2001 EDSA II revolution; the May 2001 EDSA III revolution (some sequels just don’t live up to the originals); the July 2003 Oakwood mutiny; the February 2006 State of Emergency, and the November 2007 Manila Pen mutiny. We’ve had more false alarms than a woman with an irregular menstrual cycle.

And if our Thai neighbors think their politics is more screwed than a two-dollar whore, well then wala yan sa lola ko. In this administration we have a pretty good cathouse. In this administration alone, we’ve had the “Hello Garci” scandal, the multimillion peso fertilizer scandal, the IMPSA bribery scandal, the “Jose Pidal” scandal, the jueteng scandal, the Northrail project scandal, the Venable contract scandal, the NBN-ZTE scandal, the bribery at Malacañang scandal, the extrajudicial killings scandal, the Eurogenerals scandal, the Maguindanao Massacre scandal, and the President running as a congresswoman (well, it isn’t a scandal, but it should be). There are more scandals in this administration than there are in a bootleg sex video DVD.

My generation is jaded with politics. And how can we not be jaded? I grew up in the Philippines of the ‘80s. We are the That’s Entertainment generation. We are the poster children for the jaded. We grew up against the backdrop of the Aquino assassination, the snap elections, the Mendiola massacre, the power outages, the Metro Manila Film Fest fiasco, and the showbiz career of Kris Aquino. We’ve survived an earthquake, the Mt. Pinatubo volcanic eruption, waist-deep floods, dengue outbreaks, three days of darkness, bird flu, and the showbiz career of Kris Aquino. Somedays, I feel like we’re trapped in a poorly written sitcom that is starring bad actors with poor makeup, in a show that is in a perpetual state of re-runs—with Kris Aquino.

And what’s the next piece of jade that we can add to our jewelry collection? The great circus slash production number slash talent variety show slash pissing contest that is the 2010 Presidential Elections.

Road diversions. Campaign overspending. Technical problems with election machines. Secret candidates. Illegal campaign contributions. Failure of elections. Fake psychiatric tests. Unreadable ballots. Midnight appointments. The wrong freaking ink. Partial manual count. Womanizing endorses. No elections. Party defections. Military takeover.

So, what else is new?

This election was touted to be the battle between good versus evil. But—depending on who you are talking to—it might be a battle between the lesser of two evils. For others, it could just be a Hobson’s choice. And for the rest: they just want someone who won’t screw up or who won’t screw us over.

But jaded as we are—as I am—I’m still getting indelible ink on my index finger on May 10 because I still have hope. But I’m not hoping for the best, mind you. I’m just hoping that whomever I vote for doesn’t screw us up, or screw us over—much. Hell, we’ve got to start someplace. Or else we’re back to That’s Entertainment.