ReyCard Duet: Elvis Presley Lined Up To Watch Their Show

(Originally posted February 10, 2010)

Before Arnel Pineda, before Leah Salonga, before Charice Pempengco… there was the RAYCARD DUET.

I’m sure many of you are going “who the hell is Reycard Duet? And why does this $hit compare him with Arnel Pineda?!” Well, m0th3rf#%k3rs, Reycard Duet is the Original Gangsta of all things comedy and music. They are the Godfathers of total awesomeness. I $hit you not, they can look Arnel Pineda, Leah Salonga and all other Filipinos who made it big internationally in the face and tell them “Bow, you $hitheads!” and they will go “how low?”

Yes, The Reycard Duet, composed of Rey Ramirez and Ricardo ‘Carding’ Castro (see below), were the first Filipinos to make it big in the U.S. WITH NOTHING BUT THEIR PURE PINOY BRAND OF COMEDY AND MUSICAL STYLE on their hands. They didn’t have a manager like Oprah, no youtube to display their talent, no freakin’ money to fall back on to had they failed. They started their career in the Philippines in the 50s doing stage shows at the Clover Theater and Manila Grand Opera House. They were regulars in town fiestas with their tried and tested comedy-music formula. Both of them had an unceremonious impressive voices but Rey would do most of the singing part and Carding the comedy part.

Reycard Duet - Rey Ramirez and Carding Castro

In the late ’60s, they hit jackpot when they scored a show in Las Vegas. It became their home for 40 years coming back in the Philippines to do special shows and appearances.

Just to put their greatness in perspective, realize this – they were considered ugly. I said that fully aware of sounding like a total arrogant, insensitive j3rk but come on, they were by Filipino standards. Look at their bodies, they started out like matchsticks and woke up one day like a 36-month pregnant woman.

They didn’t have those pretentious American/British-accent. In fact, they didn’t speak English that well.

They were born with every possible hurdle towards Philippine stardom. Multiply those hurdles gazillion times then raise it to the power of one million and those were the hurdles they had towards an Internatational career.

Guess what. These guys didn’t give a cr@p.

They went on stage night after night to sing songs and deliver spontaneous comedy in a completely brain-meltingly awesome way.

Their reputation spread across America faster than The Beatles. In no time Lionel Richie, Chicago, The Eagles, Elvis freakin’ Presly, were lining up to see their f$%^in’ show! Do you get that, huh? Elvis! Did Elvis line up to see Miss Saigon?! Okay, that would be creepy but you get the drift.

Every cell in their body was composed of a quarter awesome, a quarter hardcore, a quarter badass, a quarter cool and ONE WHOLE PINOY. And just to facepunch anyone who questioned that, Carding married Lana Turner (see picture below). That mouth, no matter how you laugh at it, kissed the mouth of the one of the prettiest faces in holly effin’ wood.

You can only dream of scoring with someone half as pretty as Lana Turner!

Yes, they killed someone too. Some American was laughing at these two so hard, he had a heart attack and died. Not exactly what they were going for but it only goes to prove the geniuses that they were. How hardcore is that?!

The even more awesome thing is the decision to keep their Pinoy comedy. Ain’t no freakin’ j3rk will tell them to act a certain way or copy a certain act. They were never tempted to be someone else or act like someone else. They were 100% pure Pinoy down to their hair style. They speak no accent but Pinoy, considered no other home but the Philippines to their last breath.

Now, shut the f#$% up and pay your respects to the two great Pinoys who made us all proud.