Expat Magazine story

My basketball story "The Politics of Pickup in Manila" is appearing in this month's issue of Expat Magazine in the Philippines. The page has a nice layout with a few of my photos, including this view of me holding a basketball in front of a coconut tree with a hoop attached to it (the tree, not my chest). You probably can't see it in the photo, but my chest has a big rash and some cuts, as I had just climbed and then slid down another coconut tree. I'm really not very bright...

The recently launched Expat mag as described by its editor, Jude Defensor:

"Expat Travel & Lifestyle is a 140-page glossy, oversized magazine – and the first magazine devoted to expat life in the Philippines. Published quarterly, Expat Travel & Lifestyle is a must-read for expats and people with a passion for life in the Philippines. Regular sections include travel (foreign and local), business, real estate and property, lifestyle and culture, health and fitness, fashion and beauty, and so much more. Our cover story for the June issue is on the top airline executives working in the country and the overall theme for the issue is “high-flyers”. Expat Travel & Lifestyle is exclusively distributed by Emerald Headway Distributors, Inc., and is now available at magazine stands, bookstores, supermarkets and other retail outlets. For subscriptions, call: (02) 647-4744 or 647-4766 or email: ehdi@pldtdsl.net "

Hopefully with my featured story, the mag is now the talk of Manila. If I can get a better link which is actually readable, I'll connect to that one instead of the blurry jpeg page.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

I've had a few people suggest to me that I novelize my story, turn my Philippine experience into fiction, or at least one of those "based on fact" things. That way I could manipulate the story however I wanted, throw in some extra drama, whatever it might take to sell a few more copies.

A couple years ago I met Marc Salzman, author of Iron and Silk, which is a "year abroad" story in China framed with a martial arts theme (much as my year-abroad story is framed with a hoops theme). His book is a good one, and he managed to get it made into a movie. But when I met him, he was moping due to the movie's poor results. "Guess I needed more sex & violence," he told me.

I suppose I could turn my story into some sort of Rambo-type story of a hoops player fighting Al Qaeda in the jungles of Mindanao, (which actually sounds like it might be pretty funny), but given the already crazy nature of my experiences during my year in Manila, it wouldn't seem like I'd need to fictionalize things to create drama. If coup attempts, martial law, bombings, kidnappings, an earthquake, volcanic eruption, and having soldiers rob me isn't enough action to entertain the reader, then I should probably quit as an author. (click to read about one of my "just another night in Manila" scenes)

Besides, if I wrote about something like the Hobbit House, a bar in Manila staffed almost entirely by dwarves (photo to the left), and put it in a novel, people would tell me the story isn't believable. But in non-fiction, especially in the Philippines, truth is often stranger (and more entertaining) than fiction.