By John Hoffman
Twas the start of the League Season
and something was amiss
The great zen warrior, Ryan Arguelles
wasn’t about, and was sorely missed
The man who hits angles impossible,
from the left or the right
The man who made even the best
of opponents, incredibly uptight
Ryan Arguelles, was the Zen Master of Tennis
At the 4.0 level, he was a Phillippino Menace
Opponents quaked in fear at his angles and returns
His drops and lobs, done effortlessly like words
Ryan was also the master of line-ups
He evaluated the opposition, and designed
ways to win nearly every time out
Out-thinking and playing opposing captains and players
Of that there’s no doubt
We miss our Zen Master here in New York
And hope he finds a way to return, or at least visit
With his friends here in the best city in the world
Take care old friend, was thinking of you.
Hope all is well, and that you are enjoying the great
weather, sunny beaches, fresh food, and lifestyle in
your home country.
USTA League player John Hoffman wrote this humorous poem about his friend and USTA New York City League teammate/assistant captain Ryan Arguelles who has moved from Brooklyn, NY back to his native Philippines.
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Steve · April 12, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Great pic. I have a love/hate relationship with those Fort Washington courts.
Scoop Malinowski · April 12, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Steve they aren’t the best courts (no screens, faded paint/lines) but it’s a cool place to visit and play. Why don’t you like it there?
Steve · April 12, 2012 at 5:50 pm
I love the setting and dig it’s vibe. My biggest gripes are that some of the courts are on an acute angle and the surface is too slippery.
There’s an interesting cast of characters that regularly play there though.
Steve · April 12, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Scoop, do you find 4.0 teams/players in NYC are better than the 4.0 teams/players in Jersey?
Dan Markowitz · April 12, 2012 at 6:36 pm
Who would ever move from NYC to the Philippines? The man must be crazy in addition to being a cagey player. No, just jiving.
Scoop, you want to play ping pong at a pong club in Westchester a week from tomorrow, April 20th. You have playing some mad pong at Spin last year Open time.
Scoop Malinowski · April 12, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Steve yeah the vision of the ball can be tricky with the glare and lack of screens but the scenery is awesome. Also there’s a fantastic Dominican restaurant on Broadway called Mambi where the rice, beans, yucca and chicken are superb. Also the staff there are a very attractive lot )
Scoop Malinowski · April 12, 2012 at 9:06 pm
Dan have you been to the Philippines by all accounts I hear it’s a wonderful place, one friend went every winter and met his wife there, Ryan loves it there, white sand beaches, lots of great tennis. Filippino people are very nice, good hearted people too.
Zen Master · April 13, 2012 at 6:14 am
FYI to Dan not so funny jive! I moved back to the Philippines because it’s my goal to retire early in life and lived a longer and happy life. My family owned farmlands of coconut, banana, cocoa and organic vegies farming as well as breeding ranch of thorough breed horses, ranch of cows for meat supply and breeding fighting chickens or fighting cocks for the Filipino sports and tradition which is Cockfighting.
Dan, if you are in my shoes, would you lived in New York and work your ass out or lived here in the Philippines with an average fortune and simple life with drivers and household help and maids with everything you see in New York you find it here with all the amenities that New York can offer.
The problem with you average Americans is that you don’t travel anymore outside the world and see the whole world like the Europeans (English, French, Germans, Swiss, Dutch,Norwegians etc), Japanese, Koreans, Singaporeans, and compared it and the way of life that other nation, country, race, and culture lived and compared your so called New York life.
I lived in America for 13 years and still will do but my opinion and experienced is different from yours, from the east coast to west coast of America people are homeless and unemployed and always not happy as a people. You come to Asia and you are greeted with smile, the problem again is your mainstream media where its always depicted that you lived a good life in America and the rest of the world they lived like Somalians, Afghans or Sudanese.
Dan, if you come here in Asia and at the airport alone whether you are in Changi Airport in Singapore, Incheon in South Korea, Tokyo and Osaka Airport, Kuala Lumpur, Thailand or even our Centenial Airport 2 and 3 here in Manila and my local Airport of Davao City, I will tell you that you will be ashamed of what your New York and my New York airports can offer compared to these clean and sophisticated airport. Now, if you go to some Asian cities and how they kept clean and beautiful compared to your Manhattan, then you will be ashamed again for the second time around. Then if you can’t believed it that you are ashamed for the second time around and wants to fault some Asian cities and you must find their slums and compared it to your Brooklyn, Bronx and Upper West Manhattan tough neighborhood, then for the third time you will be ashamed of your New York City. The slums here are like your middle class village of Queens Village area in Queens or Jersey City suburbs.
If you wont believed it then asked some Professional tennis players every U.S Open the comparisons of New York life and your way of life there and compared the way of life of Asians ofcoarse excluding the North Koreans and maybe one will be braved enough to tell the truth and not to embarrass you that while New York is not a bad city afterall its not also the greatest city. If you still have enough money there Dan, Im advising you to enjoy the world and see it by yourself and not be contented every U.S Open as your only form of entertainment of your boring life in Tri_State area. At the same time, while traveling like the Tennis Pro do, you will be educated on your travel experienced and be sensitived to other cultures and also appreciate that this is how they lived and respect their tradition and way of life. In my travels and experienced of the American life I also respect and enjoy the company of the American people as we’ll as becoming an American too but somewhere along the ignorancy of your life questioning how a crazy human being moving from NYC to Davao City and Boracay Island of the Philippines becomes crazy? Did you know how many millions of people escape New York once they have the money to stay sane and look at the way you jive and write your article here at tennis prose. This is the sign that you are becoming crazy and need to get out of New York City and lived somewhere else maybe Florida, California or Somalia, Afghanistan and Sudan. Scoop is coming over here in Asia maybe next year or next winter for a vacation and maybe come with him. Don’t take this seriously Dan, this is only a jive answering your jive to me!
Steve · April 13, 2012 at 9:33 pm
My friend’s wife is always threatening to send him back to the Filipines “to live with the roosters” which always makes him laugh but his Dad is going to retire there, back in his home country. This is a massive trend. People taking some cash they made in the US and going back to where they came from. Learning Tagalog would be challenging. I would love to visit Filipines and Singapore but Europe is next to see some family. 🙂
Steve · April 13, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Zen Master,
Can you post a photo or two of your our families ranch and your new digs?
Scoop Malinowski · April 13, 2012 at 11:49 pm
Steve, I have heard so many great things about the island country, from natives from there and also Americans who fell in love with the place and keep going back, and or married a woman from there. Can’t wait to get there myself this year. Tagalog seems like a very hard language to learn though !
Zen Master · April 14, 2012 at 8:08 am
steve,
scoop knows me, i lived in new york for the sake of living an american life and not to take away your american money. in fact you dont have the best money out there for some filipinos looking for jobs. filipinos worked in japan, korea and australia and they make money more than people that worked in new york.
wrong info again from your american mind. your economy in america is depreciating though its still a good economy to some but asian market is going strong. eversince our farms and business in the philippines sustain my life in new york and not the other way around. your american money is not anymore the stongest in the world. take an example, an odd job in new york pays you $7 dollars an hour and an odd jobs in japan and australia pays you $27 an hour. dont take too much pride in your economy in new york becoz you don’t pay your migrants very well there. japan, australia, england, qatar, dubai pays more than you do in america but you are still lucky there the mexicans do your dirty jobs and you dont pay the mexican right. filipinos go for other countries to look for odd jobs but not america or new york coz you are very cheap there. do you see filipinos working bustboy, cab drivers, car wash, mcdonalds, dunkin donuts all over new york or manhattan? its always the mexicans and indians/bangladeshis who do that job in new york? no right?
i didn’t make money in america i just want to experienced your way of life in new york while im young but there is no special things that i noticed and its still a boring life despite your city lights at times square. i only like new york on late summer becoz of the U.S Open and thats all. you americans think that if someone come and lived in america and they are not white you readily think that these people wants to worked and get your money. some people just wanted to lived and experienced what is like to be in america and to lived a new york life, then that’s it! brother scoop understood very well what ails your economy in america and new york. but this is a tennis site not a business/economic review sites. it is wrong to always depict a migrants in new york that they went there to steal your american money, in fact there is no more money to work for in america becoz they are controlled now by certain group of people in the market.
me and scoop enjoy tennis at different parks on summer there in new york and shared and enjoy meals after a heavy tennis drills and match. scoop is an example of good american and a good new yorker, non judgemental, accommodating, intelligent, unassuming, friendly, bearer of truth on his words, tolerant, friendly, loves life, passionate, god fearing and religious by heart, fair and just and above all loves his BROTHER and his brothers/sisters in tennis and boxing.
i thank you my writer friend and brother in tennis that you find time to include me in your writing and publications though im not really good at tennis but just have the same passion once the ball is serve and this is to win the point at all cost. Tennis is always our bridge in our friendship and i can’t wait that you visit philippines one day and play with some of the finer club talents here and some pros in the island. we also shared the same passion in boxing and we always have some boxing matches here in the island if you come and visit.
sorry steve, we are very private people and family, we don’t show pictures of our colts and cows ranch for bragging. americans love to show off and brag with their simple property. our breeds are not for bragging, this is passion and serious endeavor. the tradition is kept within our family. we are not like that but if you are in the racing business and a serious buyer then we talked and send you some pictures. stay in tennis business and not these racing breeds and ranches. Scoop knows me!
Dan Markowitz · April 14, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Geez, Zen Master, you may be a cool guy to hang with and hit some balls with, but you talk some serious bull. I’m not a jingoist American, but I can’t imagine you, as a Phillipine, would have have more opportunity in the Middle East than in New York. Places like Qatar and Dubai, as we know in the tennis world, are very restrictive countries.
And no fun in New York except going to US Open? You ever go to Jones Beach, ride subway to Coney Island, get on your bike and ride it in Central Park, go hear some music downtown or go play some hoops, if you’re so inclined, at West 4th street? What about the diversity of New York. Can’t imagine you get that Dominican food in Phillipines. I understand that the way of life you have in Phillipines could be far superior to what you experienced in NY, but to say there’s nothing happening in NY for a young man with some energy and footloose imagination, is like saying John McEnroe is a boring player to watch.
Dan Markowitz · April 14, 2012 at 1:12 pm
That being said, I do believe that your life in the Phillipines sounds far superior to one here in NY. But you seem to have some pretty big money. What about the people who are your servants? I applaud you for coming here and living for 13 years and hopefully, seeing the country. It is a beautiful country if you travel. And I have lived in California and wouldn’t mind living there again. I guess like a lot of people, I settled in New York because I’m from here, I like the energy of the city, and it was the easiest place for me to make a living. But I do try to travel as much as I can. When I was younger, I traveled Europe, Australia, and hopefully, I’ll get to Asia. Look, I don’t know why Mexicans and Jamaican and many other people from small countries come and live in NY with all the lousy squalor here, but they do and then, I imagine, their dream is to go back to their home countries with some money and live the good life. Wherever you are, that’s where you are and you have to try to live a good life.