Thursday, June 11, 2009

Wild Thing....

Once in a while, I think of all sorts of wacky things.

Like when I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a pilot. But then later on, I discovered I did not fancy too much heights.

This morning when I passed by a school baseball field, a female team was busy practising. So, I got to thinking about pro-baseball, and the Wild Thing Song came to mind.

For non-baseball fans out there, Wild Thing was the Phillies' pitcher Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams. He pitched the losing game, game 6, to Toronto Blue Jays, in the World Series of 1993.

So, everytime Mitch Williams took to the mound, the song "Wild Thing" would be played.

Wild thing –
You make my heart sing –
You make everything ... groovy


Wild thing, I think I love you ...
But I WANNA KNOW for sure.
So come on, and hold me tight –
I love you


Game 6 in Toronto: Phillies up by one in the bottom of the ninth. On the mound, their closer, Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams; two runners on base; Toronto slugger Joe Carter at the plate.

Announcer Tom Cheek at the microphone.
"Two balls and two strikes on it. Here's a pitch on the way — a swing and a belt! Left field, way back! Blue Jays win it! The Blue Jays are World Series champions!"


This scene is still etched in my memory, as I'm a big Toronto Blue Jays fan. I still remember Roberto Alomar, coach Cito Gaston, and the other Blue Jays, swarming all over the field after that oh sooo.. memorable game.

Also a while back, I was watching a re-run of The Cosby Show and saw Lisa Bonet, the favorite eighteen year old daughter, Denise Huxtable, who went to Hillman College.

At the height of the Cosby show in 1987, Bonet left to have her own spin-off sitcom "A Different World."

So I got to thinking of the movie, Angel Heart, wherein Lisa Bonet played this wild thing - the role of Epiphany Proudfoot, opposite Mickey Rourke. Her part in the film was controversial: she appeared in a wild, graphic sex scene with Rourke, out of which scenes had to be censored in order to ensure an R rating though later an uncut X rated version was released.

And several weeks ago, I was talking to a friend from college and he mentioned that his younger brother had become a self-made millionaire.

Now, this friend has two master's degrees tucked under his belt. His brother, meanwhile, has just an undergrad degree. And back at university, this brother was just your average Joe.

So, me and my friend got to talking about the skills needed to become a successful entrepreneur; to be a successful self-run enterprise being one of my wildest dreams or my wild thing, so to speak.

And we decided it's not about MBA's. It's what we call "diskarte" in the Pinoy dialect. Or "abilidad."

"Diskarte" can be loosely translated as "street-smarts, business savvy."

I remember a Prof at the MBA program I went into telling us that a lot of people, before they go into business, would prepare a painstakingly, elaborate Business Plan. And the next door Chinese guy... he'd just do it.

Throwing every caution to the wind. Now, that's a wild thing.

" MY Wild thing- you make my heart sing..."

1 comment:

Serious Joe said...

My wild thing? To pitch a game at the Sky Dome