Rarely pure and never simple

Thence Home

2010-07-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

These are the only two things I remember: It was a small, dark place. I remember people having to lower their head ever so slightly as they crossed the doorway from the dining room to the living room. Everything was made of a dark, reddish wood with intricate line patterns I used to follow with my fingers. Though I cannot remember why, the name “Santa Clara” or “Santa Rosa” come to mind when I think of this place. Somehow, I never asked my parents about that—and now I fear it might be too late.

Then there was a small, well-lighted place. Made of concrete, with plenty of windows, breezy, it was still a warm, welcoming place, the place that I should still think of as the place I am from, but it did not replace the first. I saw the war through its windows, and then when the war came inside, I saw its roof destroyed and a cloud of dust come from the kitchen as we left.

I was ten.

San Jose, San Francisco, San Bernardino, Redlands, South Gate, Lynwood—these are all places I've lived but none of them home. Home again didn't come until my daughter was born. And that was still not home. I'd made a home there, but too many bad memories came from the end of my marriage and my children and I have made many good memories away from that place.

I travel well because no place new is any less comfortable than the place I live. I've been gone for a month now and the only thing I miss is my pool friends. I like 9-ball better than 8, but it's all good. There's always a bar nearby where I can play.

Now, my sister's told me she rented out her house. They are moving up to Portland, OR. That is my favorite city. I remember the first time I went there, noticing a bumper sticker on a few cars. I asked the taxi-driver about it and he said the city had launched a campaign and was distributing that and a few others. It said “Keep Portland Weird”. That's my kind of town.

There is a little bar just up the street from the living room theater, where I play pool and listen to the karaoke singers. They are good, very good even. The city is mostly cool, sometimes rainy. And every now and then you get a wonderful, blustery day.

I think I will move with them.

But I have been in California most of my life—twice as long as I lived anywhere else, or rather all other places. I may still get lost on my way home. I may still relish the feeling of finding myself in a place I've never been, and keep a mental catalog of all the roads I've driven when I thought “this is a new place”.

Trish keeps telling me to do it afraid, to just do it, to not let the fear of the new get in the way of getting it done, whatever “it” might be. I'll probably have to change jobs, and this is not a time to be giving up a job. I'll have to give up my place, a place where I have lived six years, where I can walk with all the lights off and not run into a wall, where I know all the cracks, and all the neighbors, and all where I walk in the middle of a cold night, when I can't sleep, and smoke a cigarette and still get greeted by name by all the other insomniacs out for a smoke, too. My children still live nearby, and while I don't see them very often, I've gone over at four o'clock in the morning to greet them when they wake up. We've had some crazy adventures that started with no plan at all and now form the fabric of the memories they'll have of me when I am gone.

When I am gone.

Is this that time? Despite all the reasons to stay, I know deep inside I am leaving. I feel guilty they might think I am leaving despite them, because of them, like I have given up on them...

Am I doing this just for me?

I've told the story so many times it seems like something out of Death of a Salesman now. Like a made up story that gained reality just inside my head. My daughter, right out of the hospital, came home and my wife and I got her ready for her first bath. Everything was set so perfectly in place. The little yellow baby-bath my wife had used when she was a baby was on the sink, full of nice warm water. I put the baby on the counter, got her naked and picked her up like a new father picks up his new baby, most carefully, an arm under each end like she would break at the slightest motion. It was maybe two feet away from the little, yellow, baby-bath. By the time I set her down in the bath, she had pooped on my arm. I never knew such a little thing could make so much stinky stuff. It was black and sticky. It smelled to all the world like something that had been decomposing for nine months. Sugar and spice indeed!

When he was three years old, I noticed my son had the perfect skin tone. Perfect, that is, for California. I thought of him as a little surfer, with his honey-colored eyes and skin the color of cafe-con-leche that had just a little too much leche—just the way I liked it. But he had dark hair. It was light brown, dark sandy perhaps, not what I thought surfer hair should be. So my boyfriend and I cut his hair really short and bleached it. We got him a necklace made of shells. The effect was perfect. When his hair started growing again, there was a time he had the darker hair under a little cover of blond, and it was even better. My wife threatened me I'd never see him again if I dyed his hair before he was old enough for it.

Then, there was the time we went to Vegas for two hours, just to take pictures. Or the time we escaped to Tijuana for the weekend, just to have some steak. Or the time we went to see A Chorus Line and my daughter and an elderly lady were giggling like little girls all through Tits and Ass...

But that was when they were little kids. They are almost all grown now, with almost all full lives all for themselves, and often, I feel like I'm intruding when I go—like they have to give up something of theirs to spend some time with me. I know it is still a bit of guilt about having felt that way myself when I went to see them, or when they came to see me. Turn-around and all that.

Perhaps it will be ok. At this point, I think it is inevitable that I move again, giving up all the memories I've made thus far to make new ones in a new place. Perhaps they can come see me and spend more time, when they can, when I can, when we can. Ha ha ha... every new beginning is another beginning's end, right? Maybe we can build a whole new relationship, now as adults, unburdened by all the things that parents and children share when they stay in the same old places. We will draw new maps to new places for new adventures.

Maybe it will not be my last move, my last place—after all, avocado trees don't grow well in Portland.

Maybe, for a change, this will be home. And if it isn't, maybe it will be another dot I mark on the map on the way there.

May be.

Death

2010-02-01T12:21:00.000-08:00

My children complain that I talk about death too much. Every now and then, having heard of another distant relative who’s passed on, I’ll go into my usual story of what I want done with my remains after my turn comes. I tell them exactly what I want done before and after, in reference or deference or commemoration of me—like I deserve any such celebrations. I have a playlist in my iTunes I’ve titled “Music For My Funeral”. I tell them they will miss me and that it’s ok; and I tell them they’ll stop missing me after a while, maybe a long while, and that that is ok, too. Too much, perhaps, but I have my reasons.

My grandfather died of a heart attack when he was 76. My grandmother died of a heart attack when she was 65. My father died of a heart attack when he was 55. My uncle died of a heart attack when he was 42. My brother died of a heart attack when he was 36. I have a bad heart—and have spent plenty of nights under observation at the hospital while they stabilized my erratic heartbeat—so I keep telling the family that I feel I’m living on borrowed time.

My father spent plenty of nights sitting on a chair in the dark, out in the back yard, smoking a cigar and drinking a little cognac after dinner, supposedly waiting for the Martians he saw fly their saucer over a lake when he was 26 to come rescue him from the unjust punishment living on Earth must be. Life on Earth, I gathered then, was a punishment, a harsh sentence aliens paid for some crime they committed—we are a penal colony. This meant, of course, life is nothing to be terribly clung to, and (more importantly) that death is not an end, but rather a transition, a happy one, from this punishment to the real life from which we came, a parole from this prison. And so, when we found my father’s dead body on his reclining chair in front of the television, with a smile on his face, we cried as we should cry, but I thought that smile was all the message he could give me that they had finally come for him.

One day, it will be my turn.

That is the one truth no one can hide from: death will come. I don’t know what death is, what comes after, but I do know it will come, that it will be my turn to die someday, that my children will be left with the responsibility of doing something with the decaying remnants, this thing they used to call dad and for which they will mistakenly still feel love, not realizing that I, their real dad, have exited the train and simply chosen to use a different conveyance to reach points beyond. I don’t want them to feel what we felt when my father died: that we had never talked about death and that we had no idea what he wanted done for him, with him, to him. So I’ve engineered a terribly complicated ceremony to allow my children to feel they have done as I wish. Though I may be gone to the next step of the journey, I can give them some closure.

Still, it must be done in a way that will allow them to laugh. I want there should be fun. There may be a dead guy in the room, but that dead guy will be me, so we cannot make this a somber occasion. That will simply not do.

So this is what I’ve told them: go to my computer, get the music I’ve selected for my funeral, get a gathering of friends and relatives going—they know which ones—and get them all drunk remembering the good old times we all shared. In the morning, those who feel their lives would be improved by it should pray, but not unless they would have otherwise done so had I not died: I want no hypocrites on my side. Then, when my body has been cremated, gather up the ashes and take them to the hills. Find a sunny slope and bury them there with an avocado seed, somewhere such a tree can grow. Make sure, I’ve told them, that it is at a place that’s particularly hard to reach. I don’t want them to feel guilty for not coming to visit me past the third anniversary of my death. After all, that is not me: it is just a small pile of ashes.

When and if the tree should grow, wait until it can hold a sign, and then hang one from its branches that reads “EAT ME”, and should I feel the need to visit the little pile of ashes from wherever I have gone, you can be sure I will smile. But, to be honest, I don’t think I’ll do that. I’d rather visit my children, and their children, just to make sure they’re ok. That would be a much better use for the nearly unlimited time I presume one must have after death.

So then, to end, just to make sure the list is not lost if this computer should die before me, here is a list as of today. These are the songs. Each has a meaning, known only to me, and hopefully the one for whom I picked it. I don’t expect anybody other than my children will care, and while I’d hope they didn’t, I’m afraid their Judeo-Christian upbringing will require some action from them, so they should do something:

1 Take Me Home Country Roads (John Denver)
2 I’m In A Hurry (Alabama)
3 No Time To Kill (Clint Black)
4 Amarillo By Morning (George Strait)
5 Neon Moon (Brooks and Dunn)
6 Hechizo (Ana Gabriel)
7 Se Murio De Amor (Bobby Pulido)
8 Solo Los Tontos (Alacranes Musical)
9 Viviendo De Prisa (Alejandro Sanz)
10 Sexo, Pudor Y Lagrimas (Aleks Syntek)
11 Jamas (Camilo Sesto)
12 Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon)
13 Amor (Cristian Castro)
14 Space Oddity (David Bowie)
15 Man Who Sold The World (David Bowie)
16 Magic Dance (from labyrinth) (David Bowie)
17 Love Child (Diana Ross and the Supremes)
18 Mad World (Gary Jules)
19 La Mia Storia Tra Le Di (Gianluca Grignani)
20 Mi Historia Entre Tus Dedos (Spanish version of 19)
21 Una Magica Storia d’Amore (Gigi D’Alessio)
22 Que Alguien Me Diga (Gilberto Santa Rosa)
23 Kol Hatziporim (Harel Skaat)
24 Haruach Teshane Et Kivunah (Harel Skaat)
25 Fire And Rain (James Taylor)
26 The Origin Of Love (Hedwig and the angry inch)
27 I Should Have Been A Cowboy (Toby Keith)
28 Eleanor Rigby (Beatles)
29 El Frio De Tu Adios (Olga Tañon)
30 Hasta Contar A Mil (Jotdog)
31 Burbujas De Amor (Juan Luis Guerra)
32 Dos Locos (Monchi Y Alexandra)
33 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (The Platters)
34 Solitary Man (Neil Diamond)
35 No Me Doy Por Vencido (Luis Fonsi)
36 Yesterday (Beatles)

That should give the guests about two hours of drinking time—enough for a buzz but not enough for a DUI, I hope. Thus does it stand for the time being, but I firmly believe that in death, more than in life, everything changes…

Porque solo los tontos...

2008-12-17T16:52:00.000-08:00

Se enamoran igual que yo...

It’s raining in L.A. Cold, wintry winds drive shards of icy pain deep into my jacket as I smoke out by the lonesome little eucalyptus tree by the side of the building. It doesn’t mind the weather like I do. Youth, it seems, treats both trees and humans just the same, and Mr. Button’s case notwithstanding, I propound there’s nothing for the skin like youth, giving it both firmness and softness—both qualities long lost in mine. The bark of this little eucalyptus doesn’t mind the bending almost parallel to the ground in the strong wind; it loses none of its smoothness when it comes back up to challenge the wind yet again by bending ever so slightly into it. What mighty roots has this three year old tree! Wish that I had done in my four decades what it has done in a third of one.

So there are three of us now in the apt. Just now do I realize how much of a loner I really am: I like the noise to be nearly but not right by me, so I isolate myself a bit and let them do whatever it is young people do (which is usually noisy), while I play online, or watch TV, or read—though I’ve been doing that less and less these days. Lethargic by nature, I’ve gone into a semi-catatonic hibernating state these past few weeks, evidenced by my growing weight. Ugh! It’s time to start going to Bally’s again.

We’re working on a big project again. It’s a lot of fun to search out all the little bits of a large project and then assemble them all together as a puzzle, seeing the thing take shape from the bottom up. It is all for a quote, though, and I’m hoping we are significantly more attractive than the competition. A big project right about now would be good for the company—and all us little folk that work in it. It’s precisely what lets a small company weather the rough economy. Ora Pro Nobis!

Now, the new roomie listens to what we might rudely call chunty music. Brassy, very much like Polka, the music more typically heard in the Center-Northern states of Mexico is usually harsh, uncouth and unrefined, and for that reason sounds more honest, less an interpretation of the feelings, and more along the lines of a simple story told just the way it happened: truer. Trying to get past my cultural prejudices, I’ve started to listen to a couple, and ran into this song which reminds me of me: Solo Los Tontos. The version I heard is by Alacranes Musical, who play Duranguense music though they’re form Chicago (go figure!). It took me a while to get past the idea of the music and start listening to the song itself. I liked it. The guy’s a fool who falls in love with a smile and a look, and the girls take advantage of him—and seriously! Who doesn’t do that more often than they care to admit? I know I have, and probably will again. That’s how I met the new roomie in the first place. Go figure!

December Rain

2008-12-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

Sunday again, a rainy December afternoon in Los Angeles. Funny how time flies. We just came back from El Nido—a nicaraguan restaurant in Los Angeles which I highly recommend. Don't be afraid of the area, of La Brea less than a block north of I-10. Every time I go, I end up ordering two plates: one to eat and one to take home. Good food! Reminds me of the good old days. Even my mom (though quite reluctantly) had to admit the food was great when we went there—last year when we were all still on talking terms.

We started year-end physical inventory at work. It is a longer process than most companies take, as we only have a limited number of people who can count past 10—regardless of attire. I hope we're done by the long weekend coming up, with all the audits we have to do after we're done counting.

One of my roommates (I have two now) got this movie off Ebay called Girls Will Be Girls and we're getting ready to watch it my room. It is an insanely funny movie—I've seen it once before. It is both insane and funny... it is truly a guilty pleasure.

They're going to order pizza... how many meals do skinny people really need in one evening?

Well, that is it for now... nothing particularly consequential to report...

But I'll leave you with this link, which should take you to funnyordie.com where you can find a tiny little musical starring (among others) Jack Black. It is very funny indeed. I hope you like it.

Prop8Musical

Let's do the time warp again...

2008-11-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

These days, I'm sick of politics! Don't get me wrong, I'm a political creature, and followed this election from the very end of the last one... I figured it would be fun, full of interesting turns... betrayals, revelations, all the good stuff I'm too "manly" to watch soaps for... but then it went like the soaps do... FOREVER... Sweet Mother of Jesus! By the time Obama won, I celebrated as much out of sheer relief the race was over as I did in support for his campaign. They should be limited in time, these campaigns. Start in July. Not a word till then. From anybody. But since I support the first amendment, I guess I would never support my own proposal.

Plus, now that the election is over, I feel less obligation to write about the ongoing political climate of the country--one of the many excuses I used to avoid writing in my blog this long. A friend tells me politics in the United States is like playing football between the 49 yard lines--the unending attempt to differentiate yourself from the clone standing right beside you. Another excuse is the downfall in the economy. I've actually been a bit depressed by it: looking at the economic indicators reach the levels they were when the current president took office, or even before. He's effectively negated his own administration. We've just lost 8 years. Talk about the end of an error... There is, of course, the fact that the country is now going on a downward trend, economically as well as politically. So, in the end, we're worse now than we were then... I pray we do better over the next four years. I know it'll be difficult, but Americans have never been shy to work hard. World dominance is not accidental, however maligned it might be.

So I'm sick and tired of politics. I came to Palm Springs to celebrate my birthday. My friend came with me and she's about to go gambling, and because I don't gamble, I'm going to play pool instead. It's funny how everybody warns me about the bar I've chosen to go play pool at: it's gay. Ooooooooooh! You'd think in this day and age people would outgrow their petty fears of homosexuality. I wonder if the men think how women feel going to ANY bar considering the treatment they (the men) expect to get when going to a gay bar. I've had many interesting conversations with friends about the passing of proposition 8 by so many supporters of Obama, though he stated he'd vote against it. Go figure. People forget, these days, that democracy is not the simple, unyielding rule of the majority--we are all, after all, in a minority sometime or another. Catholics, Blacks, Men... Power, Freedom, are really truly exercised only when they are restrained, tempered by tolerance and understanding.

I'm sitting at the corner of the pool bar, fully dressed and drinking, blogging while people dripping in chlorinated water come by and chat it up, waiting for their drinks. A middle aged white man came by, whom I figured out the moment he arrived: as a buyer, I make it my business to develop schemas of people's personalities, and while I try to keep an open mind to change my preconceived perceptions of people. I have to used them, manipulate them, overpower them at their own game. It's an expensive hotel, and though I'm sitting here reading Kafka, drinking single malt scotch, and typing into a very nice laptop, he asked if I work here. Knowing a simple denial would be insufficient, I turned my face into a condescending scowl and told him "Heavens, No!" as I smiled and gave a knowing look at the hottie sitting beside me (my friend, who is, as far as the man is concerned, my girlfriend). Embarrassed, he apologized, began only then to talk to me as an equal, and bought me a drink--though I'm sure he wasn't happy to find out it's $20 a shot. It's things like this that make me wonder if we are truly ready to have a "Black" president, a non-white president. I wonder if Bush lost it for McCain instead of Obama winning... the result is the same, either way, so I don't mind. The process is not as important as the result anyway.

I wanted to write a monumental opus for my return to blogging since my trip to Chicago. I wanted to be erudite, insightful, composed, stuffy. But to hell with it. I can only apologize to Mamacita (link to the right, if I updated it), for her incredible support even in my absence. She barely knows me and still, I feel she keeps me in her heart more than many people whose bills I pay. Oy Vey!

Updates: I killed my car, got a new one, got two roommates, am planning to use their rent money to get a better car, and have weathered the stagnant economy better than most. Thank G-d for that last bit. While it's true that it helps to be good at what you do, there is a lot of luck or divine intervention involved and anybody who says otherwise, those who claim you make your own destiny, just don't get it so there's no point arguing with them.

By the way, my friend and I were at a tapas bar last night and this couple got seated with us... they're Israeli, and we started a conversation, and it was wonderful! You might remember (if you've read my previous posts) my Israeli ex-boyfriend... he built a special spot in my heart for his people (Jews in general and Isrealis specifically) and I felt warmly towards them from the start... however, the Rosseta stone people want $600 for the course, and I'm too cheap for it... maybe I'll just attend the local community college. Lucky that living in the San Fernando Valley, there's plenty of places to study it. I hope they can overcome my Arabic name and background. :-)

So I'm going now. I hope those of you who know me and accidentally happen upon this post will forgive my quick departure. I toyed with the idea of promising to write daily for a month, but I just won't do it... so I'll do this: I promise to write at least once a week for a year. Ultimately, this is a record for my children to remember me by when I'm gone--if they happen to run into it. I find that I can be more honest here, hidden behind the veil of anonimity the Supreme Court promised those who chat online.

Be well! May you weather this rough spot... may we all...

A Land of My Own

2007-10-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

I have posted before about my feelings regarding this country. Having seen so little of it, I've always felt apart--it is, after all, my children's home, and only a shelter for me. Grateful as I am to have been so received, I cannot get past the foreign-ness of my accent.

But dear Trishy has helped me take a few steps out of my shell. I've now seen so much more than I'd ever have imagined possible--even as recently as two years ago. The world is wider but not for that less cozy, warm, and familiar. Everywhere I go, the plants are green, the water's mostly blue, the air too. It is so warm, reassuring that it be so. And though most travelers might laugh at this obvious observation, it never was a given to me. Humanoid beings occupy most spaces, and at least while I'm traveling the United States, they speak English (after a fashion). I think I've also posted on Americans' use of the language and will refrain from doing so again--for now.

The best part is not in the differences, which I expected, but in the similarities. It is all one country, from the dry desert near home to the wettest forest outside Seattle, to the wide, wide river that flows (not always quite so gently) through this new city I am now visiting. I regret not having been able to spend more time at Mamacita's (link on the right), but when ever would I get a chance to drive on over to the arch? And boy! What an arch!

The thing is bigger than the t.v. shows I've seen about might lead the careless watcher to expect. It is breath-taking! At 7:30a.m., the three little Mexican people who happened to arrive at the parking lot at the same time I did, and I, walked up the little walk from the structure to the arch, and nearly gasped when we reached it. Somebody said the Statue of Liberty would fit under it--and I don't doubt it. It is so shiny and pretty, so new in its uniqueness, and yet so far from foreign. Seattle, Portland, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, St. Louis--a short list, perhaps, to many, but to me a sufficiently widespread sample to say with little hesitation: this land is my land. At long last, these are my people. Black, Mexican, any of ten different kinds of white (like my new little Irish-kind-of-folk in Indiana), immigrant and native-born, boys and girls and everything in between. English-, French-, Spanish-speakers, and those who tried to teach me sign language in Santa Monica, or the two-year old who signed "thank you" at the airport when I left for here--they are my people, too.

Trite though it might sound, and though you've heard it often, the blood's all the same color. But, more importantly, the top light, the red one: it means stop. The red flashing hand on the other side of the street means don't cross. The round green symbol, with the girl in the middle and the white letters means: come get a cup of overpriced coffee. We are all the same because we've chosen to be so. More than land, more than language, more than anything at all, anywhere and at any time, this is my land, these are my people, simply and only because I claim it so. No paper can make that more real. Nothing else anybody else can do will welcome me home like the thought that I belong. It's silly, I know, but anywhere I go, from now on, I'm always going home.

Thanks!

And just to avoid leaving this on a "deep" note, I just wanted to show one more pic, to see if it looks to you like it did to me. Tell me how this looks:

Sagitario

2007-10-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

A mitad del camino de mi vida, I came to realize that there really is no point. There is absolutely no evolutionary necessity for my continued existence after my genes have successfully escaped my body and ensured the continuation of the species. It is at this point that I sought to console myself through the usual hedonistic ways "we" often follow. Still, at some point, "we" grow tired of these ways. Though I was a late bloomer, now that I'm done blooming I find I skipped that middle part and went right to old.

And now that the universe has turned yet one more time as a cruel reminder of my neglected youth, the hunter returns. The "otro yo" that allows perversion under the guise of insanity. The weirdest thing is that I'm never the only one.

There'd be no predators if there were no prey.

You Lost Me At Good Bye.

2007-09-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

Yo no nací para amar.

I should have just given up when my parents forbade me to date la criada next door. I was only ten, and she was twelve, and we were really just friends—I guess—but isn’t that the way it always starts? I mean, I’d go out to ride my bike but instead, I’d sit for two hours chatting with her about nothing in particular. She wasn’t well educated, nor very smart, but she was sweet and she was sincere, and she was funny. And it certainly didn’t hurt that she was severely over-developed for such young age. But the instinct for the continuation of the species is far stronger than any parental threat—though sometimes misguided. Gender, you see, never made any difference in my attraction to people. I can say with a certain degree of confidence that it wasn’t merely “liking” like in friendship, though at the time I didn’t know any better, because at this age, I’ve learned the subtle differences between merely liking and liking. And boy, I liked them. Still, I reached high school age and hadn’t managed to get the liking past just that to turn it into the decadent debauchery my classmates proudly claimed at the confessional on Saturdays—and my penance was always shamefully much shorter than theirs.

En el mismo lugar, y con la misma gente.

And then one day friendship led to love and love led to marriage and I had two kids! Callooh! Callay! All we needed then was the white picket fence—and I swear that despite all my other perversions, I still dream one day to have such a silly symbol of stability of normalcy. It was a dream so close to gotten, that I was twice hurt when the marriage fell apart. I cannot say I ever stopped loving her, but I don’t like her quite so much these days. Trust is the only thing you have, sometimes, and unlike the tails on lizards, it doesn’t grow back. One day, in the heat of a fight, she asked me to leave. “If I go, I won’t come back,” I said; “I think you should leave,” she said; and I left. I remember my daughter watching me take the last of my clothes from the dryer, asking me where I was going and when I was coming back. But though I visit often, I haven’t gone back. They’re still there, in the same house, with the same neighbors—and they still say hello when I stop by. She’s asked me three times to try again… but there is not try, like Yoda says… “Do, or do not!”

If you want to be happy for the rest of your life.

She’s now twelve years older than she was the day she waved at me as I drove away, December the twentieth, a clear, sunny, bright, and dismal day. I’d rather have a blustery day, cloudy, rainy and drizzly, and an old movie, black and white perhaps, and a cup of hot chocolate with the little marshmallows floating on top, and a dash of cinnamon. There should be someone there, with me, to share the coolness of the air and the warmth of the chocolate, and if a fireplace be handy, the little crackly noises of the wood as it burns. But there need be no one. If you make solitude your friend, you need not trouble yourself with loneliness. It isn’t an easy thing to do, but then neither is keeping just ten pounds off, or keeping the top of your desk’s hutch dust-free. It takes work, patience, perseverance, dogged determination to complete oneself. In any case, the greatest stories of love were about love that never happened, or was brief and sour.

I can do well all on my own.

Melancholy

2007-09-14T18:00:00.001-07:00

A strange interaction of the humors coursing through my veins today has brought me to a most melancholy mood, despite being so incredibly busy at work. I find myself saddened by uncontrollable flashbacks brought about by sweet smells, old songs, or short phrases said in passing. It is odd, I think, that I should be saddened by these, as many of the memories are of better, happier, freer times; but one has little power over the emotions emanating from memory, and I have none.

There is, for example, the sweet smell of coffee made with just a little too much cinnamon. That one is my Grandma’s—who wasn’t my grandmother but deserves the title more than any other woman. The one thing I remember most is the time in ’75 when it rained for a whole week and I couldn’t go out and play. She brought out a large pile of newspapers, and between eating cookies she had baked, and chatting, and playing, and doing nothing, we made paper boats of all sizes. When it stopped raining, we took them out and let them go in the river the street had become, watching the armada float away, across the channel to invade England. Ahhh! Happy times.

Then, there was Supertramp, singing some silly song from the early ‘80’s. I didn’t discover them until the ‘90’s, when my wife and I would play them in the sentra, non-stop, on the way to Laguna Beach, where we would spend the entire weekend and many weekdays through the summer after we got together, before the baby came. To this day, Supertramp smells salty, sunny, and warm—bright and lazy—peaceful.

Then, this guy from Vermont called and asked for help. Now, under normal circumstances, this would not have elicited a second thought. Customers often depend on our higher level of expertise to solve problems in their production process, even when they’re not directly related to our product, and we comply with every request very happily, as this ensures they’ll come back. Some people say good will doesn’t build a faithful clientele; I disagree. This particular problem was easy, in and of itself, but the urgency with which it needed to be resolved reminded me of the times when my classmates would rush to me, asking for assistance. It wasn’t that I was any smarter than any of them—half the time, it was just that I can type faster than most people—but that I would not let any problem overwhelm me: we would sit and calmly dissect the issue, work on a solution and present the best answer we could. For a moment, I was back in school, blank piece of paper in front of me, pencil in my hand, and a question floating in the air around my head, looking like a puzzle piece for the matching answer that might be on the verge of flying away (pardon the mixed metaphors). I think this is because I am a Sagittarius: the hunter always on the search of prey. Presented with a problem, I am happy again, finding a solution.

And now, I’ve won the raffle for the Dodgers tickets here at work, and four of us are going tomorrow—not really to see the Dodgers (they suck), but to hang out and drink a couple of beers in the cool relaxation of a wasted day. And I remembered the days when we went to watch the horse races, when I was little. It was so much fun because nothing else would happen that day. We’d get up in the morning and get ready, and we’d go and hang out, watching the races. And for a moment, I was a child again, laughing at my uncle’s Fiat Bambino.

And then the day is over and I shut down my computer and go home—another day’s over and another one’s coming, and I, I alone can see them coming and going and look at all the ones that came and went and know—again, forever—that sighs count more than breaths, though fewer.

How many times did you sigh today?

Septiembre, El Once

2007-09-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

Los que recuerdan lo hacen muchas veces con lágrimas y con dolor, pensando que la inocencia que habíamos recuperado en los cincuenta años desde el ataque aquel que nos trajo a la segunda guerra mundial había por fin muerto—que esta sería la dolorosa introducción a la adolescencia global que se acompaña con inseguridad frente a nuestra incapacidad de defendernos contra locos, estúpidos, y crueles. Es inevitable recordar ahora como nos sentíamos el día anterior: casi todos los periódicos hablaban solamente de la economía y como su falta de fuerza nos afectaría individualmente; amanecimos quejándonos de la renta atrasada, del carro nuevo que no podríamos comprar hasta diciembre, del juego de video que la niña quería, pero en medio día murieron tres mil inocentes y aunque por un solo momento, todo desapareció y fuimos una nación, un solo grupo bajo ataque. Al día siguiente, todo fue diferente y nunca mas volverá a ser igual.

Gente muere a diario. No hay nada que podamos hacer para evitarlo. Enfermedades, accidentes, la fuerza misma de la naturaleza trae a su fin mas vidas de las que yo jamás podré contar, muchos mas merecedores de larga vida que yo, mucho mas buenos, mas útiles, amables, deseables. Cada paso de exploración requiere paga en sangre. La expansión de nuestra conciencia pide a veces almas y siempre carne como intercambio. Así siempre ha sido; así siempre será. No lloro por los muertos, pues mi fe me lleva a pensar que están en un mejor lugar que este. Lloro por los vivos que ahora se han privado de la riqueza de cada una de esas vidas.

Soy de aquí y por eso lloro mas por los míos que he perdido. Pero soy humano y por eso lloro también por todos los demás que se pierden diario—y ahora para colmo en paga de aquellos que ya lloré. Tantos de ellos mueren en mi defensa, que me siento un poco culpable. Tantos mueres sin haberme conocido que me siento culpable por ese sacrificio—no es necesario. ¿Cómo pedirle a Dios que lo prevenga? Mi fe me dice que El creó el mundo pero nos lo dio a nosotros a mantener. El no interviene. Y sin embargo, en su defensa y en defensa de la patria hemos matado y mataremos a tantos.

Supongo, al final, tendré que usar toda mi fuerza Cristiana y aceptar el golpe—aunque mi Cristiana debilidad me impida dar la otra mejilla. No pediré ojo a cambio de ojo. No es sobre simplificación el decir que mi perdón engendrara perdón de otros. Al contrario, creo, como creo en el Creador mismo, que la paz es lo único que cuesta más que la guerra— ¡y esa es tan cara!

Sexo, Pudor Y Lágrimas

2007-09-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

A veces no pienso
Me vuelvo tan frió y no estoy
A veces me ausento
De mis sentimientos
Y luego sonrío,
Recuerdo y me aferro a vivir
Y a veces quisiera
Matar por tu amor
Tan solo por un momento

Y es que todavía no encuentro
Lo que en mi sería normal
Para darte mucho más
Y entregarme por completo
Sexo, pudor o lágrimas, me da igual

Me quieres ver grande
A pesar de lo débil que soy
Y si toco hasta el fondo
Me sacas de nuevo
Por eso me quedo,
Me aferro y te quiero a morir
Por eso aquí adentro
Tú estas todo el tiempo
Viviendo del sufrimiento

Y es que todavía no encuentro
Lo que en mi sería normal
Para darte mucho más
Y entregarme por completo
Sexo, pudor o lágrimas, me da igual

Sexo, pudor y lágrimas, me da igual

by Aleks Syntek

Let Me Be Frank...

2007-08-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Para cambiar, seré honesto. Me inspiró la honestidad de los lectores de Mirko (see link to the right), y por eso he aquí la dura y sucia verdad:

1. primera vez…..?
. 19 con mi mujer… después, 26 con un chamaco.
. Preguntenme la historia: me gusta contarla.
2. alguna mujer?
. La primera, y hasta ahora, la única.
3. días de la ultima vez…?
. Este fin de semana.
4. que preferís? activo o pasivo?
. Activo
5. mucha previa…. o poca?
. Todo en moderacion.
6. posición favorita?
. De lado, o el sentado sobre mi, frente a frente.
7. oral o anal?
. anal
8. cuantos te bancas en una noche?
. Duración depende, cantidad límite hasta ahora es 5.
9. clásico o innovador?
. Clásico.
10. beso negro?
. Claro—dependiendo de detalles que dejare a la imaginación.
11. q entre sola…. o ayudas?…
. De las dos.
12. dulce y romántico, o hard y ordinario?
. Romántico, aunque duro, dulce, u ordinario.
13. juguetitos sexuales?…
. Nunca lo he hecho… pero mas de una vez vaciamos el refrigerador.
. I’m a big fan of condensed milk.
14. luz prendida o apagada?
. Apagada, pero no en la oscuridad—tal vez velas?
15. lugar mas “raro” “osado” “intranquilo”
. Afuera, en las montañas, viendo la ciudad, sobre una roca
16. trío?
. LOL… lo mas, fuimos 8. :-)
. Los detalles no son publicados, pero no me da pena contar en plática.
17. de día o de noche?
. Cuando caiga.
18. con medias o sin medias?
. Como Dios me trajo al mundo.
19. hasta ahora…. “el amor de tu vida”?
. No le digan, pero se llama Ricardo.
20. preferís chupar? o que te la chupen?
. Que me la chupen.
21. fácil… o accesible?
. lol... accesible. (?)
22. rubios o morochos?
. Todos los gatos en la oscuridad…
. Suelo decir que no discrimino por color: hay mejores motivos.
23. lubricante o babita?
. “Babita”? LOL!!! Ok… babita.
24. dps de….. dormir juntitos abrazados… o….”bed and no breakfast”)
. Me encanta dormir bien enpiernado: antes, entremedio, y después.
25. mejor lugar para ser besado?
. Jardines Botánicos de Huntington Library en Pasadena.
26. alguna vez activo?
. Solo activo.
27. intentas una vez y si no entra, insistís? o desistís?
. Insisto.
28. gritas?….
. No, pero no me quejo si tu lo haces.
29. acabas y?.. me importa un pedo si terminaste o… te hago terminar ¿?
. El chiste es terminar los dos.
30. te va lo prohibido?…
. Hasta cierto punto.
31. acabas y? salís corriendo al baño, te quedas y disfrutas del momento?
. No solo el momento… buen rato… tal vez hasta se repita antes de ir al baño.
32. te jode estar todo chanchito en la cama o salís a limpiarte.?
. Habrá que limpiarse antes de dormir, pero para mientras, no hay apuro.
33. coger o hacer el amor…?
. Hacer el amor, por fuerte, energético, atrevido, o apasionado.
34. te gusta besar?
. Si me gusta, me encanta—y por horas.
. Si no, ni un poquito.
. Depende de con quien.
35. te gusta disfrazarte?
. No. (see 18 above)
36. alguna fantasía?
. Tal vez un poco aburrido, pero no; sugiéranme alguna y las considerare.
37. q miras primero en un hombre?
. La sonrisa. Maldita magia capaz de calmar tormentas y quemar montañas.
38. avanzas o dejas que te avancen?
. Tiene que ser mutuo. Muestro interés y respondo cuando interés es demostrado.
39. me darias de nuevo? A Mirko? Cuando quiera… :-)
40. te gustaria q te de?….

Y tú, ¿Quién eres?

2007-08-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

So, copying other people around here, I went somewhere and had my brains scrambled.

When they that do the scrambling were done, what fell out of my head looked like the pile above.

Anyone care to translate what this means in realistic terms and plain old english?

MMMMMMMkay...

Fort Bragg

2007-08-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

So my friend was coming to see a play (Same Time, Next Year). Perhaps you remember the movie with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. To be honest, it makes me uncomfortable. I don't know why the idea of unfaithfulness makes me so uncomfortable. It bothers me. The whole movie, i'm fidgetting and scratching; the whole play, I was doing the same.

So, my friend's going to the play. She invited me. I'm sure you understand that watching the play being performed for the first time where the movie was filmed was too good an idea to pass up. Plus, I was getting a little sick and tired of the dulldrum of everyday life. So, Friday at 9:00pm, I got in my car and started driving. It was a hot night in the valley (San Fernando Valley), but going over the hill, the air cooled significantly. There was a breeze. There were a million other people coming with me, but they all had the sense of moving faster than a turtle, so it was ok--I don't mind the traffic, I mind driving slowly.

The air got warmer just as we reached the bottom of the hill. However, that's when the smell of cow crap started, and it didn't end till I was about to turn to cut across from the I-5 to the I-101 so I could head up to San Francisco. Now, under normal circumstances, I'd have gone up on the I-5 to the I-580, cut across Oakland and right into San Francisco--but there was this sign saying the bridge would be closed. Once I finally made it around (not quite twice the distance, but a bit out of the way anyways) I found another sign that said the bridge would be closed on Labor Day weekend. Nice. Thanks!

Now, that was far enough, as far as I was concerned, but I was going further, and I wanted to see the sun rise over the lovely beaches I had seen on Mamacita's blog (see link to the right). So I drove on--all night, even--till I got to where I was going. The picture above I took only this morning. I had no energy left for blogging yesterday, after the insane drive a three-hour nap and rushing over to the play.

The air is insanely clean here. I feel like sticking my nose in my exhaust pipe so I don't get addicted. And despite the beauty, friendliness of the people here, and all that jazz, I'll be heading back to civilization soon enough. Sitting at Starbucks now, an island of familiarity in this otherwise pristine ocean of white faces, I am reminded how much I love glass, concrete, pavement and steel, the noise of traffic and two in the morning, the whirring of machinery constantly at attention, awaiting our every wish. I am a environmentalist in the sense that I'd be well-served to see nature in only the briefest of visits, leave it unmarked and undisturbed, and round up most humans into their own reservations, to be let out only short periods and only after extensive training in the matter. I realize, however, that there are rights you might think you have to live in this nature--not realizing perhaps that your presence there is detrimental to the very nature you seek to join.

Be that as it may, I am here now, and nobody seems to be leaving, so I will leave. I've been here enough. It's not that I didn't like it--it's just that I'm done with it. I wonder what heaven looks like. I wonder if I'll get this bored of it this quickly.

Turns out I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

Una Noche Como Anoche…

2007-07-28T11:44:00.001-07:00

Siempre he dicho que el teléfono es para comunicación solamente, y no para conversación. Los que quieren plática deberían usar el teléfono para decirme donde verlos; un cafecito, un te, un jugo, y horas de plática pueden seguir. Lo que me molesta mas es la haraganería implícita en decir “quiero saber de ti y que tu sepas de mi, pero no mereces el tiempo o esfuerzo para verte en persona.” La única excepción aceptable es cuando la distancia o algún impedimento físico previenen el viaje, o recibir visita. Tal vez no es así, en realidad, pero eso es lo que pienso yo.

Con el tiempo, he entrenado a todos que así es. Mis amigos—pocos que son—y mis familiares saben bien que al llamarme deben simplemente decir el punto, hay un intercambio de información pertinente, una que otra pregunta respecto a mi salud y la de ellos, saludos a los parientes, besos, abrazos, apapachos cuando sea apropiado, y bye. ¡Simple! Sencillo.

Who could ask for anything more?

Pero no siempre es así. Lo bueno de las reglas son las excepciones, los pequeños eventos en los breves momentos que nos dejan saber que el mundo sigue mas allá del horizonte que hemos construido. Anoche fue una de esas noches.

A las 7:42 PM, Ricardo me mando un mensaje al teléfono, diciendo que me hablaría cuando saliera del cine, a donde había ido con su nuevo novio. Yo pensé que llamaría antes de las 10:00 PM. Aburrido en casa, salí a esa hora rumbo al bar con ganas de tomarme un par de Heinekens y jugar un poco de billar. Quince minutos después, me habló. Resulta que el novio fue a visitar a su familia, dándole a Ricardo tiempo para llamarme. Bueno, a pesar de un pequeño enojo por haberme hecho esperar, decidí platicar con el un rato. Lo que esperaba era que me dijera que quería ir a Starbucks (o Peet’s, si hay uno por ahí: Hmmmm!). Ricardo vive a una hora de distancia, pero nunca he tenido ningún problema con manejar esa distancia por una buena plática, y si hay algo que él tenga de bueno es su plática.

Llegué al bar a las 11:00 PM, no por la distancia, sino por haber dado tantas vueltas mientras platicábamos y mientras encontraba donde estacionarme—el lugar es popular, y estacionamiento en cualquier lugar de Los Angeles a esa hora de la noche es prácticamente imposible. Me estacioné, me salí del carro y empecé a fumar mientras platicábamos. No me invitó. Hablamos de él, de su familia, de mi familia, de sus amigos, de mis amigos, del trabajo, de la escuela, de los cambios que hemos visto individualmente desde que quebramos hace varios años. Hablamos de la operación que necesito y por que la he pospuesto tantas veces. Hablamos de todo, y terminando todo volvimos a empezar.

A las 12:00 de la medianoche, después de varios cigarros, decidí no entrar al bar, pues no tiene caso considerando cuanto me estaba gustando la plática. Salí otra vez en mi carro, rumbo a casa, pero tomé la ruta escénica, y llegué a la 1:00 AM, todavía platicando con él.

Diré, con toda sinceridad, que aún así no me gusta hablar por teléfono si hay posibilidad de una buena plática con un café. Pero siendo lo que fue, fue buena noche—y últimamente no he tenido muchas.

Another Saturday Night...

2007-07-21T20:27:00.000-07:00

Play Careless Whispers.

When is the last time you told someone “I love you” for the first time?

Sitting in the dark is something I do often for the sake of entertainment.

I like the smell of good incense burning two rooms away. It is not so subtle as to be missed, nor so strong as to be intrusive.

I went to dinner with Carlos two nights ago. I had just worked a 12-hour day, after two 10-hr days, and I was tired! But I went. He felt like going to get pizza at this place near where he grew up—it was a long drive, and we talked of useless things, and I enjoyed our conversation greatly. Just after the fall, I thought it great we could still talk, still enjoy an hour’s worth of conversation on the way to cheap, second-rate pizza in the south bay. We ate; we talked; we drove back. I went home still thinking that when it occurred to me I never loved him—and so I started wondering when it was the last time I loved—and, more to the point, when I loved enough to say “I love you.” Because there is a threshold, a point before which we cannot get ourselves to say the words and after which we cannot hold them back.

The neighbor’s headlamps flash across my living room as he turns into his driveway and suddenly I realize the incense has ran out and my tea has gone cold. Though there are four of us living in this apartment, and I love the noise and the feel of simple human habitation, and really love the rare moments of solitude when they come.

They’ll be here soon, so now it’s time to sleep.

Soon, it’ll all change, and I will back to solitude. We must all go our own way at some time. Much like a break up, any separation entails the breaking of old ties. Daily “good morning”s turn to monthly “how have you been?”s and surprising run-ins at the bank or the store. It is never the same… but then, things never are.

When is the last time you told someone “I love you” for the last time?

Good night.

Leftovers

2007-07-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

God made man last.

Not because he was saving the best for last.

She was just making do with what was left.

Volver

2007-07-11T21:43:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it's been so long? I feel as though it was just yesterday I was here last, but looking around, I see much has changed. Some friends are gone, while new ones take their place, not that old friends can be replaced—but life is busy and as full as it can be it gives me little extra time for more. More... More is the ethereal, curious, most elusive thing I'm always seeking. More is the fuel that seems to drive me further and further on this road.

But more does not always lead down a straight path. Onward, yes—but is that the same as forward? I am too tired to ponder this right now. From time to time, all I can do is put a foot in front of the other in this eternal act of falling, balancing, trying, dancing that we call walking.

From time to time I come to that proverbial fork in the road and I just take it—not always to follow the road less traveled by—not always quite deciding—and always wondering if this is the right path or maybe, may be that one was.

And all the forks have led me round and round back to this place, through caverns measureless to man, to this sunless sea. And on this soulless beach where we now find each other once again. I am a bit embarrassed you should find me lacking my usual ebullience, waiting pointlessly for an answer, even from the echo, to my lonely cry—but a wind blew out of a cloud and it seems there shall be no one here to look upon my works. None, perhaps, but you, and you will not despair, but rather walk with me.

And in the end, come full circle to the womb that made me, I shall cherish most the warm embrace of those arms that, outstretched and yearning, through my travels, awaited my return.

Toaster Heaven

2007-04-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

So let us say that after a long, distinguished life of toasting faithfully and well for many years, my toaster has finally shuffled off the electric coil that gave it purpose and is now bound on that last of all the quests to the undiscovered country. I refused to cry, for we cry not for the dead but for the living, self-pity spent for all lost chances—but they shan’t ever come back to us. Not knowing the nature of the ritual it might have chosen for itself, I forsake a Christian burial and chose instead to think of what comes next.

Where do toasters go when they die?

Let us consider this was a good toaster—a faithful toaster. Having lived such a life, would the toaster go to a heaven where it would simply toast for eternity? Is the continuation of its purpose a just reward for having served that purpose well? Or does it go to a place where it can suck to its sweet heart's content—if that is what it wishes? Does the final chance to apply a new purpose to an old life make it a reward? Or, can it possibly be? Can it be the final prize for so much effort is nothing but oblivion? How is that fair? Who says life is fair? And if life isn’t, what kind of fool expects death will be?

Or maybe I am wrong in searching for a parallel between this plane and that one. Perhaps the nature of existence in toaster heaven is so vastly different from the one I know that I cannot even imagine what it might be. I should not worry so.

Reward or no reward, it’s still coming for all of them, all the toasters, and no amount of worry on my part makes it faster—or slower. It is just what it is. Asking if toasters go to heaven is perhaps like asking if androids dream of electric sheep—a mere article of faith, never, ever “mere”.

Godspeed, my dear toaster!

Recurring Dream: Canto El Segundo

2007-04-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

Location: US & Mexico, both at run-down latino neighborhoods.
City: unknown
Participants: various (unnamed) and me

The houses are old and need paint and general repairs—the kind of care people who care can give. But the families here care about other things, it seems. They are warm and friendly, welcoming and sweet, and though they will at whim add a room to a house, they have the hardest time maintaining the houses; they’d rather spend that energy on the fruit gardens they have planted on what once were large front yards. They speak loudly, their voices mixing into a melody of Mexican songs, and jokes, and conversations all at once, easily followed in the many ways they go. They keep chickens and dogs, both loud and neither caged nor chained—and song birds to keep them company, and they play their radios way too loud. They work on their cars in front of their houses, taking half the street. Most back yards have hardly any divisions at all—and never anything that might be called a fence. It is messy; it is loud; totally different from anything I have ever really known, it is home.

I am a child of five or seven, running wild like the many other creatures God has wrought, making friends and playing games, and only coming home when the sun sets.

Time goes by.

Now I am older and I help one of the neighbors who fixes broken cars in his garage. He works late into the night, and because my parents know him, it’s ok that I stay late with him and help him. I am learning. He cooks, too—after a fashion. He makes tacos and burritos and whatever else he feels like making and I really like his cooking. He shares with his customers, too, when they come to get their cars. After some time, word has spread that his cooking is better than his car-fixing and people just come by to buy his food. Eventually, he stops working on cars altogether and now just cooks, selling tacos out of his garage.

About a hundred steps towards the sunset, there is a bar. It’s a small, neighborhood bar. The kind where everyone knows everybody’s name—the first place wives send their kids to find their missing husbands. People there have heard about the tacos. Soon, there’s a constant line of traffic between the bar and the garage. Some eat and then go drink; some drink and then go eat. Most go back and forth, walking one off and then rewarding their hard work with the other. I still help the neighbor, but now I help him make his tacos. Everybody says hello.

More time goes by.

Now I am eleven and I can make tacos myself. And I can fix a car, just not as well. Often, I take shifts for the neighbor, for he too takes his nights out at the bar. He has no wife, no children, no dog and no garden. He had his cars and now has his tacos. And he had me. And I had him. But never did I do more than help him. We do not chat.

One evening, late in the day but not so late the sun had yet set, I got ready and walked over to his house, to help—just like always. But this time was different. As I got closer to his house, I noticed smoke. I ran to the house as fast as I could, but there was nothing I could do. The flames were twice as high as the roof. Not knowing what to do, I ran over to the bar and asked them to help. They called the fire fighters. A group of men ran with me to the house. We all started trying to put the fire out. By now, the neighbors were out, too, and they had their water hoses and buckets and everybody helped. But it was too late. Soon, the house burnt to the ground. The man whom I had helped for many years was not there. I never knew where he went. As we all finally gave up—when there was nothing more to burn and it seemed safe the fire would put itself out anyway, the firefighters and the police showed up.

Just as they arrive, the dream ends and I am awake again—oddly at peace but a little sad.

My neighbor, my teacher, my friend is gone. Not dead—not for sure. He’s simply gone.

I never knew his name.

I’ve had this dream once per month every month for the last year. Unlike my other recurring dream, this one varies in details. It happens sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish. It happens in the US or sometimes in Mexico—though I am not Mexican.

What does it all mean?

Recurring Dream: Canto El Primero

2007-04-10T00:53:00.000-07:00

Location: beneath the old water tower at the Nickelodeon “old-west town”
City: Colton, CA
Participants: my brother and me

I am eleven years old, hiding behind the posts that hold up the water tower in this fake western town built around the old pizza joint that went under the name of Nickelodeon, and though I only started going when I was fourteen, in the dream I am eleven, and my brother is twelve, and he is the cowboy chasing me, the Indian who’s invaded his town, playing with me in such a typical way that was so atypical of our childhood together. This goes on for a while, and while we’re playing I notice we’re getting older—slowly, perhaps, for the dream, but considerably fast as we reach our teens and beyond as we continue playing.

There is no one else in town. The place was boarded up long before the dreams started and in my dream it was already locked behind the temporary fencing one rents to surround construction zones. But people have forgotten about this construction zone and it is, for once, exactly what it always purported to be: an abandoned, or at least declining western town. The pizza was never very good.

But the pizza’s not why we’re here. We are playing. Cowboys and Indians. Oddly enough, neither of us has a gun. We stay a while under the tower and then we start straying, just a little farther every time around the base—and that’s when we hear it. At first, it is a faint and distant sound, like a quick buzz going by our heads, followed by a hard slap onto the dusty ground a little farther down. I identify it first. I don’t know how old I am now, but I am considerably older than the eleven I was when this got started.

I tell my brother to run, that there’s someone shooting at us with a silencer. I have no idea why. It sounds almost ridiculous telling the story now, but someone’s playing target practice with us and we have to run. We begin to run away from the water tower, towards the arcade right next to the pizza place, but we don’t make it.

I don't know what happened to my brother, but as I’m running, I feel the aging process accelerating, though I don’t really notice it then; I remember it later. Suddenly, as I run away, I feel a sharp slap on the back of my head, and the warm sensation of blood running down my back. The force knocks me forward and I fall and bounce and fall again. My body now lies sideways, my face looking back towards the tower, and as I see the dust gently settle back down to the ground, I think “I am too young to die; I am only thirty-five.”

And as the dust settles, I die.

This is the only dream in which I have ever died. I had it semi-regularly, every few months, for years (about five in total) prior to my thirty-fifth birthday. On my birthday, I went alone at dusk, and then again with my best friend around eleven at night, to walk the lot. The buildings had been demolished; there was no sign of anything I remembered, except a couple of partial concrete slabs on which the building perhaps rested once. But I walked around; and I called out in my head for whatever it was that had summoned me there.

But nothing came.

Other than my best friend, I was alone with the moon and the stars and the wind. Not even a black cat crossed my path. The spell, now broken, I never had the dream again.

Three months after my birthday, my brother, only thirty-six at the time, died of a heart attack while playing basketball with the kids in the neighborhood. He was dead before he reached the hospital. When I reached the hospital, I had them call the local Catholic Church to ask that they send a priest to pray with us over his body. The priest sent word along these lines: “What’s the point? He’s dead already, and we only perform the last rites on the dying.”

He never came.

What does it all mean?

No longer a hero...

2007-04-02T15:12:00.000-07:00

There are few things one can hold in one’s hand that are more significant—at once more precious and more dangerous—than blood. There is nothing more tangible that means more to life—no! life itself!—or with more connotation of such significance. It is pure, holy or blue; it is utterly unclean, in traditions more ancient even than the language we might use to tell it and in the most modern sense of “bio-hazard.” From the time when one brother’s blood called out from the earth to its maker for justice to this morning’s blood sample I gave at the doctor’s, this life-force-fluid is all that keeps us from being a mere pile of ashes. To simpler minds it might have been the breath of God.

Looking at the little vial of my blood as the nurse took it away, I wondered what might become of it. Oh, I’m sure someone will try to grow things in it, look at it through a microscope, maybe even apply a little heat to it to see if it jumps out of the petrie dish. They’ll find it clean, I’m sure, but they won’t return it. It is gone forever, sacrificed for the sake of peace of mind, for the knowledge that the rest of me will be fine, well, good even. I wonder if they’ll put a purple stamp on my butt declaring me “CLEAN.” It is a sacrifice, like many made before—to the greater powers, seeking absolution yet again.

The greatest of all gifts we could give to God—the one thing we couldn’t take back—life. As is common with humans, the Aztecs took it to the extreme and we revile them for it. Medicine men who did not understand its power sought to find a balance in the body by drawing it, spilling it, hoping to take with it what ailed their patients.

I hate needles—deeply, madly, truly—ever since my father would drive me, a sickly child, to a doctor’s office every week to get a multi-vitamin complex shot that left my butt numb and my leg weak the rest of the day. Many years later, when I got married, my wife and I decided to give blood as our little contribution to the bettering of the world. It started when a kid at our high school got in a car accident and they asked us to give blood. We gave. We never stopped. In as brief an interval as was permitted by the blood-bank, we gave again, and again, and kept doing it past our divorce, still going together though we were not together, because some things ought to be done regardless, and that was a good thing. But then, I had to stop.

Men who have had sex with men since 1977 are not permitted to give blood—no exceptions.

My blood was clean. I could prove it. They were going to test it anyway. Still, it was unclean, unwanted. It was my mark of shame—and I, unwilling to lie for their benefit, simply stopped. A gift so rudely questioned is undeserved. Statistically speaking, they might have been right—but I am not a statistic. Responsible and clean, I still felt I had the mark of Cain on my forehead and resented it—hated it—and would not compound it by lying.

The greatest of all gifts we could receive from God—a chalice-full of holiest sharing—a promise of eternal life, given to us from His own hand one day soon to be celebrated all over the world:

this is my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant, that will be shed for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.

And though I still prayed, the church told me that I was more unclean than all the other sinners who prayed with me, and I stopped going. It is their right, their private club, their rule to make and I shall respect it. I disagree—my God, my Father, for reasons I’ve explained elsewhere ever-forgiving, can see past this “flaw” if such it be and see my heart is clean and my love no less pure than any other man’s—my blood just as red. There are many like me, seeking this God. One day, we will find him, at work, at school, on the bus on the way to a bar, eating a sandwich at Subway’s—there He will be, arms wide open, wounds healed, promising to love me like He asked my fellow men to love me but they failed.

And while I could not lie to keep giving the gift I thought I was giving, others have lied, continue to lie, and continue to give the same gift. Many—perhaps braver—men like me are at this very moment engaged in combat of one kind or another, fighting for a right denied us. It is odd how society in general accepts the product of our labor but denies the laborer behind such fruits. It reminds me of many such fights in the past and saddens me that this is one battle that needs to be fought over and over again on many fronts.

And now our fathers, our brothers, our children go forth into the desert out of which Abraham once came, to spill their blood as the price we pay for liberty. No nobler gift was ever given me, and though they don’t know my name, I shall forever be grateful to each and every single one of them. God bless them. God bless them all: black and white, Latinos and Asians, male and female, citizens and not, straight and gay, left-handed and not; God bless the short and the fat, the tall and the skinny. Their blood is just a precious to me, their gift the greatest I could ever want: the hope that one day my children’s lives will be peaceful. God bless their families.

Politics aside, I can see into their eyes and see their sincerity and their pride, to be the hands—most proud and direct part of all that we as a body do.

But just like one brother’s blood called out of that same sand to its creator clamoring for justice, so shall theirs—justice for their kind, justice for the man, justice for their country and the poor people all around them who suffer the hatred of the intolerant and powerful. Such justice is beyond any man’s power to grant.

May God grant us all the wisdom to recognize it when He sends it our way.

Laundromats are boring...

2007-03-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

Laundromats are boring. There’s nothing to do but laundry, and who wants to do that? They need to diversify their forms of available entertainment. Bookstores that put in coffeehouses are cool. Nobody knew Dave or Buster, but Dave & Buster? Everybody knows them! What I really need is a bookstore/coffeehouse/arcade/Laundromat with free wi-fi for customers. Now THAT would suit my pressing needs. I can read, wash, drink, AND blog simultaneously, concurrently—at the same time, even!

I blame the Chinese. If they hadn’t made all the goodies so readily available, so affordable, so user-friendly, and so upgradeable through the wonders of intrinsic obsolescence, how could I have become so accustomed to doing all these things, all the time, often for free? I know that many would suppose that it started with the Japanese in the 60’s, but it in fact stated with the Chinese about 60 centuries ago. They got the trend started—though. Now, I can safely blame the Americans. If there is something we are good at learning in this country is mass-marketing, mass-producing, mass-controlling, mass-consuming. Supersize me! Immediate gratification takes too long.

So, yeah… I’m done with my fourteen loads of laundry. I really wish it was an exaggeration, but it is the sad, sad truth. Gathering up my clothes, I decided to clean a bit and threw out two 45 gallon trash bags of clothes much too embarrassing to wear—be it because they’re worn, stained (don’t ask and I won’t tell), or the ever-present “what the hell was I thinking?” category. My daughter counted my shirts. I wear maybe 20 of the 75 in my closet on a regular basis. And I still buy more from time to time. No, I’m not bragging. I’m narrating to you the broadest characteristics of my symptoms so may appropriately diagnose me. Contact me and I’ll tell you where to send the medication. How cathartic retail therapy can be!

Chavez needs to send more natural gas my way. Dryers are just too expensive. 50 cents a load my derriere! They should be lucky to have me patronize this dump. And where the hell is my quad-venti white chocolate mocha with two honey packs and just a touch of whipped cream? ::a-la-Homer:: “whipped!”

There is this bar down in the city where they have 300 kinds of tequila. I went looking for it yesterday—in the quite-right thought that Wednesdays are most deserving of such treats, but no! I failed and ended up drinking lowly Mexican-Irish coffees. Here’s how you make one: start with a shot of whiskey, add a shot of Khalua, add a shot of tequila, add a shot of Bailey’s Irish Cream; if there’s any room on the cup, add coffee. Top with just a dollop of whipped cream. ::a-la-Homer:: “whipped!”

Ah!!! Self-indulgence! The ultimate drug…

AND I will smell downey-fresh!!! Hmmmmmmm…

Middle...

2007-03-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes…

We met one day, in anger, and she cried. Her life in endless turmoil, she taught me mine was still worth the living, and I took to that like a man should, my Middle child, half-grown, ever in need of a hug and a kiss, and a hand up the rough slope. She took my hand and thought that it was me helping her when in fact she saved my life more than once. And now she needs me again, but this time I cannot pull her up. She has her feet firmly on the ground and though it might shake, it will not move and she can walk on her own and find her way through dark, moonless night, out of a forest she loved in the day, but that can seem so scary in the dark.

She needs a light, and stars just don’t light the way.

You see, she’s fond of complicating her life; we all do—but she’s a master at it. She’s like the obstinate child who, no longer happy just to put the puzzle together, insists on doing so with all the pieces facing down. She’s the cinnamon in my coffee—hold the sugar.

One day, she will meet A Man, and he will hold her hand, but not her heart, and she will find wide roads for them to walk, cool breezes and tall trees, love like the love of friends, but not. She will find with him what she cannot find with other men far closer, a safe distance that will keep her from falling, falling into a pit, falling into love. It’s not that love is, in and of itself, a bad thing, but some people are not ours to love, and that is a terrible thing to find out. She will not have him. She’ll crave him, crave his breath, the sound of his breath, the beating of his heart on her cheek. She and he will want nothing but that, but love refuses to be “nothing but that” and it grows—oh! vaster than empires, but more slow.

And there will I be, to keep her tears from hitting the ground, because one ought never to hold them back, but the ground is undeserving. I will hold them in my hand till they, like sighs and prayers float away into the distant clouds, bright and white, distant , incorporeal and free—foreign.

One cold and distant night we’ll embrace each other warmly under the Portland sky and cry together for what might not yet have happened, but must. And it must, oh child! It must. At the end of the day, the sun sets—Yehoshua doesn’t live here anymore.

And she whose name we won’t say now will not say thanks—and I won’t say thanks—and the world will go on just like it always does, from west to east, so fast we cannot feel it.

And in the dark, I’ll call her name. I might not be able to go into that forest and take her out, but I can cry into the dark her name, only her name, over and over.

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay.

You’ll need no light to find your way. Wherever you come out, I’ll be there.

The God We Trust

2007-03-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

The god we trust was once a vengeful creature, even spiteful, angry and strong. He was a man like men could never be. Most artful creator, merciless destroyer, gentle and tender, fierce and adamant—not really so different from us that we might not worship him.

And then he changed.

Where once he willingly held a grudge for forty years, he came to give (willingly and lovingly) for thirty-three what I could not give for a second for the sake of others: his child. He was the kind of mother I can never dream to be. He was the father my father taught me in brief glimpses is out there—up there, beyond—the kind of father I would love to be.

One day, I hope to leave a little note in the last wall that’s left of the last place I know he lived, this god of mine, and I will ask a single question. Or maybe I will say a single word. I don’t know. I suspect such a senseless act can hardly be anticipated—full of meaning but what substance? A moment in time, dedicated not to him but to me—a selfish act of a desperate man hoping a greater purpose will absolve all the wrong choices I have so painstakingly taken through my life. Absolve me. For history can absolve no man.

One day, I hope to walk into a garden where that child he gave me—gave us—found just how weak human resolve can be. And perhaps, full of resolve, I’ll dare to pray for my own children. He’ll still do what he wishes—I suspect that’s one thing he has left from the old days.

One day, the god we trust changed.

One cold spring night, in a far-flung corner of the world nearly forgotten by men of sense, the god who told us he was a jealous god only to change it later—only to send word for us to love one another like he’d sent one to love us—that god I could never have loved became just like me—he had a son.

And that has made all the difference.

The end is near...

2007-03-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

I have generally been too selfish to write about the really important things in life... and this is no different. From my perspective, I get to see a slightly larger picture of the political situation in which the United States has placed itself for purely self-preserving reasons. True, many Americans are in the same boat—having come from abroad, or keeping an open mind to the interests of other people. Many do so for equally self-serving reasons: economic, political, social, familial, &c, &c.

From where I sit, politics in the Unites States seems like the proverbial football game played between the 49-yard lines. Republicans, Democrats, you all look alike to me. On a more personal level: donkeys or elephants? Couldn't you at least pick American animals? That said, there is at least one thing I find commendable: your ability to find the slightest differentiating characteristic and magnify it beyond measure or proportion to give yourselves a sense of common identity—a dichotomy of sorts—to which you cling with the same fervent mindlessness as do football fanatics, bodies covered completely in paint, beer in hand, screaming senselessly, craving victory more than sense and forgetting all about fairness. This is commendable because it makes you accessible; this is exactly what happens the world over in soccer or that thing the British play that looks like baseball :-) We are all crazy. We are all fanatics. This is good. It gives the rest of the world a bit of hope you will one day realize the sun does set on your empire—like every other empire before.

And still, I cannot help but think the world would be a better place without George’s finger on the button. I give him this: when he speaks, I sincerely believe he honestly believes he’s being truthful, honest, and as complete as is advisable for the president of the United States. This is why I have no reservations when I say that I am in opposition to his point of view; his view is clear, and in my view, sufficiently wrong to merit redirecting the country’s efforts in a direction less destructive, less self-destructive, less mutually destructive. He is not evil, as some would say. He is not stupid, as many have told me. He is most assuredly not ineffectual.

He is just a man who should know better.

Cage Song

2007-03-24T21:44:00.000-07:00

"...Esta cobardia de mi amor por ella

hace que la vea igual que una estrella,

tan lejos, tan lejos en la inmensidad

que no espero nunca poderla alcanzar..."

I am drunk, so I will go ahead and skip the bullshit and tell it, for once, just like it is.

I had Robin. Really, I did. And I might still have her if I had the balls to do away with my dignity, but my dignity won and I don’t have Robin anymore.

I had Ricardo, and the same thing happened, though in a different way.

Then I had Roy.

He is the song I never sang. His voice is like the beacon that leads you safely to the harbor in a storm. But his heart was never mine, and I cannot have a body whose heart I cannot hold. I cannot have a mind whose soul escapes me, and his soul will only ever be his. I am proud of him, for being so independent, so willing to be alone in a world that never will let him be.

I know why the caged bird sings.

It is the same song that Van Gogh sang once, to a whore in a strange town, in a language foreign both to him and to his heart. He was insane, which I think is mostly a good thing. Shakespeare wrote once of a man whose story this isn't, and said that it he was mad and that "pity 'tis 'tis true." I disagree...

An ear is not worth enough, and an earlobe is just a gesture. He can have mine whenever he wants—a pound of flesh, even, more if he wants, or less…

He can have my heart.

He could have my soul, but he rejected it. And now I wait for him who might deserve it.

But time goes by so slowly…

But time can't do too much...

and god—bless my heart—won’t do it despite my most desperate pleas...

More than anything, more than ANYTHING, all I want is for this hunger for nothing but that the hunger go away—to go away.

Peace! Wherefore art thou?

All I want is peace... a little peace—nothing but silence in the night... a starry, starry night—no longer full of sound and fury—

A view to a kill…

2007-03-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

At first, it was just because I was bored, waiting in line for a pool table, with little to do, so I lit up a cigarette and smoke it slowly, haltingly, hesitantly, enjoying the momentary rush, the momentary dizziness, the momentary distraction it provided me, faster than the drink and shorter-lived. I had not smoked since I was thirteen, when I stole a cigarette out of my father’s pack of Winstons, only to cough uncontrollably when I tried to smoke it—wondering why anyone on earth would do such a crazy thing. But by the time I got to the bar, my lungs (much like everything else about me) were harder, harsher, jaded, more used to abuse. And alcohol has a way to dull the edge of reason and by God I was bored. So I smoked.

Soon, it became a sometime thing, then an often thing, then more so. I blame Patty. She smoked; she was the only one who smoked and I felt sorry that she stood by the tree outside our office, smoking by herself months now, ever only one, at lunch, Monday through Friday—and when we went out to drink. Much unlike St. Sir Thomas Moore, I sold my soul for friendship and went out to smoke with her—and thus the sun shone through my smoke for the first time in over a year—ever, really.

A year later she got married to Eli and stopped smoking. Damn her! Thereafter, I stood out by the tree by myself, smoking one and sometimes two during lunch, Monday through Friday, but not on weekends, except when we went out. But things do change and the lungs, faithful servants, quickly get used to the abuse and signal subtly that they can take on more, so I gave them more. At first, it was one or two on the way home, and then more, and then more, and then more.

Today, I finished a pack I bought Monday night on my way home from work. They’ve held steady at about $4.50 a pack for quite some time now, so my wallet doesn’t much complain—though my son (ever so much smarter than his dad) did the math and it seems like a veritable ton of money I’m burning ten times a day. I do make it a point to buy two cartons when I go to Mexico, since I’m already there, and to save money. Oddly, those last longer than the ones I buy here—perhaps they’re harsher, or seemingly more precious for coming from so far away. Either way, those two cartons last what three might last had I bought them here. I should buy them there more often. They’re cheaper, too.

Last year, I went to Seattle on vacation, seeking a dark, depressive, outright suicidal place where I could feel at home, full of blustery days and brooding moods, but no! The sun shone the entire time—I swear it was sunny at 10 p.m. It never dipped below 70 degrees and those damned Seattle people just thanked me for bringing the California weather with me. And did I forget to mention it rained the day before and the day after I was there? God does work in mysterious, often-infuriating ways.

While in Seattle, I drove up to Vancouver, just to say I’d been there. It’s a very pretty city, and though I have often said I might want to live in Seattle, I seriously now think I might prefer to live in Vancouver instead. It seemed a bit sleepy, after growing up here in Los Angeles—and I’m sure more so in comparison to the other many cities that boast of Chinese take-out at 2 a.m.

Not five minutes from parking, while walking through the beautiful city of Vancouver, two people came up to me and asked if I was looking for a cannabis café. WTF? Do I look like a druggie? Leave me alone, people, alone to pretend you have it perfect there, alone to admire the cleanliness of your streets and the crispness of your air and think that perhaps, just perhaps there is a place where Rockwell might still want to live.

A homeless woman, out on the corner handing out flyers to some local event, asked me for a cigarette. I gave it to her, of course—one of the Mexican ones in my pocket at the time. I lit hers and lit one for me as well. We talked a while. That’s how I know she’s homeless. She told me cigarettes there are about $6 American for a pack. Go figure! I paid $1.50 American for the pack we were enjoying. I looked at the pack wondering how it could be the same thing, packed in the same way, printed on the same paper with very similar ink could vary so much in price only a couple thousand miles away. Handing her the rest of the pack, I thanked her for the conversation, and walked over to Starbucks where I paid about the same for a cup of White Chocolate Mocha as I do in Los Angeles and did in Seattle.

Back to the present—in this Starbucks, and to cigarettes. I need one now. It’s been a full hour since I had one and not my lungs but my mind asks—nay!—craves one. It’s all in my head.

Yesterday, one of my coworkers told me his dad was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer. Inoperable. Incurable. Inexplicable, as he has never smoked in his entire life. He’s chosen not to fight it—he’s 82 and claims to have lived a full life already. Personally, I think my life would take ages to be complete. So many lives I could imagine—and did just right now. Schrödinger would be proud. But he’s given up, I guess, and nothing kills faster than that.

Well, God does. But let’s not blaspheme.

He’s far too creative for that.

It's just a jump to the left...

2007-03-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

It’s morning again, like a bucket of cold water unceremoniously thrown on me by impatient hikers eager to get going, but not because it’s cold but because it’s sudden, and harsh—a scream in the dark. Dad is home again, and mom is getting ready to go to work. Both tired, both sick of the life this new life has brought and I, half-thief who took with mine the meaning off theirs, simmer in the guilt under a quilt made by a third-grader and taken to Goodwill to save her soul. This is the worst time of the day, when both are home and when both have just enough energy to fight and memories long like the anchor’s chain, and just as heavy. They are weary travelers, I tell myself, in a quest they did not choose and whose virtue left them long ago. Your children’s lives are only precious when they’re threatened.

San Jose is a cold place—even in the heat of the summer. Ten times more people were murdered within ten miles of our apartment than I kissed the year we lived there. Refuge though it might have been from the unwelcoming, newly-Republican world of the “me generation”, that apartment was more a cave where I could hide in darkness even from its other occupants, all related to me by sheer force of happenstance and not a one whom, at the time, I might have chosen for my own. I sought escape. In the end, the sissy in me wanted a hug, but the man who would one day emerge from the ashes could not accept the weakness of such needs and twisted my emotions to my loins. Lacking any normal output for such energies, I hid behind—what did I hide behind? I cannot remember. By forgetting every day, the new one seemed less hopeless.

Days upon days of the same: accusations, recriminations, arguments, fights, long escapes that lead only to further accusations. The bus was full of strangers, but they were quiet, and they smiled, and when I pretended I didn’t know where I was going, they pretended they hadn’t told me just a few days before which one was my stop. And there was that strange place on the way: a museum? a temple? a sanctuary for the remnants of the old Egyptian empire now hiding in San Jose, perhaps. Who knew to what gods such creatures prayed? Who knew what strange hungers afflicted them that could be satisfied in such a quiet neighborhood? And then, at last, The School. That was the end of the line.

My parents always thought me smart, articulate, educated beyond what might be genetically anticipated. What they failed to see was that it was perfectly understandable when seen in the light of life at home. Screams cannot be heard 20,000 leagues under the sea. Who can notice one extra bottle breaking against a wall in the War of the Worlds? No pain I felt could match the sense of loss one must feel witnessing the end of the world from the relative safety of The Time Machine. Lost in books, I was the Invisible Man. Until I was my own.

When I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich. Even if I was only fourteen.

But that is another story.

I remember when this whole thing began...

2007-02-27T23:27:00.000-08:00

... no talk of G-d then, we called you a man...

I miss my faith.

There was a time when I would blindly have acepted faith on its own terms. It wasn't merely a childish thing: it was perhaps the size of a mere grain of mustard, but I truly believe a mountain might have moved upon my simple request. Not now. Not anymore.

Sometimes I blame this country. I think it was the sudden change of life that brought in doubt and then, through shame, all that follows.

Sometimes I blame my father. His sins shine oh so brightly upon my forehead--my face is his face. I remember every sin I never did repent, so many... so very, very many.

It's not like I don't believe. It's not like I'm some sort of agnostic. I believe, with every fiber in my mortal heart.

And still, I miss my faith. I left it somewhere in my messy room. Perhaps I left it in the church where a priest said he couldn't come pray over my dead brother's body, because what's the point--he was already dead. Perhaps I left it in the bed where I lay, right before surgery, when the priest told me I would go to hell for marrying a Baptist in a non-Catholic church. Perhaps I left it in the ground where we buried my father--30 feet away from a statue of St. Judas, not six months after I lit a candle asking for his help. Perhaps I left it in the house my father abandoned just to save my life 24 years ago, after dedicating his life to the cause that drove him out.

Perhaps G-d just took it away.

I don't know. I never know... not anymore.

I miss my faith.

Raining in L.A.

2007-02-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

Whoddathunk? It's raining in L.A. Well, it's not really raining; it's drizzling seriously, though, more than normal. But what is normal in Los Angeles?

As we prepare for the quasi-fantastic remaking of the universe that the Oscars are, we'll see plenty of "important" people pretending they care about the planet by showing up in hybrid cars, or pretending they care about their fellow citizens by complaining about politics, politicians and what they do for a living, or just looking absolutely fabulous in stuff I'll never be able to afford--yes, I'm jealous.

So I'm driving through, all the way to San Pedro, to spend the night in a boat, on the water, in the rain. It'll be a nightmare, full of angry people, careless people, distracted people, on poor roads, in fast cars. But these are dangers I can look for and expect, dangers I can guard against and for whose arrival--when they come--I can at least partially accept responsibility as (if nothing more) a willing participant who entered the arena knowing well the possibility of total catastrophe. Can I say the same of the planet when it fails becuase I smoked, kept a light on too long, drove a few miles too far? Can I say the same of the consequences of those politicians' actions? Where does my responsibility end there?

And what about all those bad movies I pay good money to go see? Am I responsible for them, too?

It is moments like this that make me want to stay home, have crackers and cheese, and drink some riesling.

Almafuerte

2007-02-20T21:24:00.000-08:00

¡Avanti!
Si te postran diez veces, te levantas
otras diez, otras cien, otras quinientas:
no han de ser tus caídas tan violentas
ni tampoco, por ley, han de ser tantas.
Con el hambre genial con que las plantas
asimilan el humus avarientas,
deglutiendo el rencor de las afrentas
se formaron los santos y las santas.
Obsesión casi asnal, para ser fuerte,
nada más necesita la criatura,
y en cualquier infeliz se me figura
que se mellan los garfios de la suerte...
¡Todos los incurables tienen cura
cinco segundos antes de su muerte!

¡Piu Avanti!
No te des por vencido, ni aun vencido,
no te sientas esclavo, ni aun esclavo;
trémulo de pavor, piénsate bravo,
y arremete feroz, ya mal herido.
Ten el tesón del clavo enmohecido
que ya viejo y ruin, vuelve a ser clavo;
no la cobarde estupidez del pavo
que amaina su plumaje al primer ruido.
Procede como Dios que nunca llora;
o como Lucifer, que nunca reza;
o como el robledal, cuya grandeza
necesita del agua y no la implora...
Que muerda y vocifere vengadora,
ya rodando en el polvo, tu cabeza!

¡Molto piu Avanti!
Los que vierten sus lágrimas amantes
sobre las penas que no son sus penas;
los que olvidan el son de sus cadenas
para limar las de los otros antes;
Los que van por el mundo delirantes
repartiendo su amor a manos llenas,
caen, bajo el peso de sus obras buenas,
sucios, enfermos, trágicos,... ¡sobrantes!
¡Ah! ¡Nunca quieras remediar entuertos!
¡nunca sigas impulsos compasivos!
¡ten los garfios del Odio siempre activos
los ojos del juez siempre despiertos!
¡Y al echarte en la caja de los muertos,
menosprecia los llantos de los vivos!

¡Molto piu Avanti ancora!
El mundo miserable es un estrado
donde todo es estólido y fingido,
donde cada anfitrión guarda escondido
su verdadero ser, tras el tocado:
No digas tu verdad ni al mas amado,
no demuestres temor ni al mas temido,
no creas que jamás te hayan querido
por mas besos de amor que te hayan dado.
Mira como la nieve se deslíe
sin que apostrofe al sol su labio yerto,
cómo ansia las nubes el desierto
sin que a ninguno su ansiedad confíe...
¡Trema como el infierno, pero rie!
¡Vive la vida plena, pero muerto!

¡Moltíssimo piu Avanti ancora!
Si en vez de las estúpidas panteras
y los férreos estúpidos leones,
encerrasen dos flacos mocetones
en esa frágil cárcel de las fieras,
No habrían de yacer noches enteras
en el blando pajar de sus colchones,
sin esperanzas ya, sin reacciones
lo mismo que dos plácidos horteras;
Cual Napoleones pensativos, graves,
no como el tigre sanguinario y maula,
escrutarían palmo a palmo su aula,
buscando las rendijas, no las llaves...
¡Seas el que tú seas, ya lo sabes:
a escrutar las rendijas de tu jaula!

Breakfast, again.

2007-02-19T17:29:00.000-08:00

Out the window, I see them coming. They’re a family of American Indians. The father walks up front, wearing a grave but stoic look that belies years of consternation and perhaps even frustration, lines well-worn into the flesh tanned too much by long desert days. A little on the heavy side, his body is like a thing he needs to handle, deliberately and carefully, each step well-measured, a slight wobble as he walks. His clothes fit on him like those sheets people put on furniture they don’t plan to use for a long time, forgotten in a room they hardly enter. He is worn and dusty.

Holding open the door, he lets the little wife come in. Though old herself, she’s what racist people like me might think would become of Pocahontas—a thing of beauty indeed. She too is old and tired, but her face has finer lines, a gentler droop to the extra skin that nature gives us as we age, and eyes that—silently—speak of endless mornings. It’s a mother’s work to keep the family together and it shows. She’s herding in the children behind her with nothing but a look and a slight frown. Her beaded outfit makes the slightest rustling sound as she walks past me, turning her head only a little to make sure the kids are coming close behind her.

The kids are coming close behind her. There are two of them. They, too, bring up my long-held racist preconceptions of what an American Indian kid should look like. I compare them in my mind to kids of similar age where I come from. Neither is a child, either—they’re very much into their late teens, precisely when people start to think they’re not kids anymore, despite their mother’s stern looks as they burst into giggles when a pretty girl walks by. I remember the “Indian” kids where I grew up, usually poor and neglected, dressed in torn clothes, selling stuff at car windows when they stopped moving. Oddly enough, in my memory they look now just like all the other kids, just like my kids, and I wonder how a culture made all of brown people figure out the intricacies of racism.

The two kids walking into Carrows have full heads of long hair, straight and black, really shiny, and I find myself a little jealous. The younger one wears it untied, draped over his back like a cape. He’s thin and has about him an air of rebellion—well within bounds I would say, as mom keeps a good eye on him. A worn Metallica t-shirt, blue jeans held close to his thin body by a belt with a big shiny buckle and the obligatory boots that look a little out of place. His face is way too gentle for the look; his skin is just too smooth and his smile far to ready to come out. He blushes.

His older brother is heavier, though hardly fat. He wears the typical t-shirt over jeans that hang a little too low, and then the worn canvas shoes every kid in this country owns these days—I should have bought into that company in the 80’s, darn it! Or was that too late already? He ties his hair tightly with a black thing like my daughter wears—a fancy rubber band. His face is less perfect than his brother’s, and I wonder if perhaps I have misjudged their ages and this one’s just going through puberty while the other isn’t. Or perhaps this is a family like mine, and this kid plays my part while the younger one plays the part of my older brother, whose smooth skin always got compliments from the older women in the family while mine went conspicuously unmentioned. Maybe because I am projecting, I ascribe to this one all my failings and to the other one my dead brother’s virtues. It is at the moment I find I like the younger one better—but before I get a chance to delve into my own self-hatred—that breakfast shows up and I have to stop typing this.

Barstow.

2007-02-18T22:37:00.000-08:00

They say that god built the world in seven days—and looking around, I think it shows. But seriously (I love it when people say that, like they just said something funny), have you ever been to Barstow? I’m sitting here now, at Carrows, having breakfast, waiting for my “friend” to get ready (only gay men take longer than women to get ready, and that be a long, long time), so I thought I’d write another little entry into my would-be-blog. I love it when people say “friend” like we don’t all know just what that means.

Barstow is a town stuck in the 50’s, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. I mean that it looks like the last new construction was supervised by Truman. Even new buildings look aged. The air is dry, the horizon impossibly far away, the roofs are scratched as though by the sandy claws of desert life’s long neglect. Only the cars show any change from my grandma’s time. Great-grandma, really, who drove by here in the 30’s on her trip from nowhere to a nowhere farther still. I wonder how she saw it then. Was it already tired of living, going through the day under the heat of the sun—every day with no greater purpose than to reach tomorrow?

Was it already beaten?

I’m sure there are plenty of numbers to show how wrong I am, numbers that show increase in industry, new construction, the lively exchange of on-going commerce. I’m sure there are numbers to show why this is a vibrant little town all on its own. But I speak not of numbers, but the dragging feet of people walking slowly and aimlessly on the street, the fact that all the energy one sees is only transitory. It seems the median age is in the upper 40’s, not a problem in and of itself, but where are the young ones?

When did these people lose their hope?

Even in other dilapidated towns I’ve felt a sense of struggle in the face of adversity. Here, there’s a resignation with their fate, like the drowning man who, tired to the end of his breaths, gives up and sees the light grow dimmer as he sinks. One cannot help but wonder what they’re doing to change this. What’s next? How can they just sit here and let the desert swallow them?

I, too, am only going through. On the way to Victorville. Now there’s a town that will grow to engulf this town. Only 35 miles or so away, it is on the move. There’s construction everywhere, new people, fresh paint, newly-paved roads. And a million miles of desert for them to grow into. Perhaps that was Barstow way back when. And when I leave, it will still be here, waiting to one day become a tiny little piece of the new, great metropolis in the desert. Perhaps the future is not in growing, but merely surviving, and what shape such survival takes is immaterial when compared to the oblivion of disappearance. Perhaps just living is enough.

But not to me.

Always Coming Home...

2007-02-15T20:18:00.000-08:00

“Dad, I’m the only person you know who likes the way you drive,” he says, almost smiling, almost serious, looking hesitantly up to make sure I’m taking the comment as a compliment and not criticism. It is three o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun makes this January 13th feel like a Fourth of July, and the smell of gasoline adds a bit to the barbeque feeling. It is, in any case, a holiday for us, a get-away weekend in Tijuana, just the two of us. I smile and tell him it takes a while to drive well fast and that he should start slow and learn how before he tries to do it quickly. Of speed, like most things excessive, I tell both of my kids they can decide just how much is too much on their own, once they’re old enough and mature enough to make such decisions—for the time being, it’s just a matter of getting older. Once they’re older, the list includes other benchmarks of maturity, including a decent education, a modicum of demonstrated intelligence, and some stability—like getting and holding a job.

It’s true. I have become my father.

I am both cool and mildly permissive, which they like; I am a clean slate on which they can experiment new styles; I am a sounding board for their deepest, darkest secrets, as I am very much committed to their well-being, but detached enough by simply not living with them that I can contribute a somewhat-objective point of view. And G-d knows I can bite my tongue when I don’t like what they decide. Childhood is, after all, the time to get the scrapes and cuts and black eyes and (may He in His mercy please forbid) broken bones. But I am also sometimes irascible and often simply incomprehensible and many times just crazy. I come from a world very much different from theirs and things can get lost in translation.

So speed is my translator right now—and shopping. My son and I go fast—no, really, fast!—and my daughter and I spend quality time picking out shoes—and I mean LOTS of it. I guess she does have a little advantage in a gay father. At the very least, I can put a good outfit together. It’s harder for him, but then he was always the mature one (and I’m comparing him to me, not to her). It is a good thing I’m equally at ease working on the car, or working on the computer with him hunting down all the goodies we’re going to put in the car.

In the end, I guess, you live your life the best way that you can and pray to G-d your children will forgive you—no matter what you do, they’ll find fault in it, mostly because you failed to prove you were superman, or Jesus Christ himself. I can’t walk on water—I tried! When I was eight, after reading the Bible, I tried out the pool and sank like a stone—albeit a thin, well-shaped stone. Still, I've measured their lives out in sighs and tears, and gasps and fears. Their hopes have been my dreams and their fears my nightmares. Their dreams have been my goals and I have worked my fingers to the bone to get them. They're mine, darn it! Mine and only mine! Until they're only theirs—and then I'll be content to rest down in the ground.

Oh, and another thing, one that helps me more than most anything else with my children… I am the only person they know with a shorter attention span. I am guaranteed to be fun—in short spurts when I concentrate really hard… but I get bored really easily… and this is long and I am done… and there’s coffee to be had… there’s gotta be a starbucks within fifty miles… remind me to write the rest of this when I come back.

Places I might never go...

2006-12-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

I don't think I'll ever see the great wall of China--and though less rich, I doubt my life will be any less complete for it. But I will miss not hearing the voices, seeing the eyes, touching the people who live there daily, cleaning, watering the plants, selling trinkets and just being local. Likewise, I think, I could do without the famous French intolerance for Americans, though I could easily pass for a foreigner--I do here all my life. But I would like a little coffee and a small, sweet pastry as I walk beneath, behind, around the tower or the museum.

They walk through the day, half-incorporeal, like the ghosts that night forgot behind; their eyes are blank, blind to anything but the spot they've convinced themselves is their destination even though their feet move with no greater urgency, energy or deliberation than their eyes might show.

Many a moon ago, I stood by the Dor0thy Chandler Pavillion looking at a playbill showing Raul Julia as Don Quixote, in Man of La Mancha. I remember being poor and adding in my head the money I had and subtracting all the obligations I still had to meet--and wondering why the latter were so much more than the former. Counting my pennies, I walked away. I missed the play. Within a year or so, he was dead, never again to sing of sacred basins and ghostly loves of things that might have been...

I want to stand on the sand at sunset--the sun won't rise over the Pacific--even if I can't hear the choir of angels. I wonder if the angels sing on the wuthering heights--though I would never hear them there.

Yesterday, I learned I can go home again. Understandably, this terrified me. I will have to think on this a while before doing anything about it.

In the meantime, I hope you all are well wherever you are, that you had a happy hannukah, and have a merry christmas, and that when the year ends it brings a bigger, better, more successful one, full of happiness and health, of good fortune and clear sailing days.

Be good.

Be well.

Mountains o' things

2006-10-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

The life I've always wanted
I guess I'll never have
I'll be working for somebody else
Until I'm in my grave
I'll be dreaming of a life of ease
And mountains Oh mountains o' things
To have a big expensive car
Drag my furs on the ground
And have a maid that I can tell
To bring me anything
Everyone will look at me with envy and with greed
I'll revel in their attention
And mountains Oh mountains o' things
Sweet lazy life
Champagne and caviar
I hope you'll come and find me
Cause you know who we are
Those who deserve the best in life
And know what money's worth
And those whose sole misfortune
Was having mountains o' nothing at birth
Oh they tell me
There's still time to save my soul
They tell me
Renounce all
Renounce all those material things you gained by
Exploiting other human beings
Consume more than you need
This is the dream
Make you pauper
Or make you queen
I won't die lonely
I'll have it all prearranged
A grave that's deep and wide enough
For me and all my mountains o' things
Oh they tell me
There's still time to save my soul
They tell me
Renounce all
Renounce all those material things you gained by
Exploiting other human beings
Mostly I feel lonely
Good good people are
Good people are only
My stepping stones
It's gonna take all my mountains o' things
To surround me
Keep all my enemies away
Keep my sadness and loneliness at bay
The life I've always wanted
I guess I'll never have
I'll be working for somebody else
Until I'm in my grave
I'll be dreaming of a life of ease
And mountains Oh mountains o' things
I'll be dreaming, dreaming... Dreaming...

tracy chapman

A mitad del camino de la vida...

2006-10-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

Thus began Dante one of the best books I've ever read.

Something happens when we get to that cloudy area called the middle.

As my birthday approaches, I realize I'm nearly there.

And as so many before me, I reached a crisis.

So I got a toy. How typical.

This isn't the actual one, but mine looks just the same.

I didn't want to be anybody's aunt.

Volver

2006-10-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

Has it really been since August?

I didn't realize I was this busy, but I must be, to have so heartlessly forgotten to come by and say hello. Perhaps I've finally run out of stories. Perhaps--at last--I'm speechless.

Or maybe it's all true: I am driven only by whim and lust and all the excitement's gone. Left to my own devices, am I taciturn, somnolent, and trite?

Where hath that spark now gone that once lighted my way to fresher, wilder grounds? Where is the crisp, cool smell of morning? The night has taken hold of my heart and even against the dark sky, darker clouds obscure what little light the stars might give. And already having leaned toward darker tastes, the shroud of anonimity brought by moonless autumn nights lets me walk down desolate streets in the valley, smoking and humming tonelessly tunes only I any longer recognize of all those whom I have known who still live. The dead! They took my songs.

Or maybe it is this well down which I went looking for wishes--only to find slimy toads.

These are the days we go through--when we really feel the "human condition" for which only humans would feel sorrow. Most other creatures seem just happy to be alive. And much like clouds and rainbows, these days pass--into nights that lead to newer days.

And all our days have lighted fools...

I should be a fool! Happy, friendly, outgoing, dancing till my legs can't hold me. I should chat it up with perfect strangers on the bus I now never take because it is beneath me. What putrid drivel! Were I but man enough to know I cannot be an island entirely to myself, I would be far wiser and less strong--and I would make a fool of myself everyday for a bit. No need to cry all the tears of the day in two minutes on your bed--they happily come as they are needed. No need for stiff upper lips that feel so frigid, lifeless and unloving when other lips should come looking for a kiss. Ne'er would I be afraid to hold another hand outstretched to grasp mine own only to keep mine clean.

No.

I should be like a child, who sees with true enthusiasm as genuinely new every moment that his eyes can manage to stave off that fiend: sleep--and not hiding in the cave I call a skull in the darkness of my dreams. I should run barefoot on hot sand, suffering the pain only because I can almost already feel the cool, salty water as it jumps and crashes and dances and flies just on the other side. I should be free of me! A stranger in a strange land seeking just to steal a quick, furtive smile from a shy lad or lass as I whistle past, my smile the beacon that shall guide their own unto the world.

I should be green like the grass; white like the puffy cottonballs the wind shapes into all kinds of things like I used to do to my father's shaving cream; blue, blue! I should be blue like the air all in between... strong, and gentle; cool, and intimate; and there, always there, never gone.

THAT, I should be: permanent. I should be constant.

Or I may simply be a single drop of rain.

Libre

2006-08-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

With all the socio-political implications this might have in this day and age, here's a song from my dad's time... a long, long time ago:

Tiene casi veinte años y ya está cansado de soñar,
pero tras la frontera está su hogar, su mundo, su ciudad.
Piensa que la alambrada sólo es un trozo de metal,
algo que nunca puede detener sus ansias de volar.
Libre, como el sol cuando amanece, yo soy libre como el mar...
Libre, como el ave que escapó de su prisión y puede, al fin, volar...
Libre, como el viento que recoge mi lamento y mi pesar,
camino sin cesar detrás de la verdad y sabré lo que es,
al fin, la libertad.

Con su amor por bandera se marchó cantando una canción,
marchaba tan feliz que no escuchó la voz que le llamó,
y tendido en el suelo se quedó sonriendo y sin hablar,
sobre su pecho flores carmesí, brotaban sin cesar...
Libre, como el sol cuando amanece, yo soy libre como el mar...
Libre, como el ave que escapó de su prisión y puede, al fin, volar...
Libre, como el viento que recoge mi lamento y mi pesar,
camino sin cesar detrás de la verdad y sabré lo que es,
al fin, la libertad.

Libre, como el sol cuando amanece, yo soy libre como el mar...
Libre, como el ave que escapó de su prisión y puede, al fin, volar...
Libre, como el viento que recoge mi lamento y mi pesar,
camino sin cesar detrás de la verdad y sabré lo que es,
al fin, la libertad.

Nino Bravo

Unchained, a melody

2006-07-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

so we got our hot dogs on the way in and walked around the lumber section, chatting randomly about the stuff on the shelves, the poor lighting in the store, the hot (or not-so-hot) employees, and all that we had missed in a few months of chatting--having been so busy we hadn't had a chance to catch up; I took it like a much-needed confession, sans the "bless me father" and the guilt.

i talked about carlos, who's name isn't carlos, my jewish boyfriend who got me eating kosher, and who is now my dearest friend, but not my boyfriend, and whose company i dearly miss even in these hot and humid summer nights. i told the story of how i broke his television accidentally and how we fixed his couch and how i still have a toothbrush by his sink--one i never get to use. i talked about ricardo, who's now moved somewhere in the middle of the country, who called just a couple of months ago and confessed his undying love to me as he told me of his friend's indiscretions and showed me again why it is we're not together--all with just a word. i talked about andrew and his boyfriend, and the crazy drinks they make, and how they sit in front of a blank t.v. watching xm-on-directv, which is odd because they have no video and so you just sit there watching a blank t.v., and how much fun that can be because you get to talking and before you know it you're deep in conversation and i hope george bush's ears are ringing mightily because there are very few conservative gay men in silverlake, and none of them watch xm-on-directv--at least not with me.

i talked of jose, who promises to be another ricardo, full of love and friendship, with no papers, no car, a lowly job and little promise of staying in the country longer than this blog has lived, and how i cannot get myself to hold him accountable for all the pain others have caused, so here i go headlong into a love i know better than to feel, thinking i'm crazy for loving just the feeling of falling in love and being willing to suffer the pain of having to get over it afterwards bacause in the end how can you have mountains without valleys, canyons and all the other great geological irregularities that make a map that much more fun?

i talked of work, and how busy we are, and how i love working there not because the work is any easier, but rather because everybody is so much fun to work with, and how we're making so much money we're bound to have a great christmas season... and that, of course brought me to the possibility of getting a new car and how i test drove the 350z convertible and just how fast the darned thing is. but i think i am too old and too big for such a little car, so i'm looking at the c70, though it might look like someone's aunt's car. what the hell, i'll be the aunt. and the hell do they put in those hotdogs? they're so tasty! but wait! don't tell me, "everything else"... whatever parts of the cow have no name and some i'd rather not name. Thank goodness for hebrew national. They answer to a higher authority.

we walked up and down the aisles, looking at the stuff that we might buy but wouldn't, because after all we were there just for the hotdogs and boy those were so good! by the time we got to the paint i was terribly confused as to what i really wanted to do with my room and made a mental note to watch a few more episodes of trading spaces before spending any money, as i might just want to go with a jungle theme instead of the slightly-overly-stuffy architectural digest take on the lincoln bedroom, though i highly suspect that room sees more action on a regular basis than mine does--and why don't they serve beer at home-improvement stores? i mean, that's what most guys drink when working with power tools.

the lighting aisle is way too hot. i don't care how cute the guy is that works it--and boy does he work it--i won't stay there a moment longer than it takes to pick a decent ceiling fan, you know the kind, the cabana-style, bungalo-on-malibu, i-found-it-at-a-good-will-store, $300 kind. and then we found we'd mostly run out of aisles and stood in line for half an hour, just to find the hot dog guy had left before we made it back outside, and i had little else to talk about... and just when we got outside i got a call from my friend in san pedro, who just bought the boat and i got invited to a weekend party and a three-hour tour of the bay! what to wear? what to wear?

i hate these hot summer days... oh but those hot summer nights...

Annabel Lee

2006-07-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

e. a. poe

Del Norte

2006-04-13T16:52:00.000-07:00

What is the ultimate purpose of securing our southern borders?

I do not believe terrorism really plays an important part. No terrorist has ever been found who entered through Mexico. However, at least two were caught coming in from Canada, most flew in with visas, and a couple were born and raised here. By these facts, we should build the wall between us and Canada first.

I think the point is economics. Allegedly, there are 12 million illegal people siphoning medical care, education, and other services our incredibly generous, socialist government hands out to all who are in need. The problem is not that they get the services, but that we do not have enough money to pay for this. I agree.

So far, we've spent $400+ billion on Iraq. That is about $333+ dollars per illegal alien. We should have kept that money here. Add however much we've spent in Afghanistan, the "other" places and in Guantanamo, and tell me if it seems like a lot.

Also, although I do not have the time to research and annotate properly, here are a few thoughts. I heard an interview by NPR with a gentleman from Southern California who owns and operates a cabbage farm. This happened while the minuteman controversy was in full swing. The man said he traditionally paid the "usual" workers about $5/hr for their labors. However, with the minuteman interference, the "usual" workers were not coming around. He carefully stated that legal as well as illegal ones were not coming, mostly because they were being harassed, which is illegal, but was not stopped by the authorities. By the time of the interview, he said he might offer $12/hr to anyone who came to pick his cabbage but no one would. Half the crop would be lost. Consider the impact on pricing if we pay inexperienced workers $12/hr for what experienced workers get $5/hr to do. He speculated that the consumer price would triple easily. The only reason this did not happen is that most of the border stayed open most of the time. It isn't that these workers (many of whom are Americans) are taking jobs for less than Americans feel is fair for them--but that Americans just plain don't want those jobs.

Consider also that the trade deficit with China has multiplied many times between the 80's and now. It is currently at its highest. Large corporations like Wal-Mart are flooding the market with cheap imports. Just about anything we buy is made in China, Taiwan, Honduras, etc. Check your chonnies if you don't believe me. When's the last time YOU checked to make sure the avocados you were eating were raised and packaged in the good ole USA? How 'bout your beer cozies? Is your iPod made in Long Beach?

I find it awfully funny how most of those people who complain the most about the loss of American jobs are precisely the ones driving expensive Japanese or European vehicles, and outsource anything they can in their own businesses to increase profits. What irks these people is that the number one source of money to Mexico itself (more now than the automotive industry or petroleum exports) is remittances from Mexicans in the Unites States. No single industry in Mexico comes even close! I agree that the drain of money is lamentable, but I feel the people sending it have more than earned it. If you disagree, please point out a single business that deliberately overpays its immigrant work-force. I've done the hiring at some of these. I know that “Mexicans” get $5 for what Americans won't do for less than $10.

How much would YOU want to clean toilets for a living?

While it is true that they are here illegally, it has been demonstrated that the vast majority of the drain on social services comes from citizens. Consider this country still has 350 million people, and only 12 million illegal aliens. You cannot say with a straight face that it is the illegal aliens causing all the trouble. I contend that while they are responsible for a significant percentage of the trouble, they also contribute a disproportionately large percentage to the economy. I contend that, in the end, at the very least, these wash out. Even if they did not pay taxes, which is by no means stipulated, their incredibly low wages more than make up for their part of improving this country.

This country was founded by immigrants (recall that humans were neither created nor evolved in the Americas). It was built by immigrants. It achieved greatness from its immigrant roots. It wasn't that long ago that we still supported the puritan work ethic, the Asian's drive for educating their children, and the hard work of the slaves in the south. The hardest work is traditionally done by the lowest social strata. Socioeconomic forces here have put white people at the top of that list, and while they have been a majority while enjoying that superiority, it is quickly coming to an end. Most major cities in the Unites States already report a majority of "ethnically non-white" citizens (not accounting for non-citizen immigrants). California will have a majority of Latino/Hispanic citizens (the voting kind, not just the living-in kind) by the end of the decade. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, and perhaps surprisingly, states like Georgia, are not that far behind. I have to wonder to what degree this new-found concern for security is not really a concern for racial supremacy.

I laugh when I see how the market is staying away from this argument. HBO is running shows not dubbed, but originally filmed in Spanish. Companies are entering a bidding war for the Spanish-language television network, Univision. The market knows the importance of the Spanish-speaking population, precisely because it knows that regardless of the legal status of the customer, the dollars spend just as well. Lending institutions bend the rules to allow non-resident (their word for illegal) aliens to get loans to buy cars or houses. The worst part of all this is that the majority of these negative views on immigration are all centered on Latino, specifically Mexican, immigrants. I commend the border patrol for managing to stay above this argument and still get their jobs done. I have never felt discriminated against, harassed, or in any way mistreated leaving or entering the country.

It wasn't too long ago that channel 9 here in Los Angeles ran a story a long-time veteran from the Long Beach Police Department who turned out to be an illegal immigrant from England. Nobody ever thought of asking him for his papers.

And now many people complain about all the immigrant-rights demonstrations. My biggest complaint is that we as immigrants are concentrating on the lowest rung of the social ladder, instead of asking also for the rights of the many doctors I know who came here to be nurses, college professors who came here to be teachers’ aides, engineers who came here to be draftsmen. I guess these good folks have gotten used to the placid, submissive, subservient immigrant clutching the straw hat against the chest and saying "si, señor!"

What has this world come to?

Brenda's Little Quiz

2006-03-10T08:50:00.000-08:00

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Kayvon’s little gopher.
2. Selling shoes at a god-forsaken strip mall in Cudahy.
3. Late-night inventory taker for second-rate company.
4. And inventory/purchasing guy for (going on) 14 yrs now.

Four movies you would watch over and over again?
1. I would say Creator, but I’m always sad when it’s done.
2. I would say Running on Empty, but I always cry when it’s done.
3. I would say West Side Story, but I never feel pretty when it’s done.
4. Monsters, Inc. cuz I should be the big blue thing in it.

Four places you have lived:
1. I don’t know if these memories are from the same place, and I don’t know where they are, but one is a house somewhere in Nicaragua, with an old, twisted avocado tree in the back that bears my name in its bark about three feet off the ground, carved when I was just a child and my dad was still Superman; and a house with a shiny-barked tree in the front with the warm and festive smell of Pinolillo from the big green balls it made as fruit, all around it, that made summers sweet and rain worth dancing in.
2. A dark, damp, cold apartment in San Jose, California, hidden under the stairs, three blocks from life and yet devoid of any happiness—there were just not enough blankets in the place to keep me from shivering through the night.
3. A big, empty, warm, airy apartment in Fullerton, California, where R (not the same from below) and I spent four years hosting friends and playing with my children every other weekend. Andre went blond there when he was 3. We’d all go swimming, go to Woolworths—when they were still around; now it’s Target—and walk over to the movies or to Starbucks or both.
4. A house made of concrete blocks, with weird, twisty, white texture laid on them like dried-up earthworms fleeing from the scorching tropical sun; a place where roaches fly and one lonely, little scorpion instilled in me a phobia from which I still suffer; an ever-shifting house always under construction or deconstruction or change or redesign, where life was never boring but not for that all that happy and still, where in 1983 my parents lived like I am told happy marriages can live, full of tenderness and peace, sharing secrets with a glance and simply enjoying their children’s breaking voices and longer, ungainly limbs.

Living, you see, is rarely about the place.

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. NUMB3RS (ain’t he dreamy?)
2. Battlestar Galactica (I’m rooting for the cylons)
3. Extreme Engineering (yes, I’m a geek)
4. CSI Miami (I bet you can’t guess which one I find dreamy)

Four places you have been on vacation: (the tales these places could tell!)
1. Tijuana
2. Las Vegas
3. San Francisco
4. Rosarito

Four websites I visit regularly: (you don’t HONESTLY expect me to be honest, do you?)
1. Google. It’s clean, it’s simple, it’s fast, and it’s simply just what I need when I go there. And now Froogle will find it for you FOR LESS!
2. Hotmail. Did he write me back YET?
3. Ebay. (I still want my 6MT G35, 2005 or newer, for US$22,000 or less—is that too much to ask for? Is that SO WRONG?)
4. some places I wouldn’t repeat in church and thus, on advise of my attorney, respectfully decline to mention in writing on the grounds that I might incriminate m’self. ;-)

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Arroz a la valenciana as long as Ash makes it woot woot
2. Chilaquiles, rojos (how messican o’ me)
3. Uncle Howie’s Pizza (it’s in Redlands, near the University Of)
4. Fried Ripe Plantains (I should write a book hotter, spicier, and more fun than Fried Green Tomatoes)

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. The Holy Land
2. Home, in bed, still sleeping. Waking up early SUX.
3. @ R’s, herein traditionally refered to as Carlos, in bed, cuddling. This is PERFECT cuddling weather.
4. Seattle, Washington, preferably with R, in bed, cuddling. Those damned people ALWAYS have good cuddling weather.

Four friends I am tagging that I think will respond...
1. Nobody, cuz I hate chain letters
2. Nobody, cuz I hate chain surveys.
3. Nobody, cuz I hate gettin’ to know me better.
4. Nobody, bah humbug! (gimme a break, it’s too early to be in a good mood and it’s 35 degrees IN LOS ANGELES!)

Miguel

Suicide Is Painless

2006-03-08T18:24:00.000-08:00

Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see

That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

Try to find a way to make
All our little joys relate
Without that ever present hate
But now I know that it's too late

And that suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

The game of life is hard to play
I'm going to lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say

That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

The only way to win is cheat
And lay it down before I'm beat
And to another give a seat
For that's the only painless feat

'Cause suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works it's way on in
The pain grow stronger watch it grin

For suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are key
Is it to be or not to be
And I replied "Oh why ask me."

Cause suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please;

And you can do the same thing if you please.

Mike Altman & Johnny Mandell

Richard III

2006-03-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

No beast so fierce it knows no touch of pity,
but I am not beast, and therefore I know none.

is it any wonder i love how the guy writes?

Happy Mardis Gras!!!

2006-02-28T19:40:00.000-08:00

As if I wasn't fat enough...

food!

drink!

merriment...

and damn this busy month...

back later... ;-)

Olvidar

2006-02-08T19:20:00.000-08:00

El domingo lleve a los ninos a su casa temprano. Al salir, fui a la casa de mi hermano, donde mi mama y mi hermana estaban visitando. Comimos comida mexicana.

Saliendo de ahi, pase por el cementerio visitando al viejo.

El chamaco gay que tiene su tienda de flores frente al cementerio o contrato o encontro un par de guapitos que le ayuden a vender. Escogi unas flores que pense le gustaran an viejo: nada muy elegente, un poco sencillo a cambio, pero aun asi alegre. Eso si, le escogi un tulipan porque me gustan a mi. Digamos un poco de rebeldia porque el no se puede quejar.

El cementerio, a pesar de lo que es, es muy alegre. Hay familias, ninos, parejas. Siempre hay flores. Lo mantienen limpio y el cesped siempre verde. Siempre que voy hay una brisa sabrosa soplando la loma.

Me sente junto al viejo y me fume un cigarro. Le conte del Carlos (ya tenemos seis meses). Le conte del dolor de cabeza que son mis hijos. Me lo imagine riendoso al oir eso. El tiene el el bolsillo del saco que trea puesto mi foto favorita de mi hija cuando era nina. Ahora es toda una mujer de catorce anos y piensa tener veinte. El siempre la quiso mucho. Ella todavia se acuerda de que su bigote la hacia cosquillas en la mejilla cuando le daba un beso.

La piedra esa en que pusieron su nombre estaba sucia, no brillaba como lo hacia cuando era nueva. Estos cinco anos han sido largos. Me falta el viejo, pero no me duele ya pensar que se murio. No se si podria decirle esto a mi familia. No es que sea malo, pero siendo yo el que mas se le parecia--y todavia me parezco a el cuando el tenia mi edad--pienso que pensaran mal de mi por olvidarlo. O es que lo olvide? Solo yo?

Digo que es bueno que dios nos haya dado la habilidad de olvidar. Olvido le quita el filo al dolor de su muerte. Pienso que el me lo perdonaria.

Febrero

2006-01-25T18:45:00.000-08:00

My daughter's birthday is the last day of January. She is now 14.

Do you remember the moment you realized your parents were just human, devoid of any supernatural powers?

She is growing up so fast, both physically and emotionally. This scares me. My father could never handle our growing up and treated us like five-year-olds well into our twenties. I am afraid I might never have learned how to deal with grown-up kids because I've never seen it done. Hopefully, she and I can figure it out as we go through it. Still, she's beginning to rebel like children often do. It's ok, I think. I'm sure I did it.

Do you remember the moment you realized that their lack of extra-natural abilities did not prevent them from being superheroes?

I think we only come to realize how truly remarkable parents are once we have children--perhaps a self-serving realization, but children are tiring, trying. Perhaps it is instinct that drives us; perhaps it is divine decree. Whatever it is, we endevor, we fight on, we persevere. And a chosen few do a good job. It is a challenge I will gladly face.

My ex-wife is getting a new divorce, and has a new boyfriend (all at once, mind you), and my kids are (understandably) requiring a lot more attention.

My new relationship is going very well, but as things improve, more and more time is required--not a bad thing, as I am the one who likes to spend time together more (I think). How odd that I should be the one less independent.

On an entirely unrelated topic, my brother's first anniversary of death is coming up, and with my mother having been so depressed this entire year, we're planning a bit of an event. Hopefully, we can help her work towards a bit of a closing while still giving the event the importance it is worth. Now I am the oldest--what a strange feeling for a "middle" child. Oftentimes, he was a prick, and I still miss him. Perhaps a little prayer can help us all get closer to peace over the unexpected death.

Also, the company for which I work is in the process of buying our biggest competitors. Sweet victory promises tons of work. All this while working (simultaneously) on the two largest machines ever made in our industry--one the biggest by a factor of ten over the largest to date.

Ah! February promises to be a busy month.

Del Fondo De Mi Cueva...

2006-01-21T09:03:00.000-08:00

...veo las estrellas en el cuadrito de cielo que alcanzo ver, cuando es de noche, y de dia las nubes que pasan empujadas por el viento. Oigo las voces de los que pasan, y hasta (a veces, si me atrevo acercarme a la boca de la cueva) les veo pasar.

La cueva es comoda, callada--y aunque no sea amplia, tiene espacio para todo lo que traje y lo que me encontre cuando llegue, y de vez en cuando hasta para acomodar a un visitante. Nadie pasa mucho tiempo aqui--aparte de mi. Vienen y van como las hojas que el viento trae. Me agrada encontrarlas; me imagino los arboles de donde habran caido: algunos altos, finos, de hojitas largas y delgadas como plumas adornando ramas que siempre apuntan hacia el cielo; otros chaparritos y hanchos, con hojas amplias como pequenitos parasoles, protegiendo a los animalitos que han de vivir bajo ellas. Unas huelen a limpio--como explicar eso?--aunque esten viejitas y arrugadas; otras traen aromas lejanos que en mi juventud aventurera haya encontrado en tierras lejanas. Estas ultimas guardo, por si acaso algun sueno me recuerde de esas tierras que ya no puedo ni imaginar despierto.

Creo que hay alguien en una cueva cercana con una guitarra. No se que otra cosa podria explicar los sonidos que oigo a veces aqui. Por supuesto, es imposible salir a buscar, interrumpir otra gente. Al cabo casi nunca se oye, asi que no es mucha molestia para mi pretender que no existe solo por unos minutos. Al cabo hay mucho que hacer aqui, y cuando el dia esta muy brillante, cuando el viento sopla muy fuerte, cuando la lluvia moja mi entrada o se oyen voces pasar, puedo ocuparme arreglando lo que tengo guardado al fondo, digamos la almacena, el pantry--lo que sea. Casi siempre, las voces pasan. Uno deja pequenas senales de ocupacion para avisar sin interumpir su viaje que este lugar no esta disponible, pero hay aquellos que por poco tiempo en este viaje or por total ignorancia de buenos modales, deciden visitar gente en sus lugares mas privados. No es que a uno no le guste platicar, o recibir visitas, pero despues hay que limpiar la cueva, quitar el olor ajeno... lavar todas las superficies que se hayan ensuciado--accidentalmente por supuesto.

A veces considero mover ciertas cosas del fondo de la cueva a la puerta--como pequena barrera. Seria bueno, porque protegeria contra el viento y el agua y el exceso de luz--estos ultimos dias el sol de mediodia es tan fuerte! He visto tuneles donde pense que habian paredes, al fondo de la cueva. Tal vez seria mejor investigar esos y dejar la puerta en paz. Si, eso es mejor, eso es mejor. Eso es lo que hare ahorita mismo que termine de limpiar, en cuanto este solo otra vez. No es que me moleste la compania, es que la soledad molesta menos, lo deja pensar a uno. Oh! No es que le este pidiendo que se vaya! Disculpe la mala educacion. Ni siquiera le he ofrecido algo... deme un momento, aqui tengo algo que ofrecer... al fondo de la cueva, en el pantry--almacena--permitame un momento y lo encuentro... solo un momento y ya vuelvo--no; no necesito luz; veo bien aunque este oscuro... un momento y encuentro algo... ya vuelvo...

MLK, jr.

2006-01-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

"I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him."

--from the Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

Naturaleza Humana

2006-01-14T13:21:00.000-08:00

Recently, I overheard a conversation between my daughter and her mother; here's a little excerpt:

"Hey, mom: I know why the snake eats the mouse..."

"Why is that?"

"It's human nature!"

Now, ain't that the truth?

¡Yo también!

2006-01-13T12:00:00.000-08:00

Once again, a young lady I don't know in Mexico (whose name is Sylvia--find the link to her blog on the list to the right) has surprised me with her humor, insight, and timely advise.

Her post me uno a la campaña brought me to the advertising page of Librerías Gandhi, a funny bunch of guys trying to make a buck and (in the process) improve their country a little.

I am one of those weird people that never goes anywhere without a book (even to the movies), at the risk of having my kids make fun of me. I read most of what I can, and what I can't I have somebody translate for me.

I do, therefore, hereby add my humble vote to this campaign and hope you, too will read (in Spanish, even!).

And though this may be like preaching to the choir:

Read! Damn it! Read.

Del Idealismo

2006-01-09T18:00:00.001-08:00

En hacernos humanos, la fuerza de la creación nos ha dejado sin muchas de las ventajas poseídas por los otros animales de la naturaleza, específicamente los dotados físicos que les permiten sobrevivir; pero sospecho su anhelo no era nuestra supervivencia, sino nuestra supremacía benéfica en el sistema cerrado que es nuestro mundo—para tal, esa fuerza nos otorgo capacidades intangibles y, por lo tanto, difíciles de enumerar y medir. Somos, en corto, conciencia y corazón del mundo, y al aceptarlo en capacidad comunal tomamos el peso de estas responsabilidades al hombro. A cambio de hormiga trabajadora que batalla, vive y muere miembro de un ejercito solo por la ventaja de una, y a cambio de hambriento reptil capaz de devorar su propia cría para disminuir la competencia, nosotros debemos balancear nuestros deseos personales inmediatos contra el futuro, nuestra necesidades familiares con el bienestar comunitario, nuestros sueños terrenales a luz de celestial justicia y compasión. El peor enemigo en la batalla a conseguir este máximo deseo es la avaricia—y nuestro mejor guía es el idealismo socio-económico e intelectual que nace del reconocimiento de nuestras debilidades personales y nuestras inextinguibles capacidades generales. Juntos, somos la mano de Dios.

Lamentablemente, el enemigo, siendo interno, toma uso de nuestras propias fuerzas para esclavizarnos y—pero aun—cegarnos a sus propósitos, tramas y estrategias, y en la confusión de tales planes, se apodera de nuestras mejores intenciones para crear conflicto, pleito y guerra. Todos deseamos mas, lo que no es malo, pero esa avaricia que ahora amenaza con ahogar al idealismo en ese mar de triunfos y tesoros nos previene conseguir el mas alto de todos los estados disponibles a la humanidad: el de felicidad no tenida por la sangre y las lagrimas de aquellos que mas contribuyen a tal felicidad. El que tiene la mano vacía quiere llenar su mano; el que tiene la mano llena quiere llenar sus brazos; el que tiene los brazos llenos quiere todo lo demás. Y todos consideramos esto divina obligación, bajo pretextos sociales, religiosos, económicos, morales—hemos divisado al horizonte una cambiable ética que podemos moldear y controlar cual brisa en vela para empujar la barca de nuestra avaricia a todo puerto ajeno que podamos piratear. Damos valor a la vida porque eso es todo lo que necesita para que la podamos comprar; y, siendo así, ¿Qué queda de lo que no nos podamos adueñar? Esta contra-fuerza es la que engendra jerarquías, dominios e imperios. Comprendemos correctamente que nuestro triunfo a corto plazo requiere el fracaso de nuestro prójimo, ignorando que el triunfo a largo plazo requiere la colaboración y consentimiento de aquellos de los que mas dependemos.

Con el próximo paso en la eliminación de esta dependencia, hemos creado el alto objetivo capitalista de la globalización, dañando sistemas estables económicos locales por el beneficio de los apoderados. Esta centralización, susceptible a las debilidades de sus encargados, tal cual aquella que llevo a su ruina a los soviéticos, es templada ahora con las fuerzas mercantiles que nacieron en Europa después del renacimiento, ignorando el bienestar de las multitudes por venir solo por la ganancia de los pocos que hoy estamos—ignorando las penas que tales presiones ponen sobre las masa obreras en los países productores para el beneficio de los países consumidores, y aun allí solo para el beneficio de pocos. Hemos bastardizado el significado de la democracia por la cual batallaron nuestros abuelos y nuestros padres y hecho con ella las cadenas con las cuales la mayoría someterá a las minorías que serán nuestros hijos, todo con nuestras propias manos, soñando ignorantemente que llevaremos a nuestros hijos a ser los carceleros y no los presos, sin darnos cuenta que los dos están atados a las mismas cadenas. Y por esto estamos hoy en conflicto: interno y externo; lateral y vertical—con adversarios a cada costado—todos supuestamente batallando por los mismos meritorios finales: patria, paz, y libertad.

Hay muchos, y habrán mas, que toman armas como ultimo recurso en contra de sus propios hermanos en búsqueda de la justicia que consideran debida ya por mucho tiempo, olvidando momentáneamente en su furia que no se puede matar a la pobreza y que el sufrimiento del enemigo no nos trae felicidad. ¿Cómo culpar al hombre honesto por estar dispuesto a dar su vida para mejorar la de otros? El que toma armas contra él tiene que considerar la posición que tal decisión indica. ¿Quién batalla contra la justicia en nombre de ella misma? Aun aquel que ve en las acciones de sus prójimos insensatez debe considerar el nivel de desesperación que ahí los trae. Es comprensible que tomen esa acción aquellos que ya por mas de quinientos años han sufrido bajo el injusto dominio de amos mas y mas parecidos a ellos mismos, mas y mas cercanos a su propia situación—muy a menudo sus propios hermanos tan agradecidos de haber sido permitidos membresía a la clase dominante que resultan ser los peores opresores. Esta guerra de ellos no es su propio fin, sino el método final de traer al ojo publico su intolerable condición. Su solución es simple: justicia, pero no aquella que requiere igualdad, pues esa es infinitamente inestable, sino la justicia que demuestra equivalencia, significado, y tolerancia. No siempre a todos de acuerdo a su necesidad; no siempre de todos de acuerdo a sus habilidades; pero casi siempre si. La nueva democracia debe ser moderada por el idealismo: la mayoría cede por el beneficio de todos; la minoría comprende que la superioridad económica es debida enteramente a la contribución de la mayoría. Dependiendo de perspectiva, nadie es siempre parte de toda mayoría: a todos nos toca ser parte de alguna minoría tarde o temprano. Nunca idílica, la nueva democracia es el producto de arduos esfuerzos por ambos partidos para conseguir la sabiduría que la inteligencia abandonó, y la fuerza que el estoicismo ignora.

El ímpetu necesario para tal cambio no nace espontáneamente, ni nace de la absurda e imaginaria superioridad en la que el provincialismo se basa. Nada se logra con excesos. La fuerza gradual que lleva a la semilla a germinar debe ahora actuar sobre la sangre que nuestros abuelos y nuestros padres plantaron en la tierra misma que los vio nacer, desde Sonora hasta Tierra del Fuego, de mar a mar a mar. Millones y millones de corazones en búsqueda de la mejoría, de libertad y mas aun en búsqueda de paz. ¿Qué mas impresionante fuerza puede haber que tantos millones en la unida labor de parir un mundo nuevo? Y no en un desquiciado sueño de imposibles metas, sino en la básica generación de las necesidades que nuestro pueblo mismo puede crear. No hay en tal multitud espacio suficiente para aislarse, para ignorar la ola que nos lleva a todos en una dirección u otra inevitablemente. Es a riesgo propio que tratamos de pensar que tal ola respetaría fronteras, barreras reales o imaginarias. Es a riesgo propio que cualquier gobierno piensa legislar su inexistencia. Y siendo la manifestación física de los mas básicos derechos que la creación misma nos otorga, no hay religión capaz de disminuir su espíritu. Van los que vengan—y los que no, conocerán la verdadera fuerza del huracán causado por tantos millones de suspiros. Pero, aunque imparable, tal fuerza puede ser dirigida—y debe serlo—en la trayectoria que nuestros padres y los suyos fallaron a reconocer. Es un exceso imperdonable tratar de utilizarla solamente en búsqueda de la liberación de uno solo—hombre, pueblo o país.

El aislamiento que creó la debilidad que ahora opaca el triunfo cubano es el resultado de las fallas de nuestros padres. Ese pudo ser el ejemplo necesario para impulsar la victoria popular en el resto de las américas, pero ahora es solamente la demostración del camino que debemos evitar. La vida de la violencia, como única posibilidad al triunfo, es la clara demostración de falta de real soporte popular, pues no hay gobierno capaz de gobernar el la ausencia de los gobernados. Tomemos como ejemplo el resultado de aquellos países que fueran parte de la unión soviética en finalmente cortar las cadenas de sus previos amos, que a pesar de sufrir la inevitable inestabilidad de una democracia imperfecta, han plantado las semillas de una prosperidad inimaginable bajo el control de un partido, una mente, un amo falto de humanidad y compasión. Consideremos también las posibilidades que la unión europea les ha otorgado a sus ciudadanos con solo reducir las barreras que sus fronteras representan. Es esta unidad, tan imperfecta como es hoy, lo que les llevará a grandes triunfos—pues ya (por fin) han regresado a ser rivales dignos del último superpoder que queda en el mundo. Tal vez, si lo consideran bien, los países de este hemisferio se den una oportunidad similar.

No hay solución fácil. La prosperidad económica que se consigue siguiendo las reglas que llevaron a los países anglo-germánicos a la supremacía los dos últimos siglos es efímera y mal ajustada a la realidad mulata y mestiza de nuestras junglas y playas. Deberemos ser mas creativos que ellos en saltar sobre la industrialización mecánica e insensible y adaptarnos directamente a la tecnología y comercio del futuro. Pagamos con las vidas de nuestros hijos nuestra falta de visión. Lo mejor de nuestra situación es considerar que por primera vez en muchos siglos, nuestra mejoría no se conseguirá en conflictos ni guerras—sino que a través de colaboración. La decadencia de los que fueron superpoderes no es necesaria para nuestra mejoría, aunque ayude, y su inestabilidad es contraproducente a nuestro progreso, así que al ayudarles nos ayudamos—aunque el motivo sea político y sarcástico como el de Venezuela.

Esto requiere que veamos a nuestros vecinos no como competidores en el mercado mundial, sino como socios, tal vez hermanos, cuyos triunfos ayudan a solidificar nuestros triunfos. Tal vez algún día los estados unidos de américa no sean estos estados unidos, y américa sea aplicada en mejor contexto. Habrá mucho que hacer para conseguir esto: la eliminación de la corrupción será una primera etapa—tan difícil como parece, no es meta, sino un paso a una meta mayor—y la creación de superestructuras económicas y sociales que trasciendan barreras políticas y naturales. Quizá lo mas difícil será la redefinición del patriotismo a un termino mas inclusivo y capaz, que sea adaptable y bondadoso, que busque mas la belleza de nuestra individualidad como parte de la comunidad que nuestra supremacía en un mar de inferiores.

Quizá algún día lleguemos, en verdad, a amarnos los unos a los otros. ¿Quién llora en Montevideo cuando un huracán pasa por Matagalpa? ¿Quién está dispuesto en Tamaulipas a perder tan solo una comida para que alguien que no tenga pueda comer en Coronel Oviedo? No es que se necesite santidad para conseguir este triunfo, es mas que el triunfo prevendrá la necesidad de tal santidad. Es precisamente cuando veamos esto, como comunidad hemisférica, que lograremos la meta mayor: dejar de ser pueblitos pobres (aunque alegres) con poca industria (aunque ardua) y un provincialismo arcaico que nos pesa alrededor del cuello como piedra de molino, y empezaremos a ser la fuerza, el alma, la conciencia de este mundo.

Y eso es un ideal digno de nuestros hijos.

Rarely pure and never simple.

2006-01-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

La verdad es que nunca sabremos la verdad. Tenemos evidencia, posibilidades, indicaciones—a veces hasta admisiones y testigos. Pero la verdad nunca se conoce con tal certidumbre que podamos poner a un lado la fe de lo que creemos. La vida casi nos demanda mas de esto y menos de aquello. Al fin, tenemos que decidir de que lado estamos. Y no siempre estamos de nuestro propio lado.

Al principio, Dios creó al mundo y puso sobre él a dos que por amor o instinto, o los dos, lo poblaran con multitudes. Y con sus números aumentaron sus habilidades. Y un día construyeron una torre y Dios les castigó su orgullo. Pero no aprendieron la lección y hasta hoy todavía sufren la fuerza de sus habilidades controladas por tal orgullo.

No muy lejos del lugar donde esos dos primeros aparecieron, junto a un río de poca distinción, esta una tierra que, cotizada altamente por los habitantes del árido desierto, se convirtió de paraíso a tesoro y por lo tanto botín, premio de guerra, símbolo de triunfo. Con el tiempo, la importancia que al principio se debía solo a la fertilidad de la tierra fue transferida por tradición a patrimonio y la tierra que por muy cara era todavía tierra se convirtió en herencia, que vale mas por tradición que por tesoro. Vale más la carne muerta y la sangre que la fertiliza que la tierra misma.

Y unos se dieron la idea de que eran los favoritos de Dios, idea que fue ganando mas creyentes en las multitudes al ver triunfos militares en todos los frentes. Cuando por fin empezaron a perder, la idea de ser los favoritos de Dios era ya parte del mismo patrimonio, y buscaron ideas, teorías, posibilidades y explicaciones por cada derrota. A cierto punto, esto cambió de “favoritos” a “escogidos” y con eso tomaron mayores responsabilidades sociales, adjudicándose a si mismos el peso de toda la humanidad. Y construyeron mas y mejores templos a su Dios, al cual le habían agradecido ser sus favoritos pero a quien recriminaban ahora el ser sus escogidos. Llegaron a pensar que con tal responsabilidad deberían haber muchas ventajas, pero siglo tras siglo no las veían y terminaron convirtiendo tanto amor en tanta culpa, esperando interminablemente que cambiara la marea, pensando que llegaría un hombre un día a guiarlos de regreso al rebaño del Señor.

Cuando todavía no habían empezado a ganar, cuando eran todavía los favoritos, cuando todavía no tenían patrimonio, herencia, madre patria, escogieron una pequeña ciudad en una loma para poder defenderla de los muchos enemigos que ya vivían en esa tierra. Cuando la conquistaron, construyeron muros de protección, fortaleciendo el área contra cualquier ataque. Y así vivieron muchos años, pero al fin perdieron. Unos que vivían donde la torre original fue construida, por la cual Dios los castigó a todos, cuyo orgullo los llevo igualmente a triunfos tremendos, alcanzaron a los favoritos de Dios, y por motivos que solo El sabe, los extranjeros ganaron.

¿Cuanto tiempo toma para que los conquistadores dejen de ser extranjeros? Cuando los nuevos extranjeros llegaron, los favoritos, que ya no eran extranjeros, sufrieron la destrucción del templo—que unos dirían fue su propia torre, pero otros dirían la mera sugerencia de esa idea es herejía.

Pasando el tiempo, lo reconstruyeron, mas impresionante aun que el primero. Pero el segundo templo también fue destruido por nuevos invasores. Esta tierra, tan pequeña y tan retirada de la civilización sufrió miles y miles de años de guerra… y aparentemente así seguirá. Solo una pared queda de este segundo templo, donde todavía lloran, rezan, y dejan rollitos de papel donde han escrito sus deseos y peticiones como a un rey ausente que no tiene tiempo de atenderles ya. Ya no son los favoritos, sino los escogidos, señalados como muestras, ejemplos si no ejemplares de la humanidad. Rezan y rezan y rezan y rezan, pidiendo no sé que a un Dios que los ha degradado. Pero por lo que sea, volvieron. Ya tienen su tierra otra vez, pero como siempre es bajo balas y maldiciones. Pobre gente que ni en su tumba encuentra paz. De acuerdo a su propia historia, todavía les falta mucho sufrimiento. Y ahora construyen otra pared—la que les queda no es suficiente.

Es fácil, para los que sé sienten atacados tanto y tan a menudo, atacar antes de considerar lo que cada ataque implica—y eso va para los dos lados. Al fin de la historia, la búsqueda de la paz causa mas muerte que la búsqueda de libertad—y las dos combinadas son demasiado.

Y sin embargo, se mueve.

¿Quién, con sus pies en tierra firme, puede creer algo tan insólito? No sé mas de historia que de ortografía—pero sé cuando algo me da mal sabor en la boca. Esta paz que buscan hoy es un trago amargo, pero es uno que no pueden evitar. ¿Estaríais dispuestos a dar la vida de vuestros hijos—sin venganza—para que vuestros nietos vivan en paz? Después de tanta muerte, ¿Quién puede pedir tanto? ¿Cuántos millones de almas son suficiente paga por unas cuantas millas cuadradas de arena y sal?

Solo Dios sabe la verdad, y como de costumbre, cuando me habla, no le hago caso.

Digo yo, (y ¿Quién soy yo?) que la pared que hacen hoy será, al final, un simple símbolo del odio que tratan de evitar, un blanco mas con el cual practicar, culpa y pena (letra escarlata), y no insignia roja de valor. Es un paso atrás, que aunque necesario—si lo es—es también dañino, doloroso, culpa y pena. Ojala y no tenga yo la razón. Ojala y sea esta otra vez en que me equivoqué terriblemente. Ojala.

La verdad, no sé.

Ven a mi casa esta Navidad

2005-12-27T10:58:00.000-08:00

Tú que estás lejos de tus amigos,
de tu tierra y de tu hogar,
y tienes pena, pena en el alma,
porque no dejas de pensar.

Tú que esta noche no puedes
dejar de recordar,
quiero que sepas, que aquí en mi mesa,
para ti tengo un lugar.

Por eso y muchas cosas más,
ven a mi casa esta Navidad.

Por eso y muchas cosas más,
ven a mi casa esta Navidad.

Tú que recuerdas quizá a tu madre
o a un hijo que no está,
quiero que sepas, que en esta noche,
él te acompañará.

No vayas solo por esas calles,
queriéndote aturdir,
ven con nosotros y a nuestro lado
intenta sonreír.

Por eso y muchas cosas más,
ven a mi casa esta Navidad.

Tú que has vivido, siempre de espaldas,
sin perdonar ningún error,
ahora es momento de reencontrarnos,
ven a mi casa, por favor.

Ahora ya es tiempo, de que charlemos,
pues nada se perdió,
en estos días, todo se olvida,
y nada sucedió.

Por eso y muchas cosas más,
ven a mi casa esta Navidad.

Por eso y muchas cosas más,
ven a mi casa esta Navidad.

Por eso y muchas cosas más,
ven a mi casa esta Navidad.

Luis Aguilé

¡Y Feliz Año Nuevo!

2005-12-25T14:49:00.000-08:00

Tradition

2005-12-20T17:38:00.000-08:00

"A love of tradition has never weakened a nation--indeed, it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come; the world must roll forward."

Churchill

I'm in love...

2005-12-19T10:58:00.001-08:00

I first became aware of her because of my mother.

Then, I started paying attention on my own... but she was married... not that it would make any difference, but still, one likes to respect others' relationships.

Now that she's not married again, i'm back to drooling.

Ain't she grand?

She's a pretty good singer, too.

Que Pasa Cuando Crecen?

2005-12-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

I give up!

I'm not trying any more.

I realize this is a hard process and that I myself had a terrible time going through it. I realize their mother and I have made this even harder with our problems. I know that both our families are not what one might expect on a stamp commemorating Norman Rockwell.

But I don't like it.

It just hurts too much.

They can call me when they're done.

Growing up just sucks.

Destino y medio

2005-12-15T18:55:00.000-08:00

Hay dias en que me enoja ser cristiano.

Vivo en el pais con el mayor porcentage de atendencia a la iglesia del mundo. Mas gente visita su templo de preferencia de manera regular aqui que en el vaticano. Sin embargo, al acercarse la segunda celebracion mas importante de esta religion que mis padres me heredaron sin pedir permiso, me veo rodeado (atacado, casi) por la comercializacion semi-invencible que me dicen casi a diario as tanto admirable como exportable (mas de 2000 americanos han pagado con su vida en el proceso).

Esta es la vida.

Con un nivel de productividad por lo menos cinco veces mas valioso internacionalmente que cualquier trabajador latinoamericano, el americano no conoce el valor de la paciencia. La paz es un suenio loco que nuestros padres abandonaron y nuestros abuelos perdieron en la guerra. Nosotros nunca lo conocimos. El tiempo ya no es oro; en comparasion, el oro es abundante. Y aun asi, tomamos tiempo que no tenemos y vamos a la iglesia: a veces hasta dos veces por semana. Y cuando vamos, le pedimos al creador salud, paz, libertad, fortuna, tiempo. Le pedimos libertad--libertad de las mismas cadenas que con mucha ternura quitamos de nuestros propios tobillos para atar a aquellos de nuestros hijos.

Ser normal no es suficiente. En estos ultimos anios, he notado un movimiento extranio en la cultura protestante en el pais. Cristianos que se llaman a si mismos "born again" buscan maneras publicas de demostrar su triunfo economico como para indicar el beneficio de su decision religiosa y asi convencer a mas a seguirlos. Algo asi como: yo sigo a dios y el me dio este carro; siguelo tu y veras lo que te da.

Mientras esto pasa, el pais busca como demostrarle al mundo su superioridad. Tomemos en cuenta que el triunfo que Japon gozo en los 60's y 70's fue directamente derivado de la invasion americana despues de la segunda guerra mundial. Si no fuera por Marshall y su plan, donde estaria Europa hoy? Mirad Alemania. Rusia nos deberia haber suplicado los invadieramos. Iraq deberia festejar el evento. Todas las guerras de los catolicos para conquistar jerusalem fallaron... y nosotros se la regalamos a los judios. ESO es generosidad.

Somos lo mejor del mundo. Me siento con ganas de gritar "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Pero se acerca la navidad. Solo SU resurreccion es mayor evento, y el no fue el primero. Tomaremos tiempo de nuestros ocupadisimos dias para rezar y celebrar. Compraremos arbolitos y les pondremos luces de colores y cajas con papeles brillantes. Nos daremos mas cosas para amontonar encima de las cosas que ya tenemos. Nos abrazaremos los unos a los otros y a nosotros mismos, agradeciendo a diario ser de los favoritos de dios, nuestro dios, el mejor de los dioses, superior, mas fuerte, mas sabio, y nuestro. Que suerte de este dios ser nuestro dios! Pues nosotros tenemos mas dinero que cualquier otra gente para celebrar su nacimiento.

Ay! Hay dias en que me averguenza ser cristiano.

Round and round

2005-12-02T15:13:00.002-08:00

So I left the country--which is a very fancy (indeed) way of saying I went to TJ (Tijuana, for those of you not in the know).

For some strange reason, I love the place. It is a dirty, messy, uncouth place--and I love it.

I got some coffee; I got a book; I saw a movie; I went to the mall. I didn't do anything there that I could not have done here just as well. I saw not a single face I could not just as easily have seen doing the same things here in Los Angeles. They who live there do not speak differently.

And yet...

There is something about those people I like. I am not Mexican; I am not American. And while I love living here, I think I might love living there just as much. I know I should expect no less--many of my friends are Mexican, if anything as pragmatic as anyone else up north, if not more.

I guess I like the change that comes from crossing an arbitrary line and seeing a world so different and yet (a cliche i shan't avoid) so similar.

I can only hope one day something similar will happen other places, where the lines are harder to cross, and the fee for crossing is often someone's life. They who are not welcome are yet welcoming--for the subtle rejection of everything about them can be seen crossing back north. They who are not hated (that takes too much energy) but just belittled and disdained, will still smile and greet and while it's true many will as soon pick your pocket, most won't--and in the end i think fewer will there than here--and more honestly even then.

I have this picture in my head of a democracy tyrannically lording over the weaker, less educated, just-plain-not-as-lucky neighbors, controlling them with guns and money. It happens, you know. I was there just this past Saturday. And though it may not seem to be going on now, the now there is has come of many thens when it did happen--to a nation's shame and another's anger.

And still, I see this and see three steps to peace that I can only pray others will take before more of their children die...

I guess it's weird that I hope others can have this no-man's-land, with its own share of crime, perhaps, but mostly carefreeness. This, too, is too simplistic and forgets the suffering many live there. I won't go into too much detail, this mention of it shall be enough.

I will say this: one day, my mother and I will have to go and finally have our $200 tacos.

She doesn't read this--but if she did, she would smile.

Time after Time

2005-12-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

My birthday is on Thanksgiving.

Not around Thanksgiving, but on Thanksgiving. Every year. Never fails. This has something to do with the strange timekeeping methodology on my planet, but I find it rather convenient, as I never have to work on my birthday. See? Very nice.

A similar side effect from this strange space-time continuum thingy that's unfortunately to blame for my insufferable condition as a human (a terrible clerical error sometime in the evolutionary past is to blame, I'm sure, as I am sure G-d Himself will fix it as soon as He gets around to it), make all communication with me impossible three days before and three days after. My children (G-d bless their innocent little souls) are fully aware of this and know to call the Monday after the aforementioned American holiday to retroactively (not belatedly) wish me a happy birthday--a matter both very much appreciated by me, and expedient to both, as they get to save on the gift they didn't give me because they could not see me. Well, according to my calculations, that would have been last Monday, otherwise discernable on your calendar as 28-Nov-2005, or the incongruous 11/28/05. but NO!!!!! Did they call? No. Did they write? No. Fax? No.Telegraph, telex, smoke signal? no, No, NO! I'm sure I am to blame somehow--or perhaps this is what happens to parents when their children are old enough to build a life outside the home, with friends of their very own with whom to spend their own time--or this is what happens to fathers when ex-wives get new boyfriends with kids and the new kids and the old kids get along great and they all decide to spend the weekend together... dunno.

Perhaps I will not mind. Perhaps I know what this is all like from the kids' point of view because I already lived it as a child when my own parents separated and then divorced. Perhaps this is how I pay for what I did to my mother, who moved out, moved away, and I thought she moved away from me and hated her for it. And maybe I will just drink to forget, like grandpa drank after grandma left.

And maybe I will write To Have and Have Not, and then I'll shoot myself.

or maybe i'll simply be a single drop of rain.

Vaster than empires and more slow...

2005-12-01T20:36:00.000-08:00

Steven Saylor writes books about Rome. I have them all. I don't usually read historical fiction, but I'm addicted.

My son walks in my room and asks: "dang, dad! how MANY books has Steven Saylor written?"

It is in the little moments that I steal at work when I look past my book and see the hills beyond that I remember that the greatest moments of this world just might not have come before me. No dust of Caesar's now remains--no memory of Gordianus, who might well have lived... and my children's grandchildren will not know my name... and still I will have left my footprint somewhere, left there to be found by sharp eyes.

All this, and it's fun reading, too.

Do good, and do well.

Double, double, toil and trouble...

2005-10-30T23:41:00.000-08:00

Halloween cae en lunes este año.

Ricardo me hablo para invitarme a ir a West Hollywood con el. Hace casi tres años acabe con el y mantengo minima comunicacion con el, pero el insiste--y como queria ir de todas maneras, le dije que si Carlos me daba permiso, lo haria.

Carlos dijo que si.

Esto me ha hecho reconsiderar la regla que siempre he tenido de no tener ningun contacto con mis ex's. Es justo para Ricardo y yo continuar aunque sea hablando? Si no nos pudimos comunicar bien cuando teniamos tanto que perder, como nos podemos comunicar mejor como amigos, habiendo perdido tanto? Es justo para Carlos y yo, poniendo a prueba la confianza que apenas hemos empezado a construir? Y siendo que yo ya tenia una regla al respecto, que debilidad indica el hacerle caso a Ricardo esta vez solo porque su sugerencia coincida con lo que yo pensaba hacer anyway?

Bueno, como todo en la vida, supongo lo sabre solo cuando todo haya pasado ya. De nada sirve especular que viene.

Ahora tengo sueño.

Buenas noches!

A little story of was and were

2005-10-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

Introspection is too often the bane of the nascent writer’s experience. More frequently than is good, we butcher the basic principles of decent communication in the attempt to manifest our personal experiences into the a global perspective, into the ever-elusive and overly-revered human condition, which is to say we tie ourselves inside a cave beyond our own ability to escape and then spend the better part of life describing the things that go on outside by the mere shapes of shadows the sun we sought to escape makes dance on the walls inside. And then we call this insight. I see this all the time, mostly reading my own blog—or my old essays—or most of the things I have written. Nowadays, with a veritable barrage of pseudo-semi-biographical rubbish making it to paper, film, or radio, I can at least feel somewhat proud that I hardly ever waste any paper printing the junk I write—save a tree, I say. Still, I hope one day to grow up, to tear this selfish little cocoon all us fakers weave around our fragile, brittle egos and write good one day.

In just one paragraph, I used the word “I” six times and made other references to myself seven times; all that in just 188 words. And that’s assuming I can count.

I grew up reading real writers. When they say “I” they hardly ever mean their real “I”s but rather the characters they’ve masterfully created and subtly developed to not only arouse interest, but real concern on our part. Real writers need no readers. They suffer our intrusions into the worlds they have created and sometimes guide us through, to no benefit of theirs. We follow, just outside the reach of their candle-light, and sometimes peek over their shoulders at their lives, prurient observers morbidly curious—seeking to gain from their experience what we cannot in our own, or (even worse) to have ours validated by searching blindly through their work for what we’ve grandiosely chosen to call “the human experience.” Except that in the vast expanse that is such experience, one hardly finds the sense that is so often the point of their writings; the best descriptions of it are those that dissociate completely from the purpose of such enterprise and make art of the sharing—by which I think I mean that I appreciate subtlety.

Likewise, the greatest stories of love are about loves that never happened—success made sweeter by bitterly remembering it from most abject humiliation and defeat; or contrariwise, the worst in life somehow ennobled by reminiscing from the warm and comforting protection of (principally unearned) luxury.

I guess it’s all a matter of perspective, of structure, of sense. We seek the sense that life often lacks and in so doing force a shape on the shapelessness we have been given; this, in turn, is like the proverbial pebble in the shoe—and in the end, who can feel the pebble in his brother’s shoe?

Lengua Franca, Otra Vez

2005-10-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

I find myself a bit at odds with my own culture.

Having received what in my humble opinion is a decent education prior to our move to the United States when I was thirteen years old, I find myself quite capable of communicating in Spanish with a modicum of self-assurance. I still make some grammatical mistakes, some quaint, some outright insulting to an educated ear, but none too terribly distracting from the message—if sometimes amusing. Often, when speaking or writing about things that happened to me before high school, I write in Spanish because that is how I remember it. Memories taste different in Spanish, smell sweeter, and even those of pain are best remembered as they happened; something is always lost in translation. By definition, it must change.

Sometimes, I write or speak in Spanish out of greatest tenderness or anger—unable to control the extremes.

And yet, the lure of the new culture made me hungry to learn the language. I went to great lengths to internalize this new mode of thinking, this new perspective on the world. A language is both a reflection of and an agent effecting change upon a society. Any interpreter (a word far more suitable than translator) will know of the famous shoe-on-the-podium incident at the United Nations when Mr. Kruschev told America what amounted to “we will outlive you” but was translated to “we will bury you,” a subtle but powerful difference that might have plunged the world into its final cataclysm.

So there was Mrs. Novotny, hardly a decade older than me, hotter than anyone teaching 14-year-olds has a right to be, teaching me what “boiling” meant. And Mr. Robles, or Castro, or whatever his name was—a Cuban man that spoke to me in English, French, Arabic and some other African language before trying Spanish when he met me. He taught me not the language, but the structure. I am more grateful to him for that than I am perhaps to any other teacher. Instead of giving me many fishes, he taught me to fish. Still, he wasn’t nearly as hot as Mrs. Novotny, so I can’t really remember his name.

I remember talking to myself in the bus on the way home, talking to myself while doing dishes or cleaning the back yard. I remember talking to my siblings, reading to them from the books assigned by Mrs. Novotny (sigh) and Mr. Whatshisname. I did it all in English. After a while, I didn’t have to ask people to repeat themselves so I could understand what they said—even if I didn’t know what the words meant, I knew what words they’d used. In three months, I knew English. My best friends were Polish and Vietnamese; we could only communicate in English. It was great.

And here I am now, in a world with no borders. This blogging world that lends itself to Hebrew and Arabic, to Russian and English, to Spanish like I spoke when I grew up and 50 other versions all descended from the tongue of Cervantes. What a world! I am fascinated by the sounds and the lines that tongues and throats will make and hands will write to convey a thought. The simple image that something as abstract as an idea can be encapsulated (to whatever limited degree we humans can) within two dots on a page enthralls me. Isn’t it silly? I get outright giddy that someone one day might read this and know what I mean!

Unfortunately, now that I have kids to feed and bills to pay, I have little time to learn more languages. There are more important things to learn. Priorities, being what they are, I have little room for this wild dream. Once I wanted to learn all the languages spoken at the United Nations. Now I can’t. Maybe I will later.

I wish for selfish reasons that I could read and write and speak all the languages there are, so that all can hear and read what I have to say, but also so that I can learn form them. So many stories are now lost when an old man dies! So much of a civilization is lost when a single old woman’s voice goes silent. And oftentimes, this happens when the young die, as in war, or famine, or the myriad other cruelties we inflict on one another.

I have such a little corner of the world. Sometimes I see it in Spanish, and I write, to let out all that has come in. Sometimes, I taste it in English, and English it is when it makes it here. I do not mean to exclude anybody—it is an accident of life, and I do hurt that we cannot all share all that all the others might want to share. As if it were food, I hunger for the tastes I haven’t had yet.

So, yes… this is my apology to those who speak only Spanish and would read what I would write. I am very grateful that you would want to read it, and I am sorry that it’s not always in Spanish. I find myself sometimes at odds with my culture, but not for having expanded it will I admit even hypothetically to having renounced it. Unlike the French, who seek to shut the doors to other languages, I find my Spanish open and receptive, a fertile flower in the Spring. I do not mourn that no one speaks the language of El Cid—it was bound to change, or die. And if you speak English and you come and find my words in Spanish, I am sorry too—for both of us!

Inocencia, al final (Parte II, final)

2005-10-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

Te veo en la cama, dormida, boca medio abierta cual en interminable suspiro--y me da miedo. Te he visto asi por años, siempre pensando que algun dia me harias a mi lo que yo hice cuando fue mi turno; encuentro poca paz en pensar que todos tarde o temprano pasamos por esto--bueno, tal vez no todos; solo los que tienen buena suerte.

He medido los minutos de tu vida en lagrimas--a veces de alegria y a veces no. Me extraña pensar que el viejo tenia toda la razon cuando me dijo que amar es sufrir y que a pesar de eso nadie que valore la vida renuncia al amor; mas me extraña que me he dado cuenta de eso mas o menos a la misma edad que el tenia cuando me lo dijo. Que suerte: vivir hasta hoy buscando ser diferente y darme cuenta hoy que soy mi padre--como mi padre, no igual.

Estas aqui dormida, con tu cabeza sobre mi brazo, cansada de todas las labores que la niñez requiere. Roncas, como ronca tu padre y ronco tu abuelo; ojala encuentres un chamaco que te aguante eso.

Tu cara cambia mucho cuando duermes. Carece la concentracion que a menudo veo cuando haces tus tareas. Le falta la sonrisa que tantas veces hasta sin querer nos das en tus conversaciones, tan alegres y animadas, en las que nos cuentas de tus amigos, de tu escuela, y con las que demuestras cada dia como dejas de ser niña en tu despreocupada carrera a la madurez. Espero aprenderas como todos los que han transcurrido ese camino antes, que es dificil, que es mejor caminarlo despacio y no correr. Aqui estare cuando te caigas, para curar tus heridas y sobarte tus dolores. No estare solo; somos muchos los que te aman y te amaran mas. Y viendo tu carita dormida, me pregunto si es paz lo que veo, o tregua nada mas. Te falta mucho para ser independiente, pero cada dia pides mas, buscas mas, empujas mas contra las verjas que yo he puesto a tu alrededor por proteccion, pero que tu solo ves como jaula. En tu sueño, no escondes tu orejita de Arwen que de dia siempre guardas tras tu pelo--y aunque no haya nadie mas que yo para verla, muevo tu cabello sobre ella.

Te lo he dicho muchas veces y lo dire miles de veces mas. Aunque llegue yo a tener 75 años, y tu 53, seras mi baby, y te sentare en mis piernas y peinare tu pelo y te contare las historias que mi padre me conto. Es inevitable que llegues a ser tu propia persona--y anhelo como todo padre que tu independencia sea total y saludable--y aun asi espero comprendas que aunque los hijos se independicen de sus padres, los padres no pueden independizarse de sus hijos. El hilo que nos une desde el primer dia que senti tu cuerpo en la panza de tu madre, sin que tu lo supieras, es demasiado fuerte.

Asi que no te quejes si me ves un poco triste cuando dices que no puedes venir a verme este fin de semana porque vas al cine con tus amigos, o que es el cumpleaños de tu "novio" (ya discutiremos ese tema mas a fondo muy pronto), o que tienes un grupo de drama en tu escuela y van a practicar todo el sabado. No es enojo lo que siento cuando veo que los pantalones que usas son casi tan largos comos los mios (aunque todavia pueda hacer dos tuyos con la tela de uno de los mios). Cuando te pones tu makeup y te quedo viendo, no te burles de mi.

Que justa esta vida que nos hace pagar con los hijos lo que les hicimos a nuestros padres! Pero no por justa tendre que estarle agradecido.

Algun dia, leeras esto, y quiero que sepas que el "yo" de hoy apoya completamente tu rebeldia. Es tu vida para cometer los errores que tu quieras. Hare todo lo posible para enseñarte de los errores que yo he cometido, pero si no se puede, recuerda que simpre tendras aqui un abrazo fuerte, un plato de comida caliente, una cama comoda, y un hombro seco dispuesto a remojarse de tus lagrimas.

Te quiero.

Carlos y Miguel

2005-09-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

Digamosle Carlos, aunque no sea mas Carlos que yo soy Miguel. ;-)

Es joven, inteligente, estable, religioso, amable, educado, bien criado; le gusta leer; oye mucha de la misma musica que yo oigo. Trabaja y va a la universidad. Baila, come, bebe, nunca fuma (aunque me perdona que yo si). Ve peliculas como las que veo yo. Las partes de sus intereses que no coinciden con los mios hasta ahora me han inspirado ya sea curiosidad o interes.

Es guapito, delgado, atletico y feliz. Se rie y su risa ilumina la sala oscura donde estamos sentados, el en mis brazos, viendo tele.

Me esta ensenando mucho y quiere aprender de mi.

Es un enigma que quiero decifrar--un nudo gordiano, pero yo no alejandro y no necesariamente por eso no tan violento, asi que hare lo que hacia mi madre en las tardes aquellas cuando llovia y nos sentabamos a platicar, cuando nosotros los ninos haciamos los nudos mas complicados que pudieramos y ella, con la mayor paciencia del mundo, y (segun nosotros los ninos) la mayor habilidad, poco a poco los deshacia, para regresarnos la cuerda tal como Dios la hizo. Y si lo logro, tal vez como aquel que lo deshizo una vez, conquistare al mundo entero.

oh... como materia que no le interese al mundo, les contare que el es de israel y yo de nicaragua. Estoy queriendo aprender de su cultura y el de la mia, y ese interes (el me ensenara Hebrew y yo a el Spanish) nos ha dado tanto tiempo para conocernos y me esta gustando.

sera sonso que ya tan pronto estemos planeando viaje a tierra santa? no sera hasta fines del proximo ano... pero me esta gustando el plan.

tengo miedo... mucho miedo... me han hecho dano y no estoy pa'eso ya mas. Pero he oido decir que la unica batalla que uno tiene garantizado perder es aquella a la que uno no fue.

disculpen, si es que leen esto, mi ausencia de un mes or so. He estado ocupado, como ya comprenderan, habiendo leido esto.

les contaria mas, desconocidos intimos mios, pero justo en este momento me voy a "arreglar" (eso quiere decir que hay algo malo conmigo?) y lo voy a ver. El sale de la escuela tarde hoy (a las 10) y vamos a Starbucks o Coffee Bean (o mejor algun independiente de los que abundan en los angeles).

que rico...

oh... y el cafe sabe bien tambien.

;-)

A Sound of Thunder

2005-09-05T19:20:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the movies.

I read a lot, and one of my favorite writers is Ray Bradbury. I have a copy of The Martian Chronicles autographed by him twice--twenty years apart. When I gave it to him to sign the second time, he said: "but i've already signed this!" and laughed when he saw the date.

Still, I had never read "A Sound of Thunder" until my little friend, mamacita, put it on her blog, for which I greatly thank her. Honestly, though, I was not very impressed. It was too short and not well developed. It lacked the subtlety to which he had gotten me accustomed. Still, his stories do awaken in me a sense of wonder, and my imagination does (from time to time) surpass what burton, spielberg or lucas can put on film.

I was disappointed. What a waste of Ben Kingsley! His character was so devoid of depth or significance--a shame indeed. None of the characters was worth mentioning. The special effects were weak, though I like the "alternative evolution" monsters they came up with. Of course, you can get those for free on the discovery channel or the national geographic channel, or the science fiction channel, or a myriad more worthy movies.

So, then, in short: thanks, mamacita, for pointing me here. I always love expanding my limited horizons. However, this is definitely a renter. I'd watch it right after Jurassic Park (the first one), though definitely before Frankenfish (don't ask).

I'll probably just end up pissing Warner Brothers off by buying a fake copy from the guy at Tacos Mexico--again, don't ask.

Other than that, I had a wonderful, restful, weekend.

Plus I met Carlos--which is another story altogether.

More, God Willing, to come.

¿Por qué me abandonaste?

2005-08-01T18:27:00.000-07:00

Oculto en el portal
fumando una colilla de ayer
el tiempo en el bolsillo
y el frío dibujado en la piel.

Se acercan como siempre
y él entre las rendijas les ve
amarse cada día
mirándose y riendo a la vez.

A punto de gritar
esconde el llanto con la pared
después desaparecen
y vuelve a repetir:

¿Por qué me abandonaste?
no sé por qué
si siempre fuiste mía
no sé por qué.

¿Por que me abandonaste
si mis besos y caricias
sólo me hablan de ti?

¿Por qué me abandonaste?
no sé por qué,
quemándome la vida—
no sé por qué—
llenando de tristeza y soledad
cada momento que no estás aquí.

---

A punto de gritar
esconde el llanto con la pared
después desaparecen
y vuelve a repetir:

¿Por qué me abandonaste,
Si siempre fuiste mia?
Si al cabo de los años
mis caricias y mis besos
sólo me hablan de tí.

¿Por qué me abandonaste?
no sé por qué,
quemándome la vida
no sé por qué,
llenando de tristeza y soledad
cada momento que no estás aquí.

¿Por qué me abandonaste?
No se por qué,
quemándome la vida

¿Por qué me abandonaste?
No se por qué,
quemándome la vida
llenando de tristeza y soledad
cada momento que no estás aquí.

¿Por qué me abandonaste?
No se por qué,
quemándome la vida

Autores: Elios-V Maguelli-Lazzari-Sebastiani
Intérprete: Paloma San Basilio

Por Los Caminos Van Los Campesinos...

2005-07-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

De dos en dos,
de diez en diez,
de cien en cien,
de mil en mil,
descalzos van los campesinos
con la chamarra y el fusil.

De dos en dos los hijos han partido,
de cien en cien las madres han llorado,
de mil en mil los hombres han caído,
y hecho polvo ha quedado
su sueño en la chamarra, su vida en el fusil.

El rancho abandonado,
la milpa sola, el frijolar quemado.
El pájaro volando
sobre la espiga muda
y el corazón llorando
su lágrima desnuda.

De dos en dos,
de diez en diez,
de cien en cien,
de mil en mil,
descalzos van los campesinos
con la chamarra y el fusil.

De dos en dos,
de diez en diez,
de cien en cien,
de mil en mil,
¡por los caminos van los campesinos
a la guerra civil!

PABLO ANTONIO CUADRA

Dos Lobos

2005-07-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

Mi amiga, Mamacita (de Scheiss Weekly), escribió una historia hace unos días que me gustó mucho. Para leerla en Ingles, por favor visítenla; su blog está generalmente muy bueno. Pero para aumentar la audiencia de los que quizás comprenderán el significado de la historia, la he traducido aquí. Disculpen si no lo hago bien, y les ruego traten de comprender su significado sin dejarse llevar por los errores de su humilde servidor:

-------------

Una tarde, un indio platicó con su nieto de una batalla constante que existe dentro de toda la gente.

Le dijo: “Hijo, la batalla es entre dos lobos dentro de todos nosotros. Uno es malo. Es enojo, furia, envidia, celos, pena, arrepentimiento, arrogancia, culpa, lástima de uno mismo, inferioridad, mentiras, orgullo falso, superioridad y egoísmo. El otro es bueno. Es felicidad, paz, amor, esperanza, serenidad, humildad, bondad, benevolencia, empatía, generosidad, verdad, compasión y fe.”

El nieto pensó acerca de esta historia un momento y al fin le preguntó a su abuelo: “¿Y cuál gana?”

El indio viejo simplemente contesto: “El que le das de comer.”

-------------

Que simple y que cierta esta historia. Y que difícil de aprender.

Legally Insane

2005-06-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

A not-too-close acquaintance of mine (spell check is off... sue me!) sent me this.

It's funny.

I laughed.

I'm still laughing.

I hope you laugh, too.

here goes:

From: vendor
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2005 7:53 PM
To: me
Subject: oldie but goodie

Disorder in the Court

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.

______________________________

ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.

_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.

_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan.

______________________________________

This one reminds me of Labyrinth
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

___________________________________

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.

________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh....

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?

_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh?

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

The World According to Oliver (consider yourself)

2005-06-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

The war was over. Thousands of relieved parents poured onto the streets in celebration more than of the victory, than the end to the senseless death that had already taken so many thousands. Thousands of children poured onto the streets for no reason better than to shout and run and be free like they hadn’t for years. Three generations had fought for this day, and now it was here and no one had the temerity to point out that victory is when the hard work begins: that day was not a day for sense and logic, but for triumph and merriment. Walking with my mother, dressed in the requisite red shirt and black pants, waiving little blue and white flags right alongside the red and black ones, most of us with the peasant-inspired straw hats so en vogue after the revolution, I was of the people. There is no greater sense of freedom than the first dizzying moments of debauchery, drunkenness and love-making. How more free could one be than that one day, after one persecution ended and the next hadn’t yet begun?

We went back to school. The actual fighting in the cities had only taken one year out of school. Then, there was the literacy campaign, that took most literate men and women of 16 or older and took them to the fields, the jungles and the steppes, to teach those who had so long been kept in darkness the power of the written word, the sense of numbers and the words of the new founding fathers. History is the boon of the victors, and there was so much to rewrite, retell, redo. Thus, then, two years passed before we went back to school, but we went back.

To be sure, an endless debate could start by merely trying to pin down the real reasons for the revolution. Power corrupts those who hold it, but many who don’t lust after it to their souls’ decay—and we had both. Ultimately, Somoza faced thirteen armies, divided into three groups; each group had its own ideology, but mostly everybody agreed on one thing: Somoza had to go. He was not a nice man. He was not a good leader. He did not have the nation’s interests at heart. The United States had installed his father into the presidency many a year before for no better reason than to have a friend in a slightly unstable area. American economic interests required a modicum of stability to facilitate commerce—and (at the time) the possible construction of a canal, as I recall, but that might have been before. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a misunderstanding regarding the nature of that stability, and the Somozas assumed a despotic and tyrannical choke-hold on the nation that Stalin would have envied and Nixon (privately, of course) admired. But stability it was, and as such, met the requirements divinely inspired from the north, and so more money came, and more power, more arms and more dying. The dead, it seems, are ultimately stable—but they are not economically viable—so, per instructions implicitly declared en Anglais, the populace was kept at a happy medium. The suffering of the people of Nicaragua was considered secondary to the ultimate political and economic interests of the cold-war-era United States. The stability of the right-wing regime there was considered an advantage in the on-going fight against the possibility of Cuba exporting Soviet-style communism to the region; many of the Cubans who participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion were trained in Nicaragua with the full knowledge of President Kennedy, a liberal and a democrat—go figure. Cute little phrases came out of that: Alliance for Progress. We failed to see Alliance meant really Alignment (ours behind yours), for your progress. Of course, Americans justified this by the use of the eternal trickle-down economics: the ever-better scraps you threw our way should justify the rape of our country’s natural resources—and, to forestall those who’d chastise my use of the word “rape” as a leftist exaggeration, I’d like to beg that if you have not walked on the dead, eroded sands of what once was verdant, life-giving jungle but turns into a post-apocalyptic, war-torn moonscape after American-style deforestation seeking more wood or to drive out “insurgents”, it would be best to avoid commenting on the subject. The killing fields belong only to the dead. The living’s job is to prevent the next ones.

Americans get so wrapped up in their political dichotomy they fail to see the rest of the world can’t tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans once one starts talking Dollars.

Shortly after the revolution, the United States did to Nicaragua what it had done to Cuba, apparently ignoring the lesson of the past, and thereby dooming itself to the same results: economic sanctions practically drove the fledgling democracy into the hands of the Cubas, Chinas, East Germanies and Soviet Unions of the world. But the fault, you see, was with Nicaragua. Remember the three armies? The one that had won was the middle one, the one that wanted to build an independent country from any external power. But the United States demands immediate and unfailing allegiance, an oath of fealty a new democracy just now exercising the muscles of its sovereignty would never want. Ronald Reagan could not have wrapped the gift with a nicer, bigger, redder bow. Nicaragua needed money and the United States did not want to help. But Russia was all about helping us—so very friendly, so very accommodating, so very un-demanding of any subservience, at first.

And then, when the other two armies saw the failure of the third, the one that had won at first, they took over. Thus came the communists to power, not with the revolution, but after the Americans stopped sending help to Nicaragua.

Seeing the incredible oppression the new regime was bringing to the people, and the very real possibility of the exportation of soviet-styled communism to El Salvador and Honduras, and possibly to Colombia and maybe Panama, the United States took immediate, if not overt, action against the Nicaraguan government. Most of this was later celebrated in the Iran-Contra hearings, but I get ahead of myself. Remember I just got back to school after two years of forced and not-terribly-appreciated vacation.

It was a nice, private school. We were of the newly-formed upper class. Dedicated revolutionaries against the Somozas, we (as a family) landed nice positions in the new government. Suddenly, we were hot. The new equality brought a redistribution of wealth which, if not necessarily equitable, was somewhat just. After all, what do the victors get if not the spoils? My dad had a friend who ran a hospital. The school required “community service” hours before graduation. My brother and I went a couple of hours to the hospital and helped clean out some trash, file some papers, push wheel chairs around, all for credit. This was to teach us the value of social responsibility. This is the lesson that I learned.

Shortly after we started, the United States’ supported contras, with arms provided by the CIA, bought with money from Iran, bombed the primary port in Managua. A tanker that was waiting to be unloaded exploded; the line that connected it to the gigantic oil-tanks on the port caught fire. Fifty-thousand gallons of refined gasoline make for a hell of a cherry bomb. I never knew how many died—I did not want to know. I avoided the news. I was, you see, in the thick of things: I was at the hospital when they brought the burn victims in. Most were missing pieces, neatly cleaned and dressed to avoid infection. We kids were kept away from most of them—we were there to file, to push, to clean, not to deal with death and dismemberment.

We were specifically forbidden to go into the small room in the back of the burn unit, which made it most appealing. One day, we snuck in. The room was clean and white, every surface kept sterile to avoid any possibility of infection. There were three beds, each cocooned inside a plastic tent, oxygen running to them all the time; each bed pristine, the lights bright, the air cool and constantly running, like a soft breeze, with a slight disinfectant smell. On each bed there was a body. There were two women and one child, at some point, but when I went in, there was only a woman there—at least they told me later it was a woman. Looking through the plastic, I could hardly tell the mess of charcoal and blood on the bed was even human. She felt no pain, they told me when I ran out crying—so much of heir flesh was gone…and bone can’t feel the burn. They did not know why she wouldn’t just die. She had no name. She was just a body they brought in to the morgue, only to realize at the last moment she was still breathing, if only barely. I hope to God she died quickly.

That is how the United States exports democracy. Whatever else you may say on the matter, as of this writing 1400 human voices have been forever silenced just on the American side in Iraq. That is an irrefutable number that must be considered. I make no judgment on the political, economic and humanitarian motives that lead to their deaths, but add to these the countless deaths of those on the other side. Those 1400 bear no guilt, but those on the other side perhaps do, and so we sleep better at night knowing our boys and girls are there doing the right thing. But I have seen the wrong thing done in the name of right. Sometimes, I see it still. So do not dare to tell me that I don’t know why I speak when I speak strongly against any kind of military action. Somebody must. This is not to say that such an action may from time to time be necessary, but rather that it must be taken with full knowledge of the price to pay. Anything less than absolute torture over the decision is inhuman. Those making the decision must be held accountable for that decision every step of the way. The righteous do not mind to die for the cause of righteousness. They welcome sharing in the ultimate price they ask of all those others. It is only the cowards that try to hide behind lies and excuses.

It is irresponsible to dismiss the opposing view by merely exaggerating its points into their most ridiculous worst-case scenarios and thus attempt to call such a view equally ridiculous. Speaking of the anti-war movement as though it were an oily blob crawling its way up from the theatre screen to consume all foolish enough to try to stand their ground, seeks to dismiss the richness of individual experiences. It is not a movement, but a shifting coalition—and often only accidental association of those who for one reason or another feel this country’s interests could be best served by alternative courses of action.

The war in Viet-Nam was not ended by the anti-war movement. The insane numbers of American dead ended that war. The eternally missed goals ended that war. Why do we call the prolonged and bloody debacle of the soviets in Afghanistan a victory for democratic forces everywhere, but Viet-Nam is the failure of the “anti-war movement”? It is all a question of perspective, a fairy tale where we as Americans can do no wrong. The Soviets left and the Taliban moved in. Who wins? If there is a political aspect to American democracy that attracts the persecuted intellectuals of the rest of the world, it is that it welcomes individualism, and thus dissent. It is ultimately patriotic to question the motives of the government: keeping it honest. Questioning or outright opposing those motives is not irresponsible, weak, or pandering to the interest of terrorists. That some seek to silence the healthy debate reminds me how it feels to live under tyranny.

Any global action taken by a superpower like the United States will have both positive and negative effects—regardless of the original causes. Even the most selfish act may benefit others accidentally or deliberately in the accomplishment of the selfish goal. To try to justify the original intent by the ultimate effect is like saying “look at the Japanese economy of the 70’s and 80’s! It’s ok we dropped two nuclear bombs on them.” Any action must bear immediate justification, or it quickly turns into allowing the end to justify the means.

I, and many like me, admire and respect many who propose the opposing view, but I am getting sick and tired of being called weak, afraid, traitor simply because I don’t fall in line immediately behind them. Nothing could insult them more than my having a mind of my own. It is really a shame that their version of democratic discourse is limited to total, unconditional agreement to their views alone. They equate disagreement with hatred for this country. How incredibly irresponsible is that!? This country, born out of argument and debate, that fought to gain its voice from under the tyrannical dictum of the British Empire, where heroes gave their lives so the critical decisions could be made here—here being where every citizen is—now sees this fundamental right brought into question by those who fear dissention. What’s worse, they are now insulting those who have kept an open mind, calling them complacent, slow to act, sheep-like simply because they didn’t fall in line right behind them.

I find it very amusing how they deny the existence of a “vast, right-wing conspiracy” even as they accuse all who oppose them of being on-message, falling in line, being complacent. They don’t associate for the sake of unifying their voice and clarifying their views; they don’t need to! Their point is so patently clear and right that any non-fascist, non-terrorist, non-communist, red-blooded American would just know it to be true—the rest of us are just insane.

I am sincerely disturbed by the nature of the words many who oppose the war are saying. It is true that our troops deserve our support and every effort must be made to eliminate the dangers to which they can be exposed while there. Nothing should be said to endanger them. However, to equate any disagreement with a death wish on our children, our friends in Iraq, Afghanistan and other such places is sheer stupidity. But is not enough that there are destructive demagogues out there taking advantage of the situation to bring attention to themselves (on both sides of this argument) to translate dissent to lunacy. This country’s democracy demands dialog, and those who wish to live under dictatorial, tyrannical, overpowering forces are certainly welcome to move to China. God knows there’s plenty of work there.

Iraq is nothing like Viet-Nam. Viet-Nam is already lost. We can still win in Iraq. Let us, however, as responsible Americans, bring out into the open all our motives and democratically discuss what course of action will accomplish our humanitarian goals while minimizing deaths.

Dissent is difficult; it is often seen as unpatriotic, and those who don’t like it often bring out entire libraries of patriotic talk about falling in line behind the leader to bring about peace. But I have lived under tyranny, both communist and not. I have seen my friends and my parents’ friends die fighting for freedom. Many in my family died to free our land. I have lived through a war and know how necessary it can be. Some things are worth one’s life. One of these things is the freedom to dissent, to vote, to matter in a democracy.

Anything else is Un-American.

Una y otra vez

2005-06-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

Al principio, pensé que no era mío. La enfermera me enseño un paquetito bien apretadito, ya limpio; solo se veían su pelito café claro y sus ojitos grises. Su carita, todavía hinchada por las hormonas a las que el parto lo expuso, lo hacia parecer si no blanco, chino. Dicen que casi no lloró al nacer. Yo llegué unos minutos tarde—ella nunca dura mas de dos horas en parto (ya ha tenido tres hijos) y el duró una hora nada mas. Para cuando llegué del trabajo al hospital ya había nacido. El nació casi a las diez de la mañana. Todavía en el cuarto donde todo sucedió, los encontré ya calmados, descansando, sonriendo. Me senté en una silla al lado de la cama—ella entre dormida y despierta; el bien despiertito, sus ojos investigando el mundo nuevo a donde lo habíamos traído sin pedirle permiso y sin darle explicación.

Lo saludé y le di un beso. Traté de hablarle usando el nombre que habíamos pensado darle, pero no funcionó. Después de meses de entrenarnos, mi hija nos había convencido darle otro nombre—traté el nombre nuevo, y ese si lleno mi boca bien: Andre, dizque fuerte, y aunque no físicamente, ha demostrado que su temperamento es así. El niño es un santo, calmado, aguantador y al mismo tiempo travieso y juguetón. Le doy mil gracias a Dios por traérnoslo, aunque trajo con él tantas dudas.

La historia viene así:

Lo debí haber sospechado desde el principio, pero se me escapó. Ella nunca fue muy romántica. Aun cuando nos casamos y después nació mi hija, ella quiso ser una mujer muy liberada, lo cual no era suficiente para sospechar nada. Queriendo yo mismo ser progresivo, acepté su manera de ser. Trabajé como idiota para pagarle su escuela. Cuando salio de la escuela, le di trabajo. Según yo, todo iba bien. No me di cuenta hasta que la niña tenía tres años.

Un día, salí del trabajo temprano para llevar a mi cuñada a visitar a su novio. La muchacha era amable conmigo y siendo el jefe, yo tenía mas que suficiente tiempo libre para llevarla. El muchacho, también árabe, me caía bien; en aquel entonces, él estaba trabajando en construcción a mas de una hora de distancia, y el carro de mi cuñada no aguantaba el viaje. Durante el viaje, ella le habló tres veces para avisarle donde estábamos, y para platicar un rato. Por supuesto, la plática siendo en mi carrito, me era imposible evitar oír todo lo que ella decía y la mayor parte de lo que él le contestaba. La mayor parte de lo que dijeron era el usual intercambio entre enamorados, con besitos y otras caricias verbales—pero un par de los comentarios me hicieron un poco sospechoso. El le preguntó de mi mujer, de su horario, de cómo puede ser que yo tenga tanto tiempo libre, que si no le preocupaba que pudiera yo aparecerme sin avisar, y esas cosas.

Para la tercera conversación entre ellos, yo ya sabia de que estaban hablando, y sin mucha interrogación, conseguí que mi cuñada me diera los detalles de la infidelidad de mi mujer. Resulta que un hombre preocupado por proveer lo que su familia necesita y trabajando hasta dos turnos al día no le da suficiente atención a su mujer—y mujeres que no reciben atención en casa la buscan en la calle.

Un año. Después de cuatro, estaba dispuesta a tirarlo todo a un lado por las caricias y un poco tiempo de un extraño que conoció una vez que salio con sus amigas a un TGI Friday’s. Atendían la misma universidad. Mientras yo trabajaba para pagarle sus estudios, ella andaba de manita sudada por toda la ciudad con su nuevo novio. Todos nuestros amigos sabían. Toda su familia sabía. Todos. Esa noche me lo admitió, buscando comprensión de mi parte.

Ella, protagonista de todos mis sueños pornográficos, amor de mi vida, participante principal de todas mis fantasías (sexuales y no), quería comprensión. Ella, que sabía como yo odié las indiscreciones de mi padre y a quien yo le juré jamás serle infiel. Mi Beatriz, mi Julieta, mi Penélope—¿Cómo explicarle que me dolía más? No era tanto que le diera el cuerpo, porque eso no se gasta. Me dolió mas que aun sabiendo cuanto me dolía no podía esconder esa ilusión en sus ojos cuando me contó todo.

El pendejo fui yo. Un mes traté y no pude quedarme. Por supuesto, en ese mes, sabiendo cuanto la quería y mas que todo como para pagar la indiscreción se me entregó completamente—una orgía para dos mas por culpa que por ganas. El cuerpo no se queja, pero el corazón no aguanta. La que lo usa como paga no se da cuenta pero se convierte en puta, y nadie quiere una puta antes de apagar la luz.

Mi hija tenía tres años. Todavía se acuerda del último día. Ese día no peleamos. En la mañana me levanté, lavé mi ropa, cociné un pequeño desayuno para los dos. Mi mujer no se levantó hasta las diez (típico, diría yo, de la nueva vocación que estaba desempleando). Todo listo, me subí a mi carrito y me fui. Recuerdo la imagen de mi niña llorando, solo moviendo su manita en el aire en mi retrovisor.

Al final de ese mes, la que fue mi mujer me llamó para avisarme que estaba embarazada y para decirme (de su propia cuenta y sin que yo le preguntara) que era mío. En todo caso, en California no importa de quien sea. Estando casados cuando el niño nació, era mío sin importar quien fuera el padre.

Al principio, pensé que no era mío. La enfermera me enseño un paquetito bien apretadito, ya limpio; solo se veían su pelito café claro y sus ojitos grises. Su carita, todavía hinchada por las hormonas a las que el parto lo expuso, lo hacia parecer si no blanco, chino. Dicen que casi no lloró al nacer. No importa—al cabo yo ya había llorado suficiente por los dos. Siempre ha sido el tranquilo. Así nos pagó Dios por todas las noches sin sueño que le dedicamos a la niña y su cólico. Ella, con sus decisiones, sus órdenes, sus demandas—él, siempre dispuesto a ver que viene, complaciente y tranquilo. Ella la mandona—él dispuesto a ir al cine a ver que película se nos antoja ver. Y si no hay ninguna, nos vamos a Starbucks a tomar un café y platicar un rato. El que aprendió a comer cebollas solo porque le gustan a daddy.

Ayer fue el día del padre. Mis hijos me lo celebraron en la manera normal: con regalitos baratos que compraron con el poco dinero que habían juntado, con tarjetas hechas a mano en la escuela, y con besos y abrazos. Fuimos al cine; vimos tele. Platicamos un rato y tomamos café.

No soy muy buen padre. Es casi injusto que siendo tan descuidado como soy me quieran tanto. Pero me quieren. Siempre he dicho que no hay mejor redención que la otorgada por los hijos: uno vive su vida lo mejor que puede, pidiéndole a Dios que sus hijos lo perdonen. Los míos ya no son tan niños, a pesar de su edad. Ayer, así aburrido (dirán) o tranquilo (tal vez), y tal vez sin querer queriendo, mi hija y mi hijo me dieron el mejor día de los padres que uno pueda querer.

Por Paulita.

2005-06-07T17:27:00.000-07:00

There is always a disaster, somewhere. Happy lives are cut in half by man or nature, and hard lives are made the harder by the aftermath of devastation—pieces left to be picked up in loneliness or in quiet, vacant-eyed communities left stunned by the surprise. And yet, almost as if divinely commanded, soon after there will be another disaster. What senseless human hope makes us think that this one disaster will be the last? Why are we so surprised when the next one comes? All life needs to go wrong is time. True, the same applies to the happy moments, but we are so good at remembering ones and forgetting the others.

Strictly speaking, I don’t remember, though the images are well implanted in my memory from so much repetition. God shivered the day before Christmas Eve: the earth wouldn’t stand still; doors opened and closed, banging and clanging in an odd, offbeat applause; dishes and toys flew through the air and fell together into a broken mass on the floor; the ground roared; wind blew where before it had been calm. People who make a living counting the dead later said there were 10,000; the ones who make their living measuring devastation said it reached 6.5 on the Richter scale. Before the week was out, they’d increased those numbers to 20,000 and 7.2. With every telling, the numbers were different, but death and destruction are hardly quantifiable past a point where the brain simply turns them to multitudes—beyond, lies madness.

I was in my crib, or whatever those things are called that hold kids too big for cribs but too little for beds. My brother was in his bed, in the same room, but at the opposite corner from me. We were both away from the window. When the shaking started, the window exploded into a million tiny pieces and fine dust, covering the floor, but not quite reaching either of us. The ceiling collapsed; my brother was buried almost completely under it—only his skinny, long, left leg stuck out from under the rubble. I was fine, if a bit shaken. My mother was asleep in her room, at the other end of the house. Between us, the kitchen had become an impenetrable barrier of broken glass, fallen furniture and buckling floorboards. Gas leaked loudly; water poured from broken pipes. Electricity was out, but for the occasional blue lightning of exploding transformers up and down the street. My father was away; he would not return until the morning.

The maid, bless her heart, a young kid somehow related to my dad (probably a bastard child from one of many indiscretions), saved us. She was a tall, strong, young woman who couldn’t be bothered with panic or surprise. She dug my brother out of the rubble, pulled me from my crib, and literally elbowed and shouldered her way past the toppled refrigerator and dining-room table to the front door, where my mother sat sobbing. My brother and I were in our pajamas; my mother was in night gown; the maid was fully dressed, her hair pulled into a tight and tidy pony tail, her long, flowery skirt snugly and prudishly tied around her ample waist with a rope. She was ready for battle and a little shaking wasn’t going to get her off balance.

The house, however, had fallen to one knee, leaning heavily on the building beside it—itself quite weak and loudly complaining at the extra weight.

As I recall, that was the end of the weak, wooden construction in the city. Houses were built out of concrete blocks from then on, with rebar reinforcement—solid, strong. The skeletons of old buildings were left in place, as morbid monuments to the hubris of a people building a city where five different faults intersected. They say the skeletons are still there, having survived their former occupants, that disaster, and the many that came thereafter. Death, it seems, endures.

We moved with my dad’s aunt, in another city, a humbler city full of simpler people and proud, stout little buildings put together when Spain was not the enemy but the motherland—colonial, they called it, as if one’s own slavery is anything to proclaim. We were there a couple of years, while the city (there is, after all, only one city when one is that little) was being rebuilt. In the meantime, we traveled a little; we studied a little and spent time with family. Those were restful times. Life took a little pause. The destruction, the death, all the evil, terrible things that happened were in the past and far away. Young minds do put such things aside so quickly!

Paulita, my dad’s aunt, was a single woman in her sixties, a retired teacher with impeccable manners and perfect handwriting. Used to quills and blotters, back when fine, linen paper was expected when mailing personal notes to one’s friends and relatives, she took life gently, slowly, carefully, deliberately—she did not rush it but rather lived it. I was her favorite. Dark and ugly like my dad—by far the darkest of the litter—she adopted me as her personal child, the one she never had. She cooked with me, for me; she baked the most delicious cookies; she took me on long walks along the lake and bought me candy. She taught me long words and long division. She taught me to slow down in a fight and to smile even when I am angry. We made whole armadas of paper boats of all sizes when it was raining, so we could release then into the flooded streets when the rain stopped. We finger painted. Despite having dedicated her entire life to the care of her older sister, left bed-ridden by a series of strokes in her early twenties, and despite having thus given up any hope of starting her own family, she was the happiest person I have ever met. She was completely at peace with the world and thanked God every day for each glorious sunrise. More than anyone I’ve ever known, I miss her.

The war came and the war went, leaving ten dead for every one that died during the earthquake. But we survived. My roses and my friends, we left. Home and country, we left. We traded all the dreams of life and future there for the uncertainty of this new land. It was the greatest gamble. My father bet his life that he could make it here, and he lost. My sister, sick and weak, and sweet and gentle, did not choose this harsh, unwelcoming world and she succeeded. This is the way of the world, that despite the greatest odds in favor, the strong will sometimes lose, and the weak will sometimes win. We want the weak to win, from time to time, for we see our weaknesses in them, and their strengths in us. Rivers flood, winds blow, rain falls, earth trembles, forests burn, and yet we build again; we try again; we do not shake our fists at God and curse Him, but rather pray for the wisdom to understand His way and endure yet one more trial—for trials are always coming.

Let them come, I say. I am made of stronger stuff than rain and fire. I will not simply live; I will not just survive; when the sun rises again on this wind-swept, desolate wilderness that seeks to engulf me, I will persevere!

How to Kill a Man

2005-05-25T01:43:00.000-07:00

It’s easy enough to end a life. Humans are so frail, so weak, so gentle, that just about anything will cut the tender thread of life and leave a breath hanging in the air, as if a sigh. It hangs even in the hottest day as if it was condensing in the coldest winter night, just for a second, and then it is gone—the eyes that just a second prior held all the hope the world has seen glaze over with the peace that life can’t bring. The tightest, most alert muscles recover in an instant the placid softness of earliest infancy. The deepest frown relaxes into peace. For a moment, one might even feel one has done this man a favor—and in fact one just might have.

The hard part is not in the doing, but in the doing well. If one gets them young enough, it is said, the possibilities are endless. Here’s an example.

Let us say we get this child, the oldest son of a roads engineer in a third world country, building roads into the unforgiving jungle, leading from nowhere in particular to nowhere specifically. The engineer, a man who built his meager life from nothing by sheer force of will, has drunk all sense into despair and drowned all but the heartiest sorrows for they refuse to sink. Twelve hour days led to twelve hour nights and sleep came only on Saturdays—Sundays are God’s days. He never was what he’d always hoped he’d grow up to be, and so he sought revenge on the back of that child. But children’s bodies heal quickly, and defying death, he grew stronger.

Life was hard then, and there was never enough money to feed everybody well. Being the bread earner, the engineer got the lion’s share, and the kids and the wife got what was left. In those days, food was the measure of a man’s success, and the engineer was just not that good at it.

At eleven, the child dropped out of school. He didn’t have enough money to buy a bicycle, so he rented one from a man in town, bought kerosene by the 5-gallon tin and balancing two on the sides of the handlebar, he rode around town selling pints for people’s wood-burning stoves and lamps. When he broke his arm and couldn’t ride the bike anymore, he bought onions and sold them at the bus stop where people had make-shift little vegetable stands. When his father told him to stop, he went back to school—but didn’t stop working, only now he did it after school. He did his homework by candle light late at night, out in the back yard, where the light wouldn’t bother anybody.

On his fourteenth birthday, he woke up on a strange bed, beside a whore he’d rented to celebrate. No one else remembered it was his birthday. Back then, one celebrated only the first five years of a child’s life, till the highest danger of death had passed. His youngest sister did not make it long past the third. He was happy enough to have that much money.

He left the house and made his way in life, moving closer and closer to the capital, studying more and more, surviving by wit or trick or labor. He was not a great looking man, a lanky little indian boy too tall for his age, with a large, broad nose and a full and thick head of wild black hair—but he made up for it with a great personality, always happy, always smiling, always bringing sense and light to the darkest times. He won friends; he influenced people.

In his twenties, he had a wife who left him to work for the Voice of America. By then, he was well known, his humor shaping the way of many a radio soap opera so popular in those days, making great contrast with the melodramatic soaps of the past and making him a name. Soon, he was writing for the more famous comedians in the country, and then he, too, was one of them. Things were looking up.

He found a pretty girl who wanted a successful husband, and what should have been the beginning of great times turned out to be, in fact, the end. They never really liked each other. Marriages of convenience are so much more convenient when the parties involved are indifferent to each other. Animosity is rarely tamed by custom. This was the middle, the senseless plateau that comes from sheer exhaustion and gives the false sense that things are settling in, that it all might just work out…

In his thirties, he discovered politics. Being a man of the people, he took the people’s side and fought in silence like so many did then. The war came. Many of his friends died—some just went away. The war took his house, his wife, his country. In the end, all he had left were his children.

He had found happiness in his children. Yes, there were far more than those he’d had with just his wife, but that was ok, because that’s what everybody did. And he took care of them—all of them. He visited the ones he didn’t live with, and he paid their way. He had money now, and everybody ate plenty. When he left the old country for the new one, and he could only take the four he lived with, he cried. He cried for home and country—he cried for loves long lost—he cried for children he’d never see again.

Somewhere along the road, he lost his way. He erred, like many had before. He hurt those he loved most because he never knew how to show true love. He tried—he did his best—and if his best was not good enough, how could he be to blame? And yet the blame never left him; the guilt stayed with him to the end.

In the new country, he found times at once far more civilized than the childhood back in the days of home and far harsher. Men who’d been his friends now turned on him and on one another like hungry hyenas on the last carcass to be found, though they smiled and spoke softly and went to church all together. Men who had at home not been half as successful as he, now closed the doors that others had opened to them. For twenty years, he tried all the tricks he’d learned when young, and found they did not work in this new, undiscovered country. He tried to make a new life with a new woman, and she left—and the next one left, too. By the time he found the one who’d bury him, he’d given up—as often happens.

He lost his will.

Things started happening to him. He stopped happening to the world. The strong, happy, virile man that defied the strength of electric cable at the hands of a sadistic engineer since he could remember, could now not remember what it was to be a strong and happy man. He lived from day to day like practicing some masochistic 12-step program whose only aim was mere survival. He who for long had persevered, now merely survived. The end of the end came with a cough. What bullets couldn’t do, an enemy too small to see managed with ease. A viral infection of the heart tripled its size. The lack of activity in a man used to massive meals tripled his size. One day, a doctor told him to lose 150 pounds in six months or he’d die.

Three months later, he was dead.

He died on an easy chair watching Johnny Carson. A random day like many before, promising to be like many after, we all went to sleep and left him alone in the living room. Fat and heavy, he breathed easier if he slept sitting. Sitting there, I’m sure he wondered why he should fight so hard for the next breath. The doctor had given him twenty-five pills to take every day. His wife counted them out for him at the beginning of the week. When he died, we found hundreds of pills hidden in little corners of the house, where he’d put them so we’d think he’d taken them. He’d given up—and who can defeat despair? In his old age, he found himself superfluous, unwanted and unloved, taken for granted and tossed aside like so many old men do. He died because that was the better way.

In the end, one need not lift a finger to kill a man. One only need stop loving him.

The Day God Talked To Me

2005-05-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, before going into much detail, I am insane. I am insane because I think God Himself descended from the Heavens and spoke to me—when in fact He didn’t. Or I am insane because He did and I still battle inside myself with the question of His existence. Either way, I’m quite crazy, demented, deranged, loony… and no, there will be no Patsy Cline puns today.

When I was born, 98% of the population of my country considered itself Roman Catholic. When I left, that number was down to about 90%. When I left, the population was down to 70% of what it was before: the rest had died or left.

After decades of dictatorship, and a war almost as long, spearheaded by people of little or no religious inclinations, the undercurrent of social development was one of mostly lip service to the church and to the God it brokered. After a while, the country had begun thinking of it (the church) as another western European or American (read estadounidense) franchise selling a commercially viable product to a needy consumer base. However, unlike Chevy novas, which gave a tangible (albeit hardly dependable) product for the cost, the God of this church took and took and took, and gave so little in return. Children’s fathers disappeared into the night, carried away by jeeps that never brought them back. Fathers’ sons were found dead outside the universities or movie theatres or dance halls where they congregated. Mothers and daughters fared no better, and God did nothing. “Pray,” the church said; and men prayed and children did not come back.

My parents were of the generation that grew up being taken to church on Sundays by their parents and felt little or no connection to the God that spoke only Latin and whose servants said mass with their backs to the crowd. By the time the Pope ordered otherwise, it was too late. My parents were a bit too worried with the practical requirements of survival in a hostile homeland to go back and make peace with a God that never made them feel welcome in His home. They never took me to church. I went of my own accord. They never took me to Sunday school. I snuck into the confessional one Saturday and asked the priest for help. From then, every Sunday I went to church and stayed an hour after mass to study whatever it is kids are supposed to study for First Communion. One of the things I learned was that, to pray, you need only say: “Padre Nuestro, que estas en los cielos…” I learned it was not proper to ask for anything specific, that God would look into your heart, know what was best for you, and grant you that. I learned you don’t ask God to heal your sick sister, to help with the test that’s coming up, to fix the car that’s broken. You say your prayers and the best will happen.

One Sunday, I got up and put on my nicest shirt and my best pants and left the house before my parents woke up. I got to church long before mass started and kneeled and started praying. Padre Nuestro… Ave Maria… Padre Nuestro on and on and on… And when the mass started I did everything as I had learned it. At the right moment I walked up to the altar and I waited in line for my First Communion. With hundreds of people who did not know how important that day was, I waited in line. With no one in my family smiling and taking pictures, I waited in line. And when I took my First Communion, there was only God and me and an old Spanish priest who taught me not what God was, but how to hear His word. God and I left the church and went home. God and I explained we’d gone to church to my parents when they asked. I don’t think my parents ever found out I had my First Communion. They never asked. I never told.

For reasons discussed on a previous post, I had already read the Bible from cover to cover twice by the time I took my First Communion. I was well versed with the God of the Jews, and the God of the Romans. All around me, though, there was a different God… a careless, uncaring creature that apparently was too busy willing every blade of grass to move to care that people were killing people, or worse. Ten years old is too young an age to find out that there are far worse things one man can do to another than kill him.

On Wednesdays and sometimes Thursdays and on Sundays I would go to church. I would participate in the mass, and I would pray. Confession on Saturdays; communion on Sundays. Prayer, prayer, prayer. And always the prayer went: Padre Nuestro, que estas en los cielos…

One would think that God would have something profound to say to a child whose life is precariously balanced on the edge of insanity. One night, after a particularly nasty fight between my parents, when my mother had broken a bottle on the wall next to my head and then lunged at my father with the full intention of cutting his throat, only to be beat into a pulp by him, I prayed. I wanted so badly to ask him to make them love each other, to keep them from hurting each other. I wanted to ask him for money, because they always argued about that despite having a lot of it. I wanted to ask him to take me away, to give me different parents that would love me like I saw my godmother love her children when we visited on weekends. I wanted to ask him to send an alien ship to recruit me as an assistant in their travels across the universe. I wanted captain Nemo to take me onboard the Nautilus to explore the oceans. I wanted to be the invisible man. I wanted to be Johnny from the Fantastic Four, to turn myself on fire and fly away. I wanted to ask him for so much. But all I could say in my head was: Padre nuestro que estas en los cielos… And then I must have gone to sleep. And in my sleep He came, a large figure with no face or shape, a bright light that did not blind, soft and warm. And I poured all my rage into this shape, and beat and bit Him. I screamed and cried and I asked and I begged for all the things I could not pray for. And all he said to me was “It is for the best.”

What The Fuck?

A child wants a hug. A child wants a kiss. A child wants a gentle caress and a “there, there…” What the hell does a child do with an “It is for the best”?

I don’t pray like that anymore. I have nice long conversations with The Guy when I go on long drives by myself. I look for His hand in all the beauty of nature. But I also know his hand is in all the ugliness of man. His is every ray of sunshine—and every drop of rain. His is every smile—and every tear. Today, I blame him for all the evil that men do, and for all the love and tenderness they sometimes have for one another. I have reached my teenage years in spiritual development, when I question the wisdom of The Father and wonder if His way is the best way. One day, I might outgrow this doubt, but for now I just know I paid dearly for the right to have it and I will cherish it.

But every now and then, just for the hell of it, to hear the old words in my mouth, I kneel and hold my hands in supplication, flat the one against the other in front of my face, and quietly say Padre Nuestro que estas en los cielos…

En Junio Como En Enero

2005-05-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

The house was built some time after January of '75, but before November of '76. My parents went to see the models, made a modest down payment, and paid mortgage on two houses for a year before we moved. We we got there, a little before November of '76, my younger brother was a baby and my mom was about to burst--my sister was about three weeks late in coming. Everything was dusty, unpainted, new, exciting.

About a month after we moved, they were done building all the other houses, paving the street, installing street lighting... it finally looked like a real neighborhood. People started moving in, and my older brother and I started exploring, meeting the new kids, playing. We found a new school, new grocery store, new church. My dad had plants brought in, and we picked where we wanted them ourselves--kids of that age love helping out on all dirty chores. It was fun and exciting.

A year later, my dad decided he didn't like the severely sloping front yard, so he had a builder take the grass out, bring some dirt and build a nice, pink terrace where he could now host parties. Just about every weekend, we'd have a party, get-together, to-do, with the neighbors and my parents' friends. The adults would talk and drink and party till the early morning. The kids would play until they collapsed from exhaustion and were carried to bed by their mothers. On holidays, we'd try our hardest to stay awake till the sun came out, but that's so hard to do when you're so little.

When they built the terrace, they left a space of about two feet from the sidewalk, to be able to accomodate for the steps up to the house, and to plant some trees or grass--other neighbors were doing the same thing; the neighboorhood finally looked lived-in. Kids' bike crowded porches, swings hung from trees, dogs barked, smells of cooking wafted out to the street as one walked to church, or to school, or just went for a walk to visit with friends. I asked my parents if I could have that space between the wall of the terrace and the sidewalk to plant a little garden, instead of just getting grass. They agreed, as long as I took care of it. They asked what plants I wanted so they could buy them. I told them not to get any--I would get them myself. They looked a bit doubtful, but agreed.

For a couple of weeks, I walked all over the neighborhood, asking people for clippings of their rose bushes. I always picked the most striking ones, the ones with the strangest colors, the biggest or nicest ones. Some people politely declined, but by far the majority were more than happy to let me have some. A couple of the ladies were even nice enough to get them for me and keep them in water until they grew some roots before giving them to me. Most were more than happy to let me clip a few little branches here and there.

Roses are hard to grow from clippings. They're frail, finicky, temperamental. Once a they grow roots, though, they're very sturdy and forgiving of a young boy's neglect. I planted way too many, and a few kindly died so the rest could grow strong. In almost no time at all, I had the best rose garden in the neighborhood. People who'd given me clippings would walk on by and recognize their roses and say hi. Boys would pick them for their girls. Old women would always make a fuss when they saw me doing a little gardening.

When the war came, the bushes were old and strong, some so thick at the base they resembled my bony calves. I was very happy with the result. Some produced roses pale in color, but sweet and strong. Some produced roses with little smell, but bright red or yellow, or the fiery mix of both in orange tongues of flame from the ends of tall and well-kept branches. Water was scarce, but they kept flowering. Tanks tore up the street, but my bushes didn't die. The house got bombed and we had to leave. We were gone a couple of months, but when we came back, my bushes had only grown more, jealous guardians of the house that--by then--had become my home. We rebuilt it with our own hands. When the house was done, I set to rebuild my garden, and I did.

Some bushes didn't make it, and I went around the neighborhood looking for more clippings. Most of the neighbors were gone, replaced with strangers who had taken out all the plants and replaced their old gardens with slabs of concrete or bricks, or nothing but grass. Still, I got enough clippings to replace the bushes that had died (I insisted on not having two bushes that produced the same roses, so I couldn't just get clippings from the bushes left to replace the dead ones). It took a few months, but at the end, everything was back to normal.

But now there were no parties. Kids didn't go out to play. The world had suddenly turned far more dangerous and parents kept their families huddled around the nest. We still had get-togethers from time to time, but now only in the back yard, never as loud as before, and mostly friends and relatives, no neighbors. About a year later, we were gone.

We had moved out of the house, staying at my aunt's place for about a month. One night, we drove to the house, where we met a nice older lady who gave my dad an envelope full of money. My dad handed her the keys to our home. We got back in the car and drove away. I didn't take a rose--I didn't think of it at the time. I didn't stop to check on them. My dad cried in silence all the way back to my aunt's. Not knowing what to say, I said nothing.

It has been more than twenty years now. I wonder if my roses are still there.

De verdad, y de amistad.

2005-05-16T15:18:00.000-07:00

When I was learning English, our ESL teacher used to play movies for us, which we would later discuss, or with which we would interact. One of the movies I remember most vividly was “A Man for All Seasons”, about Saint Sir Thomas More’s confrontation with Henry VIII when the king broke with the Catholic Church. Once he set himself as the head of the new Anglican Church, the king demanded an oath of fealty from anybody who was anybody in England, especially those in positions of power. Having refused, More is locked up, pending execution. As the movie develops, many of those who had been his friends come to him, practically begging him to accept the oath and save his life. At one point, one asks (I paraphrase) “will you not do this for me… for friendship?” More’s answer was (I paraphrase again): “and when I go to hell for not having followed my conscience, will you go with me… for friendship?”

This brought up 3 questions to mind even back then, which I have not completely answered to my own satisfaction and which I would like to discuss with others to resolve. These questions (in no particular order of importance or appearance) are: 1) Does the following of one’s conscience determine the nature of sin? 2) What is the nature of friendship? 3) What is the interaction between right-and-wrong (if there is an objective approach to this) and friendship?

As I have grown up, I have approached these individually—fearing my inability to address/resolve them together. The more I learn, the less I understand. Any help in clearing these points would be greatly appreciated, as this is a serious issue for me, and one I’d like to resolve (if not definitively, at least satisfactorily) before I can ask the One who knows. To that effect, here’s what I got so far:

1) There are definite layers to the nature of acceptable behavior. Needless to say, intelligent behavior is what separates us from animals. Biologically-dictated actions (eating, breathing) are inherently beyond the reach of this conversation and only the context in which they occur can be reviewed for probity. Still, beyond the natural restrictions to self-destructive behavior (for example) there are legal, moral and ethical restrictions. I make no distinction between religious ethical and purely secular ethical restrictions—suffice it to say “beyond moral”—morality being the temporary, socially contextual framework in which a group evaluates its members’ actions. While certain sexual behaviors are considered morally acceptable sometimes in some places, others are universally considered harmful (i.e.: relationships between cousins vs. relationships between siblings—and even these not always). Legal restrictions, permissions or requirements are far more transitory and subject to the local climate at the time of inception. Sin, therefore, would appear to me to be entirely a matter of ethics, and not of morals or laws. This said, even divine writ is subject to the interpretations of “enlightened” individuals or groups—being catholic, I think of the church. Nonetheless, I still purport there are some people who have nothing better to do with their time than subvert holy writ to their own self-serving (albeit eloquent) intentions. Coming from a culture in which tradition often turns ideas into truths, I am skeptical of anything being branded a sin simply because it now bears the label. As dangerous as it is to trust situational evaluations or (however unchanging) my own perception, I’ve settled on the idea that I’ll know a sin when I see it. Two inherent problems with this idea are that I set myself as sole arbiter of goodness, and thus above scrutiny form others—and I’m not really that self-important—and that it is contrary to the idea that redemption can only be gained through the man called the Christ, but rather can be achieved on one’s own merits—and this contradicts my observations from the Bible (can’t seem to make my views universal when I’ve only had a catholic upbringing).

2) I am a firm believer in the idea that most of what we are is based on calcium bridges connecting dendrites in the soft crust of the brain called grey matter. That said, I still hold a firm spiritual belief in the idea of a soul, and its transcendence over the merely physical nature of the vessels we use while on this planet. The first would lead us to believe we create friendships out of custom (exposure to the same individuals over time simply increase familiarity and breed friendship); the second doesn’t preclude the first, but expands it by suggesting pre-existing affinities based on shared “previous” experiences (together or separate). Either way, once the friendship exists, how do we quantify it? Can we quantify it? Should we? There are always people for whom we’ll do more than for others. I dare say that sometimes we might even find ourselves willing to make great sacrifices for people we hardly know (or not at all), based on some ethereal affinity. Some do these things for purposes beyond themselves—Gandhi? Mother Teresa? Some do altruistic things (for friends and strangers) for ultimately selfish gains (politicians serving meals at the mission on thanksgiving). Still others, like me, give a dollar to the homeless guy at the 7-11 only to momentarily shut up our conscience—call it a bribe.

But I think it is safe to say we do more for those we know, and even more for those for whom we care—friends, whether related or not. And I don’t think that blood is really thicker; I just haven’t seen enough proof of it. Friendship, then, is necessarily defined after the fact, based on anecdotal evidence, and only quantifiable when it is over. Fragile as a single flake of snow, enough of it can sink boats and block roads that lead away. Solid enough, it can split mountains in half, only to melt under the slightest fire. Subtle as the beating of one’s heart, one only really knows when it is done that it was there. Men have built kingdoms on its strength, and many have turned saints by its testimony. And yet, it is often so subtle and fragile, especially when viewed from the perspective of the previous point.

3) And now, to the crux of the matter. Being that right is often indiscernible from wrong, and that friendship is so difficult to understand from day to day, are there things that ought to be beyond the asking? Beyond the expectation? Can I ask a friend to do wrong for friendship? And if he does it, is it wrong for him? Asked in such simple terms, the question seems naïve or disingenuous. From time to time, I run into the internet description of friendship as: a good friend bails you out of jail; a true friend is sitting next to you, shaking his head, saying “f**k! we shouldn’t have done that!” And funny, irreverent and deliberately facetious as it may be, it begs the question of this post: “And when I go to hell, for not having followed my conscience… will you go with me… for friendship?”

Once again, I’m full of questions but have too few answers.

Help! I need somebody…

10,000 Razones

2005-05-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

A veces es dificil hacer lo que a otros les resulta muy sencillo.

Anoche fui con unos amigos a Chico's--un bar gay. Esta era solamente mi segunda vez ahi, y fue tan decepcionante como la primera vez. Estaba demasiado lleno de gente (si, es necesario aclarar de que se llena el lugar, pues parece corral o chiquero), pero eso no es decir mucho de su popularidad: la unica y decrepita mesa de billar deja apenas suficiente espacio a su alrededor para pararse junto a un amigo a platicar, y eso si nadie quiere pasar, porque entonces uno estorba. Aun asi, la platica es casi imposible, pues los parlantes fueron diseñados en los fabulosos 70's y lucen lo que podriamos designar su espiritu de supervivencia exagerando sus habilidades al punto que la musica no se reconoce--lo que al fin no les importa a las locas que siguen solo el martillar de sus freneticos pero poco imaginativos ritmos.

Despues de empezar una cuenta, lo que no fue necesario porque al fin solo tomamos $60.00 entre los tres, lleve al agua de colores que me quisieron pasar por tragos a donde estaban mis amigos y a señas les pedi salir a fumar. No quisieron, sino que fueron a bailar, lo que yo no hago, y por eso me quede sosteniendo la pared al rato. La bola infernal con la que remplazaron the disco ball de los 70's daba vuelta tras vuelta cambiando de luz al azar, y por mala fortuna me daba en el ojo derecho justo cuanto la cantante pegaba con la nota mas alta. Tortura--y nada mas--era eso; Dios no queria que fuera ahi. Platique con un muchacho que conoci en ese momento, pero platica es mucho decir, pues el ruido (digo, musica) permitia solo un saludo.

Cuando regresaron mis amigos, los convenci a salir a fumar, o mejor dicho a acompañarme, pues ellos no fuman. Un cigarro despues, estaba tan aburrido que les pedi mejor irnos. No quisieron en ese momento, pero decidimos juntos solo tomar un par de tragos mas e irnos. Si de casualidad esta historia suena aburrida, es porque lo es.

Saliendo de ahi, nos fuimos a la casa de mi amigo, a unos 20 minutos por freeway, lo que hice en diez gracias a la hora (el trafico en los angeles es abominable). Me quede a dormir en su casa--detalles para otro post--y casi con pena reporto que llegue al trabajo dos horas tardes hoy. Me lo perdonan porque al fin y al cabo les regalo horas y horas cada semana, pero aun asi me siento mal.

Pero el punto de esto es que al final de la noche, antes de dormir, como siempre sucede cuando salgo, me volvi a ver en mi mente, culo contra pared, trago en mano, viendo a la gente bailar...y yo no bailo.

Eso sera para otra historia.

A Partir De Mañana

2005-05-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Estoy cansado. Voy a descansar. Mientras, pa' que pasen el rato, una de las que le gustaban al viejo.

A partir de mañana empezaré a vivir la mitad de mi vida;
A partir de mañana empezaré a morir la mitad de mi muerte;
A partir de mañana empezaré a volver de mi viaje de ida;
A partir de mañana empezaré a medir cada golpe de suerte.

A partir de mañana empezaré a vivir una vida más sana,
Es decir, que mañana empezaré a rodar por mejores caminos;
El tabaco mejor y también por qué no, las mejores manzanas,
La mejor diversión y en la mesa mejor, el mejor de los vinos.

Hasta el día de hoy, sólo fui lo que soy, "aprendiz de Quijote",
He podido luchar y hasta a veces ganar, sin perder el bigote.
Ahora debo pensar que no pueden dejar de sonar las campanas,
Aunque tenga que hacer, más que hoy y que ayer...
A partir de mañana.

Si a partir de mañana decidiera vivir la mitad de mi muerte
O a partir de mañana decidiera morir la mitad de mi vida,
A partir de mañana debería aceptar, que no soy el más fuerte,
Que no tengo valor ni pudor de ocultar mis más hondas heridas.

Si a partir de mañana decidiera vivir una vida tranquila
Y dejara de ser soñador, para ser un sujeto más serio,
Todo el mundo mañana me podría decir: "se agotaron tus pilas,
Te has quedado sin luz, ya no tienes valor, se acabó tu misterio".

Cada golpe de suerte empezaré a medir a partir de mañana.
De mi viaje de ida empezaré a volver a partir de mañana.
La mitad de muerte empezaré a morir a partir de mañana.
La mitad de mi vida empezaré a vivir... a partir de mañana.

Alberto Cortez

H B/D 2 U... H B/D 2 U!

2005-04-29T08:12:00.000-07:00

Monday will be my niece’s birthday. Preparations are underway. She is now two years old—though she should be, in fact, only one year and eight months.

She was born four months too early.

The doctor said she’d probably not live to see the outside of the hospital. She weighed just under a pound and a half when she was born. Fully formed, she was the length of my hand from the wrist to the tip of the middle finger. She hardly moved. She breathed on her own, though; the doctor said my sister’s high blood pressure accelerated the baby’s lung development.

At the hospital, we had to scrub any visible body parts, wear a suit and mask, sign a document affirming we were not sick nor had we been sick the past two weeks, before they let us into the little room inside neonatal ICU where they kept the lost causes. When she was born, she was alone in that room. Two months later, she was still there and had a couple of little friends to keep her company. Only two of them made it out of the little room.

We were warned she’d be sickly, probably a weakling. The doctors said she’d probably develop slower (physically) than other kids. But she proved them wrong.

She is tall, for her age, and despite her fine features she is the perfect weight for a two year old. She is strong, strong-willed, and hard-headed. She speaks in nearly-whole sentences, always makes sense, is outgoing and friendly, and can exhaust my mother in an hour flat. And she has eyes that can melt a grown man’s heart in no time.

Talk about hybrid vigor! Part Spanish, Lebanese, Filipina, Latina (god knows what combination of sub-groups these last two entail), she chose the best features from each race like a picky shopper at Pavillions.

Her party is tomorrow, Saturday. We’ll have it at home. Two or three people will be cooking whatever weird foods this mini-United Nations assembly will require. Between friends and relatives, we’ll have about ten countries represented (from the former Soviet Block, through the middle east, to western Europe, to Central and South America, and South-East Asia), and of course the United States, with as many languages spoken throughout the party at some point or another.

Sometime during the party, we’ll watch sports on t.v. while the kids play in the jumper outside—probably soccer; we’ll likely play poker while the kids watch The Incredibles, or Shark Tale, or my personal favorite: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The kids will demolish a gaudy little star filled with candy, fill their bellies with all those things their parents spend most of the week keeping from them, and hopefully fall asleep sometime around eight, so the parents can have their party.

Sometime around ten, everybody will go home. It will have been just another birthday party—like there are so many in this family. But, when we put her to bed, I will know it was not just another party. It was a special party, for a special little girl that saved her life and my sister’s by sheer force of will, a little help from a German doctor in San Bernardino, and what I choose to call divine intervention. And though nobody will mention it, I know there will be three people there who will say a little prayer of thanks.

It’s going to be a great day.

El Seminarista De Los Ojos Negros

2005-04-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

Crecí con judíos y árabes, enemigos mortales durante el día, en los negocios, pero amigos y compañeros por la noche. Viejos exiliados de patrias que los ignoraron cuando vivían ahí y los olvidaron en cuanto se fueron, se hicieron amigos porque nadie mas recordaba el olor del mediterráneo, y el seco y frió viento del desierto, y la guerra mutua que compartían—aunque en su tiempo fuesen adversarios. Jugaban backgammon y comían cabras. Tomaban ron y compartían los descubrimientos de su nueva tierra.

Entre estos estaba la poesía. El viejo, mi viejo, pasaba horas hablando de poemas, o recitando, u oyendo a otros recitar. Recuerdo que tenían un juego en el que se comunicaban con puras líneas de poemas. El chiste era tener una conversación común, de temas políticos o lo que fuera, pero usando solo líneas de poemas famosos que todos conocieran. Así pasaban horas. Nosotros los niños no divertíamos muchos oyéndolos.

Uno de los poemas que mas recuerdo, tal vez por la melancolía que los viejos demostraban al recordar amores perdidos, era este. He aquí, por ellos, los que ya no recitan mas poemas:

El Seminarista De Los Ojos Negros

Desde la ventana de un casucho viejo,
abierto en verano, cerrado en el invierno
por vidrios verdosos y plomos espesos,
una salmantina de rubio cabello
y ojos que parecen pedazos de cielo,
mientras la costura mezcla con el rezo,
ve todas las tardes pasar en silencio
los seminaristas que van de paseo.

Baja la cabeza, sin erguir el cuerpo,
marchan en dos filas pausados y austeros,
sin más nota alegre sobre el traje negro
que la beca roja que ciñe su cuello
y que por la espalda casi roza el suelo.

Un seminarista, entre todos ellos,
marcha siempre erguido, con aire resuelto.
La negra sotana dibuja su cuerpo
gallardo y airoso, flexible y esbelto.

Él solo, a hurtadillas y con el recelo
de que sus miradas observen los clérigos
desde que en la calle vislumbra a lo lejos
a la salmantina de rubio cabello
la mira muy fijo, con mirar intenso.
Y siempre que pasa le deja el recuerdo
de aquella mirada de sus ojos negros.

Monótono y tardo va pasando el tiempo
y muere el estío y el otoño luego,
y vienen las tardes plomizas de invierno.
Desde la ventana del casucho viejo,
siempre sola y triste, rezando y cosiendo,
una salmantina de rubio cabello
ve todas las tardes pasar en silencio
los seminaristas que van de paseo.
Pero no ve a todos; ve sólo a uno de ellos,
su seminarista de los ojos negros.

Cada vez que pasa, gallardo y esbelto,
observa la niña que pide aquel cuerpo
marciales arreos.
Cuando en ella fija sus ojos abiertos
con vivas y audaces miradas de fuego,
parece decirle: "¡TE QUIERO..., te quiero!...
¡Yo no he de ser cura, yo no puedo serlo!...
¡Si yo no soy tuyo, me muero, me muero!..."

A la niña entonces se le oprime el pecho,
la labor suspende y olvida los rezos,
y ya vive sólo en su pensamiento
el seminarista de los ojos negros.

En una lluviosa mañana de invierno
la niña que alegre saltaba del lecho
oyó tristes cánticos y fúnebres rezos:
por la angosta calle pasaba un entierro.
Un seminarista, sin duda, era el muerto,
pues cuatro llevaban en hombros el féretro
con la beca roja encima cubierto,
y sobre la beca el bonete negro.
Con sus voces roncas cantaban los clérigos;
los seminaristas iban en silencio,
siempre en dos filas hacia el cementerio,
como por las tardes al ir de paseo.
La niña, angustiada miraba el cortejo:
los conoce a todos a fuerza de verlos.
Sólo, sólo faltaba entre ellos
¡el seminarista de los ojos negros!...

Corrieron los años, pasó mucho tiempo...
y allí en la ventana del casucho viejo
una pobre anciana de blancos cabellos,
con la tez rugosa y encorvado el cuerpo,
mientras la costura mezcla con el rezo,
recuerda muy triste las tardes de antaño,
¡al seminarista de los ojos negros!...

Miguel Ramos Carrión

Anything But Temptation!

2005-04-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

I worked a long day today. I was there at 7:00 a.m. and left at 9:00 p.m. I am officially tired.

So I got home, looking for dinner, wanting to relax... read a little of the ongoing conversation over at the good doctors' blog (look for Sigmund over on the right).

Imagine my surprise when, just as I am settling in to a good bloggin' session, my sister comes out, money in hand, and sends me to the store!

I am tired, I say. I want ice cream, she replies. But we (yes, we) are going on a diet tomorrow, says I. C'mon, says she. I went. Women always win.

Most of everything I am has been defined by women: Grandma (who hated me), Grandma (who wasn't my grandma, and took me for the child she never could have), Mom, Sis, Ex-wife, OtherSis, Daughter, Niece. Bossy bitches all of them--I wouldn't want it any other way.

So, having had my dinner, I now sit in front of the computer, cup of coffee to my left, bowl of peanut-buttery ice cream to my right, my own blog in front of me.

I can resist anything, except temptation, the man with the green carnation said once.

I need a portrait like Dorian's portrait. Beauty becomes the wicked.

And whoddathunk peanut butter would go so well with ice cream? Ralph's is having a "buy one get one free" on tubs of ice cream tonight.

Yes, tubs...

Yes, yum!

To His Coy Mistress

2005-04-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

Lover's Knot

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave 's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Andrew Marvell

The Heavy Life of Pansies.

2005-04-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

And then he came upon a stone that looked like it was left from recent road improvement work, off to the side of the road and only slightly dusted by the recent wind. He sat and looked at the building on the opposite side of the soccer field. A wide, slightly slanted, multi-level roof covered in red clay “tejas”, trying hard to blend in with the much older buildings that surrounded it, as if anyone would miss the new construction, the brand new wooden beams still smelling of fresh stain, the large and shiny silver cross upon its peak: Don Bosco.

My mother tells me that she wanted to have a boy and a girl—in a house with a white picket fence, but neither dogs nor cats, because she’s allergic to them. She was happy when she got pregnant the first time; the doctor said she’d have a boy, and it’s good, she thought, to have the boy first. He would grow up big and strong and protect his little sister and everybody would be happy. About six months into the pregnancy, while my father beat her, she broke her back, or was it cracked? Either way, she was in bed the rest of the pregnancy, which was difficult and painful—but she had her boy.

The doctor told her she couldn’t have any more kids, that it would kill her, and that she’d better take steps to prevent any future pregnancies. But she wanted her daughter, and a little over a year later, I was born.

I’m not a girl.

I still wonder if what happened after had something to do with the way she felt, or if she treated me differently because of it and that’s why I was like I was. What ifs, though, are just the kind of waste of time people of leisure do to replace a life well lived. My mother raised my brother and me pretty much the same way, and still we came out very differently. I am gay; he was straight. He was always very masculine, but I (up until the fourth grade) was very effeminate.

This is the story of how that changed.

People were playing soccer, a friendly game taking just the near half of the field, a priest or two competing with the kids right out of catechism class. On the opposite side of the field, two teams of elementary kids were changing into their bright red and blue uniforms, about to start an official league game. Two joggers crossed his line of sight, on their way around the grounds. Freshly-planted shrubs lined the road that led to the rectory behind the church. As he followed the joggers with his eyes, he noticed father Mario, long black coat and ecclesiastic collar on, making his way out to him, on his daily walk after the morning’s mass.

Kids always called me names. I was the “typical,” girly little boy all the bullies tease, and all the other kids tease too because they’d hate to feel they’re at the bottom of the teasing ladder. I had plenty of bigger problems in my life at the time, though, so it was ok. Getting teased, and sometimes beaten and generally derided and mostly ignored still hurt, but deep down inside I still had my mother, and that’s all that mattered, and my books, and I had church. I went to church despite my parents’ best intentions. They were progressive, revolutionary, educated, agnostic. I needed a God a little closer to the ground—one you could talk with, not discuss over dinner. My aunt, who thought it was miraculous that I wasn’t retarded, had given me a bible that I carried with me and read whenever I had a little free time. I started going to church (which was only a couple of blocks away, and very near my aunt’s house) three or four times a week. I asked the priest to teach me catechism, because my parents wouldn’t take me. It is because of that priest that after all these years I have not lost faith in the church, because despite the evil in some men’s hearts, I know there are far more whose great wisdom and boundless love and generosity far outweighs their animal cravings, men of good heart who do not publicize their good deeds and thus go unrewarded, unknown, and end up grouped with the criminals through no fault of theirs.

Let’s call him Father Mario. An old man recently moved to the tropics from Andalucia or some other place with a heavy accent who nonetheless tamed his tongue to speak to us natives softly and wisely. And then there was Mr. Velez, who taught biology and drove a CJ9, and talked to us all the same, even me. When other kids would tease me and even my older brother would say nothing, Mr. Velez would quickly distract the group and get attention away from me. I think he avoided chastising them because he knew he would not always be there and kids are vengeful and hold grudges a long, long time.

I didn’t play sports because I was no good at them—I was no good at them because nobody would play with me. But that, too, was ok, because it gave me time to read, and reading one learns more, and when one knows more, the adults show interest, and ask “important” questions and smile and nod knowingly and hand out candy and money. I should have had an old man, an accordion and a tin cup, for all it was, but it was positive and I felt good, so I didn’t mind.

I didn’t mind till I was in the third grade. That year, I started liking this girl in my class. I even wrote the little note with the fateful “circle yes or no” at the bottom. She was so pretty, I thought, and smart, and funny, and she played all the sports during recess and knew the answers in class. I thought she was smart enough to be my girlfriend. But she wanted nothing to do with me, because of what all the kids were saying about me, she said. She wanted a real boy for her boyfriend, and whatever I was, I was not that. So I got to thinking.

I was a reasonably smart kid, and I knew what boys were and what girls were: I had read all about it in the Encyclopedia Britannica. I knew I was a boy, but what was real?

I would look at the girls, in their little groups, holding hands, and giggling, and playing with dolls, and brushing their hair, and generally being girly. I would look at the boys, picking their noses, and spitting, and hitting, and kicking, and playing with dirt, and generally being boyish. I analyzed every aspect of my being. I took note.

One day, in fourth grade, a little boy started teasing me. Thing is, I always was taller and stronger than anybody in class. I never used that against them, and they soon forgot it. But I was still stronger. The boy kept teasing me and at some point I turned to him and told him to stop. He ignored me and kept going. The teacher, busy with her lecture, did not hear or if she did, did not interfere. The boy continued. I told him to stop, again. He didn’t. I told him I would choke him till he passed out. He didn’t stop. I knew he wouldn’t die if I let go of him just as he passed out, so I got up and grabbed him by the neck and started squeezing. He punched me, kicked me, scratched at me. Other kids tried to stop me. The teacher grabbed me by the wrists and tried with all her strength to pull my hands apart. But I kept squeezing. The boy turned blue and pretty soon passed out. Everybody in class was screaming.

I let go of him. His limp body fell to the ground with an undignified “plop.” I returned to my desk and sat down. The other kids told the teacher what happened, and she led me by the hand and I went quietly to the principal’s office. I sat there, across the hall from the kid, who was taken there after he came to. The nurse had checked him out and said he’d be fine. After a while, almost as if they had timed it, his parents and my parents all came into the office, quietly. There was no shouting, no arguing, no name-calling. The principal took them all into his office and they talked for a few minutes. After that, my parents took me home, and his parents took him home.

I wasn’t punished. Nobody ever mentioned it again. He was at school the next day, and nobody said a word.

But the kids didn’t tease me again. Ever.

We missed you at mass today, Father Mario said. At fifty or so, he was quite ancient to the boy sitting on the stone by the side of the road. With his hand on his waist, the priest leaned back and took a deep breath. The boy did not respond. Are you ok? Still no answer. The priest sat on the stone, by the boy, who now had a tear at the corner of his eye. We leave tomorrow, the boy said. The boy and the priest then prayed things would come out ok. The flight was scheduled for 9:00 a.m.

When other kids tease you, what hurts the most is not what they think, but rather that they’re confirming what you already thought about yourself. Was I not raised by straight parents? Did I not hear everything a patriarchal society has to say about men of questionable masculinity? When even your parents hate you, where do you go for love? Four times a week, I’d be at church, praying things would change. I would pray to God that His most divine hand should come down from the heavens and touch me lightly and make me someone else.

And one Sunday he answered. He said: “heal thyself.” And so I did.

By this time, I knew every nuance and subtle movement my body would make when I willed it to move. I was in the fifth grade, danced every chance I got, played whenever the neighborhood teams were one kid short. I was still girly, but I knew precisely in what way I was girly, and went about changing.

Absolutely every tiny little bit of my personality today was, at some point, evaluated, checked, weighed for masculinity against the standard set by my peers. Whatever did not measure up was replaced with a similar, more masculine bit of behavior from those around me. I write like a priest I once knew. I speak like a teacher I once knew. I drive like a friend from high school. I cross my legs precisely like the tennis coach in high school. I hold my bottle of beer like my father’s best friend. I curve my a’s like my father did. I kick soccer balls like my fourth grade best friend did. I twist my fork in my hand when I eat like my father’s engineer friend used to back in the day. I sit just so, and hold my book on my knee while I read because that’s how I saw it done precisely when I needed to know how to do that.

This is not a sad story. Everybody, without exception is changed by their environment. I am glad that my experience led me to the point where I selected what would change me and how. I am precisely as I have chosen to be. Who can make that claim? Those who’ve picked up bad habits subconsciously should reconsider how they let themselves be so misguided. Those who pick up good habits subconsciously can hardly be proud of the happenstance. I am precisely as I chose to be. My hair parts on the side I chose in the fifth grade.

The few people who know this story are usually saddened by it—which never ceases to amaze me.

The airport was big, and cold, and full of strangers. I, who can never remember anything, remember that day quite clearly. We sat by a planter so we could hide if they came looking for us. We looked down, kept quiet, pretended we weren’t really there. I was by then an expert at disappearing and by the end of that day, we had indeed disappeared—never to be seen again by those who had so threatened us. We were running away. I, who had changed everything, fought everything and won, was running away. That day I saw my father’s fear in his eyes and knew that even strong, brave men fear something. He feared for us, and so he gave everything up and ran, like a scared little girl from a bully, holding her dolly close to her chest.

Somehow, that made me feel better.

Lengua Franca

2005-04-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, I spoke no language. I don’t mean that when I was born, I couldn’t speak—nobody can. Rather, I mean that when the time came when everybody expected I should say something, I didn’t. For months, people thought I was retarded, that all I’d ever do would be cry and mumble and cry some more when nobody understood. But I was a crafty little sucker. My mom and I figured a way to communicate with signs and nods and looks and grunts. She says that I showed enough curiosity and responded appropriately to stimuli, so she figured I was just going to take my time. She waited.

At a time when other parents would show their kids off when they said “mama” or “papa” or any of a myriad dumb monosyllabical repetitions of something they didn’t really understand, I stayed quiet. My mother didn’t begin to worry until I was almost potty trained, but said not a word.

Then, one day, I started talking in full sentences. I went to bed one night without a word and woke up in the morning and said something along the lines of “good morning, mom; what’s for breakfast?” She had the sense to say nothing more than “cereal and milk. Go sit at the table and I’ll bring it to you.” Later, she’d tell me how happy she was, but that morning, she told that little boy nothing for fear of embarrassing him into silence.

------------------------

In the middle, there was the war. I’m almost sick and tired of how all my stories have the war in them, but wars are pernicious, ubiquitous, insidious, intrusive things that tend to get all up in your business and wreak havoc with your social life, especially when you’re just old enough to join society on your own. Those were the days when I was supposed to “go out and play,” and many kids did. But my parents, being the revolutionaries that they were, were involved in all that clandestine shit democratically-inclined, socially-responsible people do when under a foreign-imposed dictatorship—so they feared for their kids. That meant limited “go out and play” time. We even had “people” (ain’t it funny how some people “have” people?) who drove us to and from school.

Those were boring days.

I spent nights teaching myself German from a book. Now, if you speak German, which I don’t, you’ll understand how funny it would sound if you never heard it before but tried to read it aloud from a book. Well, my dad told me to stop. He was pretty successful and well-liked, so a friend of his high up in government arranged for me to go to the University of East Berlin (was there only one? Why did we just call it “the” University of East Berlin?). This was after the war, and we weren’t hiding no mo’, no mo’…

Then they suggested, politely and sweetly, like people often offer when showing you the barrel and quietly unzipping, would I want to go to the University of Moscow instead? But I’d have to wear olive only. Too old to go unnoticed; too young to go into the army; I would join the army and go abroad. Untrustworthy people have a habit of not trusting anyone, so they take other people’s kids hostage to ensure loyalty. Hell, when you’ve killed enough people, you just don’t know who’ll want to kill you, so you take steps… and that sometimes means stepping on poor fools’ toes. I was that toe.

Two weeks later, I was in San Francisco.

------------------------

You’d think July would be a warm month, and it mostly is. But when you come from the tropics, just about anything north of South Beach is worthy of a light jacket. It was 50 degrees in San Francisco. I was freezing!

Whatever language you speak, you can find a karaoke bar somewhere in San Francisco playing your very own version of I Left My Heart (In San Francisco). If you’re lucky, they’ll even have imported beer, from your homeland. Cold!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Everybody Speaks Spanish in America—and if not, they should. Twenty years, my dad lived in the United States, and never needed English. Many people oppose this view thinking that they can legislate what people do with their tongues—and that works about as well as telling people what to do with what God put between their legs. Even—or rather, specially—in America, one cannot force someone else to speak a language that would be beneficial to all. I think everybody should speak English, but then I also think everybody should speak Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian. In the United States, you have the perfect right to be as much an inconvenience to everybody else as your tax dollars allow. Contrary to popular opinion, this is a good thing. Ultimately, the ramifications are far more positive than negative, in my humble opinion.

I never needed English, either. But I craved it. I hungered after it like it was a twisty doughnut right out of the oil, dripping in sugary goodness at four o’clock at the local Korean guy’s shop. It was like a cigarette after an eight-hour drive down the coast with my mom and my ex-wife. There is something far beyond the doughnut and the cigarette about each experience, and if you don’t know it, I won’t waste your time explaining it.

I learned English because I had no choice. It took three months. I have been madly in love with the language ever since. Only half-humorously, I’d dare say everybody should learn to make love with their tongue, and every tongue is different—if you catch my drift. I love oblique, multi-lingual humor caused by poor translations.

And I write in English, and my Spanish-speaking friends ask “why?” And I write in Spanish, and my English-speaking friends say “uh?” And when I can, I throw in one or two phrases from other languages I picked up. It is in the nature of English to be open, welcoming of other languages, ideas, the very essence of other languages. At a time when others fight to keep their “cultural” identity and “purity” of their language, it’s reassuring to see American English saying: “Bring me your tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free..."

Miguel

2005-04-20T16:38:00.000-07:00

Miguel

My little friend Melinama made herself into a character from South Park. I have always wanted to kill Kenny--I mean, be in South Park, so I copied her, shamelessly and without honor.

But at least I told you I did.

so there!

:-P

So, yeah, this is how I see me in my head--a little less green, perhaps...

So if you find me around the school yard, say hello!

Siempre Hay Una Primera Vez.

2005-04-20T00:44:00.000-07:00

Ok… here goes.

First, an explanation: I don’t know you people—what’s more, you don’t know me. Nothing I tell you here means anything to anybody but me, but somehow just typing it here makes me feel better. So I will cry my fucking eyes out and type, and write, until I can cry no more and my fingers can type no more. Because this was going to be a sappy, romantic, tender story of two kids falling in love after waiting and saving themselves for love, and finding each other one day… and living happily ever after.

But there is no ever after. Or there is…there is a hell and one can only crawl out of it by clawing one’s fingers on the searing walls and burning all the way to the bone till one is out. But I am overly dramatic so I can feel better.

Here is the real story, the one no one knows, the one I never told.

Sexual abuse runs in my family. People who were hurt as kids hurt each other and their children, perpetuating hatred, and self-hatred, and more than hatred, self-disgust, which is different and more bloody.

My father took advantage of my mother, and thus began a family. She was 16 and he was 27. She was a desperate girl trying to get out of the house, and out she got. But this isn’t their story.

My father liked to touch my brother’s and my body, us naked, sitting on his lap. He didn’t think much of it, and neither did we. Eventually, we told him to stop, and eventually we forgot all about it. I was about 8 when we stopped him—and don’t even know how it was that we stopped him… only that one day we said “no more” and it was no more. But this is not his story.

But my younger siblings weren’t so lucky. They couldn’t tell him to stop. He went too far, at least with my sister. He hurt her more than anybody I know has hurt anybody else, and I know people who have killed. There were dark years, when she wished she were dead, or she acted like it—but God Himself might have had a plan for her, for she is saved. He gave her a Pearl, for she is dearly paid for, and a savior—a little bit of Heaven that defied death to stay with us—a blessing, a miracle that fit on the palm of my hand when she was born and weighed but a pound and a half if she held her breath. And parent and child have saved each other. They’ve made a single heart out of their broken hearts and it is strong and keeps them going. But this is not their story.

This is my story, and I am guilty.

I see my past like most people see their future: ghostly images, ideas, shadows in the dark—patchy, broken, edgeless, indistinct. That I could swear to see clearly, there are only three days I see like people tell me they see their past. The rest are but dreams that come and go and leave me in peace most of the time. I always wondered why my past was so tenuous, intangible, and then I thought that it was (like my dreams) deniable and forgettable, and perhaps that was the point. Little by little, the dreams come back and knowing I can face them and facing them I understand. I understand I knew. I knew and chose not to know. I saw and closed my eyes. I hid in church and prayed on Sunday and Wednesday and Thursday and Sunday. I read the Bible from cover to cover, and then started again. By fifth grade, I had read it three times, neatly commenting on the margins in a pen of different color every time—to keep me busy. And I studied, science, math, history, whatever, poetry, anything, something, keeping busy… tiring myself so I could sleep deeply enough that I would not wake up in the middle of the night. And I forgot—and I didn’t have to think of it anymore. But I knew. I knew. I know.

He is dead now, and with him died my chance to get rid of this. I’ll take it to my grave, and if the pain is all I have to pay it will be lightly paid. But this ends here. Every kiss I give my children, every hug, a gentle caress, whatever, a little voice inside my head tells me to be careful. I live with them as if a camera were watching and a judge whose power I cannot contradict will judge my every touch upon them.

But this is not their story. If they never know of the sins of my father—or mine—then I will not have lived in vain.

I say this only so the rest will make sense. And now the story of my first time. Read it now and tell me how sweet and sappy and romantic and tender it may sound, knowing what I have always known. I could not simply lie and say that waiting felt right and so I waited. I could not say simply that I was busy and so there was no time. I would be lying if I said anything but this: I touched no human before she touched me because I loathed the feel of human flesh upon my flesh. The smell, the taste, the idea. I craved it, but I could not bear it. She doesn’t know the story, and I will never tell her, but I will always love her for this, and one day, hopefully, my children might know that I still love her, though they won’t know why.

We met in school. She is a year younger than me, but we were in the same grade because I was held a grade because of the language when I moved to the United States. By sophomore grade, we were good friends. By senior year, we were Friends, the six of us, and though we were all to go to Prom together, I danced with her and she with me. Remember “Take My Breath Away”? I do. We danced all night, selfishly leaving our respective dates alone until it was time to go home. We didn’t kiss, but I was in love. She loved me, too, but we didn’t talk about it then.

And then we went to college, too far to visit, except when we went home. One summer, I came home and didn’t go back to school. I was 19 and she was 18, and she came to visit and we went bowling and held hands, and talked until four in the morning. She drove me home and we stayed in the car, talking more. Then it was time for me to go home, and she said “kiss me,” and I said “I can’t” and meant it. She thought I didn’t like her, and unable to explain I just repeated “I can’t” and she saw I meant it. I saw it in her eyes long before I felt it on my lips, but she kissed me. And I kissed her, and we started dating. She was going to school locally, so she’d pick me up on Friday night and I’d spend the weekend with her till Sunday. One weekend blended into the next and the next and before I knew it I was 20 and she was 19, and we were happy just kissing.

We had been dating a year, and everybody thought we were sleeping together, and we got tired of saying we weren’t, so we just didn’t say, but we didn’t. We held hands and hugged and kissed and I forgot how I didn’t like that. We slept together, hugging all night and touching. She taught me what intimacy meant. And then we decided to do it.

This is one of the three days.

It was crisp, and bright, and wonderful. It was a Saturday night. We had gone to dinner and to the movies, and held hands, and kissed. Spandau Ballet was playing in the background, which gave us plenty of time to undress each other (with the lights off, of course).

That night I knew a kind of love I hadn’t known before. It was wonderful. A year later, we were married, she was pregnant (yes, they happened in the wrong order, but we were getting married anyway, so it was ok by us). We stayed together as long as we could, but it turned out we were always better friends than lovers. Eventually, we split up. But we are friends, better now than before. And I am grateful for her love. And I love her now more than ever before, because she’s given me two children. And what if it didn’t work out? You don’t have to stay together to be great together. It is best this way.

Still, I must say that it would have been better to wait. There was nothing wrong with what happened—on the contrary, I don’t know how I could have gotten past the problems I had had it not been for her. I never had to figure it out, so I won’t start guessing now. Still, there was a certain childishness to our intimacy I can only understand now, in retrospect, seeing it from the maturity of knowing what a relationship is. I mean, Spandau Ballet? But seriously, we each had a lot to work through and we hadn’t. We did the best we could and I hope to God things worked for the best—but I can’t help but feel they might have been better if we’d known each other better. Financial security is never guaranteed, nor is stability in life, but it cannot be denied that both improve as one matures, physically and emotionally.

I am eternally grateful for my children, and so I cannot for a moment wish things had been different, lest they not be with me today. Nonetheless, knowing how my life went after, I think it might have been better for my children to have arrived when we had our first apartment, when we were both working steadily, when things were just running more smoothly. I still wish they had come when we were past the holding hands or “getting to know your body” stages. I wish they had come when we were ready for them to come. Of course, many will say that just because we were having sex it didn’t mean we had to have children…and that is true. But we were young, and more often than not it happens. Even if we hadn’t had the children, I do not feel I reached the level of emotional maturity required to care for anybody other than me until I reached 25. Perhaps others reach it sooner—good for them. Let them have sex. Let them have children. It is their decision. If I knew then what I know now, my children would have a better father—in my own humble opinion, and then again, whose opinion matters on this but mine?

Yes, I know this is overly dramatic. No, I don’t care. Yes, thank you for reading it. Yes, your comments are welcome: God knows I’m more than willing to question my opinion when confronted with better ones… just make sure they’re better ones.

Now I’m tired of crying and remembering and it’s late and I have to get some sleep. If this needs editing, I’ll do that later.

I’m just out of energy.

Tenemos Papa!

2005-04-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

with due credit to the folks @ monty python.

(The door flies open and Cardinal Ximinez of Spain (Palin) enters, flanked by two junior cardinals. Cardinal Biggles (Jones) has goggles pushed over his forehead. Cardinal Fang (Gilliam) is just Cardinal Fang)

Ximinez:
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise....
Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency....
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...
and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope....
Our four... no...
Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry...
are such elements as fear, surprise...
I'll come in again.

(Exit and exeunt)

Chapman:
I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.

(JARRING CHORD)

(The cardinals burst in)

Ximinez:
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms - Oh damn!
(To Cardinal Biggles)
I can't say it - you'll have to say it.

Biggles:
What?

Ximinez:
You'll have to say the bit about 'Our chief weapons are...'

Biggles:
(rather horrified):
I couldn't do that...

(Ximinez bundles the cardinals outside again)

Chapman: I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.

(JARRING CHORD)

(The cardinals enter)

Biggles:
Er... Nobody... um...

Ximinez:
Expects...

Biggles:
Expects... Nobody expects the... um...
the Spanish... um...

Ximinez:
Inquisition.

Biggles:
I know, I know! Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, those who do expect –

Ximinez:
Our chief weapons are...

Biggles:
Our chief weapons are... um... er...

Ximinez:
Surprise...

Biggles:
Surprise and...

Ximinez:
Okay, stop. Stop. Stop there - stop there.
Stop. Phew! Ah!... our chief weapons are surprise... blah blah blah. Cardinal, read the charges.

Fang:
You are hereby charged that you did on diverse dates commit heresy against the Holy Church.
'My old man said follow the...'

Biggles:
That's enough.
(To Cleveland)
Now, how do you plead?

Cleveland:
We're innocent.

Ximinez:
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Superimposed caption:
DIABOLICAL LAUGHTER

Biggles:
We'll soon change your mind about that!

Superimposed caption:
DIABOLICAL ACTING

Ximinez:
Fear, surprise, and a most ruthless –
(controls himself with a supreme effort)
Ooooh! Now, Cardinal - the rack!

(Biggles produces a plastic-coated dish-drying rack. Ximinez looks at it and clenches his teeth in an effort not to lose control. He hums heavily to cover his anger)

Ximinez:
You... Right! Tie her down.

(Fang and Biggles make a pathetic attempt to tie her on to the drying rack)

Ximinez:
Right! How do you plead?

Cleveland:
Innocent.

Ximinez:
Ha! Right! Cardinal, give the rack.
Oh dear... give the rack a turn.

(Biggles stands their awkwardly and shrugs his shoulders)

Biggles:
I...

Ximinez:
(gritting his teeth)
I know, I know you can't. I didn't want to say anything. I just wanted to try and ignore your crass mistake.

Biggles:
I...

Ximinez:
It makes it all seem so stupid.

Biggles:
Shall I...?

Ximinez:
No, just pretend for God's sake. Ha! Ha! Ha!

(Biggles turns an imaginary handle on the side of the dish-rack)

(Cut to them torturing a dear old lady,
Marjorie Wilde).

Ximinez:
Now, old woman - you are accused of heresy on three counts - heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, and heresy by action - four counts. Do you confess?

Wilde:
I don't understand what I'm accused of.

Ximinez:
Ha! Then we shall make you understand! Biggles! Fetch...THE SOFT CUSHIONS!

(JARRING CHORD)

(Biggles holds out two ordinary modern household cushions)

Biggles:
Here they are, lord.

Ximinez:
Now, old lady - you have one last chance.
Confess the heinous sin of heresy, reject the works of the ungodly - two last chances.
And you shall be free - three last chances.
You have three last chances, the nature of which I have divulged in my previous utterance.

Wilde:
I don't know what you're talking about.

Ximinez:
Right! If that's the way you want it - Cardinal! Poke her with the soft cushions!

(Biggles carries out this rather pathetic torture)

Ximinez:
Confess! Confess! Confess!

Biggles:
It doesn't seem to be hurting her, lord.

Ximinez:
Have you got all the stuffing up one end?

Biggles:
Yes, lord.

Ximinez:
(angrily hurling away the cushions)
Hm! She is made of harder stuff! Cardinal Fang! Fetch...THE COMFY CHAIR!

(JARRING CHORD)

(Zoom into Fang's horrified face)

Fang:
(terrified)
The...Comfy Chair?

(Biggles pushes in a really plush comfy chair)

Ximinez:
So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions. Well, we shall see. Biggles! Put her in the Comfy Chair!

(They roughly push her into the Comfy Chair)

Ximinez:
(with a cruel leer)
Now - you will stay in the Comfy Chair until lunch time, with only a cup of coffee at eleven.
(aside, to Biggles)
Is that really all it is?

Biggles:
Yes, lord.

Ximinez:
I see. I suppose we make it worse by shouting a lot, do we? Confess, woman.
Confess! Confess!
Confess! Confess!

Biggles:
I confess!

Ximinez:
Not you!

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

2005-04-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

(Incluido aqui en honor a mi hermano)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

En nombre del padre, del hijo...

2005-04-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

I do not remember the details of this story; I just don't feel like doing the research. If you want, look them up. It'll do you good.

Many centuries ago, after the Christians had unsuccessfully attempted to take the holy land on a number of occasions, and the Turk had taken Constantinople, they set out one more time. The Christians now gathered an army to take not the holy land, but Constantinople. The Infidel had taken European land and that cannot be allowed. So, off they went.

Now, Constantinople, currently Istanbul, was populated by both Muslims and Christians, both of similar ethnic stock. Just looking at their faces, you couldn’t tell one group from the other. So, when the Christians (white, armored, heavily armed, God-fearing folk looking out only for God’s best interest) got there, they set up a siege, like was so common in those days. Inside, a war started between the Christians, who wanted to throw the gates open, and the Muslim, who thought (rightly enough) their lives were in danger.

Time went by, as often does when there’s nothing to watch on t.v. and there’s a hostile army at the front gates, especially if your neighbor’s also trying to kill you. Eventually, the Christians inside the city won, and threw open the gates to welcome their “saviors.” But the saviors came in to find a bunch of brown people oddly dressed—some of whom claimed to be Christian. Well, everybody knows Christians have fair skin, light eyes, and questionable personal hygiene (or they did then), so they threw all the brown folk into pens.

The #2 guy at the time, having successfully gathered up all the little brown ones, came to the #1 guy and told him (I paraphrase): “we got ‘em. What now?”

The #1 guy thought about this for a while, realizing how difficult it would be to separate them, and feed them in the meantime. So, in his infinite, divinely-inspired wisdom, he told the #2 guy (I paraphrase): “Kill them all. God will recognize his own.”

So they did.

Things haven’t gotten much better since.

UPDATE: goes to show you how little I know. This is actually from the Albigensian Crusade, and the poor fools allegedly murdered by order of the papal envoy were French, from Bezier. Turns out it was Christians against Christians. How odd!

Life, at the end.

2005-04-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

Life, at the end,
Might seem a long and bumpy road.
Or it might seem
A crazy, twisted maze.
Or a question
Left unanswered
To the end.

Life, at the end,
Might feel cold
Like a lonely winter night.
Or maybe wet
Like a hot summer night
Spent
With unwanted company.

Life, at the end,
Might seem undone,
But then the doing
Is at an end
And all that’s left
Is the life lived.

Life is just life
Until the end
And sighs count
More than breaths
Though fewer.

Life is a hand outstretched
That, at its end, is reached,
A welcome back, a hug.
And all I want from life
When it should choose to end
Is but a smile into
The life that’s next.

2005-04-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

Innocence

Inocencia, al final (Parte I)

2005-04-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

As part of an ongoing conversation originated and aptly hosted by someone whose contribution to the world of blogging I admire, I am hereby including my two cents, hoping to move that conversation forward and perhaps start my own right here. The subject matter starts with teens and sex. As I see it, it moves well beyond that, into the society’s perception on sex/sexuality from the cultural and the economic views and how this taints its interactions with its own component individuals and with other societies around the world.

There is a fallacy commonly encountered in the United States that assumes that we are technologically, culturally, and economically more advanced than any other country, that we lead the vanguard and that where we’ve been, others are now going. The inference here is that there is an inevitable path of development, and we are blazing the trail, unrewarded pioneers to the benefit of the backward and underdeveloped rest of the globe. This theory’s proponents see the fall of the Soviet Union as proof positive that American-style capitalism is the way to go; much in the same way that people who see the sidewalk wet are absolutely certain it must have rained—even as I stand, hose in hand and covered in soapy suds, beside my car.

This theory seems to support that a completely unrestrained, unregulated, unfettered (free!) market will naturally resolve all problems, even those not commercial in nature, given enough time and allowing for cyclic fluctuations, adjustments and corrections. Obviously, education would improve, as people soon realize that better-educated children yield more profit. Clearly, there will be sufficient investment in infrastructure, as anyone with eyes will see that a solid foundation is a prerequisite for growth. Evidently, socio-cultural and religious influences will vanish, replaced with common-sense, politically correct, situational ethics under the ongoing framework of the common good and individual success. The world will be a better place. Apple pie. Kumbaya.

A miniscule, well-nigh negligible corollary of this theory suggests that accelerated maturity is a desirable characteristic of youth, whether it is achieved naturally or artificially. We extol the prodigies. Nobody ever told Mr. Fisher to slow down (and see what happened?). Discarding the idea of maturational readiness like so much road kill, we push, we prod, we demand, outright expect a quick end to childhood while simultaneously (and ironically) standardizing our approach to the point of rendering it useless. Children who need baby-sitters are a bother; children who can baby-sit are an asset. Mass marketing requires an asymptotic approach to the elusive common denominator that is universal mediocrity. We want more out of our young, but less out of our adults.

And that is where sex comes in. Biologically, we are mature when we can procreate. The instinctive continuation of the species supercedes ethical, moral, and social directives at some point, but until that point is reached, at least behavior and perhaps even attitudes and beliefs are substantially the result of our upbringing. But the ongoing competition to see who dies with the most toys exacts an ever-higher offering from us of the thing our children most need from us: attention. There isn’t enough time to spend time with them. In a culture that celebrates single-parenting and by virtue of equality has transformed both parents into providers (leaving few if any nurturers), the ones who stand to lose are the ones for whom we are doing it all: ourselves.

I am not a social conservative by any means. I have supported every single point above as it came up for discussion a la carte, only now to realize how they compound, how they aggravated what I did not like in how my parents raised me and like all the less in how my ex-wife and I are raising our children. But we all have excuses: my parents had a war to worry about; so do my ex-wife and I, but of a different nature. I-Pods aren’t cheap, and kids must have them, or other luxuries, and we are bad parents if we don’t provide them--well, maybe not bad, but not great. Toilet paper isn’t getting any cheaper, either, or any of the other necessities. Any step that does not lead to career advancement is financial suicide.

Recently, I read an exchange between somebody in the U.S. and Chile. The general idea began with the Chilean stating that she thought Americans were crazy partly because of their incessant litigation and money-grabbing. The American replied indicating that the United States imported in 2002 about $3.8 billion in Chilean goods, which represented 6% of Chile’s GNP for that year, but only 0.06% for the United States. This means that the American economy is 100 times greater (in dollars, not quality) than the Chilean economy, despite America’s population being only 20 times that of Chile—implying a five-fold in productivity. I will not dispute the numbers here, but I fear there is a price to be paid for such efficiency, and it comes in human lives. Children’s lives. Innocence. We did not stone innocence to death; much like Midas, we buried it in gold.

Let me be clear: I am most positively on the side of the elimination of innocence as quickly as practical and humane for the individual child. However, knowledge does not equal wisdom. We are our children’s conscience. I will further suggest that it does indeed take a village. Much like I tell kids (even my own) that if their parents didn’t teach them manners at home, they’ll get manners beat into them by strangers, I feel this applies to language, virtues, vices. I teach not just my children, but also all those other children who can see me, who can hear me. And mine learn from you. Human behavior is infectious, contagious. Globally, what we do as a country is seen by other countries and absorbed like water by the sands of the Sahara. Might is right. My country right or wrong. Love it or leave it. Apple pie. Kumbaya.

Do you know how many people saw ET? Star Wars? Titanic? Ya think that doesn’t sink in? Now more than ever the idea that acting locally affects global thinking can be interpolated into every blog thread. It’s chaos theory at its weirdest: the elimination of China’s political repression of its citizens indeed depends on my kids not bullying other kids, and not permitting those other kids bullying still more kids. The flapping of the wings by a butterfly in New York can bring about a storm in Kenya. Are there butterflies left in New York?

We talk about teens and sex like it was an isolated phenomenon. I suggest it is intricately linked to the price of grapes in Chile. I can only hope that I am explaining intelligibly enough why I think that teaching my children better vocabulary decreases their chances of promiscuity later. Self-respect, respect of others, respect of the planet, aren’t all these just the same thing? I can hear Dr. Harry Wolper shouting now: Sunombitch, it’s the Big Picture!

Otro Sueño

2005-04-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

This is a comment I left on another blog. I like it, so I'm putting it here. It is part of an ongoing conversation I'd invite everybody to join. That ongoing conversation can be found here.

I don't want to turn this into a silly conversation, but I'd like to illustrate a point with a silly story.

When I was 17, I had a dream about the Pope and Ronald Reagan. They were both new to me at the time and I liked them both. I still do.

In my dream, I came home from school early and found two limos parked outside. Now, please keep in mind that I lived in the ghetto, in San Bernardino, California (about 1.5hr east of L.A.). I walked into our appartment to find the Pope and Ronald Reagan having a normal conversation (both dressed in full regalia sp? and eating chicken. My mom was coming back from the stove, bringing another plate of chicken.

They were friendly, funny, NICE! To this day, I like them both (though I may disagree with their points of view) and find them extremely approachable and personable. I'd vote for the Pope and pray with Mr. Reagan, if I could.

Ultimately, the greatest role of rulers is to keep the status quo, despite how badly they may want to change. Change, when it comes, usually happens to them, not from them. Them's the breaks. I may never know how each of these men would feel about my life, but it is to their credit that they got me to care about theirs, and that is a plus.

I hope they're up there enjoying my mom's chicken now.

miguel Homepage 04.08.05 - 6:55 pm #

Cuerpo Vacio

2005-04-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

Cuerpo de Lagrimas

El cuerpo pide mas
que carne
amor
y quiere mas
que un beso
cuando el hambre
llega.

El alma siente
mas que un corazon
cuando se va la luz.

Y vos que sos
tan solo
carne y corazon
no calentas
el alma
no llenas
el cuerpo.

Memoria

2005-04-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

Memoria

Bendito el dia que llegaste a mi vida,
Dandole forma a mi alma intangible
Y realidad a una ilusion increible
Evocando una memoria lejana y perdida.

Me enseñaste a dormir desnudo y a soñar sin pena;
Me enseñaste a gozar mi vida e ignorar la ajena;
Me enseñaste, amor, lo que el amor no puede
Y lo que sin deber con gusto a diario cede.

Amarga despedida, sin pretenciones de olvido,
Diciendo gracias no solo por existir,
Sino tambien por haberme hecho sentir,
Aunque solo un momento, que yo tambien he existido.