Kerouac’s On the Road

Back in school, reading was considered an activity for geeks and outcasts. But that changed for me after an accidental discovery of a copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road on my cousin’s bookshelf full of computer books. On the Road is an adrenalin rush of unadulterated yakking by Kerouac, written in two weeks while high on benzendrine pills.

Who was there before the hipsters? Beatniks and their pack of adventure-driven contemporaries roaring to get themselves a taste of travel, pure air, what it means to be living — what life is all about. On the Road is a good travel companion just in case you want a kick of that same adrenalin rush, almost as good as hitting the road yourself.

Note: Of course, those who are regular readers of this blog know that I did not find On the Road on my cousin's bookshelves. I got the book after four years of waiting for it to be available in the bookstores, especially in Powerbooks. Nevertheless, this post is something I've ghost-written for dethroner.com under the name of mike mons which I told my middle-man should be changed to yuri at least. Unfortunately, I did not get any pay for the work.

Game 6 NBA Finals: First of Two Win-or-Go-Home Games for Lakers

Coach Phil Jackson and his Lakers boys were able to evade a shameful defeat in Game 5 of NBA Finals at Staple Center to the rampaging Celtics gang making the series a 3-2 standing. Though Kobe “The Black Mamba” is applauded for a grand performance to save his team from an early demise, I would attribute the intensity of the supporting casts, especially Pau Gasol, as a major force in the win. The Black Mamba was not that as spectacular as he could be. Kobe was basically shut down most of the second half.

Nevertheless, that is over. Game 6 will be played several hours from now back at the Boston Garden to the revenge and expected dominance of the Celtics triad (Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen).

This series is considered a done deal since the Celtics posted a 3-1 game standing. In the history of NBA Finals there is still a team that has to overcome such a hurdle and get out such a deep hole that everybody smells already the O’Brien Trophy going to the Celtics boys.

I root for the Celtics and want a championship ring both for KG and Ray “Candy Man” Allen. Yet, in times like this I also root for a team that is challenged to perform the unthinkable: win three straight games with two on the road.

Right now, I can vividly see coach Phil Jackson as compose and calm as ever like a Zen master talking to his boys in a hoarse yet clear voice that the series is not over. Like a true Zen practitioner what did he say to his boys in the dug-out during Game 5: “Run your offense and you will find it.” And found the Lakers did in extricating themselves to the choking defense of the Celtics.

In Game 6, it is expected that Jackson will pull another conjurer’s trick from his pocket. This man basically sees more than what any coach out there see in the game of basketball. Forget about the triangle offense. It is more than that. And attribute this to his Zen philosophy.

As the history of the NBA Finals says there is still a team to rebound from a 3-1 rout to win the series. The Lakers proved that if they can be hungry as a pack of wolves they can overcome a 20-point lead by sheer tenacity and intensity. Everything is possible. There is no such thing as gravity to this team when they listen to the words of their coach.

If the Lakers win Game 6, can this be the historic first of a team overcoming a 3-1 series standing? With all probability that is possible. The dead match Game 7 will surely go along the side of the Lakers and Celtics by then will be pushed against the wall with their knees wobbling and their minds shocked at what could be an upset in the making.

But only if the Black Mamba is as mature as Air Jordan. We’ll see.

“Your friends already thought you are dead.”

Not a long time ago, my father would arrive home from his night-shift work to find me by the window on the second landing of our rented apartment hunched over the iron-board doing my practice writing. When he woke up early in the night to prepare to go to work, he would be startled to find me still writing by the window. He then would tell me as he dressed up that I should go out because my friends already thought me as dead. From then on, whenever he would find it to his comfort and alarm at the same time, he would tell me:

“Your friends already thought you are dead.”

Memory as to when the exact time when I firmly decided to become a writer already fails me. But I remember during my sophomore year, coming home from the campus clutching James Joyce’s Dubliner’s that I would spend the entire night that time and the succeeding days after that intent on learning the craft of writing. It was during the time after we had just moved to another street which I considered the beginning of the severance with my ties with my true home. The 1992 Presidential Election campaign was on full force and I had copies of several major broadsheets reading the barrage of attacks on candidate Miriam Defensor’s state of sanity. (On the day of the election I would participate in the process serving as a PPCRV watcher but wishing I could have participated as Defensor’s watch man instead.) It was also during that time when The Inquirer launched its new section Young Blood. Now, this section was the first target of my writerly endeavor. But I just started to hold a pen to write then. I never knew how to write. It would take me the literally the whole day just trying to compose a decent sentence, much more a paragraph.

When my father would say to me “Your friends already thought you are dead” I knew I had discarded the old lackadaisical life that I had. It used to be that there was nothing for me to do then in the house. What I was used to do was to spend the time at the entrance of the alley in our street engaging in a never-ending senseless yakking with young guys like me. We barely engaged in any activities then. The time was spent purely to kill and bid time because we thought when we grew up all the time that we would have will be spent working. So what we did before that time comes was to embrace time as if we had so much of it.

And then I decided to become a writer. And I also decided to read. It would take several years more before I could finally construct straight from my head a good sentence and a decent essay too good to be true for me that I could pull off. When my writing buddies read somewhere that Nick Joaquin’s reply to the question whether he thinks in Pilipino first before he writes it in English was that he thinks in English, we considered it as pure braggadocio coming from a literary genius. It would only dawn on me when I myself was already starting to pound on my keyboard as I write that it is indeed true that one thinks in English when you write in that language.

Now, almost halfway done with my language learning, my friends think more that I’m alive when I’m at home and can bring them, from time to time, a couple of cases of Red Horse to celebrate and share life.

5 AM Routine

It took me an hour or more visiting familiar sites online and reading a couple of blogsites before I finally come to my senses that I need to post something here. I used to wake up five in the morning and would start pounding on the keyboard after a dose of nicotine and caffeine but the thought of doing it now seems strange if not almost alien to me. Writing in the morning used to be a routine I learned a long time ago. Now, it is as if I’m starting to learn how to write again. (I could not even hold the subject matter of this post in my head like I suddenly incurred a disorder like short attention span.)

Oh, what is it again that I’m harping in here? (Got to do a re-reading of the first paragraph.)

Oh, yes, something like posting an entry for this blog.

Anyway, going to a subject matter that is of importance, I almost experienced a sudden non-existence as my internet connection went bonkers for eight excruciating days. During the days when I was still not connected online, my computer looked complete. Everything that I need was there – a word processor – and that was it. I could go on using the computer completely showered with bliss as I hear the din of a pounded keyboard.

But when my internet connection suddenly was severed because of a malfunctioning modem/router, I could not stand (or rather sit) using my computer without it. It was as if my computer were not complete and the digital electronic experience of basking under the benefits of Information Technology is no where in sight. Things were not the same as before.

Without the usual routine of checking my email, the online sites that I write for, and just the plain experience of knowing that you are online, I felt my oxygen supply was cut off and I was heaving heavily to get some online-experience-dosed air for life.

Nevertheless, the eight excruciating days are already over. I’m back online.

And on the sideline, back again sipping coffee and puffing cigarette as I pound on the keyboard early in the morning.