Arvin “Tado” Jimenez, 1974-2014

[Updated with a video of Tado I took back in 2007, when he was a guest on Hit FM’s Mornings with Kelly and Tin.] Before Ramon Bautista became the darling of ad executives and the Twitterati, it was Arvin “Tado” Jimenez who captured the imagination. As the lead character in the UNTV cult hit Strangebrew, his chilled out yet blistering take on the world was refreshing to a generation already jaded by the old conventions of the mainstream networks. Maybe it’s his activist background. Maybe it’s his odd jobs. Maybe he’s really just naturally skewed, and we just haven’t seen his sort break out. Strangebrew survived in reruns and Tado became a presence on television, but his career – and his “driver” on the show Angel Rivero’s, and yes, Ramon’s – saw an uptick after 99.5 Hit FM took a chance and gave him a radio show. “Your radio is not defective,” he would always say during every talk set. “It’s just us.” His skewed perspective proved to be a hit with both the masses and the classes; a rare example of a radio personality that pierces through every demographic, as judged by the Brewrats surviving two reformats on 99.5 MHz, and a year-long stint at the ill-fated U92. Before his death today, at a tragic bus accident in Mountain Province that killed 13 others, he was still a regular radio presence, appearing occasionally on Magic 89.9’s Boys’ Night Out. I will miss his demeanor – I met him once, when he guested on Hit FM’s Mornings with Kelly and Tin, a Junior Jock braiding his hair during an interview, him totally cool with it – and his subtly punchy take on a world that slowly disillusions more and more. [NB]