The Daily Whine

We all crave a measure of it. And for most of us, the Internet is our archive. The likes of YouTube and Blogs like these feed on our collective need to believe that what we think and have to say matters, not just now but for future generations. We create legacies because we want to feel that we are here for reason, that our lives and existence can and does make a difference, is worth remembering.

I recall Kundera, albeit imperfectly. He narrates a story, and within that narrative exists Kundera the character. Kundera transcends life through Kundera, and both cheat death through the reader’s memory. Whatever else historians may say about Kundera five hundred years from now, his wonderfully-written meandering hypothesis has immortalized his consciousness in mine, because at this moment, 11 years on from having read Immortality, I write about him and I recall Kundera, albeit imperfectly.

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We blog. We make short films. We make studio films. We compose music. We write poems. We draw. We paint. We sculpt. We build. We procreate. We are egoistes, all.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a writer or poet. I was just good enough, marginally talented enough, to constantly find the encouragement needed to keep the flame flickering. Then I stumbled into college and found myself surrounded by the works of dead white men. Studying their words, admiring their craft, in awe of their brilliance — it’s crazy to say this now, but it felt like too much pressure to live up to an aspiration shared by these luminaries. So I gave it up. Frankly, I don’t think I’d ever have made it anyway. Too lazy. Too insecure. Too impressionable. Too much style, too little substance.

And here I am, at my desk at work on a Tuesday evening, pondering my own legacy when I move on (for surely I will some day). Advertising is the playground of imaginations that seek immortality, since the output of all work here is tangible in a most public sense. The opportunity to see a commercial or print ad that originated in your mind is what draws most designers and copywriters into this field, though few will readily admit it. Like everyone else in this line of work, I have a thick portfolio full of ads I’ve worked on. But unlike most, I have no pride in that output. Too much of that work is forgettable to me. It stood out at the time of need, it beat out rival pitches, it starred with the client. But it has not grown in stature with time. This is not because the work itself was technically poor, but rather, as I discover more and more each day, that I am reluctant to allow my achievements to be defined by collaborations, and my life in advertising has been entirely collaborative. All career long, I have suppressed my instinct to own an ad entirely in order to hone the team’s development, and now I look back at a trail of work that, because not completely my own, often feels compromised. I stare into this void, and it stares back.

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What idealized versions of ourselves do we seek to preserve?  We are never as hilarious or thoughtful or clever as our various manifestations of ourselves would lead people to believe. We are always less than the creative abstract of our immortalising instinct. But even though we are not what we write, in time to come, that is all we are.

A poster of the latest critically-acclaimed comi-drama around here…

The premise goes a bit like this: Tino is the phat cat of the alley, and Rosita is his street-smart (part-time) lover. She decides life out on the streets ain’t what it’s cracked up to be so she starts work at an ad agency, where she makes good with the expats. Scaredy Kat and Big Boi are two younglings whose ma, Miss Maplethorpe, is Tino’s estranged and exiled queen. She intrigues for Scaredy Kat to seize Tino’s throne, but he’s too timid to lead the revolution. Meanwhile, Big Boi only wants to make rap music.

Needless to say, it got cancelled after the first season because of commercial reasons.

Screenshots from the pilot:

Scaredy is jumpy this morning.

Rosita saunters into office, tardy as usual. She will soon discover that something precious is missing.

Rosita confronts a defensive Scaredy about the missing Kit Kats

Scaredy ponders escape, but…

Tino warns that there is no hiding from the family.

We got whipped. The final score read 9-2. Damn those Guards were fit!

But we put up a spirited display (and I don’t mean the hangover that Marcus and Kwang showed up with). I thought we did pretty well, given the circumstances.

The circumstances:
1. We were hopelessly out of shape. Hopelessly.
2. The Guards were not.
3. The pitch was BIG.
4. Most of us had not kicked a ball in anger since 10 (years old, not am).

We barely had a team of 11 at kick-off. As is the case with most matters that overlap between professional and social worlds, you hope for your team to show up, but you don’t count on it. In our case, we had Adrian, Tino, Gona, Dwi, Donny, Viki, Haka, Mochi and myself on the pitch at 8.15am. We had to borrow two players from the Guards (an entire regiment showed up on motor scooters!) — Echo and I-forget-his-name. There was no telling when the rest of our squad would appear, if at all.

The game started brightly for the Guards. Within two minutes, they were one up. I held up my hand for the first goal. No seriously, I raised my arm to pull the offside trap (I swear there was more than sunlight between him and me when the ball was threaded through to him) but the refree didn’t blow. Their striker struck the ball cleanly and it punched the back of the net despite Adrian’s best attempt to keep it out. It was all downhill from there.

They never gave us time on the ball. They kept harrying and pressing us into miskicks and mistakes, especially at the back. The rest of the first half more or less played out like a long, continuous cycle of being put under pressure, making a mistake, being countered swiftly and ball in the back of the net. I’ll give the Guards credit where it’s due. It wasn’t simply a case of us being mediocre — they made us look bad.

Champs of the Poser League!

But we picked ourselves up midway through the half and got one on the counter (thanks to a fantastic ranged effort from our loan signing Echo after good build-up play involving Mochi, Dwi and Viki). 3-1 and game on. And even though we were immediately put back under pressure, we didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for them. The Guards had to work to get the next two goals in before half time.

By the interval, most of our team was visibily knackered. Haka couldn’t continue, and Tino looked in a bad way with a problematic heel. Dwi had worked hard all half and needed a rest, and Gona and Viki both offered to step back to the full back positions for some respite (this was because I had told them two days ago that playing in defence would be equivalent to a respite, but this was before I saw the Guards in action)! Thankfully, by this time Marcus and Kwang had arrived with Memed and Dedy, and Shahrum was also ready. The Guards offered to loan us one of their backup goalies (Pak Budi, one of my favourite guys from the sentry post) so we could rotate more outfielders.

The second half got under way and I pushed up to midfield in a bid to inject some control over the middle third. (My first contribution of the half was naturally to turn the ball over to the Guards). We got a better grip of the game however, and we actually put together a few moves that turned into shots at goal. In particular, I remember a build-up that involved my keeping possession, finding space and time to lay off to echo, moving a few paces up, receiving the return pass, feigning to make a through pass to Marcus but checking back inside to square it off to the advancing Echo, who then took a massive first-timer from the edge of the penalty area. The ball skimmed off the top of the crossbar, but warmed my heart. We wouldn’t win this game, it didn’t seem likely, but at least we could play properly.

Anyway, Mochi managed to score the second goal to make it 7-2, but the rest of the game was an exercise in resistance as the Guards poured forward at every opportunity. It was scary at times — they had two widemen overlapping OUR fullbacks at will, and the two strikers were wrecking havoc, but despite the obvious gulf in class, I thought we did well to keep the scoreline respectable by the end of the game. (I know 9-2 doesn’t look ‘respectable’ to most, but it was still only a single-digit deficit)!

At the end of the game, there were smiles abound. Both teams exchanged handshakes and I think everyone was happy for the run out. (The Guards were probably thinking this had been a complete waste of their time, but they were too polite to show it). I think our lads genuinely enjoyed the occasion, even if we were all shattered and unable to move properly after the game. And we really felt a genuine sense of collective triumph — we’d proven to ourselves that we could play football together. It doesn’t seem like much, but how often do you find a bunch of (unfit) colleagues banding together for a football match and working their socks off to stay in the game under searing heat?

And, and, and, Aya, Ika and Lala showed up to lend their support. (You could tell the lads were lifted by their presence). It’s Sunday morning — they were pitchside cheering us on instead of sleeping in. That’s the kind of team spirit that bodes well for our future.
FC TYA mascots!

We may have lost, but I think we certainly weren’t disgraced, and there were plenty of positives to take from this. I know the lads are eager to have a rematch soon.

Guards & Cons!

It’s Guards vs Cons in a couple of hours’ time. The Security Guards from the apartment complex I live in (Kintamani) take the advertising con men from my office in a football match at 8am at Senayan (right by the National Stadium here, actually). Stay tuned for results!