Peking duck dinner in Beijing

ALL eyes are on Beijing Olympics currently unfolding in the Chinese capital. We have 15 athletes competing, and as of this writing three have already fallen by the wayside and more are expected to follow suit. From where I am sitting, it's the boxer and two taekwondojins who carry real chances at winning.

I had my first overseas assignment there back in 1995, to cover the Beijing Open Chess championships.

My task was primarily to chronicle the campaign of our lone bet there, then international master Nelson Mariano II who was hoping to catch a grandmaster norm. A chess player needs to secure at least three GM norms to become full-pledge grandmaster, and that tournament dangled precious GM norms.

Back then, it was very difficult to obtain Chinese visa, as it was just beginning to open up its market to the world and was still very much a socialist republic.

As it was, when we got to the Chinese soil, airport authorities in Guangzhou held me for more than an hour because they saw discrepancy in my visa. They never talked a single word in English back then so I didn't really understand what it was that was causing the delay.

What I knew back then is that my very first international trip was headed for disaster.

I told Nelson to go ahead and board the flight to Beijing because round one was to begin that same morning. But he chose to stay with me. Fortunately, after some calls were made from the embassy back home, I was allowed to go.

Still shaken, we went straight from the Beijing airport to the tournament venue clutching our luggage. Nelson readily walked toward his waiting opponent, offered a draw, then we both headed to the hotel to rest. Brilliant move.

I understand that a lot has happened between then and now in Beijing. But I remember the city to have wide highways; tall, gray buildings; In restaurants, there wasn't a single pancit canton in the menus.

While Nelson was playing, I would sneak out and check out the city. Back then, the streets were cluttered with people, ground-level trains and cable-operated buses. At the close of office hours everyday, a large portion of the streets would be filled with a sea of bicycle-riding public, some were even in dress and suits.

By mid-tournament, organizers arranged a trip to the Great Wall, whose nearest portion was still about two hours bus-ride from the city. There was a plea market around the area, where you can by silk items, ornaments and other souvenirs. I bought Vange a white night gown piece with a roaring dragon hand-painted on its back.

The Great Wall was true as advertised, stretching as far as the eyes can see. We walked through it along with the throng that came from all over the world. Some portions are wide as the streets below, some are like dark narrow alleys. There were flat stretches and uphill segments, the better for the imperial soldiers to spot creeping invaders back then. Then we repaired to a KFC outlet just near the premises.

After 12 rounds of the Swiss System tourney, Nelson finished fifth and secured a GM norm. We celebrated the feat by having a peking duck dinner.

Songs from Harrison Plaza

IF RIZAL Memorial Sports Complex has been second home for me the past few years, then Harrison Plaza – yes that old, tired-looking, third-class mall – has been my chill-out place of choice for about the same period of time.

And why not, it is decked by SM department store, and has Guess, Levi's outlets, and most importantly a plethora of unabashed vendors of pirated CDs, DVDs and MP3s. No wonder I felt at home in it in no time.

Some weeks ago, I rummaged through one of the stalls and found MP3s containing 100 songs that made the US Billboards for each year from 1970 to 1979 – my favorite era when it comes to music.

1,000 songs all in all, in 10 MP3 CDs. I didn't iTune all of them and just chose songs I liked best and still came up with about 250 of the songs I almost never hear being played nowadays. It was pure bliss. I went home that night with a renewed faith in humanity.

In high school, I used to scrimp on my meager lunch money to have my favorite songs recorded in a blank cassette tape which back then cost a whopping P5 per song.

One day tragedy happened and my precious tape got entangled under our malfunctioning player. I tried to salvage it by removing its crumpled remains. Unwound, then wound again it up again via pencil. But no matter how I painstakingly attempted to restore it, the songs in them never sounded the same.

Well back to the MP3s, it contained hits like Midnight Train to Georgia and Neither One of Us by Gladys Knight and Pips. Midnight Blue by Melissa Manchester. Mister Blue by Michael Franks. Certain Sadness by Astrud Gilberto. Living Together by Fire and Rain. I Don't Want You to Go by Lani Hall. Come in From the Rain and All of My Life by Diana Ross. Our Love is Stronger Far Than We by Esther Satterfield.

The whole stack of CDs also contained lesser hits by famous artists like Never Let Her Go by the Bread. Sometime by The Carpenters. Disney Girls by Captain and Tenille. There are so many of them, that I only recognize when I hear the intro.

I am listening to it even as I write this blog. It is my dayoff. Mavi and Maxi are already at sleep and I am just waiting for Vangie to pull over by the gate any minute.

I will open a can of beer once she arrives.

I'd love to (always) have things my way

WHEN things could get worse, it most probably would. That's Murphy's law. I didn't know Murphy or the anybody who named that theory after him, but in all aspects, I have witnessed that come together many times in my life.

But I have decided not to discuss it now. There are a lot of bad things happening around us these days that I figured blogging about unfortunate moments that happened to me would not help make the world a better place.

Instead, I listed a few, small, everyday things I wished could happen the way I wanted.

1. In the morning when I walk out of the bedroom, I would love to have a hot cup of coffee served right away. Not a moment too soon, not a second too late. I want it on my hand the moment the thought of having coffee cross my mind.

2. When I peek outside the house in the morning, I'd be thrilled to see the car already freshly washed, waxed and tire-blacked. And I prefer that everything used to cleaned it -- rags, foam, bottles of wax and shampoo – are neatly back in place to where they were kept.

3. When I go to the bank or pay our mortgage, I'd be happy to see the cashier or teller with nobody to deal with but me. I'd especially love it if they are already calling me out while I'm still filling out the forms because they wanted to get my transaction done with the soonest time possible.

4. I wish my cellphone and laptop are always charged. I don't want opening my MacBook to see its batteries about to get depleted. That distracts me when I'm writing a story because I never charge it unless it's ready to completely shut down. And most of time, I dies on me in the heat of doing an article.

5. In the badminton court, I wish every shot given me are angled just enough for me to smash it right back. If it's lifted enough to allow me to decide whether I'd flick a cross-court drop shot or hammer a straight-up smash, I'd love it even better.

6. When arriving at the games late because of traffic or other domestic duties, I wish the scoresheets are already there waiting for me. Then the winning coach, or the player who stood out in the game would text me the quotes they wanted me to attribute to them on the newspaper the following day.

7. After work when I'm unwinding with friends, I want beer served in just the right coldness. It should refresh the mouth when taken by the bottle and be felt rushing right down the throat. Icy beer numbs the palate and won't allow you to relish its taste, but it practically spoils it all when it's not chilled enough.

8. When dining out in busy districts like Tomas Morato or Jupiter St., I wish there's always somebody pulling out of the parking slot in front of me just when I was trying to find a place to park.

9. On my rest days when I get to watch television all by myself, I'd love it if I don't have to launch a major search for the remote control, which has the tendency to get lost whenever it's my turn to use it. That completely takes away the fun out of channel surfing.

10. Once a month I wish a handy man would come over and check if there's something around the house that needs fixing. A peeled paint here, a missing cabinet handle there or an appliance that's not working.

If we can get around to avail of small conveniences in our lives, it would be worth the hardships people are facing right now.

Can't take the house out of the man

OFTEN I have dreams happening inside the houses I've lived in while growing up.

It's been 10 years since I left the neighborhood and built a home of my own with my family some 60 kilometers away, but when I dream of something taking place in a house, it's always the houses I've known when I was a kid.

Rarely was my dreams set in our present home in Bulacan. But I reckon our house right now would be the default setting of Mavi and Maxi's dreams even in their adult years.

I came to think about it because a few weeks back I bought something from Mercury Drug in the corner of Luis Shianghio St. and Kamuning Road. It was the exact same spot where my parents used to have a sari-sari store in my pre-teens. In front we sold softdrinks, cigarettes, LPG, candies, and behind it served as our living quarters.

The counter where the pharmacist took my orders used to be the spot where we placed a table so people in the summer can have halo-halo sitting down. Its parking space used to be a small plot where my brother Jonjon burned his eyebrows lighting a mound of gunpowder from the previous night's New Year's Eve celebration.

Just a block away stood an apartment building which served as our first house. Several years back, when I already had a job but was living in another house nearby, the place was converted into a multi-level beer joint. One evening after work I tried to visit the place and have few bottles there.

In short I had that Jack Nicholson moment in About Schmidt where he journeyed back to his old house only to find a tire store built on its place. Dennis Lambert also touched on it in a heartfelt song that began with these lines: ``They're tearing down the streets where I grew up, like pouring brandy in my dixie cup...they're pouring concrete on a part of me, no trials for killing off a memory...''

We hit four of six winning numbers

SOME years back I had the chance to become one of the lotto draw observers. There were six of us in a panel and I represented the media sector. The draw was then being held at the government-owned station, NBN-4 in Visayas Ave., in Quezon City.

I arrived there an hour before the 9 p.m. draw. Early enough to catch the then host Tina Revilla rehearsing her opening spiel and marvel at how well the lady carries herself even when cramming for her lines. She was wearing thick foundation, bright red lipstick and big, brown and bouncy hairdo.

I didn't see any reason to doubt the draw. There was nothing underneath the table from which the tambiolo is placed. And we got to touch at random the numbered balls that was to be sucked up by the drawing machine.

The gig, much-anticipated by my family and neighbors back in Kamuning, earned me P1,600 as honorarium. That for just staying put for about two hours and watching the whole proceedings happen on live nationwide television.

A few weeks later, I was watching the draw on the office TV sets. I was clutching my ticket which bore my favorite numbers – 9, 21, 42, 11, 2, 32. Revilla started to call out the winning numbers, one by one, in the order that I would never forget:

``9, 12, 42, 11....''

By that time I was already hysterical, unmindful of my officemates who by then already realized that I was headed for richness and fame.

``1, and 34..congratulations to the winning combination ticket holder of 9, 21, 42, 11, 1, 34.''

In a matter of seconds I came crashing back to reality. I got the first four numbers correct only to miss the last two in the narrowest margin possible. Just like that, I missed the P9 million jackpot.

It came to me again because this afternoon we found out that the combination Mavi chose for my father-in-law to bet on got four of six winning numbers. It won us P1,000. Back then the consolation for four correct number was only P500.

Mellow touch stays with us

Lately I have developed the habit of You Tubing for music videos of songs I almost never hear on the radio anymore.

Take for example Kathe Green's Alone Again and Free. Nobody plays it anymore. Not even RJ 100.3 which is about the only FM radio station still playing the genre popularized by DWLL 94.7 in the late 70s and early 80s.

If you're about my age, chances are you also love this kind of music: Stonebolt's I Will Still Love You. Neil Sedaka's Perfect Strangers. Tavares' Hardcore Poetry. Dan Henry's 20 Minutes Before Takeoff. David Castle's Ten to Eight. Dan Hill's Sometimes When We Touch.

The list is endless, mostly those that comprise the soundtrack of our youth. But sadly no longer getting airtime they used to have back then.

Further back in the time when I was still required to sleep in midday lest I don't grow up, I remember At Seventeen by Janis Ian, Lovin' You by Minnie Ripperton, the only song whose second voice was provided by a bird.

When I was making an attempt to learn to play the guitar back in high school, I was bestfriends with Loving Arms, that hit by Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson with the very arresting opening lines.

Love Won't Let Me Wait is ideal on a rainy evening when you're alone with the wife, and that's not just because of the sound of a woman moaning in the background.

Morning, Noon and Nightime fits any given Sunday, and when you're driving home tired from a long day in the office, Great Day should be it.

They don't make this kind of music anymore. Probably they still do, but the kind of stuff they're coming out with no longer has that same effect on us.

Goma and I didn't shave last Sunday

ATHLETES and show biz stars go about in worlds that intersect, and in my line of work, it's not a rare chance when I get to mingle with movie and television personalities from time to time – even when I'm actually covering professional sports. Like baseball.

This was last Sunday when the sun didn't feel like showing up all day. The first game between Manila and Dumaguete was rained out but organizers decided that the pitch was dry enough to let the match pitting Cebu and Makati go ahead.

Cebu, in case anybody bothered to know, is the defending champion in Baseball Philippines. It boasts of one of the country's best pitchers like 27-year-old Joseph Orillana, and a host big hitters like veteran Joel Binarao and upstarts Miggy Corcuera and Nico Uichico.

And, of course, it has the most famous rightfielder in the land – movie actor Richard Gomez.

For some reason, Gomez seemed to excel in just about any sports he went into, namely golf, rowing, fencing, trap shooting. In most of which he became member of the national team and won Southeast Asian Games gold medals.

Baseball, though, is a different story. He is seldom used, and when he gets called from the dugout, he is often struck out, either swinging or standing -- which only meant that he didn't get to swing the bat at all.

And so it surprised everybody at Rizal Ballpark when, on the top of the second inning, he actually hit a linedrive to the right for an RBI single. In basketball, that is about as spectacular as scoring a jumper off a tight defense.

Just the same, his feat didn't merit an interview from the sportswriters who went for Binarao who in the same game hit a grandslam or a four-run homerun – which in basketball is the equivalent of a game-winning slam dunk that even drew a foul.

Gomez just stood there as the reporters milled around the day's hero. But of course, you don't ignore a show biz icon like him. When he was introduced to me, I shook his hands and made small talk like we're friends from way back.

``Pare, hataw yung second inning mo, RBI single yun ah,'' I told him.

``Onga, medyo maganda ang hitting namin,'' he said.

``You remember your championship match last year, when you hit a triple (when the game was all but won by Cebu already and it actually didn't matter anymore)?'' I said. ``I wrote you a feature story for Inquirer.''

``Kaw ba yun?,'' Gomez said, his eyes brightened up. ``Pare thank you, may clippings ako nun.''

We exchanged high fives.

Listen, standing close to him I realized he wasn't that tall. If I only stood straight and didn't wear flat sneakers, I'd probably be about his height. He is also as dark-skinned as I am. His face was small and covered with two-day old stubble.

I also went out of the house that day without shaving. And later after talking to him when I looked in the mirror, I realized something:

If I squint my eyes hard enough, and probably lose some pounds, and maybe straighten my spongey hair, we actually look alike.