Going to See the Elephant

So it was a newspaper people jargon. When a news reporter finds his first ever smash story, they call it 'seeing the elephant.'

The story set in San Francisco, California that is in the United States of America is fun. The young reporter whose passion is to write a great book worthy of becoming part of the annals of literature has been reading the works of literary greats but is fast depleting his finances because he is not earning, because he is trying to write the first sentences of his future great work.

Our hero’s name is Slater Brown and he got dumped on his first shot at The Morning Trumpet, a weekly newspaper, because he sounded very literary and dreamy, and did not meet the expectation of the editors. But he tripped on something magical, a radio that can pick-up conversations. In short, he got the juiciest shit and really got the elephant by the cojones. He became the toast of the town but was hounded by a dreamy encounter with a lovely woman who happened to be a good chess player. He did meet Callio de Quincy, the mystery woman, and they liked each other right away. It was with her that he divulged his innermost dreams, aspirations, and his magic shit. And it was her who can really feel his innermost dreams, aspirations, and how his magic radio is actually just shit that can hit the fan any moment.


San Francisco is also home to the smartest person in the world, Milo Magnet, who tried to manipulate the weather for whatever purpose it might serve. It was during his stint as the hotshot reporter that Slater hooked up with Milo Magnet and organized a chess match between Milo’s computer and Callio. Of course, Callio lost that brought her father to despise Slater more while Slater found his soul and disposed his magic transistor radio to pursue his destiny as a writer and his heart as a young man, sigh, in love.

The book described San Francisco at its dynamic best. From the restaurants and the food it offers to the scenic ordinary spots and the cable cars. Slater Brown described the city in a feeling way and how its people make it more interesting.


Going to see the Elephant made me miss San Francisco. My short stint experiencing the BART, the Golden Gate Bridge, Mission Street, the Cable Car, Pier 39, the most crooked street, the Budweiser beers, my KFC chicken without anything on it, the fucking scenic cold beaches, the drive, the people, and most especially a good friend holding his fort in probably the second best city in my world.

Going to See the Elephant
Rodes Fishburne 2009

Mitch Album

it was my cousin Marissa who just arrived for a vacation from Australia where she now resides who woke me from my blogging stupor as she proudly showed a picture of her with her god Mitch Albom of the Tuesdays with Morrie book fame, heard of him? She said she frequent bookstores in Brisbane to check out if they have sale items (new books in OZ cost roughly a thousand or more Philippine pesos) that she can purchase for more than 80 percent off just because the front cover is not perfect, or has a dent or a cut or whatever shit to lower the cost.

Anyway, I actually just read Mitch Albom's "For Another Day" and did not exactly enjoy it for some unknown reason. I liked Tuesdays with Morrie and even gave it as a gift to one of my cousin on her 18th birthday years ago. but "For one more Day" somehow disappointed me. It is about an over the hill baseball player who lost his marbles along the way when his mother died and got estranged with his wife and daughter due to his alcoholism. He tried killing himself, the suicide course to escape, but ended up alive and talking to his dead mother. It was a ghost story, Albom said, and I thought that we really do have ghosts to purge and heal somewhere in our lives. Plus the ghosts my sons occasionally see when they are in the mood for ghost hunting and stories and shit.

I have to admit it is heartwarming. It is touching, Not necessarily life touching, but a good read altogether to start up my reading groove again.