Losing Streak.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an avid sports fan. I follow all kinds of sports, basketball most of all but also baseball, American football, boxing, mixed martial arts and many others. This past week has been a bit trying since none of the teams I root for has won a single game. For instance;

• May 27 - June 3 - Cleveland Indians lose ALL of their series' to fall from 1st place in the AL Central.

• June 6 - Spurs lose to Thunder despite leading by double digits in the first half. I'm not really a Spurs fan but I did want to see this very good series extended to a game seven. It was that good.

• June 7 - Celtics get blown out by the Heat on their home court in a close-out game 6. I've been a Celtic fan ever since the advent of Larry Bird (Sinong number wan!!!! Larry Bird, number wan!!!).

• June 8 - Petron Blaze Boosters one of the league leaders lose to Barako Bull, at that time one of the cellar dwellers. I have been a true-blue, die-hard Petron fan since Mon Fernandez donned the San Miguel Beermen uniform.

• June 10 - Triple Crown! 10AM - Celts run out of gas and lose game 7! 1PM - Pacquaio robbed by judges in Las Vegas!  And the kicker at 9PM - Petron Blaze Boosters on the wrong end of a 21-9 finishing kick, turning a 7 point lead in the 4th into a 3 point loss! What a day!

• Finally, this past week I read that the PBA and the SBP were busy forming up the new national basketball team, SMART Gilas 2.0. My main question is what the hell was wrong with Gilas 1.0??? Wasn't the main purpose SMART Gilas 1 to field a long-term national basketball team in the mold of the Argentinian, Spanish and even Iranian teams? Players so used to playing with each other that teamwork not individual heroics would be the norm?  Didn't Raiko Toroman bring the Philippine National team back into relevancy with his stint as the National coach? Weren't the Middle Eastern teams and even China now wary of facing a better-formed, better coached Philippine team? And now here we are again, ignoring hard-learned lessons, forming a team of PBA professionals and veterans, players and coaches who had already tried and failed where Toroman and Gilas 1 were already succeeding... I foresee more failure in the future for our woeful National Squad. This new SMART Gilas team isn't fit to shine the shoes of the old one. And I'm sorry but Chot Reyes is no Raiko Toroman...

It's weeks like these that make me question my sports sanity and make me wonder whether or not it's worth it to be a sports fan at all. Maybe I should just stick to being a ballet or a taekwondo fan, if only my daughter or my son could compete or perform on a weekly basis... *sigh*...

Patay ang hindi tisay...

I am married to a beautifully tan petite goddess and my two boys are a wonderful shade of golden brown. I especially love it when we've just come from the beach and they're all a deep shiny dark tan color (Except for my daughter and me, we are both pale-skinned and we both come off as red as lobsters). That's why I will never understand the national obsession with having skin as white as driven snow.

Why a person who's already a nice tan color would want to look like someone who's been indoors for six weeks is beyond me. We're supposed to be brown. There's a reason why we're the shade we are. We do after all live in the tropics, we as a people get more sun than say Europeans or people who live farther away from the equator, that's why we've developed a darker skin color, its nature's way of protecting us from too much sun. Evolution has made us this color. God painted us this way.

Tisays and tisoys are beautiful as well of course and believe me I have no quarrel with pale-skinned people, after all I'm sorta one of them. Plus, I love looking at tisay beauties as much as the next man, if not more so. What I cannot fathom is why people who are already a beautiful brown color would want to change the way they look through artificial means. They use skin creams, lotions, tablets, chemicals, poisons, hydroquinone, glutathione etc, etc. It's like there's a national insecurity with the way we look, an insecurity that's being exploited by cosmetic companies to the tune of a billion pesos a year. What cosmetic companies and their advertising agencies would like to sell us on is that if a person has paler skin than most then the heavens will open up and pave their path to success with gold nuggets, boys or girls will fall from the sky and immediately become their boyfriends and/or girlfriends, they will suddenly become famous/movie-tv stars/celebrities and of course they will live happily ever after. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! Personally I would like to believe that people are only as confident and/or as successful as they make themselves to be, success and happiness should never be based on skin color.

For a more insightful piece about this subject check out;

http://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/6554-family-the-tyranny-of-tisay-beauty

Performa Ballerina

I have always been a performer at heart, albeit a frustrated one. If there's a magic sing or a videoke at any gathering i'll find a way to belt out a song or ten. If there's a disco, I will not leave until I've danced for at least 10 minutes or a hundred. So it just floors me whenever my daughter performs onstage. The fact that she's the center of attention for hundreds of people, and is actually an entertainer of sorts, someone who brings enjoyment, and injects some culture into the lives of her audience, just makes my heart swell with so much pride.

She had a solo in this just-concluded recital and was actually one of the three main leads. When I saw her dancing all by her lonesome in the middle of the main stage of the CCP, it took every ounce of willpower I had not to stand up on my chair and cheer and hoot and holler like a complete idiot! I'm sure my wife would've loved that (insert sarcastic font here)! I am supposed to have some culture and decorum after all, so instead I just clapped till my hands hurt. 

It was even worse during the last number when the male dancers started picking her up and holding her up in the air! I almost shouted! Even the Solor (Main male lead dancer) picked her up and twirled her around a few times! I was giddy with pride and at the same time I wanted to get up on stage and punch these boys silly for daring to put hands on my daughter! But that's a subject matter that's best left to a different post.

At the end of the performance I was left agog. Literally, my jaw was on the floor! I was really in awe of her dancing prowess and capability. These were adult-level dances. According to her teacher-mentor, their dances were what would be danced in any major company, no variations. This was an epiphany for me, a realization that my daughter is really a dancer, and not just any run-of-the-mill dancer, A BALLET DANCER! Dancing is in her blood. It's her passion. She's not a performer-at-heart, she's a PERFORMER period! 

Vicarious Living

Today, I watched over my eldest son, as he went through his latest Taekwondo promotion test. He's now just one more step away from getting his black belt. If and when that happens I think I will throw a block party to celebrate, or bring him to Enchanted Kingdom and close down the entire park and have it open just for us, or will buy him all the NERF guns in Southmall, or... Well... You get the drift.

Whenever I watch him, especially when he spars, my heart's always in my throat. I don't want anything to happen to him but at the same time i want him to rip off his opponents head with a vicious jumping turning long. I so badly want him to excel and enjoy himself at the same time (it seems he does), all while dealing out several extremely large cans of whup-ass on his spar-mates.

Is it weird that I want to jump into the ring when he's fighting and run interference for him (maybe by holding the other kid down...). Is it disturbing that I had an idea of attaching remote leads into his brain so I can control him like a robot when he spars? Is it deranged that I want to use my son like a Rock-em Sock-em toy to beat his opponent senseless? Is it downright crazy that I want him to speak in an Ivan Drago voice, saying to his opponent: "I must break you..."? Is it just me or am I just like every other sports-dad on the planet who lives vicariously through the sports-lives of their children? Just wondering...

Venting

This is my blog.
It will have my thoughts.
My opinions.
My rants.
My ventings.
My reviews.
My outbursts.
My tirades.
My rage.

It will be my safety valve.
My escape.
My distraction.
My diversion.
My cerebral discharge.
My emotional release.
For when the world becomes just too crazy, biased, prejudiced and just plain stupid.

This is my blog.
These are my vents.