On Basketball and the Local Scene

It has been said and repeated often: there is no sports in the Philippines that is closest to the hearts of the Filipino than basketball. We may lack in physical speed and height to be competitive internationally in the game, but we compensate this with an avidity as shown by the proliferation of makeshift basketball courts in almost every streets and fields all over the country – a sign of how fanatics we are really about the game.

We have our own professional basketball league: the PBA, which spawned cagers like Jaworski, Samboy Lim, Dondon Ampalayo, Alvin Patrimonio and lately Fil-Ams players like Eric Menk, Asi Taulava, Mark Caguiao and Danny Sigle. It is only sad to confess that for years now I stopped following the league.

During my childhood, I would sit beside my uncles, who drank beer, while glued on the TV set entertained by the exciting plays brought by the local cagers and imports (Billy Ray Bates coming in my rusting memory.) Now, my excitement of the old days for the PBA has waned ever since NBA penetrated my basketball geography. Blame it on Michael Jordan who paved the way for the NBA to turn into a global sports entertainment with his graceful aerial repertoire of dunks and jump shots. Blame it too on those people behind the telecast of NBA games, especially the Finals, to the local tube. Lately, the games in the whole season are already available via cable.

Though I one factor my appetite for patronizing the local league waned was the observable slowness in how our cagers move and execute plays in the court. When you just have watched an NBA game, especially the Finals, then switched later to watch the local league, you can spot right on this matter and the difference in the quality of the game.

Another thing that started to turn me off from the local basketball league is the numerous championship tournaments played in a year (there is three tournaments I think in a year.) When this is the case it becomes tiring to see repeatedly a handful of teams vying for championship that is happening every three months. It diminishes the gravity and importance of the title to think that anyway a team can take a shot again at it come next tournament.

Yet, there is an unflinching hope in my heart that someday, somehow, we can produce local cagers that can slug/shoot it out with the foreign ones, and eventually make the list of the NBA roster.

A short glimpse lately, on how our local cagers move the ball on the court, I observed improvement, especially in the terms of speed. Right now, there is no 6’6” who can move and leap like a regular NBA forward, still there is no telling that there will be no Filipino cagers that be of this mold.

On Writing

How I wish I can easily weave stories. There are those writers who tell how surprised they are when rereading their works that probably some alien entity had got in the process of the writing that they can't believe that they were able to write some parts of it. Me, how I wish that these entities really exist. Even a doubleganger would do. It would sit before my writing table and scribble good, publishable stories while I sleep in my bed dreaming of penetrating the literary scene, even just the local.

I used to practice writing, on the goal of someday (when?) I can say I'm ready to write those stories running in my head, by keeping a journal. Unfortunately, the journal, which spanned more than a decade and sadly lost and deleted in my old PC by a hacker, can be summed up as mere whinings about my inability to write.

Now that I avoid staring at a blank paper, still sleepy and in need of a nicotine fix early in the morning, fearful of being bashed again by the reality of failing to write anything, I recall a college classmate who said something about writing stories that it sounded so easy anybody who is literate can do it.

"'Tol, magkukwento ka lang."

How I wish it is that easy.

On Stealth Writing and Some Concerns

A relative long silence broke in this blog, interspersed with sporadic short posting that meant nothing but gibberish talk pointing at nothing.

I mentioned about the process of stealth writing: the process of hiding and keeping to oneself what he is writing at the moment. This is far from the so-called “guerrilla writing” where the writer does his work anytime he sees an opportunity. Well, stealth writing poses as a silent bomber, a kind of a puzzle or anticipation-maker for the reader what the writer is working on.

Don’t show a rough draft of your piece to anyone. Never. This is a lesson Gabo learned when he was establishing himself as a story teller, unencumbered with the expectation of his growing followers. The act has nothing to do with the readers. The beneficiary of this contained humbleness and secrecy is the writer himself.

Letting the readers, even one, get a glimpse of what the writer is pursuing somehow, and probably for sure most of the time as experienced, get the inspiration to write blow like a bubble. When somebody a rough draft, prior on finishing the piece, especially if the writer is wrestling with himself the jumbled storyline thrown at him, the story get stuck up, or worst never reach the culmination of being finished.

I would say the catharsis, the inner driving force of the writer, is vented too early. Some steam has escaped and the momentum to go on is lost, if not forever.

Straying from this discourse, though not totally out of line, I tried to keep my mouth shut from telegraphing the projects that I had been trying to finish last April. But sad to say, out of the three major projects that I had set, only one was able to beat the deadline of submission. (I mentioned in the previous post that it was mainly because of lack of internet access/PC brought by financial difficulties.)

Nevertheless, rummaging without reason inside my room this afternoon, I found old stories I had written four years ago. It was a surprise for me. I never thought that I had written a number of stories then and now is ready-made material to be my new projects. Of course, a wall-to-wall rewrite is needed to polish it and apply whatever lesson have I learned so far since writing them.

Furthermore, there are several new stories, essays crowding and vying for my attention like bees buzzing in my ears and mostly the thoughts try to stir me during the wee hours of the morning when household rules forbid me to turn on the lights.

Anyway, I’m still in the process of holding myself from writing essays and journals and the likes. Whenever I feel the urge to write those kinds of stuff, I bury myself in my bed and try to sleep off the inspiration. The time for practicing is over. I have to control myself now on taking head on the task which in the first place is the reason why I’m writing.

Some Developments

The deadline for submission of entries in this year Palanca Awards is over several days ago. Now, of course, everybody in the literary community knows it already so the first statement of this post is sort redundant and of no use.

Anyway, I just mentioned it since for weeks, or months? this is only one of the times when I got to sit before a PC, with an internet access, and post something in this blog of mine.

My target for this year's Palanca is two short stories of different genre, but unfortunately (because of financial and internet access) I had no choice but to miss finishing those pieces.

Though I still have an ace in my sleeve in terms of writing contest. I've submitted an essay to a contest sponsored by Newsbreak and World Bank. Hopefully before this month ends, finalists will be given a note if they have made it to this first time held essay contest.