Ed's Blog My Twisted View of an already Twisted World.

Noynoy's Deal With The Devil

2011-12-28T19:26:00.002+08:00

Noynoy's Deal With The Devil
Fan Fiction
by me.

It took me four days to write this scenario. Just remember humor at some point has to resemble reality to an extent or else the connection won't work. Thank you all for reading. This should be my last blog post for the year.

One morning early Sept 2009, Noynoy was convinced by relatives and other power mongers that he should run for President of the Philippines.

Noynoy later on that day paused Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and was suddenly confused. What would he say during the campaign? Don't these things have qualifications? Would he have to think and other burning questions.

Out of the blue came a puff of smoke and Beelzebub himself appears grinning from ear to ear. "You Noynoy Aquino , I can make you President of the Philippines!" . "Really??!!??" replied Noynoy. " I could not even win a class election in Ateneo and you expect me to win an election for a whole country?". " I can make it happen!" says the Devil.

Noynoy: " Physically, the only thing I have going for me is my height. But in a campaign poster , height does not play so well. And if it's true that my advisers want me to embrace yellow then I will look like Big Bird. Even Mr. Hooper won't vote for me. What do I do?"

Devil: " Easy, my son. In every campaign poster always have pictures of your mother over your shoulder or have your picture taken with your sister who is on 47 % of the billboards currently erect in this country. Your looks will not be an issue. So it's not about you anymore, it's about them. "

Noynoy : "I am assuming at some point I am going to have to talk. What do I say? I can't think of one thing I have done that would sound good to voters on why I should be president".

Devil: " I thought of that. Track record, shmack record. You don't need one! The country is currently mourning your mother, you just extend that mourning into the campaign and the election is no longer about you but your mother. No competency, experience, leadership or integrity required. Forget things like issues, just talk about your parents. Bring up some maternal advice your mom may have told you and use that in your answer. It's something I like to call the Scooter strategy. Ever watch the Muppet Show? Scooter always got his way because he would always work into the conversation that his uncle owns the theater that hosted the Muppets. If it worked for him it can work for you. Never let a question go answered without bringing up Noynoy and Cory. It won't be about you anymore, it will be about them. Stick to that and the average Filipino will save their thoughts on track record for the next Olympic year. Also if any of your opponents brings up track record, just bring up their position in the polls. I will make sure they will not have a leg to stand on. Your family friends own the poll companies and the media therefore I own the polling companies and the media companies. Have no fear. You will go unchallenged.

Noynoy: " Any other tips? "

Devil : " Well , always make an 'L' sign with your hand. I will hypnotize the voters so they don't associate the 'L' with 'loser'. Never mind that your dad was part of the 'Laban' and you are not. Nor did you ever fight for that cause. I will make everything all right. Besides, if you think about it, the 'L' sign acknowledges me. That will be proof of your devotion to me and that will be our little secret. "

Noynoy: "Ahhhh 'L' as in Lucifer , gets ko na. Let me get this straight sir. You claim that I can be the President of the Philippines, without talking about any significant deeds or any iota of leadership skills? All I have to do it include my dead parents in my campaign posters and quote them in answers? Then the presidency is mine?? I can give you my soul since I don't use it but there has to be more than that. You say I can be the president of a country of 80 million people. What else will you get from me?"

Devil: " Usually depending on the gravity of the task, besides one's soul I usually ask for varying combinations of "virility, hair, testosterone and brains" but I took all that from you a long time ago so I won't even bother with your soul. In fact you can even have this soul I claimed a while back from someone who wanted nigh unlimited exposure, attention and inappropriate men. It used to belong to your sister Kris. "

Tags: the devil, urban myth, noynoy aquino, legend

Baduys Not Likely To Latch On To Tim Tebow

2011-12-15T19:20:00.000+08:00

Today in Yahoo Sports they did a story about Tim Tebow being anonymous in Makati. I have lived here for the 14 years of my life last 12. Add to that my two years spent abroad on covert missions and I am almost thirty. If you believe that I got a MENSA membership I'd like to sell Noynoy.

For the record Tim Tebow has at least four people that converse about him on a regular basis here in Makati. There is @quitolopez life long Makati resident. There is my former comrade in the stock exchange Alan and my uncle Jeri who took me to my very first football game I saw in person. Ever since Tebow got the starting job in Denver , his name is the first thing out of Tito/ Uncle Jeri's lips when he sees me in our Makati office Monday morning. Over here the NFL Sunday afternoon games are just finishing when the work week starts at 8:30 Monday morning. Five people if you count my girlfriend @crissyname who does not live in Makati but visits me here. Tip for all you women out there who want to know your guys: follow who they follow on Twitter and you will always have something to talk about.

The Yahoo article talk about how there is no talk where Tebow was about born. Au contraire mon frere. I wrote this about him three years ago while living in Makati. I also wrote this about him almost being aborted in Makati Med. The Yahoo article talks about how he is unknown here. Of course. In case you are unaware of the Filipino culture I sum up what is known here in this article. They can not appreciate Tebow because they are too busy admiring phonies, blowhards and people who cater to ignorance instead of people trying to eradicate it.

First of all , you can not call this place a moral one despite laws that are only in place in paper. Like I said in a Tweet two weeks ago:

Herman Cain's candidacy is being hurt by all these women coming out. Don't you find it weird in the Philippines that the same thing just enhanced the popularity of Erap in 98 and 2010. What does it say about us?

Dec 1, '11 7:00 AM http://twitter.com/edrlopez

As an electorate that campaigners cater to and an audience that advertisers look for we reward the Kris Aquinos, Richard Gomezes, Erap Estradas etc. None who are role models. They flaunt their vanity and tackiness for all to see and we oblige by giving them an audience. Kris Aquino goes from married man to married man, picks up STDs along the way and still gets multiple billboards and even a magazine devoted to herself. Erap Estrada gets convicted by a court of law of a crime that is punishable by death and this country rewards him by almost electing him president again. This country loves Erap Estrada, you expect them to love Tim Tebow? Tebow despite going to school for for years in a college filled with gorgeous girls that would do anything for him is still a virgin. Joseph Estrada on the other hand has fathered enough kids to fill up the upper deck of Invesco Field. This country won't love Tim Tebow. Noynoy Aquino does nothing in life for fifty years and our country rewards him by making him president. You expect that audience to relate to Tim Tebow? Tim Tebow epitomizes hard work and proving yourself and shutting up the doubters. I doubt that audience enthralled by Noynoy can even spell Tim Tebow.

For Filipinos to latch on to Tim Tebow they have to somehow relate to what he does. Manny Pacquaio is relatable because even a two year old can comprehend a boxing glove colliding with a human head. Basketball connects so well to the Filipino because all ten men on the court can dribble, pass and shoot. I really doubt a culture that worships Richard Gomez will sit still long enough to comprehend how a quarterback picks up the blitz. I doubt a Filipino who only followed basketball all their life can appreciate an offensive lineman who is never given the ball but whose skills are still crucial to the team's goals.

"The Azkals are a national team. The Galaxy are just one team from a country where soccer is at best the 5th most important team sport. The Galaxy are also on vacation after winning their championship and they still housed the Azkals. Good thing they can be marketed as good looking because they sure are not great. "

Dec 4, '11 5:33 PM http://twitter.com/edrlopez

Please don't tell me pinoys love soccer because of the whole Azkals thing. Very few people in this country cared about the last World Cup. All these bandwagon fans honestly believe that the Azkals are Filipino and are good. Well they are neither.

There is one chink in my theory though. If I know anything about the culture is that they love attention. They live and die by Miss Universe results because for some reason they feel it is attached to their self worth. If the Yahoo Sports article is the first of many that bring attention to this place watch out. There will be Tebow experts everywhere. Jeepney Drivers like this one:

Will now have imitation Tebow Bronco jerseys not imitation Kobe Lakers jerseys . Nah, they will just say "FOOTBALL!!! BAKIT!!! HINDI NAMAN BILOG YUNG BOLA!". (Why is it football when it's not even round?)

Ed

References:

http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201112/tebow-was-here-superstar-unknown-city-his-birth

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/500/National_Champion_Tebow_Could_Have_Been_Aborted_in_Makati_

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/822/The_Most_Famous_Circumciser_in_Our_Country

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1263/ESPNs_Scott_Van_Pelt_Describes_Azkals_Bandwagon_Kind_Of

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1017/Hypocrisy_of_the_Recognition_and_Admiration_of_Efren_Penaflorida

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/399/Sometimes_You_Cant_Defend_The_Philippines

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1142/Pinoys_Only_Dig_The_BBall_

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/294/Who_Thinks_Basketball_Rules_The_U.S.

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1143/They_Forgot_the_Philippines

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1246/MVP_NBA_No_Try_KSP_

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/943/What_part_of_beyond_reasonable_doubt_do_you_not_understand_Erap_related

Why I Sadly Have Perspective On The Penn State Sexual Child Abuse Issue.

2011-11-13T19:32:00.004+08:00

First of all if you don't understand the big fuss, just understand that Joe Paterno wields so much influence in that school and the town State College, Pennsylvania that is beyond most people's comprehension.

Any adult that lives out their sexual desire on any child is so wrong but you don't need me to tell you that. Many of you if not all of you are extremely disgusted at the thought of the perpetration of such an act. Well I am here to offer you perspective on something worse. That is the institutional consent for that disgusting episode to continue and spread. Perspective from my life experience.

I thank God that the only person to ever sexually abuse me is myself. But I know a little bit about institutional cover up of such horrific acts.

I won't bore you with facts you already know about this case but in case you don't have them just google "Penn State Sandusky" and all you need to know will be there. Nobody is accusing Joe Paterno of molesting a child. For now know that he has 17 grandchildren. He is a very beloved figure in his local community and up until recently an admired figure in the world of major college football. Grandpa Joe has the public reputation that is actually sadly rare in major college football. That he succeeds in football yet he puts football in perspective of the broader university mandate . Football is just a part of the university and it is not the university. Which makes the whole mess even sadder.

Paterno was king in Penn State. Sometimes silence speaks the loudest and his relative silence cost several young boys their childhood and their sanity.

If you heard a story of something happening in your domain involving a 58 year old man and a ten year old boy resembling the squeal like a pig scene from Deliverance I would hope you would do more than Paterno did. The facts show that Paterno informed his superiors and thus absolving himself from criminal liability as far as I have read. Morally though he failed the kids. Joe technically had superiors but make no mistake Paterno is king of his school and of that town. He failed those kids. What is worse is how can you look at the perpetrator of man to child rape on a regular basis? Why did you not at least quietly banish him from your Kingdom? The cliche is that bad men have their way when good men do nothing. Well in the simplest terms Sandusky was Sandusky (if the allegations are true) because King Paterno did nothing.

So far everything I told you , can be gathered reading a few editorials on this case. But the time has come to explain why I can give a personal spin on this. For me, this basic hurt compounded because of an institutional cover up. And I was privy to such a cover up being imposed to my personal situation.

Mount Cashel was an all boys orphanage run by the Christian Brothers. The orphanage was located in Newfoundland which is Canada's easternmost point. You may Google the background of their covert child sex abuse saga yourself but I have provided links. Just like Sandusky should have been disavowed by Penn State, the perpetrators of the child abuse ( both physical and sexual) should have been cut loose by the Christian Brothers. Instead they were sent to Canada's western most tip but not to an orphanage but to an elementary / high school for boys called Vancouver College. A school I attended from 1980 to 1985.

I enjoyed my five years there and I felt I learned a lot from being there. Like not to swallow the company line. The company line of Vancouver College and the Christian Brothers was "no comment". Even the author of the definitive book on this scandal said in an interview that the people involved were taking their cue from their lawyers and not from God.

I truly forgot what the first leak in the dam was in the mid 80s but it was a kick in the stomach. The same way some people are feeling about Penn State. My cry back then was these guys were supposed to be in jail instead they were teaching us. That is the crux of the Penn State issue is the cover up and the further spread of the Sandusky sickness. Sorry, but that is why Paterno has some responsibility. He is not as guilty as Sundusky of course but he is partly responsible for victims post 2002. Maybe I have a different perspective than most because of where I was but it makes me ache for everybody else who had to suffer in silence and in a somewhat detached way, I am a little closer to what they are feeling.

Attachments:

If PDFs not found go to

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1276/Why_I_Sadly_Have_Perspective_On_The_Penn_State_Sexual_Child_Abuse_Issue.

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal

1) PDF Grand Jury Sandusky

2) PDF Inquiry to the Mount Cashel Orphanage sexual abuse .

Links.

http://archives.cbc.ca/society/crime_justice/clips/12676/

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1276/Why_I_Sadly_Have_Perspective_On_The_Penn_State_Sexual_Child_Abuse_Issue.

http://www.thetelegram.com/People/2009-07-18/article-1446583/Mount-Cashel-couldnt-keep-him-down/1

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060914/Jerry-Sandusky-Penn-State-sex-abuse-Why-did-Jerry-wife-abuse-victim-weeks-testimony.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7208581/rick-reilly-penn-state-scandal

http://nearemmaus.com/2011/11/10/jesus-joe-paterno-and-the-least-of-these/

http://www.amazon.ca/Unholy-Orders-Michael-Harris/dp/0670834815

Supplemental Video

Can be found here.

Sexual abuse of children is not a laughing matter. The fact that it is institutionally consented upon is worse. For those of you still not clear what Paterno and the Penn State executives should have done was look at the big picture how the whole organization could be affected. If they did that, this would have stopped eight years ago. Which brings to mind discussion you will see here. Substitute:

Hank- Jerry Sandusky

Larry Sanders - Joe Paterno

Artie- Tim Curley (Penn State Athletic Director)

and you might be able to visualize how this should have gone down.

Play This Interview For Anyone Getting Hurt By Addiction

2011-11-13T19:08:00.000+08:00

You made it this far?? Good. I really don't have much to say on this topic except that in the life time of this blog that if this only helps one person I will be very very glad. Chris Herron had everything. God given talent to make it to the NBA but then the demon took over totally. You get to read his words below and hear him talk about it in a 7 1/2 minute clip I provided. There is a longer interview with Bill Simmons that I will eventually listen to (November 2 2011 ESPN The B.S. Report) but this here should be enough for now. The very inspirational Jim Rohn always said that failures should give seminars. Chris Herron is a failure and a success. Give yourself a chance to be moved by his story ( in his own voice) of experiencing the lowest lows and torturing his family to his daily struggle with sobriety.

http://greenstreet.weei.com/sports/boston/basketball/celtics/2011/11/02/chris-herren-on-dc-the-unguarded-interview/

In case you missed ESPN’s "Unguarded" documentary on Durfee High (Fall River, Mass.) legend and former Celtics guard Chris Herren on Tuesday night, it will air again on ESPN2 Saturday morning at 7 a.m. Set your DVR. Meanwhile, Herren joined The Dennis & Callahan Morning Show on WEEI Wednesday morning. The following is a transcript of their conversation (click here to listen):

Dennis & Callahan: For the man who was in the center of the storm, what did it seem like to you to watch that?

Chris Herren: It’s extremely difficult. It never gets easy. The Boston premiere was definitely the hardest for me, because I had to sit in the audience and watch it. It’s different when you watch it by yourself or your behind closed doors with your family, where you can kind of get up, walk around and come back to it. To me, it’s important. As I’ve said the last couple days, the easy road for me would be to run my basketball company, do public speaking, work for the substance abuse center that I work for and never look back, but I think that would be a disservice to the people who are still back.

D&C: Bill Simmons put out the call to his followers to send you a message after last night’s show. Give me an estimate: How many messages did you get on Twitter?

CH: My phone shut down. I couldn’t take on any more. Prior to this, I wasn’t a big Twitter guy. I didn’t really understand the whole Twitter and tweeting thing, but I started trending, so I started getting messages. I think I picked up around 9,000 followers in a three-hour period.

D&C: Did you think "Unguarded" was well done and accurately done and a fair portrayal?

CH: I do. I do. The greatest gift of "Unguarded" for me is that I can sit down with my 12-year-old and watch it. If "Unguarded" got pulled off the air of ESPN prior to last night, I got everything I needed it from it, because little Chris and I sat downstairs on our couch together and laughed, cried and healed. I thought it was very well done. I thought it was respectful to younger kids, where middle school kids and high school kids could watch it. And I think that’s important.

Chris Herren played 25 games for the Celtics during the 2000-01 season.

D&C: You got almost 9,000 people, including Dwyane Wade, sending you a message. Did you get a few of those?

CH: I did. Dwyane Wade sent me a great message. Stuart Scott. But I also got some messages saying, "I’m going into treatment tomorrow morning, and I admitted to my parents last night that I have a serious problem." We had a screening in Newport, and after that screening a young high school kid walked up to me and said, "I just told my parents I’m not doing well, and they’re dropping me off at a treatment center, so thank you." That’s priceless.

D&C: Your message was just as riveting to high school kids as it was to the prisoners. It translates. What kind of reaction do you get?

CH: It’s the same story though. That pain — the heartache you put on your kids, the shame and the guilt you have because of the levels of despair you brought your family — I don’t care how tough you are, what kind of gun you have, how many people you fight or how many years you do in prison, that type of pain is much, much harder. That emotional pain. When I open that door, at that facility with those prisoners, here I am in this powder blue Polo shirt, and I look at guys with tattoos of horns on their forehead, and I’m like, "Oh sh@t. How am I going to get across to these guys. These guys are going to be like, ‘Get this kid out of here.’"

D&C: I was wondering if they were going to laugh at your jokes and everything, but you had them absolutely captivated.

CH: It was special. Those guys sent me a poster that I have in my basement, all short notes of how they felt when I was there. And it’s amazing. It truly was.

D&C: You said toward the end of the program, "I’m a dad, I’m a husband, I’m a father, I’m a son — and a junkie." That statement makes me ask this question: Is it still a day-to-day struggle for you? Do you know that you’ll be sober today, but not sure about tomorrow?

CH: Absolutely. If I do what I’m supposed to do today, I have a better chance at staying sober tomorrow. There’s no doubt about that. Some people look at me with a sad look on their face and say, "I’m so sorry. It must be really, really tough." And I look at them and say, "You should have seen me four years ago. Then it was really, really tough." Don’t feel bad for me now. I’m blessed. I’ve been given a gift that some people don’t get. Although I will live with this forever, I’m doing my best to maintain it and live that life.

D&C: There was one poignant moment where you said, "I was out the entire night before the game with two girls, cocaine, the last thing I had before I took the court was a Budweiser," and yet you played your ass off and you played well. Did you spend or do you spend much time wondering how good you might have been without the drugs and alcohol?

CH: I really don’t. I don’t look back and say, "If I did this, it would be different," because I’m Ok today. Sometimes, you look at it and say, "Oh, man, here he goes. That sounds corny." But that’s the reality. I spoke to 2,800 Durfee students the other day, and I said, "What’s the perfect ending to my story? Coming in 10-11 years retired from the Boston Celtics, long career in the NBA, telling you about how it was playing with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen and winning a championship? Or is it coming back a recovering drug addict and telling you my story to try to get out in front of you?" Most of those kids in those bleachers have a much, much, much better chance of becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict than an NBA basketball player.

D&C: How different would life be for you if you weren’t a great athlete, if you were just another junkie from Fall River? Would you be better off or worse off?

CH: I don’t know. That’s a very tough question. I have a lot of support because of my experiences in basketball. That’s the blessing that I have from basketball today — that there are a lot of people who have given me opportunities and helped me out because of the game. So, I believe I’m better off.

After leaving BC, Chris Herren played three seasons under Jerry Tarkanian at Fresno St.

D&C: But there are a lot of people who would love to share their cocaine with you or give you a ride or give you some booze or give you some booze that enabled you along the way, right?

CH: Yeah, of course. That’s part of it as well, but there also has to be a level of accountability. People would always say to me, "Get out of Fall River, man. You’ve gotta get away from Fall River." Fall River takes a hit, but you know something? When I woke up in Tehran, Iran, all by myself, I knew it wasn’t Fall River’s problem anymore. When I woke up in Istanbul, Fall River was far away. At the end of the day, it was me, and if I didn’t fix me then I wasn’t going to be good anywhere.

D&C: You talked about the fact that you drank alcohol and smoked marijuana in ninth grade, y0u talked about the cocaine with the two girls in college at 18 years of age. You said, "That opened doors for me I couldn’t close for 15 years." Was there one moment you said, "That’s the moment that pushed me off the edge"?

CH: Once I started taking Oxycontin. That’s when all bets were off. Cocaine is a different drug. When I was in college, I would do it on a really long weekend for three days, but I put it down for a month and a half or two months. But once I jumped into opiates, and it became a daily drug for me, that’s when there was no turning back.

D&C: You told your Oxy dealer, "You have to get here to the Garden tonight, because I’m supposed to play, and if you don’t get here, I’m not playing." Is that because you couldn’t play or wouldn’t play?

CH: There was just no chance of me playing. Physically, I couldn’t play. There were many nights like that, where I just physically couldn’t handle it. I walked away from a $50,000 contract in Bologna, Italy, because he called training camps in the mountains. I’m with my wife and my son, and the coach said we’re going four hours up into the mountains, and guess what? I’m not going, because my drug dealer isn’t there.

D&C: Did the Celtics know all about your issues? They do their research. Did they know they’re bringing you back here, and that was potentially big trouble for you and them?

CH: I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m sure they were well aware of my issues leading up to it — with the cocaine stuff — but as far as the Oxycontin, I’d say no. In Denver, I had a pretty healthy year there, so there were no signs that should have stay away from him because of the year before. That being said, once I got to the Celtics, in fairness to them, I got hurt. Once I got hurt, I was gone. I kind of disappeared.

D&C: Do you want them to make a movie? We talked about this before. Hey, it’s a better story than "Moneyball," and that’s a hit. This could be a hit. Would that be a good thing for you?

CH: I don’t know. It’s difficult to gauge that. I’m definitely a fan of this. I’m a fan of this because of the power it has. Dress it up and put a wig on it, like for Hollwood, and I don’t know if it has the same effect. To me, it doesn’t matter. If it were to happen, I know that I would lose a lot of control of the story.

D&C: They’d have to put wings and a halo on your wife. She comes across, as we all suspected, as an angel and a saint. Has she had enough? Is she enjoying this?

CH: She struggles with it, just like I do. Someone said to me at the New York screening, "You have to sit in here and watch it with us." I said, "Watch yourself with a 12×12 head, running your mouth when you’re 22 years old, thinking that you’ve got it all figured out. It’s not easy." She has a tough time with it, but I think we know all too well what it’s like living in that dark, seedy, secret life of shame and guilt by ourselves.

D&C: I don’t know, that alley in Modesto looked really comfortable.

CH: That’s a tough spot for me. That was probably the toughest thing for me to do, because I hit my bottom fast in that place.

D&C: Talking about [your wife] Heather, a great line she had in the piece was, "We had a lot of new beginnings." Did you almost lose her at one point?

CH: Yeah, many times.

D&C: Why did she keep taking you back?

CH: Like Heather said, we met each other in the sixth grade, and we went through a lot together from the age of 12 to 18, when I left for college. I think that she would tell you that she knew who I was before basketball took effect in a lot of ways, and thought that she could find that person and get that person back. I think there was always hope, and I thank God for her level of compassion and her sticking to her vows, because that’s truly a woman who stuck to her vows.

D&C: A couple quick technical questions before we go: How do you say heroin in Italian?

CH: I’d point to my arm.

D&C: There are a lot of low points, and you get asked that all the time and we’ve asked you that before — the Dunkin’ Donuts crash — but driving from bus stations in Bologna, Italy, while your wife and kid are sleeping and trying to buy heroin from people who don’t even speak your language, that seems like a pretty low point.

CH: They’re all low. Any day you wake up, grab a hypodermic needle and you have to put it in your arm by 7 a.m. in order to function is a bottom. Bologna was a bottom. There’s no doubt about it. But that level of desperation, trust me: I tell kids all the time, "My vision of a heroin addict was this guy with no teeth, sleeping in his drool. I had no idea he was a professional athlete. I had no idea that that guy with no teeth and drooling on the sidewalk — that’s his last day. That guy started somewhere, just like I did."

D&C: Do you still crave drugs and alcohol?

CH: Rarely. The thought enters my mind once in a great while a lot less than it did two years ago, let’s say. But once in a great while the thought of it would enter my mind, and I’m just blessed that I’ve stayed away.

D&C: Do you ever think about bleaching your hair again?

CH: Oh, Jesus Christ, absolutely not.

D&C: What’s under your Band-Aid on your arm?

CH: I don’t know. I think I just got a physical with Pitino.

D&C: Will you go on the road? I don’t know how many of those 9,000 messages are asking you to come speak to a group, but will you do that? To me, the most impressive was your speech to these various groups and just how compelling it was to them.

CH: Sure. I’m very fortunate. The American Program Bureau in Boston, who represents me, has sent me request already this morning to go to different places. I’m scheduled to speak at Stonybrook in New York on Nov. 6. That is something that I’m passionate about. I believe in it, because I know the response I get when I’m done. That’s something that’s near and dear to me.

http://www.mediafire.com/?fkbt1syv5ciofuc

(audio clip)

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1191/If_Its_Easy_To_Do_Its_Easy_Not_To_Do_

Love, Baseball, Heartbreak, Suicide, Music, 1986

2011-10-29T23:04:00.003+08:00

Love, Baseball, Heartbreak, Suicide, Music, 1986

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come." Terrence Mann ( Field of Dreams)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SB16il97yw&feature=fvwrel

Warning. This post is all about baseball memories, music memories and life memories. And proof you can't Google and/ Youtube everything.

Even though I am a huge Alan Parsons Project fan I have seldom blogged about their music. I am sitting on my bed watching Game 7 of this year's World Series and my thoughts returned to a Game 7, twenty five years ago and also to a record I bought that year.

The 1986 Baseball season was memorable. Back then you only made the post season if you won your division and there were only two divisions per league. The four division races if I recall correctly were cakewalks. No drama at all. Should I stumble at all with my 25 year old memories I apologize in advance. This is a memory piece and not a factual one. I just have to be a in a zone to write this.
Once the National and American League Championship series started the baseball gods reciprocated for that lack of drama in the regular season. The Boston Red Sox were down to their last strike to the then California Angels and came back to win the series. Some notes about that Angels team. It had Reggie Jackson, who most will remember as a Yankee and an A. It was managed by Gene Mauch who was also the skipper of one of the legendary regular season collapses in baseball history. 1964, even I was not alive my dad was and was going to school in Philadelphia during the time of that choke. Donnie Moore was the closer for the Angels.

Donnie Moore was to the 86 Angels what Mitch Wild Thing Williams was to the 1993 Phillies. Donnie Moore though committed suicide. That's why every time I hear Mitch talk to Dan Patrick on the radio I am so glad he moved on with his life and entertains and informs us baseball fans still. He put his World Series moment into perspective saying that's baseball and it is. Pitched balls do get hit sometimes. Although Mitch's life took a different path than Donnie, the forever classy Philadelphia fans hoped it took that same path issuing numerous death threats.

My dad told me that Gene Mauch story three decades ago. Sports used to be our bonding. Even before we moved moved to North America he had a subscription to Sports Illustrated in the 70s. Which got me curious about football and baseball. There was a stretch before we would always watch the Orange Bowl New Years night. Now he only watches basketball. NBA and Ateneo. Other than that he has a Huang track mind. Cue the song.
Earlier that year I bought the Alan Parsons Project record Stereotomy. At the time I had all the records they put out and that was the ninth. It had all the usual ear candy and excellent melodies I have come to expect from the Alan Parson Project. I remember holding in my arms a ten month old Joseph who was crying then he shut up when he heard the sound effects of a car starting up and driving away. Babies can be so hilarious.
I don't really like looking for dirt but I make exception for two topics. William Shatner and the 1986 New York Mets. A book that was good for that was authored by George Takei. As for the Mets The Bad Guys Won by gives you all the dirt you would want and then some. It's behind the scenes look at a wildly successful season. Yes the Mets won but they were never close again. the 1986 Mets remind me of Led Zeppelin at their peak. They both reached the highest high but then look at what happened to the individuals since: Dykstra, Strawberry ,Carter, Backman, Gooden, Ojeda. All of them struck by extreme tragedy self inflicted or otherwise.

A lot of people love the rankings thing. But it's all subjective and since it is, it should be about memories and not competition. It should be about love and not about comparing. The 1986 World Series definitely had memories: The Skydiver, The Curse, Bill Buckner, DARYLLLLL from the Fenway Faithful, the inept Sox Bullpen. It was personally memorable for me because I had my wisdom teeth taken out at that time and was tortured watching baseball because of one thing. Wendy's released a new sandwich called the Big Classic and decided to let Canada know about it every single commercial break during the World Series. My diet consisted of mashed potatoes, pudding and chicken soup at the time.

When I began this entry it was still about the 4th inning or so of Game 7 but I was already getting deja vu of 1986 and the Mets /Red Sox. I was for the Rangers but congrats to the better 2011 story which was the Cards. Written off in mid September but they battled back.

I am sure when every sports season ends, there is a montage wrap up song of how the respective final went. Some of them more memorable than others. When the 1986 World Series ended NBC chose a song off of Stereotomy. Alan Parson Project is the official artist name but those of us Projectiles ( my own invented nickname for Alan Parsons Project nuts) know the beauty of an Alan Parsons Project album is that anybody can be singing or playing in it as long as it is appropriate. Singers on APP albums that you will recognize are Christopher Cross, Alan Clarke (Hollies) , Arthur Brown (Crazy World of Arthur Brown), David Pack (Ambrosia) and Colin Blunstone (The Zombies).
Limelight was the song NBC chose from Stereotomy with Gary Brooker (Procul Harum famous for Conquistador) on vocals. Hard to believe that in 1986 I was barely 3 years into hard core Alan Parsons mania. I was already familiar with the song. I had no idea how iconic the World Series I just saw was going to be. No idea. But I got even a better appreciation for Limelight because those images of the 86 Series still played in my head with the song. I only saw the video once. Never video taped it with our Betamax. It is not available on Youtube and others only mention it on Google. This is my plea for anyone who happens to have it (1986 World Series montage of Limelight) to upload it somewhere or send it to me.

Key lyrics of the video (with significance in parenthesis) include:

"Maybe this day could be the one "( The Red Sox at that point had not won the Series since 1919 and would not win it till 2004)
"Calling my name Shouting out loud" ( Daryll Strawberry being pestered by the Fenway fans)
"Limelight don't let it slip right through your fingers There's a long way to fall" (Google Bill Buckner 1986 World Series read about the toll on his personal life)
"I can hear the beat of a different drum" (There was only one 1986 Mets. Read the Bad Guys Won and you will think twice, thrice about worshipping any athlete)

It started this morning watching baseball. A baseball game played October 29, 2011 (in my time zone) brought out 25 year old memories in me. And as Terrence Mann has said so eloquently it has marked the time. It just so happens I was in a text conversation this morning with a good friend of mine. She was talking about the idea of blogging for money. Instinctively I responded that I blogged for love. What I mean by that is that my blog is the way it is because I truly believe the one thing I can be better than anybody else is me. Like I said in the title page of my home page I truly get what John Labatt once said "An honest brew makes it's own friends". Don't be contrived and be yourself. If that means most don't understand you don't let that get in the way of what you believe and what you feel and what you want to say. You stick to the constants of your life as Terrence Mann says, you write what you feel and in some cases you are writing with tears in your eyes, people will come. Once in a while you will get a private message telling you that they themselves felt what you felt and did not know anyone else felt that way.

I have been saying in my Twitter ever since the baseball postseason started that myopic people who only care about a bouncing orange ball sport missed out on classic baseball drama. And they deserve to. Their ignorance is their own prison cell. Arrogant attitude maybe. But damn I love baseball. Ken Burns did not do an 11 part documentary on basketball. He did it on baseball. A. Bartlett Giamatti was not the commissioner of basketball, he was the commissioner of baseball. Chick Hern is a legend but Vin Scully is a unique legend.

Part of the Terrence speech was about recapturing memories and baseball just happened to be the medium. Watching the World Series today I was recapturing a time in my life. Things I felt. Many that were not in Google or Youtube. But they existed just the same. Once in a while, remind yourself of that.

Ed

Noynoy Insults Your Stupidity Again

2011-10-23T18:46:00.000+08:00

Noynoy Insults Your Stupidity Again.

Maybe you best read the article below first before reading my take on it. I have said many times before Noynoy Aquino is a naive and sheltered individual who has not accomplished anything in his life. Considering my many takes on Filipino culture, it is poetic justice he holds the highest elected office in the land.

After reading his speech Noynoy feels companies in Asia are spared the Occupy movement because they possess a certain halo that their western counterparts do not. I find it really hard to believe that our nation has world class corrupt politicians but saints in the private sector. It's a gigantic leap of faith to make but then again so was 2010 Presidential Election.

He really makes it sound like Asian companies have a leg up on the rest of the world. He talks about accountability. Yet his paradigm does not account for western companies that operate in Asia and Asian companies that operate in the west.

Corporate Social Responsibility is not an Asian exclusive. It's a catch phrase maybe but I would like to see what organization is handing out these CSR awards to Asian companies and ignoring the rest as Noynoy is implying.

I find it interesting in the article where Noynoy is of the belief he can "motivate local companies to excel". Nowhere in his resume does he have a track record of either motivating or excelling... in anything. Yet he believes he can direct entire companies that way. Yeah right.

Not so fast sir. They should not canonize the entire Philippines just yet. First of all the Occupy movement seems very contrived and very choreographed. Just because the machinery so far has mobilized North America and Europe does not mean Asia is any different. Noynoy as usual taking credit for something that has nothing to do with him.

Like the picture I got from Anthony Robbins says, the Wall Street Occupiers are not exactly donning burlap sacks. They may be protesting one thing but doing another. I have a very simple look at all these protests. No community will ever benefit if their private sector goes in the toilet. None. Do individual companies abuse and break rules? Yes but so do individuals in any society. Discourage and punish the violators but the private sector as a whole must do well in their respective communities or else those communities will rely on handouts. All of you anti business and pro government types: where does government revenue come from? Allow me to quote a true Maverick. Mark Cuban said the most patriotic thing you can do is get extremely wealthy then pay lots of taxes. I rest my case. Now someone tell the Occupy movement.

In a country where journalists and priests get squashed like bugs and rebels ambush soldiers and towns Noynoy should not be declaring any kind of moral superiority. Nobody has yet to answer this question but here goes. Noynoy has been a public servant for about two decades. Yet his mantra is kung walang corrupt walang mahirap. What did he do about corruption before he was voted in as President? Fight corruption? Add to the corruption? Too detached to see the corruption? Or did the corruption just not exist? There really is little room for another answer.

Believe me if he fought corruption you would have heard it about non stop during the campaign. The guy is a lazy , incompetent, self entitled moron living off his family name. Which really does not make him unusual among people with "old" money. That's what you voted in Philippines. People died for your democracy and you choose to elect him and Erap and FPJ. To paraphrase Bill Parcells you are what your elected officials are. And Noynoy thinks we are superior to first world countries? If you buy his Holier Than Thou spiel, God help you.

The more I analyze Noynoy, the one place that needs occupying is his brain.

Links to opinions on Occupy Movement (audio)

http://www.mediafire.com/?a9ltb4ick7kn4nd

http://www.mediafire.com/?o178ymkawycbb98

http://www.mediafire.com/?87brz8igsegv07a

http://business.inquirer.net/26075/aquino-most-philippine-asian-firms-not-the-%e2%80%98 bad-guys%e2%80%99

Aquino: Most Philippine, Asian firms not the ‘bad guys’

By: Christine O. Avendaño

Philippine Daily Inquirer

3:01 am | Friday, October 21st, 2011 1share47 46President Benigno Aquino III said Wednesday night the country and its Asian neighbors had been spared from the global turmoil sparked by the Wall Street protest assailing corporate greed and corruption because firms in this part of the world had been actively helping improve the lives of people.

Speaking at the 10th Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility held at the Edsa Shangri-La hotel in Mandaluyong City, President Aquino said the “Occupy Wall Street” movement which had initially expanded in the United States and now had struck European countries had seen people “protesting against companies that engage in what they deem to be the usurpation of regulation and, in some cases, democracy itself.”

Difficult times

The President added, “We see that these groups of people from different nations all share the same rallying cry: there must be accountability; there must be inclusive growth.”

The Chief Executive said it was difficult at this time “to be the head of a corporation, given that corporations seem to be portrayed as the bad guys in this latest global economic and social crisis.”

But he said it was not so in the country and among its Asian neighbors.

“When one looks at our part of the world, however, this is not the case. While of course there will always be exceptions, here in our region, corporations—especially the ones more active in their humanitarian endeavors—are generally seen in a positive light.

“The people recognize the value that business can bring to a nation; they see the opportunities and the possibilities, and realize that corporations and individuals can empower each other and partner toward the achievement of a just society,” President Aquino said.

CSR activities

The President said he believed that the good regard for companies in the Asian region was “partly because many Philippine and Asian corporations have been actively engaged in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.”

“Many, if not all of you present here today have made the conscious decision to play a greater role in the communities in which you do business. Realizing that you do not live and work in a vacuum, you have done your best to help ensure that the people living in the societies in which you operate are given the chance to live a more dignified life,” he said.

President Aquino urged business leaders to “exert even greater efforts to show the true face of Corporate Social Responsibility” by acting promptly on the concerns of the people.

Giving back

“We must foster the attitude of giving back, and of always remembering that the growth of companies—that the growth of economies—rely, in essence, on the empowerment of the people. No one must be left behind,” he said.

President Aquino assured the business leaders that they could rely on his administration as a partner in their effort, reminding them that they were working with “a government that is concerned, foremost, with the people,” and one that was spending a third of its national budget on social services.

The President noted that a lot of Philippine companies were recognized for their efforts in corporate social responsibility activities.

“In the first time that I had an occasion to talk before you, not a single Filipino company managed to be awarded,” he said, drawing laughter from the audience.

He said he would “try to motivate” more local companies “to excel” so they could be recognized for their efforts.

Obama, Hitler, Glee, Technology, Media Bias and Football

2011-10-08T16:51:00.000+08:00

Anybody who follows football or politics will have heard by now Hank Williams got into hot water for something he said on a TV show. The problem is 99.9 % of people believe he compared Obama to Hitler. You can Google the story and I included the video here. You can hear his words.You can read his words. Unfortunately it is true that perception is reality. ESPN/ABC/ Disney is there to market their shows to advertisers. Unfortunately for them perception is reality.

Why does perception become reality? Because we are subjective human beings. My boss always reminds me that my subjectivity gets in the way of my evaluations. If you think I will blog about that, you got another thing coming. It would help our discussion if you revisited the actual definitions of the two words connotation and denotation. My simplified way of defining then is denotation is the "precise" definition of a word while connotation is what is "associated" with the word.

All of you at some point have played the game "telephone" where something is said on one end and it comes out different by the time the fifth person hears it. In the old days that is all we had to contend with. Strangely enough the more technology we have and the more immediate access we have to credible sources and more varied sources the easier perception can be clouded because of that very advanced media. Case in point many of my Filipino Facebook friends circulated an Oprah quote recently lauding the Filipino entrant in Miss Universe in NBC News when no clip or article exists. Filipinos circulated a David Letterman Top Ten List about a Pinoy in the While House and no such Letterman clip exist. Despite more and more technology that can give us better perspective and validation there are many who spread something because they wish it to be true that they don't bother checking if it is true.

Emotion clouds what little reason we have. Technology should help our reason, it instead exposes our lack of it. Headlines are not factual but subjective interpretations. In this world where we can be inundated with sound bites and headlines we are setting ourselves up for enormous misinformation by depending on other people's headlines and filling in the blanks because of subjective headlines. Like my aunt who believes that Steve Perry the singer of Journey is dead. She has been saying it for at least two years. It never occurred to her to Google how he died and in the process she can find out he hadn't died.

Let's get to Hank Williams Jr. Who many now believe:
1) He compared Obama to Hitler
2) He is a racist.

I have provided the clip twice below. Just in case Youtube is not available in some locales. At around 1:50 he blatantly declares Obama and Biden (who may I remind you all is white) as the enemy. But in a political context. The media will gladly vilify George W.Bush and people who share that opinion yet when shoe is on the other foot that becomes the bad foot. Williams then proceeds to compare top Republicans playing a round of golf with top Democrats to someone who ordered genocide to Jews playing a round of golf with the current Israeli leader. What Williams was talking about was the gulf, the divide, the chasm. Williams sees the Republicans and the Democrats as polar opposites. Is Williams partisan? Yes. Is he exaggerating ? Yes. But he is not alone. Nowhere in the transcript or the video does he compare Obama to Hitler. Yet that is the perception that cost him his spot longest running prime time show on American TV Monday Night Football.

Those of you who know me know I hate Glee. Among my many observations of the show that I "tweeted":

Ace Hardware Greenbelt, I bought two appliances from you today. How do you repay me? Making me listen to 3 GLEE songs. #Thehorror
Aug 24, '11 8:52 PM
Charlie Sheen is to sobriety as Glee is to originality. Mar 10, '11 9:22 PM
In the old days when people took good music and turned it into crap it was called Muzak. Nowadays that process is the Glee TV show. Jan 21, '11 6:47 AM
The Kids From Glee make me wish a plague came and eradicated every radio station. Jan 20, '11 6:54 AM
The difference between Glee and High School Musical: at least HSM butcher their own songs . Oct 29, '10 9:35 PM
I strongly suggest checking out the real Rocky Horror Picture Show music on Youtube before it's butchered (kiddified) by the cast of Glee. Oct 25, '10 10:03 PM

Now that you are familiar about my affinity for the show Glee. If somebody ever told you that "Ed watched the complete Season 1 of Glee three times in the space of one month". Again if somebody ever told you that and your response is " that would be like the Pope performing abortions". Are you comparing me to the Pope? Of course not. You are merely commenting on the implausibility of me watching Glee multiple times being similar to the implausibility of the Pope performing abortions or the Pope performing a gay marriage for that matter.

In the court of Ed, Hank Williams Jr. did not compare to Obama to Hitler.

Now that I got Hank off the major charge the other charge should be easy. He is accused by many of being a racist. In that SAME video where he talks about Hitler on the links, at the 2:00 mark. Hank slightly favors among the Republican hopefuls, Herman Cain. Herman Cain who when I last looked, was black. I rest my case your honor.
　
Perception is reality. Sometimes your perception of reality is clouded by somebody else's clouded perception of reality. In some cases it might be mine. I read a piece not too long ago about someone who felt they really had a handle on Sarah Palin then suddenly realized how much that had to do with media bias. I wanted to do a blog about it and I still might but in the meantime read the piece. It made me think. It might make you think too. If that's OK with you.

Now that I made my case that Hank 's reality is not as bad as the perception he still loses his slot in Monday Night Football. I remember the first night he did it. That was before many of my cyberspace mates were born (September 1989) . You can see it here. All that down the drain because most people can not understand what he said. He did not compare the people, he compared the gulf between ideologies. To paraphrase Hank's famous gig "Are You Ready For Some Bias?"

Ed

http://www.hermancain.com/
http://extreme.mobile.msn.com/sports/nba/article/981182 http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/hank-williams-jr-obama-and-biden-the-enemy/ (transcript)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrxnmMjp-tE&feature=related (MNF Hank intro) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/obama-hitler-and-hank-williams-jr/2011/10/05/gIQAsnPOOL_blog.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/hank-williams-jr-golfing-with-hitler/2011/10/04/gIQAXqV1KL_blog.html Note on the videos. 2 copies each of:
1) Hank Williams Jr. on Fox and Friends and exactly what he said and how he said.
2) Hank Kingsley as Adolph Hankler on the Larry Sanders Show.
And a copy of Hank Williams performing one of the many Monday Night Football matchups he musically introduced.

Monty Python Gets Inspired by Enrile's Stand On Masturbation

2011-10-05T21:32:00.000+08:00

In case you are not a Filipino resident, a local political stalwart made headlines yesterday equating the function of self pleasure with killing. The British comedy group Monty Python were so "moved" by Senator Juan Ponce Enrile's stand that they put together this song and dance number I have included below. In similar news, the Beach Boys and Billy Idol were also so moved that from now on, their cds will be devoid of "In My Room" and "Dancing With Myself" respectively.

Ed

If you can't see the video please go here.
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1269

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/lifestyle/10/04/11/senator-condemns-self-pleasuring-draws-flak
Senator condemns self-pleasuring, draws flak
abs-cbnNEWS.com
Posted at 10/04/2011 6:33 PM | Updated as of 10/04/2011 6:35 PM

MANILA, Philippines - Senator Juan Ponce Enrile drew flak from netizens across the country after he condemned the act of self-pleasuring as a form of interfering with the natural process of human fertilization.
During the recent Senate plenary debate on the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill, Enrile said masturbation is no different from using a condom which, Catholic bishops said, imperils the morality of the youth.
"If the man wants to satisfy himself by manipulating himself alone, if it is only for pleasure, that is the same thing as using a condom," he said, drawing laughter in the gallery.
Senator Pia Cayetano asked, "Does his Honor equate now the ejaculation of a man outside of his partner's vagina to interfering with the production of life?"
"Yes. That is my belief. That is a matter of faith to me," Enrile answered.
Enrile believes that life begins as early as when the sperm and the egg is produced, and self-pleasuring, just like using a condom, defeats the purpose of procreation.
"Well as far as I am concerned, procreation starts from the act of the man and the woman to perform their assigned participation in the process of God," he said.
"Once there is a union and at a certain point there was a union -- that is the point of fertilization...In that case, if we interfere, we are not allowing the natural process."
Netizens speak
Copies of the transcript of the Senate plenary debate, which was released by Cayetano's office, were posted in blogs, websites and online forums.
Several Filipinos across the country were annoyed by Enrile's remark, causing them to turn to social networking sites to air their sentiments.
Below are some of the netizens' comments on Twitter:
"Woke up this morning and is trying his best not to crack a joke about Sen. Ponce Enrile," said Carlos Celdran.
"Is masturbation really a sin? I don't think so Sen. Enrile is a hypocrite. He must have been masturbating when he was younger," Emil Ian Joshua Akol said.
"Enrile belongs in a retirement home, not in the Senate," said user darthlaurian.
"Senator Enrile & minions, you can't impose abstinence as the only acceptable FP (family planning) method. Consult your priests 1st if they themselves can do it," said Clinton Balud.
"Most of the people I know, if not all, are now abortionists. Thanks to Sen. Enrile, we were enlightened," said Neil Ivan Torrefiel.

Tags: killing, monty python, juan ponce enrile, masturbation

James Soriano Disturbed You? Good

2011-08-29T11:23:00.001+08:00

double click to see better

I get it. The infamous viral James Soriano opinion piece provoked a massive “Kung sino?” snort from people. With their response they are proving him right.

Sometimes there is a fine line between making a point and speaking from your high horse. I try to be aware of that line when I write but I am sure I have crossed it a few times for some people. Mr. Soriano makes the point that English is the language of the learned. Let's explore that point. I have lived here in Manila for almost 12 years. Media is something I analyze over and over in this blog. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my degree is in that vein.

One of my major beliefs is that your mass media is not there to educate you. They are there to attract you. Two different things. Mass media are beholden to their sponsors and not to you. In short mass media is not telling you what you need to know but what you want to hear.

Marshall McLuhan is famous for his quote the medium is the message. I can tell you from where I sit. That in this country the language is the message. First of all. Compare the news that the over the air channels provide in Tagalog with ABS CBN News Channels news. The intonation of the Tagalog broadcast resembles pro wrestling commentary. The tone of the English broadcast sounds more like golf commentary. Why? You are reaching completely different mentalities when you select in this country what language you will use. If you totally disagree with me or James Soriano be prepared to argue the case that there is no such thing as language bias. Take a cue from non verbal cues. Just like the traits are different when you tune into golf and when you tune into wrestling.

People's Tonight. Headlines in English but stories in Tagalog.

If you don't buy the tone of voice argument then explain to me why is there no newspaper of record in this country in Tagalog. I am no big fan of the Inquirer, The Philippine Star and Manila Bulletin. But they are text book Columbia School of Journalism compared to their Tagalog counterparts.

Here is an exercise for you. Those who do understand Tagalog (I do to some extent) . For the next week expose yourself to an adequate amount of Tagalog media. Newspapers and tv news. Then try to imagine yourself as one who totally avoids English media and only gets information from Tagalog sources. What would your perspective be like? What would you be missing out on? What blind spots inherent in Tagalog media would therefore be your blind spots?

Those of us who can and do seek English sources of information are exposed to a plethora of perspectives on numerous topics. I won't try to dictate to you what I view to be width or the narrowness of Tagalog media but try it for yourself. What would it be like if that is all you had to go on? That is why his point that most people seem to ignore is that if you are serious about learning then you are better off with a daily diet of all English sources than all Tagalog. It's all a question of values in those that tend to stick to only Tagalog. My view here.

Whether you like it or not, media is a reflection of the audience it is trying attract. Kris Aquino is the way she is because a ton of people buy into her emo pseudo victim act. The audience wants that so Kris delivers. Based on her endorsement contracts boy does she deliver. I don't mean Boy Abunda either.

If by now you still believe that English and Tagalog are just interchangeable let me ask you a question. Would Willie Revillame work if he did exactly the same show only in English? My personal opinion: you can't spell Revillame without "lame".

If the answer is no then don't shoot James Soriano for being the messenger. He held up a mirror to this country's face. The country did not like what it saw and blamed the mirror and the mirror holder. In the immortal words of Colonel Nathan R. Jessup " You can't handle the truth".

What do you expect from a population that is honestly convinced Journey owes it's career to Arnel Pineda? What do you expect from a country that does not encourage soccer yet feels self entitled to being in the next World Cup? What do you expect from a population that rewarded a convicted plunderer second place in a free election for president?

https://cerebralinsights.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/the-language-that-is-filipino/

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/688/Why_Are_Our_Filipino_Newspapers_So_Dumb

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/tag/newspapers

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1161/Three_Reasons_Why_I_Avoid_Reading_The_Newspaper

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1097/WHY_Because_We_Are_Dumb_

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1017/Hypocrisy_of_the_Recognition_and_Admiration_of_Efren_Penaflorida

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/986/Graceful_Exit_Monday

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/943/What_part_of_beyond_reasonable_doubt_do_you_not_understand_Erap_related

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1141/Reason_1642_Why_We_Dont_Subscribe_To_The_Inquirer

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/915/I_Wish_This_For_The_Philippines

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/399/Sometimes_You_Cant_Defend_The_Philippines

jack nicholson, tom cruise, truth,

Marshall Mcluhan

Language, learning, identity, privilege

I think

By JAMES SORIANO

August 24, 2011, 4:06am

MANILA, Philippines — English is the language of learning. I’ve known this since before I could go to school. As a toddler, my first study materials were a set of flash cards that my mother used to teach me the English alphabet.

My mother made home conducive to learning English: all my storybooks and coloring books were in English, and so were the cartoons I watched and the music I listened to. She required me to speak English at home. She even hired tutors to help me learn to read and write in English.

In school I learned to think in English. We used English to learn about numbers, equations and variables. With it we learned about observation and inference, the moon and the stars, monsoons and photosynthesis. With it we learned about shapes and colors, about meter and rhythm. I learned about God in English, and I prayed to Him in English.

Filipino, on the other hand, was always the ‘other’ subject — almost a special subject like PE or Home Economics, except that it was graded the same way as Science, Math, Religion, and English. My classmates and I used to complain about Filipino all the time. Filipino was a chore, like washing the dishes; it was not the language of learning. It was the language we used to speak to the people who washed our dishes.

We used to think learning Filipino was important because it was practical: Filipino was the language of the world outside the classroom. It was the language of the streets: it was how you spoke to the tindera when you went to the tindahan, what you used to tell your katulong that you had an utos, and how you texted manong when you needed “sundo na.”

These skills were required to survive in the outside world, because we are forced to relate with the tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world. If we wanted to communicate to these people — or otherwise avoid being mugged on the jeepney — we needed to learn Filipino.

That being said though, I was proud of my proficiency with the language. Filipino was the language I used to speak with my cousins and uncles and grandparents in the province, so I never had much trouble reciting.

It was the reading and writing that was tedious and difficult. I spoke Filipino, but only when I was in a different world like the streets or the province; it did not come naturally to me. English was more natural; I read, wrote and thought in English. And so, in much of the same way that I learned German later on, I learned Filipino in terms of English. In this way I survived Filipino in high school, albeit with too many sentences that had the preposition ‘ay.’

It was really only in university that I began to grasp Filipino in terms of language and not just dialect. Filipino was not merely a peculiar variety of language, derived and continuously borrowing from the English and Spanish alphabets; it was its own system, with its own grammar, semantics, sounds, even symbols.

But more significantly, it was its own way of reading, writing, and thinking. There are ideas and concepts unique to Filipino that can never be translated into another. Try translating bayanihan, tagay, kilig or diskarte.

Only recently have I begun to grasp Filipino as the language of identity: the language of emotion, experience, and even of learning. And with this comes the realization that I do, in fact, smell worse than a malansang isda. My own language is foreign to me: I speak, think, read and write primarily in English. To borrow the terminology of Fr. Bulatao, I am a split-level Filipino.

But perhaps this is not so bad in a society of rotten beef and stinking fish. For while Filipino may be the language of identity, it is the language of the streets. It might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned.

It is neither the language of the classroom and the laboratory, nor the language of the boardroom, the court room, or the operating room. It is not the language of privilege. I may be disconnected from my being Filipino, but with a tongue of privilege I will always have my connections.

So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language.

Aug 22 2011 Video Blog

2011-08-22T23:09:00.001+08:00

Headlines

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/45205/mastermind-still-sought

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/45791/those-behind-benigno-%E2%80%9Cninoy%E2%80%9D-aquino-jr-slay-now-part-of-urban-legend

http://business.inquirer.net/14295/ph-stocks-tumble-on-us-recession-fears

Justice for Ninoy

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1020/Justice_Is_Not_Only_Blind_Its_Lame_

The Stock Market

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/305/The_Sky_is_not_Falling_Part_1A_

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/955/What_is_a_Bear_Market_and_Why_Is_It_Good_

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/971/Proof_That_I_Listen_To_What_You_Say_

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/308/The_Sky_is_not_Falling_Part_4_A_Study_in_Human_Psychology

investments, stock market, fear, justice, news, ninoy aquino, headlines

College Football Historian Uses My Recommendations And Why All I Care About Is Love

2011-08-20T11:36:00.000+08:00

Yes, they read me on a podcast from ESPN Bristol, Conn last week. But this is a not a blog entry to boast about that. It is to illustrate one of the main points of my blog. Which is enjoy something for the sake of what it is. NCAA Football is something I enjoy along with NFL football and Major League baseball and the other sports I enjoy. It has nothing to do with nationality but everything to do with the fact that they are enjoyable on their own. As entertainment as well places to learn from. Like I said many times that I watch enough news and sports that reality tv has very little to offer me.

Yes they read my letter but after I thought that any idiot could Google the answer. Maybe not come up with the same answers but still come up with something. If I did that I would be going against one of my dear values of jumping on the bandwagon. Just know I am sincere as I have blogged about the Holtz book before.

http://edrlopez.blogspot.com/2008/08/good-thought-that-i-need.html

I own both books that I recommend. I knew of Bill Curry before because almost any regular of Lombardi's Packers is known to anybody who cares about the history of the NFL.He also got my attention when he became the head coach at Alabama. But it was during his radio spots with ESPN's Golic and Greenberg that I really began to appreciate his wisdom.

"Ten Men You Meet in the Huddle is equal parts autobiography, character study, leadership manual, and profound philosophy. "　- description in Amazon by the author of Prince of Tides Pat Conroy

Know something about college football in the US. The appeal is very regional. People in New York City for example love the Yankees, Rangers, Jets, Mets, Knicks and Giants but could care less about any college team the same way people in Nebraska, Columbus and Oklahoma care. It's no secret I spent 19 years in Vancouver when I was not living in Manila. But Canadians did not even care about their own college football much less US college football. So in my 45 years of living I have not resided at anytime in a hotbed of US college football yet I love it. Which goes back to my point. Love something and support something because you love the essence of it. Not the label. Not to fit in with the people around you. Just like Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago- All I Care About Is Love.

That's my point with the Azkals fad. You couldn't pay the locals to watch a team sport that was not basketball forever and a day in this place. Then this dramatic shift from apathy to fanaticism for the Azkals. That's not love, that's opportunism, mob mentality and peer pressure.

Finally I want to talk about my fondness for the co host of ESPNU College Football's podcast. He is Beano Cook. Nicknamed the Bard of Pittsburgh and the Pope of College Football. If it is unlikely a guy from Manila could answer that trivia question what is even more unlikely is that Beano Cook could not.

　Technical note: podcast excerpt is available as a download here or in the Multiply version of this post in the attachments.

Relevant Links:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/college/s_741152.html

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/archive?id=2557385 (college football)

ivan maisel

http://edrlopez.blogspot.com/2008/08/good-thought-that-i-need.html

http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2009/11/12/maisel_ivan/

http://www.mediafire.com/?d2uhk9vywb54ijw

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1142/Pinoys_Only_Dig_The_BBall

http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Men-You-Meet-Huddle/dp/1933060603

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1262/Injecting_A_Dose_Of_Reality_Is_Not_Crab_Mentality

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1264

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAdD8ZSx1XA

Noynoy Has A Lot In Common With Paris Hilton

2011-08-16T21:04:00.000+08:00

When Noynoy heard some vain, self important, attention grabbing good for nothing loose woman was coming to visit Malacanang. His first instinct was "Kris!!!" Forget my personal views on Noynoy . Why is Paris Hilton’s Manila visit treated like she is a Nobel Peace Prize winner? If life has taught me anything it is the dumb are always fertile ground in which to plant comedy . I initially totally agreed with Georgina Wilson that Noy has better things to do than make time for Paris Hilton. But it's quite possible that his copy of Modern Warfare 3 is not ready yet.

But then I thought about it.:

Paris born into money and has no skills that sets her apart from adults . Noynoy born into money and has no skills that sets him apart from adults.

Paris is famous for being famous and saying stupid things. Noynoy same thing.

Paris has no redeeming value and is often seen with her little Chihuahua Tinkerbell. Noynoy same thing but no dog.

Paris is a smoking hot ditzy blonde. Noynoy is a chain smoking klutzy bald guy.

Paris was in a video taken with night goggles. Noynoy plays with night goggles that he sometimes lends to Joshua.

Paris was caught in a compromising video with a guy. I would not be surprised if one day there is a video of Noynoy in a compromising video with a guy.

Paris Hilton and Noynoy. Which one is shallower? They are so similar. Paris is a tabloid publisher's dream. Noynoy was voted in by our people to the land's highest elected office? Philippines what is wrong with you?

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/tag/noynoy%20aquino

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1241

ESPN's Scott Van Pelt Describes Azkals Bandwagon Kind Of

2011-08-09T23:31:00.001+08:00

"Well, that's me. I'm Superman.And France was like Krypton. You know, on Krypton everybody was Superman. You make a nice sauce, everybody makes a nice sauce. You say hello to a woman with your French accent, everybody say hello! But here, here on Earth, this is the place where I knew I had special powers. I tell the bankers about my little village in France, and they all say, how brave and amazing you are, Anton. I could read the phone book to a woman and they become hypnotized, wet as morning daisies. " from the movie Addicted to Love (1997)

Listen to ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt talk about all the fans on the soccer bandwagon. You can listen to it here. He may as well have been talking about the Azkals fans. Having fervor is one thing if it's consistent but it's not. This Azkal mania is a fad because 95% of their fans did not watch soccer even two years ago. If you are in the 5% I have no quarrel with you. Van Pelt also talked about American fans and their sense of entitlement. Like they were supposed to beat Mexico. Soccer means more to Mexicans than it does to Americans and Filipinos combined. The two countries that are the most apathetic to soccer are America and the Philippines. I talked about last year here.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ab089l79xzz5x45

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1143/They_Forgot_the_Philippines

Van Pelt in his five-minute opinion piece might as well have been talking about Filipinos instead of the Americans. The similarities are all there. The Americans went nuts about the women's World Cup team. The Filipinos went nuts about the Azkals. The Americans do not care one lick about the women soccer teams that play every year. The Filipinos also do not care about any kind of soccer played within their shores not involving the Azkals. When it comes to soccer both the Americans and the Filipinos are not exactly known for their devotion. Which makes the hysteria of the Azkals even more mystifying to me.

In the words of Van Pelt "Irrationally Exuberant. "There is one difference though between the Americans and the Filipinos. The Americans won the women’s World Cup in 1999 and were in the finals in 2011. The Filipinos beat a team whose only mention in Google was that they lost to the Azkals. I should know. I tried.

Van Pelt puts it very simply. Soccer is #1 in Mexico and no one cares in the US. Why does the US feel let down by losing to Mexico? Just like all the Pinoys who know nothing about soccer because they never did care yet expect heap unprecedented celebrity on the Azkals. One big difference with the US though. Van Pelt mentions seven different sports leagues that easily get more attention than soccer. Filipinos only love and only know basketball in terms of team sport. That is their universe and sole sport. Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is the sense of entitlement to a different sport that knew nothing about even two years ago. Listen to the 4-minute mark of the clip I provide of Van Pelt. The key phrase he uses to describe the American fans 150% applies to Filipino fans " You are new to pretending you care". That describes Filipinos. Pretending to be something they are not.

First of all let me ask how can you be crazy over something you had no interest in two years ago? The promoters and the sponsors salute you for your fickleness. Like I said the Azkals are perceived to be Filipino and perceived to be good. That is why you watch. The problem is they are neither. Nationality and sports are a bad mix anyway. US and Philippines deserve International Soccer success the least.

I remember being in a baseball diamond in North Vancouver. This was a Sunday afternoon and outdoors. Suddenly there was this spontaneous motorcade. Iranian flag flying. Iranians so proud they beat the US in some World Cup match. Americans to my knowledge were not reciprocating in terms of grief.

Americans are peculiar that way. They don’t care about your sports leagues. They know you will still watch what is theirs way more than they will watch what is yours. The World Series, The Super Bowl and the NBA Finals are broadcast everywhere.

This is really about love. No other way to put it. Everybody else is passionate about soccer. 7 days a week 365 days a year. Sorry to break it you pinoys but that passion produces world-class players.

If there was a gradual ramp up of fanaticism and expectations for the Azkals then that would be ok. The bandwagon just went from to empty to full in such a short a time. Like I said many times before it's because of KSP (Lack of attention in English) . And KSP is the root of all-evil as far as I am concerned.

The “Basta Pinoy Da Best” mentality excludes work and determination. It only takes ethnicity into consideration. Am I saying that mentality is both self entitled and racist? You are smart enough to answer that question. Does that mentality lead to world-class results? I believe no. That's just me.

To every action is a reaction. This editorial is my reaction to the Azkals fans sense of entitlement. The world loves soccer, the Philippines does not . They love the Azkals not soccer. There is a difference. They love the Azkals but even then not for very long. There was no boyhood inspiration to inspire our youth for generations to excel in soccer. As a result there was no effort to be any kind of soccer power even in South East Asia. We expect to be significant globally?

Pinoy fanboyism is a topic I explore in this blog time and time again. Like most other places in life. Fanaticism and rationality are rarely companions. The guy beside me loves to looks at some local discussion forum. One active participant used as his signature “ the Azkals will rule the football world.” well if being clobbered by a team that is not a World Cup staple is his idea of ruling the football world then he is 100% correct. Go Azkals. You rule.

Proof that our soccer love is so superficial is that even to get on the field with other countries we have to resort to coaches and players born and trained elsewhere. Not here. National team indeed. We are cheering the symbol of the flag on the jersey and not the substance behind the jersey. A substance devoid of anything organic to the Philippines. Yet we cheer. People who were not trained here. People who don't converse like we do. People who don't learn from the schools we learn from. People who can't sing the national anthem. Yet we all identify with them . Does not make sense to me.

All of us at one point has either represented their high school or cheered for an entity from their high school. That sense of belonging comes from some common experience. You had the same history teacher, ate at the same cafeteria and went to the same social functions. That team that kicks around the soccer ball that you cheer for are strangers in a strange land. Your land. They cant relate to you, yet you so willingly lend your enthusiasm unconditionally. There is a difference from true spirit and mercenaries. A lover and a whore. However you justified this gulf of disconnect in your mind all for the sake of the illusion of world attention. The country is so fixated they ignore the gulf of disconnect.

The criteria for country eligibility in the World Cup. Designed more for commercial interests and more diversity but not indicative of representing a nation as you can see by the makeup of the Azkals squad. FIFA fabricated nationality for you. And you bit.

Look at the Azkals roster. Lots of Fil- Danish, Fil -Ams, Fil- Spaniards, Fil - Germans. There is a reason why there is no significant player who is Fil-Fil. Because we suck. Like anything else in life you will suck if you don't care. We don't care so much that we have to resort to hyphen Filipinos. Guys who I guarantee you did not take the jeepney going to school growing up. Yet the Pinoy identifies with them. How many pinoys do you know with a surname of SHROCK? You guys would cheer Donkey if you thought he got you guys attention.

Allow me to question national identity since that to me is the fuel that runs this bandwagon of the Azkals. It sure as heck is not an intrinsic interest in soccer/ football since it is none existent here.

You want me to answer the question what would happen if we fielded a team of homegrown talent in International competition? Among countries that eat, sleep and breathe the sport? In the vernacular “palpak”. Based on our culture we prioritize basketball and we can't even excel there when faced with international competition. And these are all countries that prioritize soccer over basketball.

It's obvious FIFA has very liberal rules who can represent a country. That's why our “national “ team is not really representative of this country. Not one of them went to a local public school at any level. Soccer is the world's most popular sport except for here. The World Cup is a huge money making event. Not just on the year of the actual tournament but also the qualifying tournaments as well. The league will make more money the more countries vie to get into the actual tournament. The big boys like Italy, Germany and Brazil will be fine. It's the little guy whose money FIFA could use and does use but without liberal roster rules many of the little guys will not be part of the process. This country has not been able to field of homegrown players that could hold their own in true world completion. But FIFA has given this country hope by compromising national identity. This perceived patriotism is merely an illusion. You all want to cheer for the Pinoy. This Azkal experience should at least make you question what really is a Pinoy? What qualifies one to bear the Philippines name in international competition? Shouldn't there be some cultural correlation to the inhabitants of the Philippines? Or are you just cheering for the name on the uniform regardless what is inside that uniform?

FIFA's definition of what is a Filipino I suspect has more to do with commercial considerations than cultural ones. Yet you all fall for it. You rather have minimal success even if the team has very little to do with the country they are representing. Are the Azkals made of patriots or opportunists? You be the judge. This team has little in common with you yet they represent you. Is your national identity for sale? I am weird, I am different. I rather fail with whats truly mine than to succeed with something that is barely mine.

FIFA stands to gain more (make more money) the more hope the little guy has. Without hope there will be no Azkals mania. Without hope there will be very little chance of filling up the Rizal Coliseum for a sport pinoys care little about. The hope generated by the hyphened pinoys runs the bandwagon. And FIFA could not be happier. It is in their best financial interest that the stadiums here are full. You can claim to be patriotic but the true test of that is will you stand for your country if it's a true representation on the field and they are getting slaughtered. Its the pinoy proclivity for short cuts that allows them to bask in what little glory there is in beating Sri Lanka even though the country has not locally and remotely paid the price it takes to be great. Its the pinoy proclivity for short cuts that prevents them for seeing the situation for what it is. Us taking what little glory there is to be had be beating Sri Lanka using ringers. What are ringers?

The dictionary defines a “ringer” as a contestant entered in a competition under false pretenses. It takes three things to be really good in anything. Discipline, Attitude and Consistency. You can not convince me a guy who is so used to following sports for over 30 years that the Philippines has applied that to soccer.

Are you too wrapped up in the pinoy label to see that the team representing you is not representative of you? It is a fabrication more on marketing lines than national lines. The Dragonboat team is a totally different story. They not only represent you but they SERVE you. The team is composed of people trained from our own military. Too bad none of you cared about Dragonboat racing two weeks ago.

Twenty years ago George Will wrote a book called Men at Work. The subtitle was The Craft of Baseball. What he meant by that was the attention to detail the best put in what they do in order to be the best. How Tony Gwynn approached hitting. How Cal Ripken Jr. approached fielding. The minutia is fascinating. Pinoys don't care about soccer. That's why they suck as a soccer nation. That's why they have to drag in all the Fil Hyphens internationally to give the illusion that 1) we care 2) we are good.

Big fish in a small pond. That's what the Fil Hyphens are. Not significant as soccer players in their real country of origin but come over here and they are dating Angel Locsin. They could not in a million years crack their real national teams because they take the best of the best. They come here where soccer is not taken seriously and they are celebs. There is a vast difference between passion and a fad. Soccer here is a fad. The country as a whole did not care about the World Cup in 2010. Yet the nation feels entitled to quality. Read that quote again from the top about Superman and Krypton. It is not actual "fact" since Superman gains his powers from a yellow sun. That’s what you get reading the blog of a nerd. Attention to detail. Details like the Azkals are not pinoy. Details that the Azkals are not good.

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1143/They_Forgot_the_Philippines

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1142/Pinoys_Only_Dig_The_BBall_

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/294/Who_Thinks_Basketball_Rules_The_U.S.

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/267/Reality_of_why_the_Philippines_is_nowhere_near_a_medal_as_of_now

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1262/Injecting_A_Dose_Of_Reality_Is_Not_Crab_Mentality

http://edrlopez.blogspot.com/2011/03/noynoy-bites-hand-that-fed-him.html

http://www.amazon.com/Men-at-Work-Craft-Baseball/dp/0060973722

http://www.mediafire.com/?ab089l79xzz5x45

http://firequinito.com/archives/508-Busting-myths-in-the-Azkals-bandwagon.html

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100623-277239/Why-were-not-into-soccer

http://worldofalbert.blogspot.com/2011/07/there-is-nothing-more-annoying_02.html

Injecting A Dose Of Reality Is Not Crab Mentality

2011-07-24T02:29:00.002+08:00

Am I crab? Crab mentality is defined as keeping someone back because of jealousy. Recently I was reading this piece describing crab mentality. I know my blog has taken it's own direction and flavor and of course can be mistaken for "crab".

I do get annoyed when the entire Philippine Nation gets giddy over something and in their giddiness they lose all perspective. The source of their giddiness is that one of their own is bringing back the pasalubong of pansin (attention) back from abroad. What I like to refer to as "KSP".

I strip away the emotion and subjectivity and just look at what is being done. All I am saying is slow down on your idolatry. Don't be looking for attention just for attention's sake.

I am not crab but I am anti bandwagon jumping. For the Pinoy, the perceived stage is far more important than what the person is actually doing. Originality be damned.

1) Charice

I have met enough people who wonder why I don't like Charice. I don't like her for the same reason I don't like Andrew E. Not because of their nationality. I don't find what they do original, distinct, appealing or special. Like I said in a previous post: I don't like Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson or Celine Dion either. But I am SUPPOSED to like Charice just because where she was born. That's not crab, that is having standards. "Call me a relic, call me what you will , say I'm old fashioned say I'm over the hill" to quote Bob Seger. But for me rap is not music. Rap is people bragging and somehow convincing you something where the primary performer does not generate any notes is music. The original rap is bad enough but Andrew E. copying it and a Filipino audience eating it up does not suggest Einstein type brain activity.

2) Manny Pacquiao.

Let's describe in basic terms what he does. Around twice a year, he flies to his home in LA, then puts on shorts in a Vegas hotel and beats the crap out of some Mexican. For that he has the country's undivided attention on a Sunday morning. So significant that traffic stops. The thing with me is I love sports. Another thing with me is I also try to put sports in its proper place. It's entertainment. Manny could do so much good if he lead by example. Forget the game shows, the commercials, singing Sometimes When We Touch, his entry to the Cannes Film Festival Wapakman and even Congress. He should use his credibility with his countrymen and lead by example. He should legitimately earn his high school equivalency.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20070531-68798/Doubts_raised_over_Pacquiao%92s_high_school_accreditation

"We all know that Manny Pacquiao has acquired a very rich experience both here and abroad and has thus become quite an Inglesero as well as a good Filipino speaker," Director of DepEd's Bureau of Alternative Learning System Carolina Guerrero 05/31/2007

Face it. Manny is the straw that stirs the drink. People will say anything to please him. That woman said 4 years ago that Manny has some competence with English. Being no stranger to ESPN I happen to have an interview from last year that Manny did for the US network and he by no means had command of the English language. Whether by what he said or comprehension of the questions of Brian Kenney. And this guy is in Congress?? Yikes. You can hear it here.

I will not deny his discipline to be a world-class boxer. But I will be skeptical of this man's desire to learn amidst his self proposed Renaissance Man persona. Crappy CDs, crappy movies, crappy Filipino politics (oops that last one is redundant) . Those speak to the youth and not his lip service to education. But is this message good for the youth? I am supposed to believe he is learning at a university level? The article I quote from (heavy training)

Boxing is a sport where the objective is to give your opponent a concussion. As I have said in a previous blog entry, Concussions are evil. If you don't know why, read up on it. That is Manny's raison d'etre. Giving people concussions. All pinoys love Manny and the attention he brings. Yet they couldn't tell you facts about the reality of concussions and their long-term effects. It is Manny's job to administer those concussions. Not heroic from my own personal point of view. But the way the Philippines looks at him, he is curing cancer. Sorry I choose to disagree. I guess that makes me crab.

3 )
The Azkals.

“There is nothing more annoying than having a national sports team whose coach is German and whose majority of athletes are European bred that cannot speak Filipino nor sing the national anthem. Go Azkals!”

Doc Albert.
http://worldofalbert.blogspot.com/2011/07/there-is-nothing-more-annoying_02.html

All you people who were watching entire soccer/ football games 3 years ago I have no quarrel with you. It's all you people who are jumping on the bandwagon like lemmings. Chasing the latest trend and looking for attention. You guys don't like the sport, you just like the attention. It's the PP factor. Perceived Pinoy factor. You want to cheer for Pinoy things but as Doc Albert says, there is very little Pinoy to it. Grasping at straws for attention and esteem. You perceive the stage to be high, you perceive the spotlight to be bright and intense and you perceive the Pinoy to be on center stage. Your Pinoy idealism conveniently camouflages the fact that we depend so much on other countries contributions to make even a tiny dent on any international athletic contribution.

My standards for homegrown may not be as liberal as all these instant soccer fans but does putting more value into what makes a Pinoy make me crab? Or am I just less desperate for attention that a goal scorer trained in Europe who thinks Lupang Hinirang is a hacienda in the province does not give me cause to chest beat. What's the point of being proud of some so called international achievement when a different culture is responsible for the cultivation of that international achievement ? If you have any knowledge of the international scene , our opponents are not exactly World Cup contenders. If just beating fellow bottom feeders is the goal then maybe a definition in national pride is in order.

Every pinoy is so proud of the Azkals drubbing of the Sri Lakan Brave Reds. I am an absolute sports junkie and I have never heard of them. So I decided to cleanse my ignorance of this mighty squad that the nation is so proud to have vanquished. So I did a search on Google for “Sri Lankan Brave Reds”. The first two pages are all pinoy pages either bragging about the 4-0 nothing victory or anticipating the same game. I checked my settings that I was not stuck on a Philippines only mode. I wish I could stop it right there and that was enough explanation. But I feel for some people that hate my point of view without exercising logic I must go on. We are so proud of beating these so called Brave Reds yet their only identity on a Google search comes from pinoy websites. No ESPN, no Star Sports. Their own country does not generate enough web traffic for their own team. Does this sound like a team that is really of a challenge to anyone? Translation: they have never accomplished anything themselves yet Pinoy websites treat it like a David beating Goliath event. Yet I am crab for pointing this out.

The cold hard fact is that 98% of the world prioritizes soccer. That is what these kids focus on from the time they leave the womb. The Philippines deserves to be beat like a piñata when it comes to international soccer because others focus on it far more seriously than we do. Significant accomplishment is about focus, perseverance and longevity . The Philippines as a country is none of those three when it comes to soccer. Since birth the culture has been handed down bad examples by the artistas and trashy low class but high ranking politicians. The bad example of instant gratification and short cuts. When the men's World Cup was played a year ago, the populace as a whole did not care. It was not something to aspire to. Read my comments at the time here.

If Gloria is proven by the courts to be a thief and a cheat don't go patting yourselves on the back just yet. The runner up that year (2004) showed very little evidence of leadership, governance and integrity. Why we produce useless candidates who get votes from the majority make me weep for this concept called democracy. Democracy works if the people doing the voting pick someone with some evidence of wisdom and foresight. Notice I said foresight and not scheming.

But more on that later.

My chest will not swell with pride over the Azkals for two reasons: they are not very pinoy and they are not very good. But some of you will call me crab.

4) Arnel Pineda

Another person whose value to the culture is that he brings attention to the culture. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself. Except that he brings attention to the culture that is already thought of externally as a culture of Monkey See Monkey Do.

Arnel Pineda is the perfect symbol to explain what I mean. For the record I started enjoying Journey back in 1979. When I first heard Lovin Touchin Squeezin. Arnel was 12 at the time and I was 13. Point being that he had no hand whatsoever in my enjoyment of Journey in 1979 and for the rest of my consumption of the band. When I was second year high school or as we say in Canada, Grade 9, the two big albums were Foreigner 4 and Journey's Escape. Ironically lyrics from Escape's opening track goes "Those crazy nights I remember from my youth, those I recall were the best time most of all." There were very few crazy nights but I am recalling my youth in this piece.

What I am trying to say here is I had way more impact in the Battle of the Bulge than Arnel had in my experience of Journey. He is as culturally significant as an Elvis impersonator. Yet the Pinoys treat him like he is Fats Domino or Chuck Berry. I will say this again, I am not being a blind follower and I question those who follow blindly. Am I crab for doing that??

Conclusion:

Let's examine the subjects that makes the typical pinoy go gaga: Manny Pacquiao, Charisse, and Arnel Pineda. This is the same populace who last year voted a convicted plunderer 2nd place for the highest elected office in the land. A crime under normal circumstances would be punishable by death. But of course we were saved from that guy cause cooler heads prevailed and we voted in a balding career politician with zero accomplishments whose campaign strategy was to refer to his dead parents early and often. I am a bad guy for being a contrarian to people that think like that???

This country has way more things to worry about than anybody who comes across as crab mentality.

I go against the grain. I question the herd. I don't go with the herd. I think I articulate my position logically on why I disassociate myself from the herd. If that makes me crab in your eyes, fine but it sure as hell does not me sheep.

Ed

http://edrlopez.blogspot.com/

Dueling Banjos From Deliverance

2011-07-20T09:22:00.000+08:00

I am writing about this song/ scene for several reasons:

1) It's a great song. The thought hit me when it came on in the bathroom mp3 player this morning.

2) Deliverance was a very significant movie. It was directed by John Boorman who never makes the same movie twice. It helped establish Burt Reynolds as one of the decade's most bankable stars. There was a certain scene with Ned Beatty that became one of the most quoted lines. Angelina Jolie's parents were married on the set of this movie. That's her dad with the pipe, looking like Ricky Schoder.

3) the song was a cultural phenomenon. Often referenced and parodied. Whether it's the original Muppet Show or Family Guy. Check out all the different Youtube clips that are under the Dueling Banjos search.

4) Ronnie Cox ( who plays guitar on Deuling Banjos)

looks like David Letterman.

He was in Beverly Hills Cop and Total Recall. This was his first movie after acting on stage.

Ed

Technical note: I added the song to the attachments in the Multiply version of the post. No dialogue, just the banjos.

How A Well Mannered Clean Cut Guy Turned Out To Be A Monster

2011-07-01T00:31:00.000+08:00

"How was I supposed to know they'd all gang up and compare notes?"

Steve Garvey Christmas 1988 after four women in his life all get the same gift: gold pins from Tiffany's in the shape of
three X's—for kisses

Been thinking about the Dodgers a lot lately like any baseball fan is. I want you to read this because this is very significant case study on how manipulative someone can get.

Nobody trusts Frank McCourt and I get that. I don't understand how anybody though can trust Steve Garvey.

Steve Garvey is charming and good looking. You can't read this and not be convinced he is also a con man. On paper, my degree is a major in Communications and I could have majored in sociology if I took 3 more courses. I was also licensed to sell financial products. In college my spiritual major was Sports Illustrated and my spiritual minor was Late Night With David Letterman. I last read this article in college but it all came crashing down on me when everybody started talking about a team of investors led by Steve Garvey is lurking to take over the Dodgers.
Lately I have been tasked to help some of our engineers comprehend and speak English. I was telling one of them that Sports Illustrated is not really about sports but it's about people. You will see that in the Garvey article written by true titan in the field of writing: Rick Reilly. I would list Reilly's bite, parallels, humor and sensitivity as an influence on my writing.

This Steve Garvey article below is so fresh, relatively speaking I really thought it was 12 years ago. To my surprise it was actually 22 years ago. Some people love gossip. Me, I love when meticulously crafted public images get totally shredded by the razor of truth. I loved it when Alex Rodriguez's facade came crashing down. Steve Garvey's crash in 1989 is similar.

What I take out of the Garvey article is that how a man and a woman who seemed like the marriage and life were right of central casting concealed two covert monsters. If you read the article, you will see how Garvey is every girlfriend/ wife's worst nightmare. Somebody who just compartmentalizes whatever feelings he has.

I may not be a Dodger lover but to not like Vin Scully is to not like life itself. So eloquent, so melodic, so dignified. I once had a classmate in SFU Sandi Kohn I think her name was. Hardcore Dodger fan. Just in case after 20 years you are reading this Sandi.

Don't know about you but how can someone who turned his personal life into the disaster that it was, be trusted with five cents, let alone a baseball institution like the Dodgers.

Ed

**********************

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/544/I_Love_It_Yankees_Screwed_By_Arrogance

http://www.fanattic.net/baseball/pro-baseball/steve-garvey-forming-potential-dodgers-ownership-group

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AuJzYzgwTT6flUgyEswIadYRvLYF?slug=jp-passan_mccourt_selig_bankruptcy_062911

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1069161/3/index.htm

November 27, 1989

America's Sweetheart

Life may seem an idyll for Steve Garvey and his new wife, Candace (left),
but baseball's Mr. Clean is the butt of jokes about his sex life, and he
says he is broke

Rick Reilly

STEVE GARVEY LINES UP HIS COLOGNES BY THE AMOUNT UNUSED. He arranges his
Polo shirts by pastel. He'll keep vacuuming a clean carpet just to admire
the parallel patterns he makes. His shirts are monogrammed. When he was a
batboy, the bats rested trademarks out, knobs up, in the order of the day's
starting lineup. He would save his allowance to buy Ban-Lon shirts. (He had
16 in varying colors.) He would sometimes re-iron his mother's ironing, just
to get it exactly right. As a player, he would sweep the dugout steps. When
he joined the San Diego Padres, he suggested a reorganization of the bat and
helmet racks. Much tidier. In his closet in his pink-and-pink house in Del
Mar, Calif., all the shirts are on hangers, facing left. There are no blue
jeans. On the floor, the shoes are treed and the toes all point outward.
Muss his hair, go to jail. You can bounce a quarter off his bed.

So how come his life is such a mess?

For most of his nearly 41 years Garvey lived at the corner of Straight and
Narrow. He played football at Michigan State. Graduated with a B average.
Signed with his boyhood idols, the Dodgers. Married the prettiest girl in
school and had two daughters Norman Rockwell might have painted. Was a
10-time All-Star. Played in five World Series and 1,207 straight games, the
National League record for reliability. And when the Dodgers said he was too
old, he took his button-down swing and won the Padres a pennant. And when he
retired last year, he was crouched and ready for life after baseball. He
owned a business. His main office was a $15,000-a-month layout on La Jolla
Village Drive. In compulsorily hip Southern California, he was hopelessly
square:-jawed,-shouldered,-dealing and-thinking.

Tom Lasorda, who coached and managed Garvey for 10 years on the Dodgers and
two in the minors, once said, "If he ever came to date my daughter, I'd lock
the door and not let him out." Garvey signed autographs until his smile
ached. When he lived in Calabasas, outside L.A., he welcomed the kids who
came to his house for autographs, one time with a plate of cookies. He was
involved in more charities than any carpool of Dodgers. The Multiple
Sclerosis Society, Special Olympics and the Starlight Foundation each gave
him awards for distinguished service. Lindsay, Calif., named a junior high
school after him, trading in Abraham Lincoln. Once, on Nun's Day at Dodger
Stadium, a quadriplegic child asked him to get a hit for her. He got five,
and knocked in five runs and scored five times. He was headed for
Cooperstown and probably Washington. He was a role model's role model, a
dinosaur somebody uncrated from the 1950s and couldn't get back in the box.
"I try to walk around as if a little boy or a little girl was following me,"
he once said.

Well, boys and girls, stick this in your lunchboxes: Garvey currently is on
one side or the other of four lawsuits, having settled two others since Oct.
6. He keeps at least five lawyers in suspenders. In the space of eight
months, he had affairs with three women at once, impregnated two and married
a fourth. A judge jailed his former wife for contempt of court for not
letting him see his kids, and a psychiatrist testified that the kids, who
say they don't want to see Garvey, are suffering from "parental alienation
syndrome." He's up to his chiseled chin in debt, into the scary seven
figures. Two former business associates have sued him. Other than that, it
has been all apple pie and porch swings.

"Some people have a mid-life crisis," he says. "I had a midlife disaster."

The one thing you didn't want to see when you were 10-year-old Steve Garvey
was the porch light on and your mother's car in the driveway. That meant
your invalid grandmother had needed help and you hadn't tended to her, and
now you were in trouble. A whack would be forthcoming.

He called her Nanny, and she lived with the Garvey family in Tampa. A tire
had flown off a truck years before and knocked her down from behind, leaving
both her arms paralyzed. Nanny was good-hearted, but she needed help. And
since Steve's mother, Millie, worked all day in an insurance office and his
dad, Joe, was a bus driver and Steve was an only child, there was nobody
around to help her but him. So Steve would get home from school, clean the
house, start dinner and even help her go to the bathroom. How was she going
to do it? She couldn't lift her skirt very well and, of course, she couldn't
wipe, so he did it for her.

Says Garvey, "I remember the first time, kind of looking at her and saying
to her. 'Do you want me to help you?' and her saying, 'Would you, please?'
You didn't have to say too many words after that. You got over the
embarrassment."

When a kid grows up with responsibilities like that, he grows up fast. And
his parents kept a strict house, one where you said "yessir" and "no ma'am"
and pulled your weight and then some. He had to play near the house, to keep
the porch light in view, so he learned how to be alone. He would play
make-believe baseball games—tossing up small grapefruits from the trees next
door and hitting them—between his beloved Dodgers and the Yankees. And if
the Dodgers lost, then they lost. None of this "Wait a minute, ladies and
gentlemen, the umpire has changed his mind!" He would make himself run
sprints as punishment for the Dodgers' losing.

Punishment was important. Punishment was necessary. "Mom would slap me, but
that's what I needed," he says. She was nothing if not demanding, and you
did things her way. One time he gave her a dirty look, and his burly 6'2"
father hit him hard across the face. Never, ever, show disrespect to your
mother. To your grandmother. To women. And so he strove to please everyone.
His room was museum-neat. He went to church more often than his parents did;
he even went to week-day masses. He was an elementary school crossing guard.

And so what you had was a 10-year-old going on 28, a short kid with
amazingly wide shoulders. "I had more responsibilities than two and three
kids," he says. And so he became different. If he broke a window playing
baseball, he wouldn't make like Carl Lewis and dash. He would march right up
to the house and begin arranging a payment plan.

"I can't remember Steve ever giving us any trouble, ever," says his father.
Garvey never wore his hair over his ears. Never rebelled. He was 19 years
old in tie-dyed 1968, wearing color-coordinated Hagar slacks and monogrammed
sweaters. He hated to dance, because dancing in the late '60s was about
losing control. His dormitory room at Michigan State was so neat it made the
eyes of a resident adviser mist. He says he was a virgin until college. "I
guess I just wasn't the kind of guy that liked to fog up the back windows,"
he says. "I had important things I wanted to do."

Even Garvey's games were controlled. "Controlled aggression," as he used to
put it. His was a most mechanical swing, not fluid like Will Clark's, but
purposeful and driving. He stood like a statue, with his head high, chin
forward and Pop-eye arms held away from his body. One writer said he ran as
though not to wrinkle his shirt. In batting practice he kept track of his
line drives. He was knocked down six times in 1980 and six times he got back
up and got hits. He kept track.

Such was his dedication that during his remarkable consecutive game streak,
he played at various times with a hyperextended elbow, 22 stitches in his
chin,, a pulled hamstring, a bruised heel, a migraine, the flu, a 103° fever
and a toenail so impacted they had to drill a hole in it to relieve the
pressure. Garvey felt a responsibility to be there, every day, for the fans.
This is a man who played an entire season at first base without an error.
Emotions won't get you to 200 hits.

He would not cut loose. And around professional athletes, that immediately
made him a flake. Or suspect. He once caught some of his Dodger teammates
giving each other high fives when he got thrown out trying to bunt. One
Dodger was quoted as saying, "You know what? Steve Garvey doesn't have a
friend on this team." He and Don Sutton once brawled on the clubhouse floor.

But how could Garvey be one of the guys? He couldn't act young, like his
teammates. This is a man who calls waitresses by their name tags. He rode on
the coaches' bus, not the players'. He wasn't good at leering at women and
cutting up with the boys. Wouldn't be responsible. Besides, one hotfoot
could mess up a perfectly good pair of shoelaces. "I just never liked to sit
in the back of the plane and see who could throw up into a trash can, that's
all." he says.

And so went the rest of his life, too. At 22 he married Cynthia Truhan, a
prospective medical-school student, who dropped that ambition to be at
Steve's side as he pursued his baseball career. The two of them had few
friends among his teammates and their wives. Steve was more comfortable
around people like Lasorda, his elder by 21 years. Why bother cultivating
friendships with his contemporaries? He had mail to answer, business
contacts to cement, a moral obligation to be at every Cub Scout banquet and
Kiwanis dinner.

He believed in doing the Right Thing. His parents smoked, but he never did.
His teammates swore, but he never did. Cyndy says that when he was having
trouble throwing in his first years as a Dodger, people would call and
scream insults at him. He would listen to everything they had to say and
then hang up. Punishment is important. Yet in 1983, when he broke the
National League record for consecutive games, he took a $ 15,000 ad in the
Los Angeles Times to thank the fans.

But maybe sometimes he has confused responsibility to family with
responsibility to fans. Recently he sat outside a Los Angeles courtroom
where his visitation rights suit was being heard, happily signing
autographs. Cyndy says he once sent his daughter Whitney a birthday card
that read, "Happy Birthday, Best Wishes from Steve Garvey." He can be crying
and the level of his voice doesn't change. Once he apologized to his
daughters with tears in his eyes for having lied about his love life. Later
Krisha, the elder of the two, testified in court that "he didn't seem
sincere."

As the marriage went on, it became obvious that to find two people more
opposite than Cyndy and Steve would take six episodes of Love Connection.
The guy Cyndy left Garvey for was composer Marvin Hamlisch. Go figure.

Steve was Lake Placid. Cyndy was Fire Island. He ignores slights. She fights
back. When she tried to have a conversation with him, he often remained
silent. So she was subconsciously driven to doing more and more outrageous
things to try to squeeze a reaction out of him. Boy, did she try.

Says Steve, when Cyndy found out she was pregnant with their second daughter
only a year after the first was born, she picked up a knife from a kitchen
counter and came at him with it. "Never happened," says Cyndy. Says Steve,
"All I know is she took six steps towards me, and I was up the stairs in
three."

The one time Hamlisch came to their house, he and Steve went into the den
and two hours later, Cyndy was Hamlisch's. "He gave me away," Cyndy says.
"Unbelievable!" Says Steve, "It felt like a big relief to me." Cyndy claims
that Hamlisch later said, "You know, I've won a Tony, a Pulitzer and an
Academy Award, but that was the easiest prize I ever won." Cyndy took the
kids and left for New York.

At one point, when Cyndy had come back to Los Angeles, she discovered an
appointment book at Steve's office containing entries made by his secretary,
Judy Ross. The entries said things like "Steve and me in San Francisco" and
"Steve and me skiing." Slightly miffed, Cyndy picked up a baseball bat and
started getting good wood on the walls, pictures, vases and clocks. "She was
in there with the baseball bat and a pair of scissors," says Ross. "When she
left, the scissors were stuck in my appointment book."

What has transpired since then is a venomous dispute between Steve and Cyndy
in which their two daughters, now 13 and 15, have been the main victims.
Once, Garvey says, Cyndy called him in Houston and left the message: "Tell
him Krisha's been run over by a truck." Cyndy now says someone, not she,
must have been playing a joke, but Garvey wasn't laughing then. He spent the
next two hours frantically calling hospitals near their home.

The girls did not appear at the Padres' Steve Garvey Night on April 16,
1988. Cyndy says they didn't want to "ride around in a convertible." She
refused to let the kids see him in San Diego as long as he was living with
Ross. When Garvey and his parents showed up at the girls' T-ball game, Cyndy
admits she shoved Millie Garvey. "I was getting my kids' lunch ready," Cyndy
says. "And she spit on me."

Once Cyndy arrived at a Dodger Stadium luncheon honoring Garvey's mother and
screamed obscenities at Steve for 20 minutes in front of club officials and
reporters. She left only after security guards were summoned.

This year Cyndy, now Cynthia Truhan again, published The Secret Life of
Cyndy Garvey, written with Andy Meisler, in which she details a childhood of
verbal and physical abuse by her father and takes a Cuisinart to Steve's
halo:

•She wrote that Garvey mimicked her migraine headache symptoms to get out of
the Army. Steve now says he had migraines off and on until he was 35 and
"there's no way you can memorize them [the symptoms]. I may have asked her
about them, wondering if I had the same thing she did." Even if the
migraines were real, letters Garvey wrote to Cyndy in late 1970 from Fort
Jackson, S.C., where he was stationed for basic training, do appear to
support Cyndy's contention that Garvey was angling for a medical discharge.
In one of the letters, he said, "Well, plan 'escape' is being plotted in the
SPG 'Brain' center and it looks good! If I could get five good letters I
think it will work!" Another letter said, "I also got to Dr. Woods and he is
sending a letter for me concerning the mig. headaches. He said he would take
care of me so let's hope so."

•She wrote that while at Michigan State she would take tests and write
papers for Steve, who was supposed to do the work by correspondence while he
was away, playing minor league ball. Steve denies it.

•She wrote that Steve became the National League All-Star first baseman in
1974 as the result of a write-in campaign in which he, she and a few family
friends spent weeks filling ballots for him. Steve denies it. "I think he
was voted in by the people," says Cyndy's brother, Chris, who was there.
"But we are some of the people who helped him out."

On the Oprah-Phil-Larry tour for her book, Cyndy described her former
husband as, randomly, a sociopath, a pathological liar, fraudulent, immoral,
dishonest, cold, aloof and asexual. (Asexual?) Yet she still has his love
letters.

Cyndy has become so enraged at Steve that at various times she has kicked a
dent in his car, ripped his shirt, slapped his face and slapped his
accountant's face. Cyndy denies only the last. She said on Donahue that she
hadn't received a dime of child support or alimony. Steve forthwith produced
canceled checks. She wrote in her book that Steve had been ordered by the
court to undergo psychiatric counseling. Actually, the court ordered Steve
and the two daughters to go through the standard evaluation process in a
visitation-rights case. "My ex-wife has one purpose in life," says Garvey.
"To bring her ex-husband down."

Be that as it may, events of the fall and winter of 1988-89 showed that
Garvey was doing a pretty good job of it himself.

Bumper sticker: HONK IF YOU'RE CARRYING STEVE GARVEY'S BABY. Bob Hope: "I
haven't seen so many gorgeous girls since I spent Father's Day with Steve
Garvey." Letter in the L.A. Times: "It's been a long time since Steve Garvey
went two for two." T-shirt: STEVE GARVEY IS NOT MY PADRE.

Once in a while even Garvey will laugh at it all. One day, after hugging a
woman, he said to her, "Uh-oh, that was a long one. You're going to have
twins."

Not that it has been a lot of laughs for the women involved, or, for that
matter, for him. It probably has ruined his prospects for the political
career he was hoping to have. As a result of the revelations about his sex
life, he lost a cable TV base-ball-for-kids show to Reggie Jackson, and he
resigned his position on the board of trustees at the University of San
Diego, a Catholic school, after the local bishop called him a sociopath.
There were so many jokes about him on this year's Academy Awards show that
his daughters turned off the TV. And when ads bearing his picture began
appearing on the sides of San Diego buses, plugging his morning radio talk
show, somebody wrote "Creep" across his face on one of them.

Steve Garvey? Creep?

•August 1987: Garvey, who has been involved for a year with 5'4", doe-eyed,
Atlanta-based CNN assignment editor Rebecka Mendenhall, gets serious. But he
doesn't get around to mentioning Mendenhall to longtime girlfriend Ross. Or
Ross to Mendenhall. Ross says, "I'd pick him up at the airport and say, 'I
thought you were coming in from Dallas." And he'd say, 'Oh, no, we had to go
to Atlanta to meet with Coke.' "

Who wouldn't believe a man as romantic as Garvey? He would find out what a
woman's favorite song was, frame the sheet music and give it to her. If it
was her 34th birthday, he would send 34 roses. He wrote love poems. Margo
Adams told Penthouse that Garvey was a nicer guy and a better lover than
Wade Boggs. He took his women to the La Jolla Polo shop and outfitted them
in his favorite clothes. When Mendenhall was hospitalized last July, he
slept in the lounge chair next to the bed, holding her hand. He may have
been a rake, but he was their rake.

•January 1988: Garvey, who became a free agent when the Padres refused to
resign him after the '87 season, retires from baseball. He subsequently
campaigns unsuccessfully to become president of the team.

•July 1988: Garvey finds out that San Diego medical products sales
representative Cheryl Ann Moulton is pregnant with his child. They had been
dating for six months. "The first date was much more fun than I thought it
would be, so we went out again," says Garvey. "And then four or five other
times we never left her apartment.

"I was led to believe she was taking responsibility for birth control. If
you want to become pregnant, you just don't use whatever you're using. I
have to feel that she probably did [want to become pregnant]."

Even though a DNA test last winter proved that Garvey was the father of
Moulton's baby, he waited until last month, when a San Diego Superior Court
ordered him to make child-support payments, to begin helping her out. Garvey
has expressed no interest in seeing his now nine-month-old daughter, and
Moulton has refused comment.

•August 1988: Garvey convinces Ross, who has found out about Mendenhall,
that it's nothing serious. He juggles the two of them deftly. At 8 p.m., San
Diego time, he would call Mendenhall in Atlanta and tuck her in. "Then he'd
spend the night at my house," says Ross.

•Nov. 25, 1988: Garvey gets down on one knee and says to Mendenhall,
"Darling, will you marry me?" Mendenhall doesn't have to answer; her kisses
do. Not that he wants to marry her. of course. "She gave me an ultimatum. I
thought I would grow into loving her," he says.

They decide to get married on April 1. "There's some irony in that, isn't
there?" says Mendenhall. (More irony. Mendenhall gave birth to a son on
Friday, Oct. 13.)

•Christmas 1988: Four women in Garvey's life—Ross, Mendenhall, Krisha and
Whitney—all get the same gift: gold pins from Tiffany's in the shape of
three X's—for kisses. "How was I supposed to know they'd all gang up and
compare notes?" Garvey says.

•New Year's Day. 1989: On the way to his ski condo in Deer Valley, Utah, he
tells Krisha and Whitney that he's engaged to Mendenhall. When Krisha calls
Cyndy to tell her, Cyndy begins screaming. Mendenhall, who was with Steve
when Krisha called, says Cyndy was upset because Steve was taking on new
obligations while he still owed her $25,000.

•Jan. 3. 1989: Garvey puts Mendenhall on a plane to Atlanta and then,
according to Ross, tells Ross that he has broken up with Mendenhall. Says
Ross. "He told me, 'You're the one I see myself married to.' "

•Jan. 4, 1989: Garvey's engagement is announced to the press, but according
to Mendenhall, Garvey had already called her to say they would have to delay
the wedding. The reason: Cyndy, he said, was pressuring him to pay her
$25,000 she said he owed her for legal expenses. Later the same day they
talk again and this time Garvey tells Mendenhall that another woman
(Moulton) has phoned him, saying she is pregnant with his child. Garvey says
he told Mendenhall, "Marriage just isn't for me," and broke the engagement.
According to Mendenhall, all he said was he wanted to "push the wedding back
a little."

Meanwhile. Ross is growing skeptical. "He did interviews that day describing
how he'd proposed to her," she says. "...I couldn't believe he could be so
callous."

•Jan. 5, 1989: Mendenhall flies to San Diego because, she now says, she was
worried about Moulton and the $25,000, and she wanted to comfort Garvey.
Garvey says she came to talk him out of breaking up. They had sex the next
night. Again, Garvey told SI, he thought she was in charge of the birth
control. "She did the same things she always did," he says. "She walked into
the bathroom beforehand. What am I going to do, follow her?"

Mendenhall's paternity and breach-of-promise suit against Garvey says he was
"fully cognizant" that she hadn't made the usual birth control preparations.
In documents prepared for a U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Garvey now says
they did not have sex on Jan. 6.

•Jan. 8, 1989: Garvey puts Mendenhall on the plane for Atlanta. "We both did
a lot of crying," she says. "He said to me, 'We'll be married. I just need
time.' " Garvey says he broke off the engagement for good before she left.
"People can listen but not hear," he says.

•Jan. 13, 1989: At his annual Ski Classic in Deer Valley—to benefit the Utah
Special Olympics—Garvey falls in love with blonde, blue-green-eyed,
30-year-old Candace Thomas, a former high school cheerleader. Over the next
two weeks, they dance together at the Bush Inauguration, take in the Super
Bowl and become engaged the night of the game. Thomas has been divorced
twice, and her daughters from the first marriage now live with her and
Garvey.

•Jan. 23, 1989: Mendenhall, having heard nothing from Garvey for 13 days,
thinks she has worried herself sick. She has lost nine pounds and can't
sleep. No wonder. She's pregnant.

Garvey and Mendenhall talk. She says that's when he broke off the
engagement. Both agree he said he would take care of the baby.

•Jan. 24, 1989: Garvey calls Ross and tells her about Thomas. "He wanted me
to be happy for him." says Ross. "Can you believe it?...I don't know how he
dealt with all of us in the course of a year. The man's got great stamina."

And when the whole gloppy mess goes public, his daughters are so humiliated
they refuse to see him, according to Cyndy. Steve contends that she had
brainwashed them.

At least 60 times in 1989, according to a suit Steve filed against Cyndy. he
was supposed to meet with his daughters as part of the custody agreement and
wasn't able to because Cyndy had impeded him. For the court-ordered
counseling sessions, for instance, he would drive two hours from San Diego
to Los Angeles, wait around for an hour, then drive back home. There he was
behind the wheel of the $50,000 Mercedes the Padres had given him on Steve
Garvey Night, driving down the dark freeway, Mr. Control, crying.

And if you think those drives were bad, you should have been with him on
Sept. 15, after what he heard in Department No. 9 of the Superior Court for
Los Angeles County. That's where lawyers questioned his daughter, Krisha:

Q: Do you want to see your father?

A: I don't want to see him.

Q: Are you willing to?

A: No....

Q: Do you love your father?

A: No.

Q: Did you ever love your father?

A: When I was little.

After testifying for 90 minutes, she walked, head held high, over to where
her mother sat at the defendant's table, put her head on Cyndy's shoulder
and sobbed. Two weeks later the court ruled in Steve's favor, declaring
Cyndy in contempt for violating a court order that gave Steve the right to
see Krisha and Whitney. Cyndy was in handcuffs as she was led off to serve
the first five days of a 130-day sentence. Now this was getting ridiculous.
The hostess of the cable show, Motherworks, headed for the slammer? She was
freed a day later, after her lawyers obtained a stay of execution, and on
Nov. 1 the remainder of her sentence was suspended pending her compliance
with the court's visitation order.

"He thinks he's won," Cyndy says. "But he has lost everything."

Not that there was much left to lose. After 17 years in major league
baseball, Garvey says he is broke. The $10 million or so that he earned as a
player is nowhere to be found, and he owes the government more than $500,000
in back taxes. His sports marketing firm, Garvey Marketing Group (GMG),
which until recently had space in a San Diego office complex, now operates
out of his home. He owes his former landlord $172,000 in rent. He has sold
his white BMW and his Deer Valley condominium, and he has cashed in two life
insurance policies to pay bills. He makes $9,300 a month as host of the
radio talk show, but he owes more than half that amount in monthly child
support and alimony payments.

For several years GMG has been in the business of staging charity sports
events under the tax-exempt umbrella of the Steve Garvey Foundation. Tax
forms filed by the foundation with the California attorney general's
Registry of Charitable Trusts for the years ending Jan. 31, 1987, '88 and
'89 reveal some remarkably unsuccessful fund-raising. For instance, at the
'87 Steve Garvey Celebrity Ski Classic in Deer Valley, an auction was held
to benefit Utah Special Olympics. Several big-ticket items—two pairs of
American Airline tickets to anywhere, Rossignol skis, Fila skiwear, and
several weekends at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Deer Valley, all of them
donated—were sold to the highest bidders. The total revenue from the
auction, as reported to the IRS on the foundation's Form 990 for the period
from Feb. 1, 1986, to Jan. 31. 1987, was $4,315. After expenses of $3,119
had been deducted, all that was left was $1,196.

"Utah Special Olympics ran the auction and kept the money," says Jim Harper,
who is Garvey's accountant and the chief financial officer of the Steve
Garvey Foundation. "The revenue [reported) didn't include income from the
auction." Nevertheless, line 9a of Part I of the foundation's Form 990 says,
alongside Gross Revenue, "AUCTION $4,315" plain as day. Jim Murphy,
executive director of Utah Special Olympics from 1984 to '87, who helped
supervise the auction, says, "The majority of people wrote checks to the
Steve Garvey Foundation.... For the most part all the money went through
their books."

Between Jan. 1, 1987, and Jan. 31,'88, GMG organized five charity events—two
celebrity golf tournaments, two celebrity ski events and a party/golf
extravaganza at Super Bowl XXII in San Diego. The total amount of money
raised by all these events, according again to the foundation's Form 990,
was $174,790. The expenses incurred in raising that money were $150,076.
That left net proceeds of $24,714, of which $13,763 had been donated to
charities by the end of '88. "I've seen more money raised [for charity] at
backyard carnivals," said a former Garvey associate.

What Garvey has become in the American hurly-burly is everything he never
wanted to be: a divorced husband, an unloved father, an unadmired teammate,
a sinning Christian, a lying man of honor, a failed businessman, a control
freak out of control. Not very responsible. Not very tidy.

Maybe somewhere along the line Garvey figured out that 1950s ethics don't
make it in '80s America. Maybe trying to stay above it all isn't worth it.
Maybe nobody's wings are that strong. Or maybe it's just that nobody trusts
a baseball player with a uniform that clean.

Says Garvey, "I guess I make people mad. There's an inherent skepticism in
the world.... I was an idealist. I thought. 'I'll go out and help everyone.
Why wouldn't they like me?' When I signed with the Dodgers, I was sure that
was the only team I'd ever play for. When I got married, I was sure it would
be to one woman the rest of my life...."

Or maybe what happened is that they took Garvey's childhood away before he
was done with it. Maybe it is too much to care for an invalid and go to
school and do your chores and keep your room surgically clean and watch what
faces you make and be 10 years old all at the same time. And maybe when
you're forced to be that responsible on the outside, you resent it, and you
become someone else on the inside.

Maybe we have found Steve Garvey out, and maybe it's best this way. Maybe,
for better or worse, he can be himself now. The porch light is out for good.

Find this article at:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1069161/index/index.htm

Check the box to include the list of links referenced in the article.

Copyright © 2007 CNN/Sports Illustrated.

--
http://edrlopez.blogspot.com/

Who Cares About The Next....................... ?

2011-06-22T20:48:00.000+08:00

The renowned William James was speaking of men who had never found themselves when he declared that the average man develops only ten per cent of his latent mental abilities. "Compared to what we ought to be," he wrote, "we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use." (Dale Carnegie - How To Stop Worrying And Start Living Chapter 16)

Let me tell you how I come up with some of my topics. I listen to enough talk radio that when enough people bring up the same thing I tend to come up with my own reaction. All I hear about today : Is Rory McIlroy the next Tiger?? The guy won his first major at 22. First of all really hard to do. He lapped the field in a major tournament. Enjoy the moment and maybe he will be very consistent or maybe he will flame out or somewhere in between.

The problem with us is we can't let performers be themselves. God gives us all different talents. And we can all be different. It's our fault that we tend to shortcut and undercut appreciating people by giving them a label. When I was a lot younger, Harold Miner was supposed to be Baby Jordan. How many of you remember him????

We saw that problem in quite recently in basketball with Dirk Nowitsky. Everybody insisted on comparing him to Larry Bird. Just because he is a tall white guy with an outside shot. The thing was Larry is Larry and Dirk was Dirk.

Of course this shortcut lazy guy thinking is not confined to sports. Bob Dylan was a phenomenon in the sixties. His longevity lasts to this day. I have a book somewhere around here called the book of Rock Lists. In it they had all the singer/ songwriters tagged as the new Dylan. I wish I could reproduce the list here but if you can remember the 70s, almost anybody who was better than David Cassidy and Donny Osmond was on it. Among them two of my absolute favorites. Randy Newman and Bruce Springsteen. You can read my past blogs how I feel about Bruce and Randy but just know neither was Bob Dylan. Both were fine being themselves. They were not Dylan copycats. Both got away from the cliche love lyrics and took chances.

You have heard the advice a zillion times: be yourself. Well, let me quote Dale Carnegie again. Since only he can put it this way:

You and I have such abilities, so let's not waste a second worrying because we are not like other people. You are something new in this world. Never before, since the beginning of time, has there ever been anybody exactly like you; and never again throughout all the ages to come will there ever be anybody exactly like you again. The new science of genetics informs us that you are what you are largely as a result of twenty-four chromosomes contributed by your father and twenty-four chromosomes contributed by your mother. These forty-eight chromosomes comprise everything that determines what you inherit. In each chromosome there may be, says Amran Sheinfeld, "anywhere from scores to hundreds of genes -with a single gene, in some cases, able to change the whole life of an individual." Truly, we are "fearfully and wonderfully" made.

Even after your mother and father met and mated, there was only one chance in 300,000 billion that the person who is specifically you would be born! In other words, if you had 300,000 billion brothers and sisters, they might have all been different from you. Is all this guesswork? No. It is a scientific fact. If you would like to read more about it, go to your public library and borrow a book entitled You and Heredity, by Amran Scheinfeld.

See? Scientifically proof that you are unique and that uniqueness should be celebrated and developed. Be yourself. Comparisons may be inevitable but do your best to see something for what they uniquely are. Stop looking for the next..... Granted the scariest thing I can possibly think of is the next Ed Lopez.

Ed

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1209

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/152 (Springsteen)

All It Takes Is A Few Idiots Looking For Attention Vancouver In Tatters

2011-06-16T19:28:00.000+08:00

View of smoky downtown Vancouver from the North Shore.

Vancouver turns into Lord of the Flies

"Canucks will be facing a non New York Team in the final. Translation : book the riot in Robson Street. "

I said that May 25, '11 10:04 PM. Sometimes I hate when I am right.

I will not get into the psychology of what happened. Though it might be as simple as people wanting attention. The last time there was a riot in Vancouver after a Game 7. I was there. We went to a bar that night and we were looking at the TV. I saw some violence in the streets and I thought Man that New York is rowdy. The Rangers after all beat the Canucks that night. Traditionally, its the winning team's city that celebrates by going nuts. I guess Vancouver never got that memo. Vancouver is a truly beautiful place. I should know I lived there for a while. The people are beautiful too.

Red Rider in the song Power said " People do some strange things when they're all together, that they wouldn't even dream of by themselves." The riots today make a good case study. The place where my mom is staying is about a kilometer or two from Ground Zero. She did not answer her cell twice. When she finally called, luckily she had enough load to return my calls. She did go out to dinner that night but came back early enough.

For the record, all my friends from Vancouver based on their Facebook reactions are totally ashamed of how this ugly incident portrays the city to the rest of the world. I love Vancouver,I hate what happened today. You want a better idea of what Vancouver is like when it comes to the Canucks look here. Just know that those people that defined the mayhem today were not Canuck fans , hockey fans, sports fans but morons. Like the ones we currently have in Malacanang.

Ed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Stanley_Cup_riot

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13788491

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1249/See_What_The_Canucks_Are_Doing_To_Vancouver

P.S. My actual notes on the series:

Bruins deserve to win.
Outplayed the Canucks overall.
Bruins won the only road game.
Bruins made Luongo look third string at times, Miller was mighty even in defeat.
I love the Canucks but with the biting, the taunting, the devastating hit, the choking many outside of Vancouver saw them as the Heat on ice.

It's getting hot in here.

Is this guy really triumphant?? Is civilization?

If these guys bothered to vote I bet they voted NDP or Green Party.

What does looting have to do with anything???

Yes, that's tear gas.

There was more action in the streets than what was provided by the home team.

See What The Canucks Are Doing To Vancouver

2011-06-11T08:05:00.000+08:00

The video is not really about the Canucks but what it's like in Vancouver right now. June 10 2011 over there. The Canucks have been to the finals only 3 times in their 40 year or so existence. I was in town for two of those heartbreaking losses. To the Islanders in 82 and the Rangers in 94.We have seen so much losing what you are seeing is a collective exhale.

They only give out the Stanley Cup once a year and 30 teams all want that one championship. Unlike the PBA which hands out about 6 championships a year to 8 teams. Four of those teams belong to the same guy. Just to give it some perspective. Great series despite the Canuck clunkers in Boston. Watch the video to see how the town is taking it. Go Canucks Go!

Ed

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/recap?gid=2011061022

Technical note: Pics and video all captured from my VHS recorder.

Canucks Overtime Goal

2011-06-05T08:18:00.000+08:00

Look at he mishandling of the puck by Boston after they won the face-off. Less than ten seconds later the "biscuit was in the basket". The third video shows all Vancouver goals in game 2. Watch Boston net minder Thomas try to take the man instead of staying in goal. You will appreciate a lot of split second decisions that cost the whole game in 11 seconds.

Ed

Additional notes :

Biting incident-- http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Video-Canucks-8217-Alex-Burrows-makes-the-Bru;_ylt=ArOcemw_w.3Vf0e6vEKwFUc5nYcB?urn=nhl-wp6450

You may notice the dark guy on the set wondering what is he doing discussing hockey-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Weekes-

An Alternative to Filipino Customer Relations Handling

2011-06-04T07:35:00.000+08:00

Quick 3 Step Course in Filipino Customer Relations

1. Listen to complaint till customer finishes.

2. Smile and say "Ma'am/ Sir pasensya na po "

3. Repeat number two until customer gets tired of complaining.

Hands up those who tell me they have lived in Manila and never encountered that.

Let me recommend to you free of charge an alternate way of handling complaints and objections. I got this from Tom Hopkins Sales Course.

The author with Tom Hopkins in Las Vegas

First of all complaints are just a test that if you pass, a customer will be more open to supporting your business again. Sorry "paensya na po" does not guarantee an automatic pass. That is the response of morons. Sorry my opinion for any management that believe that generic statement pacifies anybody.

6 steps to handling customer objections.

The diagram may seem convoluted but there is logic in it.

Feedbag is held up by the question mark. The feedbag is pouring into the ear. The question mark is attached to an answer sheet. The answer sheet attached to a confirmation slip which is held up by a hand waving.

Huh? What is that supposed to mean????

To the best of my ability it's like this.

1. Ear- listen to complaint very carefully. Do no interrupt. Hear them out
2. Feed it back to them. So they know you heard it.
3. Question the importance of their point.
4. Answer their objection or complaint.
5. Confirm with them that it's fine.
6. Change gears to your next topic. The fact that you took the time and have a method helps make it a smooth transition . That's why the hand waving.

For similar information please visit.

http://www.tomhopkins.com/anger.shtml

http://www.tomhopkins.com/blog/objections/objections-as-hurdles

It's a heck of a lot better than "pasensya na po".

Ed

Tags: complaints handling, complaints, customer relations

MVP NBA? No Try KSP

2011-05-26T14:36:00.000+08:00

How Can One Deserve To Play in The NBA With Such A Bush League Attitude?

The basis of today's rant comes from this thread.

http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=506709

Only in the Philippines is there any talk at all about about super business man Manny V. Pangilinan being seriously considered to purchase the Kings. I am the biggest sports talk junkie you know and the only thing I heard from credible sources is former NBA player turned Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson leading up an effort to buy the Kings to keep them in Sacramento.

And based on that speculation much has been made of Pinoy players now being able to play. Of course it has the FPJ voters in the Philippines going wild. Slow down. Go back to a concept that you can handle like noon time network programming.

World Class money does not exactly equate to world class basketball. Mikhail Prokhorov bought the Nets. He never said anything about getting Russian players. He did however get Darrent Williams. It might have something to do with the fact Darrent Williams is GOOD.

Newsflash to the pinoys. Here is a truly novel idea. If you want a pinoy in the NBA then produce somebody good enough. Produce somebody with world class skills. Having the same passport as Manny Pangilinan should not be a prerequisite. Philippines, that's the key. Not by simply being Filipino but by being a player that compete in the court with Darrent Williams.

I said it before but the Philippines is the only country in the world where basketball dominates available resources and the consciousness of the populace. Translation every country that beats us (there is a long list) in basketball views the orange ball sport at second third or even fourth priority. Does not say much about our ability to compete.

Every single jeepney driver in the Philippines loves the Lakers.

The pinoy loves basketball and only basketball and there is nothing wrong with that in and of itself. But projecting their national inferiority complex and their lack of attention into the world's most exclusive basketball league is something else.

One argument I heard yesterday about pinoys worthiness in the NBA is the existence of the PBA. So what? Anything can look good in a vacuum. If pinoys were so great at basketball then the imports would have minimal impact or would not even be a draw. Imports stick out in the PBA because they are so much better than the average PBA player. Keep in mind these guys are not good enough for the NBA if they are playing here. NBA rejects dominate here but we are supposed to be NBA worthy.

Dirk Nowitsky is a German. Steve Nash is a Canadian. Tony Kukoc is from Yugoslavia. Manu Gin�bili is from Argentina. Not one of them begged a countryman who owned an NBA team for their spot on the roster. They just got good enough to be worthy to make the team. They each contributed to the talent base on display in the league.

I think this notion of a pinoy getting into the NBA via Manny P. speaks volumes of the pinoys sense of entitlement. Figures coming from a country where a man with no accomplishment worth mentioning got voted to the highest elected position in the land purely from his last name.There are those of you by now enraged because I speak the truth about the dominant mentality of this country.

The PBA is mostly for people who value being astig. People who love Tito, Vic and Joey. The dominant sports league in a country where a man convicted of plunder was able to ruin for president again and got the second most votes. It is not a breeding ground to produce world class basketball players. Does not say much about us does it?

http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1143/They_Forgot_the_Philippines