Leaky Faucets

To me, electoral politics—especial the Presidential variety—is like the ultimate spectator sport, and I take losing or the fear of losing just as hard as I do when my favorite team is on the ropes. Although in sports, there is always next year. In American politics, its four years, and four years is an awful long time. When my candidate was down in the polls for a brief time recently, the fear seized me just look it would if my team, once favored to win, was suddenly in danger of missing the postseason.

Of course, just like in sports where the season is long, there is a scoreboard where you can monitor how your team or candidate is doing on a daily basis. Just like I obsessively check the box scores and divisional standings during a long baseball or basketball season, so I check the polls and electoral vote projections.

 In this context, today’s debate was like an exhibition match—pre-season football or spring training baseball. It was dull, neither player hit his stride and in the end it won’t mean much in the course of the season.

Often I find myself completely perplexed by the randomness of things in the Philippines.  You see things that you just do not expect to see.  Take, for instance, the way jeepneys (the predominant public transportation vehicles, for those non-Filipino readers) are decorated.  The other day I saw one that was painted with the logo of the Bristol City Football Club from England accompanied by the proclamation “Bristol City FC is the Best.”  Just find it strange that there would be a large fanbase for this particular football club.  Admittedly I am not so knowledgeable about English football but I do know that Bristol City is not as well known as Manchester United and others.  Another jeepney I recently spotted was emblazoned with the names of various canals.  Suez Canal, Panama Canal, etc.  What is that about? 

My understanding is that the jeepney drivers can decorate their vehicles any way they choose—some are beautifully painted, others are hideous.  Some advertise particular products or bands such as Coca-Cola (without compensation I assume.) But, what, this guy is a fan of the Suez Canals?  I’d really like an explanation on this.

The above picture, taken today on Banilad Rd. in Cebu, is an example of a jeepney decked out in corporate logos.  I’m quite sure that Panasonic and Michelin did not pay for the advertising.  (Pictured in the foreground is Ana’s unoccupied carseat.)

Yesterday I passed up the chance to meet some of the top pool players in the world - all Filipinos - to go the gym for a run.  Aya went to meet these guys and was excited about it, but I guess I’m just not into professional pool and wouldn’t put meeting one of the greats up there with say, meeting Michael Jordan or Lebron James.  And actually, athletes are usually not that interesting outside of the playing arena arena.  For me, I guess I am more excited to meet a famous writer or musician such as the times I met Jhumpa Lahiri (though I thought she was a bit aloof) and Max Roach (who was extremely nice and personable.)

I’m getting off the subject, though.   The point I wanted to make was that given a choice of activities, I would choose working out in most cases, unless I have already worked out that day.  It’s not that I’m vain about the way I look, but I just want to lose weight and be healthy and do marathons again so I need to run as much as possible.  I guess I’m a bit obsessed.  Often, when I choose the other activity and forego the workout, I regret it.  This time, I made the right choice and was very happy about it despite Aya’s attempts to rub in her brush with fame.

When we moved to Jackson Heights from Astoria four years ago, I got rid of the old turntable that I purchased in 1996.  I had every intention of getting a new one, but I didn’t listen to records much anymore after getting an iPod.  I missed the crisp and authentic sound of vinyl and of the hundreds of slabs of wax I owned, many were difficult or impossible to find in mp3 format.

So last summer I decided to do some research on turntables and I found that J&R Music World in downtown Manhattan had a audio-technica model that would allow you to plug it directly into your PC in order to convert your vinyl into digital music suitable for playing on a computer or iPod.  So I bought one.

But it wasn’t as simple as I hoped it to be.  First, I’m an idiot when it comes to electronics, and this model is not a basic turntable.  It’s a DJ-quality player with many controls that I wasn’t familiar with such as anti-skating and tracking force.  Anyway, I tried to get it to work but I couldn’t.  I had to wait until Aya’s cousin came over one day for a party.  He was a former DJ and was able to help me set it up.  The next problem was that I could get the records to play but I could not figure out how to record.  Nothing I tried worked out.  And the timing wasn’t right.  It was only a few weeks before we moved overseas so I really couldn’t devote too much time to it.  I decided I would just wait until we got to the Philippines since Gahum is a whiz with electronics and computers and he was also a DJ for many years.

I had to ship the turntable via Johnny Ocean so even though we got here in the first days of January, my precious package did not arrive until late February.  We were so busy for a while unpacking our other 17 boxes that the turntable just sat around for a while.

Gahum is always so busy and is rarely home so I was never able to have him take a look at the recording process.  Last month, I decided to give it another shot myself.  I pored over the manual reading every step carefully.  I finally stumbled on something.  One of the settings on my PC was incorrect.  I changed it and suddenly it worked.  So I began recording the few records that I brought with me in my carry-on luggage in January.  (My vinyl is too valuable to ship and I wouldn’t trust the airline baggage handlers so I plan to bring a handful of records securely bubble-wrapped each time I go back to the States.)  It’s a time-consuming process as you have to let the record play in real time to record it.  Then I need to copy the songs to my iTunes and convert them from .wav to .aac files.  Also, since the record player is only a few feet off the floor and within Ana’s reach, I can only record when she is either sleeping or not home.

Still, I enjoy the process and get excited every time I can hear something on my iPod that I haven’t listened to in years because I only have it on vinyl or cassette.  Most of my vinyl collection is old punk and hardcore records but I also have a small amount of jazz, classical, old rock, hip-hop, comedy and novelty records such as the “12 Days of Cleveland Browns Christmas” 45 from 1980 that I bought several years ago at a record convention in Manhattan.  My friend Jimmy had this record when we were kids and I remember that 1980 season vividly.  Listening to my punk and HC records like Life’s Blood and Plasma Alliance is taking me back to my junior high and high school years when I used to spend hours in my basement either by myself or with Paul or friends just listening to records spin on the turntable.

I’m trying to pick up some Tagalog right now while I watch the waning seconds of Game 2 of the NBA Finals.  Actually, if the game was on ESPN I would gladly watch the American feed, but I’m stuck with the local RPN 9 broadcast which features a mix of Tagalog and English AKA Taglish.  I was watching with Bayani earlier and asked him about a few words during the first half.  See, you can learn something while watching basketball on TV. 

And, the game, which was incredibly boring for the first 40+ minutes has turned into a thriller all of the sudden.  I wasn’t watching during the comeback, but somehow the Celtics gave up a huge lead.  Looks like they will hang on though.

Seems like almost everyone in this town is into basketball, including a couple of priests I met last week.   This gives me something to talk about with new people that I meet when we otherwise have little in common.  Everyone is into the NBA playoffs, which unfortunately are not on TV often in Cebu City since Basketball TV, which broadcasts games live almost every day, was recently dropped by one of the local providers to the collective dismay of the entire sports fan base in the city.   We just got cable last week and of course there is no Basketball TV.  We have three sports channels including ESPN Philippines and Star Sports, which broadcast a few live games per week but the Cavs-Celtics game that was supposed to be on this morning, was not.  At least, thanks to the live radio broadcasts on nba.com, I can listen to all the games with Cavaliers announcer Joe Tait, who has been doing the Cavs games my whole life.   Gives me a little sense of home.

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time staring at the bottom of a swimming pool.  This activity is not without purpose, though.  I stopped running over a week ago to allow my strained Achilles tendon (which I hurt playing basketball over a month ago) to heal itself.  So the only exercise I can really do is swimming laps at my gym.   It’s a little dull in the sense that I can’t bring my iPod into the pool and I can’t watch TV.   Nor can I let my eyes wander around the gym and watch the other people come and go like I can do when on the treadmill.  So I’m basically left with my thoughts while my eyes can only fixate themselves on the dark blue line underneath them at the bottom of the pool.  Yes, every few strokes I need to turn my head to the left so I can breathe, but it’s hardly enough time to see anything of interest.

But as monotonous as swimming can be, I find myself getting more and more into it as I try to swim longer and faster each time.  Really, it’s just a placeholder until I can run again, but even then I hope to be able to work swimming into my workout routine.  It’s certainly better for the body and it also works muscles that I don’t get around to when I’m just running.

35 today, and I managed to keep up with a group of 20 year olds in a few games of 4-on-4 half court basketball.  My team won both games, each by the identical score of 15-14.  I was far from the best player but I definitely held my own with a younger, faster and more agile group.  Not bad for an old man.  I haven’t played this kind of competitive basketball in several years so I’m glad to know that I haven’t completely lost my game.  And some of these guys were very good.  One of my advantages, obviously, is experience.  Also, a lot of people don’t run around like I do on every play.  I make up for my talent deficit with hustle, especially on defense.  And the good thing about playing in the Philippines is that I’m always going to be one of the taller players at 5′10, which allows me to play down low where I’m more capable of scoring and getting boards.  I bought a new ball today too before we played.  I’m really excited about playing basketball a lot more; it’s something that I’ve really missed the past few years.  I’ve got at least one person to play with on a regular basis-Rills, a guy from Korea who is close with my brother-in-law.  We played on a covered court in his development, and he is as eager as I am to keep playing.

Yep, that’s right. Monday. Here in the Philippines the game kicked off around 7:30 am Monday morning. We stayed out at Plantation Bay Resort last night since we were offered a free room. The resort is about 30 minutes away from the Bravio Poker Room where we watched the game so we had to wake up really freakin’ early for the big game. My whole life-well at least since 1979, the first Super Bowl I remember watching-I’ve been accustomed to staying up pretty late to on a Sunday night to watch the game, but this morning I had to set the alarm for 5:45 a.m. in order to make kickoff. The early start time and the fact that it’s Monday made it an odd experience.

That, and watching it in a country where very few people care about the game of American football. NBA basketball is beloved here as is boxing but not football or baseball. That said, the atmosphere was pretty fun at Bravio. There were about 25 people there-mostly American expats along with some Filipinos. My table featured Aya, my brother-in-law Gahum and Tito Antolin, a family friend who seems to be around almost every day. Aya paid scant attention throughout the game but she enjoyed the free wi-fi access and managed to get a lot of work done on an office design she’s doing. She finally focused on the game during the waning seconds when I exhorted her to pay attention because the Giants were about to pull it off. Gahum isn’t really a sports fan but he lived in New Jersey for five years and was excited about the Giants. I’m glad he was able to get his ass out of bed this morning because we needed him to drive there. He’s a night person who rarely wakes up early; in fact, he was out playing pool last night until 5 am. Bravio was his idea. I was searching the web for places to watch the game in Cebu and stumbled on a sports bar called Badger’s (perhaps owned by someone who spent time in Wisconsin?) supposedly frequented by foreigners. Gahum found out that Bravio , where he plays poker, would be showing the game, which was only available on the Solar Sports channel via satellite. Tito Antolin was very interested in the game as well, though he had no rooting interest. He has seen football before but never a whole game, and spent most of the time asking me fundamental questions about the game; I didn’t mind explaining the significance of the yellow line on the screen, scoring, penalties, touchbacks, etc., though I did kind of miss watching the game with someone who could discuss its intricacies.

The Bravio crowd mostly consisted of Giants fans with only one person in a Pats jersey. There was a guy with a Shawn Alexander Seahawks jersey and another guy who said he was from Dallas and didn’t like either team but especially despised the Giants since they beat his Cowboys. I was rooting for the Giants. My real allegiance will always be with my hometown Browns but I grew to like both the Giants and Jets in my 10 years in New York. It really took hold during my first few years there in the late 90s-the interim period after the Browns moved to Baltimore and before the new team started. Some of the New York teams I don’t like-particularly the Yankees and Knicks-but I’m at least neutral on the others. As for the Pats, I didn’t want to see them undefeated. I’ve also developed a real dislike for Boston, partly because of the obnoxious Red Sox fans. Going into the game I felt the Giants had a chance, but I was amazed at how well the defense played. They were all over Brady. Actually, I think the entire defense should have been given the MVP rather than Manning, who played a solid but certainly not spectacular game. He did make some clutch plays on that last drive, though. All in all, it was one of the best–if not the best–Super Bowls I’ve ever seen, partly probably because I was pleased with the outcome and also because I just miss football over here. It was the first postseason game I got to see this year, other than part of a replay of the Giants-Packers game. (We don’t have a TV yet, but I plan to get one in the next month or so along with a satellite so I can be ready for next year.)

Another difference in watching the game in the Philippines is the food. No wings, pizza, nachos or beer this early in the morning. Instead they served a substantial breakfast for Php 200 ($5). They billed it as an American breakfast in honor of this quintessentially American event, but actually it was only part American. Pancakes and bacon and fruit. The Filipino part included garlic fried rice. There was also a side of baked beans, which I think is actually British. Beans and toast I think. The food was decent but the coffee was lousy. Nescafe instant 3 in 1 coffee. Just add hot water. Sickeningly sweet. Bravio doesn’t served “brewed” coffee apparently. Don’t think they’re usually open in the morning.

As for the much-hyped Super Bowl commercials, they didn’t make the translation. The spots were all local and were mainly from two companies: Alaska, maker of a powdered milk drink, and JVC. I don’t really care about missing the commercials like some who look forward to them. I’m just glad I got to see the whole game this year. Last Super Bowl Sunday, Aya and I went to the hospital at half time so that she could be induced into labor. Ana was born about 27 hours later. Her first birthday is Wednesday.

Some people in the States clearly don’t understand how the Internet works. For instance, Dennis sends me e-mails encapsulating the NFL playoffs and Maryland’s upset over UNC as if I can access yahoo but not nfl.com or espn.com. I politely informed him that I can. Do they not know what the www in web addresses stands for?