exit ka ernie

ernie baron passed away this morning.

he was our generation's and abs-cbn's weatherman answer to gma's amado pineda. he became famous for his trademark twang (not the best way to describe it, but it's close) and his bottomless amount of trivia.

over the radio, he would be asked questions regarding everything under the sun. sometimes he would delay answering the questions, presumably for his researchers to hunt for info; but he usually comes up with the answers on the dot. for health queries, he would direct his listeners to take the "cleansing diet", drinking pito-pito tea (made up of seven herbs), and attending the seminars at kamuning road at QC.

he would of course be parodied, most notably by vic sotto in the defunct TVJ, where he would be "ernie barong", with his wacky inventions and barong with the cut at the back (may hati sa likod). i only found out morbidity of the joke on the split back years later; if you were a kid, you'd just think it's weird.

he later made use of his popularity by lending his name to a super-antennae and to a food supplement.

he's such an institution, it's hard to believe he's only 65.