RECOMMENDED. TV Series. Music.

TV Series: “Lou Grant.” / Music: Manila Sound.

TV Series. “Lou Grant.” Five Seasons, 1977 to 1982. Lou Grant works as city editor of the fictional Los Angeles Tribune daily newspaper, a job he takes after being fired from WJM-TV in Minneapolis at the end of the sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” I didn’t follow “Mary Tyler” but it doesn’t matter. Lou Grant, played with remarkable easy realism by Ed Asner, stood alone. 

       To relive the past and ponder what journalism was before the 21st century, “Lou Grant” is most recommended. You may want to sit with your teenagers as well, but banish the cellphone when they do indeed agree to try some “old” stuff beyond TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, or IM/text with sweetheart. 

       “Lou Grant” won 13 Emmy Awards and 2 Golden Globes etcetera, but those were the days when awards were given to shows for sheer excellence and not via politically correct standard or “diversity moralism” measure.

       The episodes are very compelling, real, disturbing but inspiring. Top reporters Joe Rossi (Robert Walden) and Billie Newman (Linda Kelsey) had equivalents in my days as a newbie in the newsroom. All the support characters, all the way to publisher Margaret Jones Pynchon (Nancy Marchand), weren’t inventive or innovative—no reimagined personas, I mean—the are simply those work bodies and insistent souls who tirelessly gave us news, day in and day out. 

       Good old days. 🎬🎭🎬

Music. Manila Sound is a music genre in the Philippines that began in the mid-1970s in Manila. The genre flourished and peaked in the mid to late-1970s during the Philippine martial law era and has influenced most of the modern genres in the country by being the forerunner to OPM or Original Pilipino Music. 

       The Manila Sound is styled as catchy and melodic, smooth, lightly orchestrated, accessible folk/soft rock, sometimes fused with funk, light jazz and disco. However, broadly speaking, it includes quite a number of genres (pop, vocal music, soft rock, folk pop, disco, soul, Latin jazz, funk, world music), and should therefore be best regarded as a period in Philippine popular music rather than as a single musical style. 

       Manila Sound typified the prevailing pop sound of the era, and drew its influences from the singer-songwriter genre of American music during the 1970s. A majority of Manila sound songs were composed in Tagalog or Taglish, although some were also written entirely in English. Sometimes, as Wikipedia puts it, these songs included "juvenile lyrics,” and less frequently, "swardspeak" (homosexual slang) recast with novelty, comedic or satirical undertones.

       Top Manila Sound artists included Hotdog (songs: Pers Lab, Manila, Annie Batungbakal, Ikaw ang Miss Universe ng Buhay Ko), VST and Company (Disco Fever, Awitin Mo Isasayaw Ko), Cinderella (T.L. Ako Sa `Yo, Bato Sa Buhangin, Sa Aking Pag-iisa, Ang Boyfriend kong Baduy). The band also incorporated bossa nova in its repertoire.

       Other notable acts: Apolinario Mabini Hiking Society, Sampaguita, Hagibis (the group “copies” the performing style of the American disco group the Village People), Rey Valera, Sharon Cuneta, Florante, Freddie Aguilar, and Rico J. Puno. 

       A prevailing tone of Manila Sound songs: Accessible lyricism, every people pop culture twang, an easy rhythm and beat. Perfect counterpoint to the sociopolitical dark of Martial Law years. 🎼🎹🎼

Checkin' Out Basketball in the Philippines.

BASKETBALL crazy Filipinos will always be basketball-obsessed, win or loss. It is sort of difficult how’d a competitive team fares in international contests from here onwards, after a dismal finish in this year’s FIBA tournament, but we can only hope. Although the team nicknamed Gilas and featuring Utah Jazz’s 6th man guy Jordan Clarkson, was able to salvage a convincing victory over China (for its sole win), still coaching was smothered with ridicule, insults, and shaming. 

       Yet I must say, Gilas’ debacle wasn’t due to flawed coaching per se. The team wasn’t bereft of individual talents or height even. Whatever skill the crew had didn’t perform and deliver as a team at all. Yes, there was no bonafide 3-point shooter, no dominant rebounder, no “bad boy” defender, and no courageous slasher. But more than anything else, there was no court management. Playmaking wasn’t there.

       In the past, the Philippine team had topnotch shooters like Allan Caidic, William “Bogs” Adornado, or Fortunato “Atoy” Co. Ramon “El Presidente” Fernandez wasn’t a strong rebounder but he was a cerebral deliverer on the paint; he could pass, score, and lead a team. Playmaking, we had Sonny Jaworski, Hector Calma, or Ronnie Magsanoc. Then the daring inside incursions of Samboy Lim, Francis Arnaiz, Danny Florencio, or Rudy Soriano. 

       I am not exposed to those who came post 1990s, but as I said, the Philippines never had a shortage of individual talents. In the previous FIBA, I saw a bold driver inside in CJ Perez but this time, he wasn’t even used or there seemed to be no opportunity to execute what he did the last time. I am not impressed at all by 7’2” Kai Sotto or the much-touted 6’11” June Mar Fajardo. They have to impose themselves inside to create impact. They didn’t. 

       Gilas is not lost. Hoping we’ll do better next time. 🏀🇵🇭🏀

Photo credit: Philippine Primer.

RECOMMENDED: Music, "There Goes Rhymin' Simon" by Paul Simon / Publication, Bomb Magazine

Music. “There Goes Rhymin' Simon,” third solo studio album by Paul Simon released in 1973. Mr Simon’s progression after Simon & Garfunkel is a transcendental maturation and creative open-endedness that isn’t easily achieved by any artist with limited stock that most often than not, got maximized and used-up in his/her former incarnation. Instead, Paul evolved more and, certainly, more at ease with his strut, poetry, and leisure. 

       In this album, Paul Simon spanned into several styles and genres, such as gospel ("Loves Me Like a Rock") and Dixieland ("Take Me to the Mardi Gras"), and more. The later gems “Graceland” (1986) and “The Rhythm of the Saints” (1990) would accentuate the man’s incomparable genius. Add a cappella, zydeco, isicathamiya, mbaqanga, and a sweet stew of diverse worldbeat.

       “…Rhymin’” received two nominations at the Grammy Awards of 1974, which were for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male and Album of the Year. But awards whatsoever, Paul Simon didn’t have anything to prove except that he’s having fun. 

        The musical textures are ethereal. Halo of gospel, shimmer of Jamaican rhythm, and of course, unmistakable old Simon and Garfunkel folk allure. The easy mischief of "Kodachrome," the infectious tease of "Loves Me Like a Rock," and the seductive invite of "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" tell me Paul Simon’s “…Rhymin’” is playful-blessed young with an innocent glow yet still quietly cerebral as his classics “American Tune,” “The Dangling Conversation,” or “The Sound of Silence.”

       Paul Simon made 11 more solo albums after this, 14 in all—the last one is 2018’s “In the Blue Light.” He once said in an interview that what scares him in old age isn’t about dying but losing the ability to create songs. Amen. 🎼🎹🎼

Magazine. BOMB, a New York City-based 501(c)(3) non-profit arts magazine edited by artists and writers. The first issue came out in 1981. I discovered BOMB in second-hand magazine stall called Vision Mix in Manila. I grabbed a copy, randomly—checking out various publications for ideas. 

       My mind at that time was all-pulp motivated; my first venture at self-publishing. Or I was contracted by a huge mass-market publisher A.G. Guerrero to produce a magazine that was “different” from the “komiks/magasin,” showbiz reads, and sports weeklies that his family has been publishing for decades. He gave me full freedom to explore. What I had in mind was an inexpensive reading, printed on inexpensive paper. 

       BOMB wasn’t exactly that “pulp” stuff although the particular issue that I had was black and white on “dirty” bookpaper. What got me was the publication’s concept. Content was primarily interviews between creative people working in a variety of disciplines—visual art, literature, film, music, theater, architecture, and dance. Plus reviews of literature, film, and music, as well as new poetry and fiction. 

       BOMB was launched in 1981 by a group of NYC-based artists who sought to record and promote public conversations between artists without mediation by critics or journalists. The magazine’s name is a reference to both Wyndham Lewis' 1914/15 “Blast” and the fact that the magazine's original editors expected the publication to "bomb" after one or two issues.

       I named my project with A.G. “Cool.” Honestly, I didn’t know if it was going to “bomb” as well. I hired Manila’s “alternative” artists, musicians, and poets as contributing writers and put up a staff of newly-grad Art students at the Univ of the Philippines, the vanguard of progressive thoughts back home.

       When I left Manila in 1998, I founded another similar newsmagazine in New York City called The Independent, which later evolved into The Indie when I moved to Asheville, North Carolina right after 9/11. 📚✍️📚