seems i'm getting tired of writing this

I no longer really feel a need to write on this with any kind of regularity, and when I sit down to write about, say, the amazing time we had at the beach last week, other things always seem more important or interesting or worthwhile. However, I'd like to just say that if we go to war with Iran, any shred of doubt left in my mind about George W. Bush's guilt as a war criminal will be gone.

west africa is where it's at

Listening to Tinariwen with Dad the other day, he pointed out the obvious: that even after listening to just part of one song, those musicians listen to lots of blues and blues-rock from the U.S., and how that music in its turn came from the traditional music of West Africa. It's all one big circle, albeit one filled with a lot of pain and suffering in the form of slavery and racism and imperialism. But having just started to discover bluesier artists like Amadou et Mariam, Ali Farka Touré, Boubacar Traoré and Tinariwen, and really just starting to discover Afrobeat and Afrofunk, well, the current stopping point of that circle has produced some kick-ass music over the past 30 or 40 years. Here's a song by Fela Kuti, "Sorrow Tears and Blood." Forgive the still image, even YouTube has limits to its selection. I suggest closing your eyes and paying no attention to your body. If it doesn't start moving of its own accord, you're probably quadriplegic.

puerto rican obituary

Found this poem today by Pedro Petri, written in 1973. I had never heard of it or him before but, well, damn. Here it is:

Puerto Rican Obituary

They worked
They were always on time
They were never late
They never spoke back
when they were insulted
They worked
They never took days off
that were not on the calendar
They never went on strike
without permission
They worked
ten days a week
and were only paid for five
They worked
They worked
They worked
and they died
They died broke
They died owing
They died never knowing
what the front entrance
of the first national city bank looks like

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
passing their bill collectors
on to the next of kin
All died
waiting for the garden of eden
to open up again
under a new management
All died
dreaming about america
waking them up in the middle of the night
screaming: Mira Mira
your name is on the winning lottery ticket
for one hundred thousand dollars
All died
hating the grocery stores
that sold them make-believe steak
and bullet-proof rice and beans
All died waiting dreaming and hating

Dead Puerto Ricans
Who never knew they were Puerto Ricans
Who never took a coffee break
from the ten commandments
to KILL KILL KILL
the landlords of their cracked skulls
and communicate with their latino souls

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
From the nervous breakdown streets
where the mice live like millionaires
and the people do not live at all
are dead and were never alive

Juan
died waiting for his number to hit
Miguel
died waiting for the welfare check
to come and go and come again
Milagros
died waiting for her ten children
to grow up and work
so she could quit working
Olga
died waiting for a five dollar raise
Manuel
died waiting for his supervisor to drop dead
so he could get a promotion

Is a long ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long island cemetery
where they were buried
First the train
and then the bus
and the cold cuts for lunch
and the flowers
that will be stolen
when visiting hours are over
Is very expensive
Is very expensive
But they understand
Their parents understood
Is a long non-profit ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long island cemetery

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Dreaming
Dreaming about queens
Clean-cut lily-white neighborhood
Puerto Ricanless scene
Thirty-thousand-dollar home
The first spics on the block
Proud to belong to a community
of gringos who want them lynched
Proud to be a long distance away
from the sacred phrase: Que Pasa

These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent

Juan
died dreaming about a new car
Miguel
died dreaming about new anti-poverty programs
Milagros
died dreaming about a trip to Puerto Rico
Olga
died dreaming about real jewelry
Manuel
died dreaming about the irish sweepstakes

They all died
like a hero sandwich dies
in the garment district
at twelve o’clock in the afternoon
social security number to ashes
union dues to dust

They knew
they were born to weep
and keep the morticians employed
as long as they pledge allegiance
to the flag that wants them destroyed
They saw their names listed
in the telephone directory of destruction
They were train to turn
the other cheek by newspapers
that mispelled mispronounced
and misunderstood their names
and celebrated when death came
and stole their final laundry ticket

They were born dead
and they died dead

Is time
to visit sister lopez again
the number one healer
and fortune card dealer
in Spanish Harlem
She can communicate
with your late relatives
for a reasonable fee
Good news is guaranteed

Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
Let them know this right away
Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
Now that your problems are over
and the world is off your shoulders
help those who you left behind
find financial peace of mind

Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
If the right number we hit
all our problems will split
and we will visit your grave
on every legal holiday

Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
let them know this right away
We know your spirit is able
Death is not dumb and disable
RISE TABLE RISE TABLE

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Hating fighting and stealing
broken windows from each other
Practicing a religion without a roof
The old testament
The new testament
according to the gospel
of the internal revenue
the judge and jury and executioner
protector and eternal bill collector

Secondhand shit for sale
learn how to say Como Esta Usted
and you will make a fortune
They are dead
They are dead
and will not return from the dead
until they stop neglecting
the art of their dialogue
for broken english lessons
to impress the mister goldsteins
who keep them employed
as lavaplatos porters messenger boys
factory workers maids stock clerks
shipping clerks assistant mailroom
assistant, assistant assistant
to the assistant’s assistant
assistant lavaplatos and automatic
artificial smiling doormen
for the lowest wages of the ages
and rages when you demand a raise
because is against the company policy
to promote SPICS SPICS SPICS

Juan
died hating Miguel because Miguel’s
used car was in better running condition
than his used car
Miguel
died hating Milagros because Milagros
had a color television set
and he could not afford one yet
Milagros
died hating Olga because Olga
made five dollars more on the same job
Olga
died hating Manuel because Manuel
had hit the numbers more times
than she had hit the numbers
Manuel
died hating all of them
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
and Olga
because they all spoke broken english
more fluently than he did

And now they are together
in the main lobby of the void
Addicted to silence
Off limits to the wind
Confine to worm supremacy
in long island cemetery
This is the groovy hereafter
the protestant collection box
was talking so loud and proud about

Here lies Juan
Here lies Miguel
Here lies Milagros
Here lies Olga
Here lies Manuel
who died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Always broke
Always owing
Never knowing
that they are beautiful people

Never knowing
the geography of their complexion

PUERTO RICO IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
PUERTORRIQUENOS ARE A BEAUTIFUL RACE

If only they
had turned off the television
and tune into their own imaginations
If only they
had used the white supremacy bibles
for toilet paper purpose
and make their latino souls
the only religion of their race
If only they
had return to the definition of the sun
after the first mental snowstorm
on the summer of their senses
If only they
had kept their eyes open
at the funeral of their fellow employees
who came to this country to make a fortune
and were buried without underwears

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
will right now be doing their own thing
where beautiful people sing
and dance and work together
where the wind is a stranger
to miserable weather conditions
where you do not need a dictionary
to communicate with your people
Aqui Se Habla Espanol all the time
Aqui you salute your flag first
Aqui there are no dial soap commercials
Aqui everybody smells good
Aqui tv dinners do not have a future
Aqui the men and women admire desire
and never get tired of each other
Aqui Que Paso Power is what’s happening
Aqui to be called negrito
means to be called LOVE

holy crap dream

Kellyanne, Robin H, Josh Scannell and I had decided, on our last day of high school, that we were sick of a particular class and instead of having it we'd bring some guns and hold up the teacher so we could just goof off instead. This we did; my gun even had a silencer. It was kind of fun, in the dream, but also strange, the teacher (it may have been my 8th-grade English teacher Mrs. Kajder) was so quiet and clearly confused and scared. Anyhow as I was leaving the room at the end of the period arms reached out and grabbed me from behind: a cop. I no longer had my gun so, perfectly aware of my guilt, I started playing innocent, acting like I didn't know what was going on. The officer didn't say anything, just marched me to an empty hallway, where Robin and Kellyanne already were, in long flowy dresses. Josh had apparently gotten away. I lay down on a bench (Robin and Kellyanne were dancing) and was depressed and kind of disbelief that I had done something so stupid. It was scary, I was sure that I'd go to jail and never get to college or amount to anything.

After a while waiting on that bench, someone came and brought the three of us to an auditorium, where a collection of police officers in plain clothes were getting ready to talk about how to solve our case. Lincoln was also there, and motioned to me to sit next to him. But he was in a three-seat section of the room, and the seat next to him was taken and in front of the other one stood a woman talking to the people in the row ahead. I went and squeezed into that other one and there was some awkwardness about how she was supposed to sit, but she ended up going elsewhere. The lights dimmed and a cartoon was put on, a Looney Toon, that I had seen before, about what to do with bad children, punish or give a second chance? On the way home with Mom and Dad (Lincoln had to stay at school) I was very upset, especially because Mom and Dad were saying that now I'd never get into the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins because Aunt Katie had just gotten in and now, with this whole gun thing, I could never measure up to her as an applicant.

I was at home alone with Jack, waiting for news about the investigation. We had a chair, one of our real-life kitchen chairs, fitted with a rocket pack. I decided to try it out and started flying little sorties around our neighborhood and back. I looked longingly at maps with Jack, talking about where would be the best place to go in the chair to get away from all the mess I'd started. Eventually I decided to take a slightly longer trip and began flying away towards DC. The flying, by the way, was really fun. I got pretty far, but realized at some point that I was going to run out of fuel, so I tried to race back home. No such luck, and I touched down, totally empty, next to Farragut West metro (although the setting actually looked more like Gallery Place did ten years ago). Having just flown away from home, I had nothing in my pockets, no way to get the rest of the way home, and no way to call. The streets were pretty empty and I didn't want to ask anyone for change. Finally I decided to suck it up and find some quarters to call home with. When Mom picked up and I explained the situation, she laughed and said of course she'd come pick me up. That's all I remember.

I didn't make a single iota of that up. Holy crap.

ratatouille

I can't believe it was still playing, but Mom and Jack and I went to see it yesterday evening at the Majestic and all three of us LOVED it. Brad Bird, who made "The Incredibles," too, basically proved to me with this one that A) he's a really good director and B) he knows how to make really cool credits. Or maybe the credits thing is just Pixar. I had read in a review a while ago that one of the great things about the movie was that it didn't shy away from the rats' being rats. They don't look like Mickey Mouse, they don't look like the bugs from "A Bug's Life," they look and move like rats. It fit and amplified perfectly the message of the film, which is that anyone can do anything with talent and perseverance, no matter what how daunting the obstacle. It sounds trite like that, but in the context of the movie it's quite wonderful. The food and kitchen themselves are also terrifically depicted and animated. It goes into my second tier of animated movies (below "The Lion King, "Beauty and the Beast" and "My Neighbor Totoro").

h/t dad

Good alternate (and somewhat more levelheaded) argument for why people should stop hating on Barry Bonds at Girls in Short Shorts.

barry bonds

Okay, you fucking sanctimonious shithead airbag idiots. I've had enough of your slamming Barry Bonds. The last straw, and the one that pushed me into shouting, raving mad territory, is today's piece on ESPN.com by Eric Neel comparing Bonds to Mickey Mantle. His basic question is who disappoints us more, Mickey Mantle by being an alcoholic and basically throwing away his 30s in favor of booze, or Barry Bonds, who almost undoubtedly took some form of performance-enhancing drugs starting in 2000 and giving us some of the greatest offensive years in baseball history? Neel says,

"Steroids are creepy, alien, illicit doorways to a frightening cyborg future. We want no part of them. They make us long for purity and certainty. They're a threat not only to baseball records we cherish but to our very sense of self, to our most basic understanding of what we mean by 'human being' and what we understand to be the limits of human accomplishment."

This is asinine. Performance-enhancing drugs may be illicit, but they're hardly "alien." Barry Bonds has been taught since he was very young that all the matters is to be the best he can be at the sport he plays. It became evident to him around 2000 that a good way to do that was to take performance enhancers. They worked. He was already a mortal lock for the Hall of Fame and now he's a mortal lock for any discussion about the GOAT. "Frightening cyborg future"?!?!? What planet is this guy living on? Athletes have taken performance enhancers since ancient Greece (that always seems uncomfortable to me as a starting point because it's so Euro-centric, but that's another story). They often didn't work, and the only reasons steroids and HGH have become so controversial is because their effects are clear and dramatic. But why should drugs be the only form of body-enhancement that's considered cheating? What about the sharkskin bathing suits that Olympic swimmers now wear? What about Tiger Woods' laser eye surgery that allows him to see WAY better than 20/20? Or Mark McGwire's custom-made contacts that had the same effect? Or the fact that cyclists in the Tour de France not only have oxygen-pumping drugs but also superfast custom-tailored bikes and helmets of which cyclists of yore couldn't have dreamed. The way sports are played changes all the time, the ceiling to which they can be practiced raises ever-higher as technology improves. Performance-enhancing drugs are just a technology. Of course Barry Bonds (and Rafael Palmerio, and Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire, and Roger Clemens, and Jason Giambi, and who knows how many others) were going to use them. The drugs made them better. Just like not playing against people of color made Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb better.

The only argument I can see against steroids is that they are unsafe, which they seemingly are, but we are moving closer and closer to a time when that is no longer an issue. When the health risk from taking them is gone, they should be legalized and permitted in professional sports. Period. I don't give a shit if Barry Bonds stuck some chemicals in his ass, I only care that the other night, sitting alone in my living room, I was overcome by happiness and wonder at the sight of Bonds, raising his fists, impassive as the ball went out to the right-center bleachers and then finally cracking a smile as he rounded the bases to thunderous adulation in San Francisco. I had goosebumps from my scalp to the soles of my feet when he broke down thanking the sky in place of his father. It wasn't quite 2131 for me, but it was pretty amazing. Sportswriters like Eric Neel need to shut the fuck up and sit down. Let awesome be awesome. Rock on, Barry Bonds.

last night i had a dream

naked dream...frisbee...walking through neighborhoods to get to field...waking up in a bed with everyone looking down at me...why was i naked?

A naked dream. I was walking with some people to a field, through neighborhoods that in retrospect remind me a little of Villanueva de la Cañada, where I lived in Spain for a week in 8th grade. We were on our way to play frisbee and everyone was following me because I knew where the field was. There was a big mix of kids: City at Peace people, Michigan people, Blair people. I got to the field first and there were already a couple of kids throwing a disc around. I threw a couple with them and then the next thing I knew I was racing, buck-ass naked, after a deep huck. But I realized halfway there that I wasn't wearing any clothes and alarm bells started going off. So I turned around, hand over privates, and sprinted back towards my clothes to general laughter and shouts of encouragement for those closest to me to get a look. I tried desperately to pull my shorts back on as discreetly as possible and people started crowding around. I woke up in a bed with those same people looking over me. Other things happened in the dream but they are less clear. It was the first naked dream I can remember having.

Last night I went with Mom to get dinner and go see "Mar Adentro," which I thought was directed by Pedro Almodóvar but was in fact directed by Alejandro Amenábar. It's a movie about assisted suicide, for those not in the know, and it's among the most moving and beautiful movies I've ever seen. As I have mentioned here before, I am not prone to tears during movies, or books for that matter, but this was the second during which I had to wipe away tears. Perhaps I'm becoming more empathetic? Or perhaps I care less what implications my crying carries to the people around me? I'm not sure. In any event, the talk afterwards (this was part of Mom's office's Science in the Cinema series at AFI Silver, which is such a cool thing) was by a pretty high-powered guy in the field of bioethics and particularly as relates to end-of-life issues. But his comments were extremely brief and I thought pretty unsatisfying. The movie is not really about the science of assisted suicide or euthanasia, no doctors are involved. Its real themes, to my view, are relationships and selfishness (or lack thereof). It would have been better, perhaps, to have someone NOT a medical doctor (perhaps someone from the Hemlock Society?) give the talk. To be fair, I think he was thrown a little by the first question, by a man clearly out of touch with the context, who, with some doggedness, asked about stem cell research and aborting fetuses.

Right this instant I must go shower, but I will soon hold forth on Barry Bonds, about whom I've discovered I feel quite strongly. Oh yes, the big news from yesterday was really that I had my check-up with Dr. Kline and my blood pressure is totally, 100% normal. What a relief. I had lunch with Dad at Firehook Bakery afterwards, which was really nice (thanks, Dad!) and where I realized definitively how fired up this whole Bonds thing gets me.

boston legal

Is an incredibly sexist show. But it's hilarious and clever and fun to watch, so at first I didn't really notice. Now I do, all the time; it's not exactly subtle once you start noticing. I suppose this is probably true of most things in our culture; I think it was Last Plantation (although I'm not sure) where I read about the online flight magazines, which I had never noticed are totally dominated by photographs of white people, even on flights that are majority-minority, such as the one I took from San Salvador from DC. Racism and sexism and homophobia are most clear in overt forms, obviously. Matthew Shepherd, Pennsylvania crowds railing against "illegals," the Supreme Court ruling against women in that whole pay raise thing. It's far more difficult to notice, and far more difficult to call others' attention to, things like the sexism on Boston Legal. After all, some of the women appear powerful. They are confident, articulate, demanding and usually win arguments. But sexually they are clearly inferior to the male protagonists. The women are unlucky in love, either because they get the wrong guy, or they can't have the guy they want, or what have you (I won't even get into the episode where the young black female attorney basically uses her body to scam a pervert pastor/lawyer into settling a case). Then men all, by virtue of the same confidence that the women show, get pretty much any woman they want, when they want. Bully for them.

The problem for me, here, is that I like Boston Legal. I feel guilty for enjoying it, and I'm torn over whether my objections to some of the show's undercurrents should be enough to make me stop watching. What really makes me uncomfortable is that the sexist part is fun/funny, too. Sexist and racist jokes make me laugh sometimes and I don't know whether that's wrong or not. I know those topics are not funny and I try hard in my life to fight the inclinations I and those around me have in that regard. But what about humor? I don't know this is coming out all wrong. Maybe it'd be better to come back to it when I've got my thoughts a little more organized. Interesting topic, though.

acantilado

That means "cliff" in Spanish and it's the closest I could think of to "drop-off," even though the connotation "decrease in production" doesn't translate very well except in a complex metaphor. Whatever, I've been experiencing a drop-off in posting and I'm not entirely sure why, but I suppose mostly because I've been busy (couldn't you tell from my last post?) and without the energy needed to blog. Still, I should do it more and perhaps expect myself to write more than I have been. In lieu of writing right now, though, because it's 2 a.m. and I seem to have gotten up to my old trick of reading a really good book in bed, which is a terrible strategy for going to sleep, I'll just post a song, a freaking great cheer-up track that I got by accident from somebody who'd grouped it with "Buena Vista Social Club." Which it is, kind of; it's "Pa Mayte" by Carlos Vives featuring BVSC. Hope you like it.

in spanish

el jueves fui a ver unos amigos de city at peace y volvi mucho mas tarde que
queria...estaba tan volado. el viernes me levante a las 8 (grrr), lleve los perros a la
peluqueria y lincoln a su trabajo. despues pinte, almorze brevemente con mi mama, maneje al optometra (que queda a 45 minutos de mi casa), casi me dormi mientras manejaba, volvi a buscar lincoln en su trabajo y los perritos, llegue a mi casa y dormi 2 horas. me levante y me fui directamente a college park para el cumple 21 de cori! fue divertido pero medio raro. hoy me levante nuevamente a las 8 y fui a mi antiguo campamento, catoctin, porque fue el dia de visitas (las familias de los chicos) y habia prometido visitar a unos amigos que son counselors ahi. esta noche comimos con mi papa y mama (lincoln esta con amigos y jack estaba trabajando) y dimos un paseo a una heladeria buenisima y despues a buscar una pelicula (the parallax view). eso tambien fue genial, pero estoy tan cansado. oy vey. con eso me acuesto. yuck, estoy sucio. pero no tengo la energia de ducharme. oh well.

Busy, busy, busy.