BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Picked up my copy of Rebound and it should be out in a few days

It's close to 1am as I'm writing this so forgive me it's incoherent. 

When I was younger, me and my siblings would run to the television every time my dad was on. We'd tape his appearances on television from the evening news to noontime shows and evening talk shows. After a while, it was no longer a novelty so we stopped watching. We saw him at home anyway.

There was a certain thrill to seeing someone I know or I was related to on TV. Or reading their names in the newspaper or a magazine. I remember the first time I saw mine in the grade school paper. I didn't write the article. My best friend did only he added my name to it as a co-author. You know, we were like John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I was Macca since I was left-handed (though I had a tough time playing the bass left-handed so I play right). I was into illustration then and would go to art school. Eventually, I began to write and I have no recollection how that happened. Maybe it was because of the journalism classes we had to take one year in high school. But I have no firm idea.  

Nevertheless, I have the original issues of the school papers I wrote for from grade school to college. After school, I was contributing to the Philippine Daily Inquirer and managing one of my father's businesses when a cousin of mine told me about the glory of working in advertising. She worked on that great campaign for Philippine Airlines -- "Shining through" -- with AVIA Comm. That in my opinion is still the best campaign ever done for the national carrier. Since there was no way I was going to become as popular as Robert Smith (of the Cure), I figured that going into advertising was the closest to being a rock star. Yeah, I played in bands while in school. Anyhow, here's one version of "Shining through," but the version I prefer was the bouncier and jazzier version. Couldn't find it.


The first time I ever saw a commercial of mine shown inside a movie theater, I stood up seconds into the commercial and said out loud, "Ako gumawa niyan!" The people inside Glorietta laughed and cheered while my officemates cringed and disappeared somewhere under their seats. Hahaha. Trip lang. 

The first ever radio commercial I did (co-wrote it and was used as a voice talent) was for Macintosh computers and I got a kick out of hearing it over 99.5 RT and a couple of other stations. I have most of my portfolio during my time in advertising from storyboard, to demos, scripts, color proofs, cutouts ads, polaroids etc. It's my stuff from PAL that I was never able to get. I have almost everything that I've written from the Inquirer days to Business Mirror including the magazines and newspapers abroad where I've chipped in.



The reason why I'm into this rambling is because yesterday, I secured my complimentary copies of the latest issue of Rebound. Who knew, right? I'm immensely proud of what me and me pals are doing there.  It isn't perfect yet but it will soon be. And we sold out our last issue. Our first. With better distribution and when we change our current distributor we should be fine. Gary Mercado (of basketballexchange) wasn't able to make it with us on this trip but on the next issue. 

The great thing about writing and not just for Rebound is getting a chance to see the action up close and meeting the people in and around the action. I've made scores of new friends just by doing that. As for Rebound, we'd love to hear from you. Hey Reggie Nolido.... let's talk about you know what. 

Atop is a screen shot of something I wrote for the mag. It's about Mapua's Allan Mangahas.

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