FIDELOPOLIS

Ramdom Thoughts

2012-02-08T19:47:00.000-08:00

The clock reads 12:25AM and I’m sitting here, reading, highlighting words and phrases from a book published 22 years ago. The paragraphs are pragmatic, obscure, and almost mechanical. What a contrast to the pleasing colloquialism of the Post and Newsday.

Clock now reads 1:05AM, the soft lights makes reading challenging. But I can’t have too much light because the girls are sleeping soundly. The night distilled a very refined storm; traces of wet soil and cypress keep me company. And I wonder why the asshole upstairs vacuums after midnight?

Wish I could take the elevator down, walk two blocks-up, order a cheeseburger-deluxe, fries, pickles on the side. Maybe get the early morning edition of the Post washed down with coffee. Impossible I’m light years away from The City. It is 1:35 AM, and I am still figuring out how the fuck Anaphora (or the lack of) influences the “overly compact” style of the Legal English.

1:45AM, I stand to stretch and check up on the girls, still sleeping peacefully. I envy their sleep; wish I could sleep like that.

Beyond the windows the street shimmers with rain and wind. Very curious socio-linguistics finds subcultural variations (phonetics, mannerisms, etc.). But I find that even the trees have a tone, a colorful sound of their own. Roman-pines moan, strong gusts will make eucalyptus howl and sacred olive groves murmur with the slightest caress.

Page #137: Intersection of Testimony. Fuck! 2 AM, my back is killing me, goddam chair feels like concrete. Need to pause, eyes are tearing, think I need glasses. Tired, so tired but “time enough for the earth in the grave.” My notes scatter: linguistics, pragmatic, certiorari, nuncupative, parallel structure. And permeates, chilly draft permeating the room, wish I had some coke, some rum. Have to get a sweater.

It eases me, this old station, can’t believe the DJ still alive, he says that “it’s 5 AM.” The sun is rising in The City, or maybe not, because it’s winter. But fresh bagels that’s for sure, from “the little” bakery on Amsterdam near 83rd. This song is killing me, DJ got skills: but i gotta tell you, this, all right whenever your near me, i dont need to hide i'm feeling helpless, i, i dont need it i feel like im in love least that's the way i see it...

The beginning of Chapter #9 is pure bullshit. 3 AM, you keep crossing my mind. Why? You come and go with the breeze, lights from the candles shivering. And how can all of you fit into one song. How is this possible? I have been avoiding you for the past 2 hours and 35 minutes. Inevitably I must give in.

Nostalgia

2011-12-19T16:21:00.000-08:00

Y si dicen, dicen tan poco
Extensas murallas verde-azulinas
Que casi son tus ojos
Parasol en cordillera

Disgregando a la mar que nos aúno

De cuando en cuando
Secretos prófugos encamina la ventisca
Ocasos y siluetas, centinelas encorvados
Sollozo de un día más, la flamante alborada

Siete millas, San Mateo y un puente entre nosotros

Semblante crepuscular
La noche adosándose en la pared
Arropando con luto astral los pueblos
Una nostalgia mas, el no saber de vos

Siete millas, un frío alzado, insurrecto y cabron

Asombrosa tiniebla
Lenta, abstraída en su rotación
Que apreso tu voz en algún lugar recóndito
Y dejome, extraordinarios, montes en ristra

Mi lucidez, saco gastado, repleto de recuerdos

Nostalgia, inmutable
Como piedra de acantilado
Donde el oleaje casi dice tu nombre
Pero le amordaza el farallón

Prescindir de vos… Memorias tan plomizas y pesadas

Te ensueño, suelto palabras, lloriqueo
Inconciente balbuceo tu nombre
De esas cosas que dice el alma
Y que despierto aun no descifro

Y vos, donde estas?

The Day Pedro Bucio Fell (Draft 2)

2011-11-09T18:11:00.000-08:00

Pricilla Cleave was a happy widow, surviving on Randy’s eight million dollar life insurance. She was content living out in her Oakville farm. Napa’s striking compendium of flora/fauna made all of her grief surrender to serenity. Endless days spent walking and watching procyon families quench their thirsts in the timid waters of her creek consoled her.

Before dying her husband Randy had been a prominent zoologist. But he died an unfortunate and inexplicable death. Ironically, the same creatures he cared for discovered the body. Buzzards and jackals found him rotting away, near a dark alley under dark clouds, next to a putrid puddle, in the Central African Republic. But none of his buddies from the San Francisco Sue-Society could accurately identify him, as he was indeed in a terrible state of putrefaction.

Dong Yonson was the only close friend who could finally identify Randy; by noting a brownish beauty mark under his testicles. Yonson called Pricilla and gave her the subita morte extingui news. And 72 hours and 9,000 miles later she found herself wishing and touching ground at M’Poko airport. She wished nothing but to give Randy’s vestiges proper burial in his native Manteca, California.

Before her departure she met with Bangui’s chief prosecutor who presented to her several photos of the supposed killers. These were all notable members of a local poacher gang, known as Kachit Sellit Moafoken Koontakintees.

Scrupulously, Pricilla examined 25 pictures and noticed that: 20 resembled Akon, 2 Brent Jennings, 3 Wesley Snipes; all had red-eyes but none a guilty look. The prosecutor was convinced the murder was: the dreadful outcome of a ransom deal to free a pair of strikingly blond lion cubs.

Pricilla adored the smell of lion-cages! Something about lion-cages odor provoked total sexual ecstasy in her. So, she made it a Thursday’s treat to accompany her late-husband to his job so she could be near the cages and of course the felines.

But now it was all a thing of the past. She was happy in her farm raising her cows, horses, fowls and that one Black Mule. The latter was a gift from Juan Willoughby Primitivo a former undocumented worker. She named the beast Sorry Mrs. Jackson I’m For Real in memory of her beloved hubby.

One dawn Pedro El Violador Bucio arrived at Mrs. Cleave’s farm. Greased-up and ready to build a chicken-coop that would resemble Schloss Schonbrunn. But El Negro Jim was late. So, Pedro and his nephews Lennon Ponete Holister, Ringo Yausa Holister, and Agustin Veever Primitivo, set about hunting possums for breakfast.

Cloee-Chayito Kompraholister, a concubine of all, was designated Tortilla Maker. They caught 8.5 robust possums and Chayito roasted, over magma colored charcoals, each one.

With each clap she laid 5 tortillas on a circular clay-pan. And following the Michoacanan protocol whispered into each screeching animal’s ears the phrase Echele Ganas Mijo over and over and over again.

Noise and stench awoke Pricilla from her slumber. She headed for the kitchen, boiled water and made her English breakfast. For about an hour she digested idiotorials from various San Francisco’s newspapers and emerged un-bathed and looking much like a well-aged Elizabeth Perkins.

Calmly she approached Jim, a tall-overweight, black man and handed him $8,000. The check was watermarked with her favorite local baseball team: The Midgets. The memo read: chicken-coop/landscaping services.

Around mid-day, as the sun showered the fields with a dazzling warming light, Pricilla asked Jim to saddle Mi Pueblo her favorite horse and feed the black mule. But Jim was preoccupied getting his medical Blockhead ready. So instead he asked Pedro.

She watched Pedro attached the breast collars with skillfulness. He had a way with Mi Pueblo, whispering into the animal’s ear from time to time the phrase Echele Ganas Mijo! As he worked, his pores exhaled aromas. Aromas, perfumes of: caged beasts, of felines trapped in small spaces, of lions dens in the heat of Tanzanian summers.

Lightheaded, aroused and startled she mounted Mi Pueblo and rode-off towards the prairies. Uncountable and abundant climaxes made her body tremble. Until she finally fainted upon the mount and awoke to the sound of her horse’s trot.

El Negro Jim or Jim El Negro watched Pricilla’s badonkadonk bounce away. He puffed on his medication, as if his entire being depended on it. Inhaling deep puffs but exhaling dawdling breaths. He stood near Pedro, speaking a song in a deep-voice. Pedro listened and poured oats and barely for the mule. “Temptations in the whirlwind, we both bad at it, told myself no mo hittin niggas girlfriends…”

Tendency made Jim share a few puffs of his medication with Pedro. But New York’s Finest proved too much for his now feeble TB-positive lungs. He sat on the wooden fence overwhelmed by the drug. He observed Sorry Ms. Jackson I’m For Real. Her strut was very curious, sexy, and almost blasphemous. She swung her hips from side to side in a very erotic way.

Perhaps the black mule intuited Pedro El Violador Bucio’s lasciviousness; deliberately positioned her backside facing Pedro. Who now devoured her purplish genitalia with a look charged by inconceivable desires. Sorry Ms. Jackson… accepted Pedro’s caresses. Persuaded the beast laid on the dusty ground.

Jim both amused and terrified, called upon the nephews for aid. They began to clap and cheer. Shouting in unison Echele Ganas Mijo, as it was the Michoacanan custom, as Pedro furiously penetrated the mule. Astonished and muddled by the brutality of these men Jim stood petrified.

Terrible thoughts of shame pesteredJim in the hours to come. And he felt the need to confess the deed to Pricilla. His tale was less grotesque and more factual. Never the less, it broke her heart and infuriated the living shit out of her. Pricilla terminated all contracts with Jim and order all the men to evacuate her property immediately. Her finger trembled as she tapped the trigger on her shotgun.

It took Pedro El Violador Bucio 7 days and 25 minutes to realize that he had fallen... In Love! And he was no stranger to falling. He had fallen, as a child inside a septic-tank. Years later he slipped on a used condom near 18th and Mission, but never had he... in Love. He had no recollection of having experience anything like it.

So he sought advice from whom his clan regarded as the highest authority. A man barely inches from being a God: Don Brandon Yager Bucio Primitivo & Viva-Cristo-Redentor. Don Brandon was sitting in his throne made out of 100% Central American homosapien femurs.

Julionsote his bodyguard handed him the Iphone. He listened attentively to Pedro and adviced him to: watch all of Mario Almada’s movies, el muletas al 100 Sense and Sensibility. Finally he suggested Pedro to get a laptop and a facebook account so he could chat with the black mule. Don Brandon’s advice was followed with such austerity that Pedro epitomized or rather hyperbolized time.

His final fall must have fallen on a Tuesday. After he drove hours to a redneck town near Oregon to get a Vayo-laptop for $250 and found a bunch of Spanish-tiles ducked taped inside a brand-new-box instead. With a note attached that read: Echele Ganas Mijo, Ire-ve, Ire-ve, Ire-ve..!

Note: The Pueblan Pigmeos overran all 5 boroughs! Spearheaded by their leaders Yupayme Kesh and Hiam Bestia Vurden. They are pushing Norht towards Mt. Vernon and beyond.

Miraculous Lights

2011-10-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

And if the roads lead to you
Is it an act of ethereal vengeance?
Or compensation for the gash and the longing to be home
Is the warmth and tranquility I feel when I lay next to you
Life’s reimbursement for nearly forty years of languishing

Remember the midnight and the moon
The feline in heat roaming the frosty coast
Our mirth
The sorrow we split, half and half
And the ogres besetting the walls of our… brittle world

My ways, my life story written:
In blind, obscure, misinterpreted, and mutilated words
Became brilliant braille for your fair fingers
And almost cured my obsession with chronemics
Sowing in my pen-station heart's rythm... Patience

Here and there, not a wasted minute
We have churches of our own
Selfish patios to find the sun
And thousands of hoary limited manuscripts
A dialect of our own

Love is too common a word
We live under other terms beyond
We need not say what we have
It irradiates miraculous lights
Down the road to you

A Fable of Mine

2011-07-31T16:33:00.000-07:00

And this is how it all started:

One day Mexican-Jabba the Hut phoned me. Libertine as usual, she mentioned being inside a tub, massaging her genitals with a... Contraption so powerful it had already blown 50,000 fuses around the neighborhood. She praised the gadget! Screaming its Cantonese name "TING SOADAM GHOOU". My eardrum also vibrated with pain.

I had not much to add to Jabba's weekly Quidnunc. Aside of my Fountain of Youth secret: 3000 mcg of folic acid, washed down with a liter of coconut-water. But my remark passed incognizant, as she was deeply entrenched in her calumniating of management. Referring to these women as a "bunch of dumb, up in their high-horses, bitches..." And on, and on.

So I said what any Newyorker says when there is really nothing to say about a situation we can do nothing about "yeaaa, well... Wha-ree-ya gonna do!" She insisted, persisted, stubborn like a mule. But I could not say what she wanted me to say because I held no grudges. Besides, it made me uncomfortable hearing my voice echoing in her speaker-phone.

My inner, most honest thoughts about our boss were good. Her commitment to the company astonished me. Her motherly love and humbleness were to be admired and praised. There was a vestige of the Floretine women in her features.

But Jabba the Hut proved a hard woman to divert. I knew what she wanted. Good-old nasty, fried, spicy morsels of inter-office gossip. But I had so few. Fed up with her mongering I made-up some bullshit. I gave her my version of Max Weber (on bureaucracy) for dummies/ghetto style. And she disseminated it as follow:

Mexican Jabba the Hut called Black Jabba the Hut and she called Sandwichspread (Spanish Pepinesa). Sandwichspread texted Simpson Lisa. Lisa sent a runner with a message to Bleached Mexican Granny. Via book-face Hermelinda-linda told Lolalatrailera who told Paquita Separece, who told Isheindia-Oupakistan. Via-sticky-note, news reached Mexican Big-Pun, Virginia Hillbilly Slims and Heavy-D Marry. Finally, from the top of Mt. Shasta, Alley Oop-1 and Alley Oop-2 sent smoke signals to Joeyana Fuemucama (better known as Joey).

Terribly misinterpreted and upset, the next morning I explained to Sandwichspread what I had actually said. She then burped loudly stinking-up the room with pre-digested radish and "like", left work early with the excuse of feeling "way too sleepy." But in reality she "like" headed to Lekrispy-krem to meet all of the above and "like" have some laughs, eat, and "like" rant about getting the short end of "like" the stick.

The days passed like clouds on the horizon. One morning, a very desperate lady came to the trailer park. Out loud she called my name and handed me a poorly written note. Poor, both in content and calligraphy. The content, entrusted her case to me. The note signed by Joeyana Fuemucama, made me feel like the captain of her BUNCO team.

Calmly and assertive, I clarify to the lady our criteria and policies. The Must procedures and Ethics, as agents of change we conformed to. Stressing, as I escorted her to the door, that her case would be handled with solidarity, equanimity and utmost licit manner.

When I called Joeyana Fuemucama (Joey), I did so with the pretension of getting a better understanding of her work-style. But as I had anticipated, Joey took it the wrong way!

She became infuriated and called me all kinds of foul things. Saying I was bitter, angry, hungry, because I made so little money and had tons of work, drove a piece shit car. Angry because my wife was an ugly, short, chubby bitch and that's why I was always cheating on her.

Furthermore, she thought that I thought, I was "hot-shit sexy" But in reality my mouth was all fucked-up. Plus she had heard from someone I had a small cock and whenever I talked I spit. That everyone was saying that the other asshole that was at that office before me was "hella-cool" and almost looked like a very dark, midget size, Jorge Clooney. Plus, she added I was an idiot for having dudes punch me in the lip so that I could look "hella cool" like Jay Z.

I pondered how Joeyana knew all these lies about me. Did we meet after work at a bar and had drinks? Perhaps she knew my family? Or a close relative or friend of mine? Who knew? But none of the above comments cut through me. Except one, the one about God is watching me. It bothered me to think God watched as I urinated or defecated, etc. It made me nervous not to know the origin of this God she spoke of.

Over the weekend, plagued by nightmares about housekeepers flying in brooms around my head and of Jabba the Huts chasing me in their thongs. I woke-up very somnolent. And slowly fed my cock Blue Seal Feed, so he could grow thicker and longer.

That Sunday we had Vietnam's best coffee at a place overlooking the Bay waters. Very serene and beautiful. Taciturn I admired the waters... My wife picked-up the call, it was my Indian friend Kapilavastu:
You sound Angry Fidel and that is ok. It shows that you are alive and if there is anger it cannot exist inside you without Love. Much like Fire cannot be without Oxygen. You have as much Love as you have anger. God is not watching you Fidel. He is not the Police when Sting was in the band.

Kapilavastu's words filled my eyes with languid tears, restoring happiness in me. And I forgave Joeyana Fuemucama and her gang of greasy-seadonkeys. The experience I had gained was golden. No amount of money would pay for knowing what I knew now! That was the beauty of all, the ride uphill... And so filled with goodness I was, I wanted to call Joey and tell her "Joey I am not angry anymore."

Napolitano talk to them!

Epitafio

2011-07-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

Entre rimero y pilon, recuerdole
Acaso era domingo?
Con el tiempo son infames los recuerdos
Leña reseca, pilon de aguas turbulentas

Sopor de una tarde tropical
Mi viejo sentado en su locura, en completa contumacia
Con el torso desnudo, lentes mutilados y un amarillento libro
Que Tiempo, letargo, que bosquejo tan gastado

El viejo te escuchaba Gasparin
Tu vos clandestina, plural, resonando por los corredores
Sembraste la murria con apenas tres acordes
Pero el viejo te queria, como todos te queremos!

Y tomome 33 años entender tu mensaje
Aquello de los pendejos y el tio Pedro
Cuando te fuiste supe
Que no soy de aqui, ni de alla y mi porvenir no llega

Los cabezitas que te cargaron se llevaron un trozo de nosotros
Estaras con el negro Olmedo tomando Ginebras... Salud!
No llore tu muerte che, llore tu vida
Cuan desaforada anda la muerte para desangrarte de esa manera!

Y ahora que estas en el cielo con todos los buenos Faco
Preguntale a Dios por que los hijos de puta mueren de ultimo?
Cuestionale su justicia divina
Pregutales por que los Cabrones mueren lindo?

Un buen dia. Un dia de estos Gasparin
Cuando camine entre Callao y Corrientes
Y despierte en el Libertad o en el Europa
Repicaran tus versos los Buenos Aires!

Epistemology or Curiosity?

2011-06-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

A study conducted by Dr. Dylan Sokslarokokolus, prominent gynecologist and professor of Gastroenterology at Stans-4 University. Gained publicity and fame in May of 2011. Heading front pages in several medical journals around the world, including the British Journal of American Psychology and Endocrinology, Brussels’ Youbekilling'em magazine and Tony El Gorila's, Wepa-mami-que-Cutete blog.

Widely known as "Is She Really Going out with Dhat." His research highlights the social and economical phenomenon occurring to Overweight, Ugly, Hardly Educated, Unarticulated, and Soap-a-phobic men. According to Dr. Sokslarokokolus "these heavy-set men make tons of money, marry pretty thin attractive/beautiful women and drive nice European cars..."

His thesis is supported by 4 arguments:
a. Overweight men can sit for a long period of time in a chair;
b. Have stable employment;
c. Are endowed by nature and empowered by God to become managers;
d. They make tons of money in every pay-check.

In contrast, men who exercise (weighing less than 200 lbs), engage in physical activities an average of 18 hours per week, eat fruits and vegetables, and read books. According to the study: are generally poor, unsuccessful, extremely prone to homosexuality, are already homosexuals, have homosexual friends, are too articulate to be heterosexuals, produce less at work; spend exaggerated amounts of money in soap, underwear, and socks. Make inept managers, but good homosexuals, or amazing sexual distractions for married women.

Dr. Sokslarokokolus and his team of scientists, surveyed: 3000 uruk-hais, 2000 orcs, and 100 white-collar manatees. Data shows most of the participants’ weight ranged between 265-790 lbs. Aside of coital activity, 99% of them agreed that "watching a Giants games was enough athletic activity."

Furthermore, the study supported a prior 2005 study entitled "Moe-pounds, Moemoney & Like... Lets Go Mandingo Hunting: A White Girl's Confession." Research work, undertaken by Keeth Sweat, Ph.D/Consultant which clearly and indisputably explains that "heavy-set, pot bellied, preferably balding dudes" had better jobs, made "high-on-crack-ridiculous yearly salaries, knocked-boots with all the mamis... Damn, thas mesap-vee!"

Irritated by the findings I decided to phone Mr. Sokslarokokolus but his secretary told me he was in a sabbatical with members of the university's wrestling team somewhere between the Celebes Sea and Molucca Sea, in some Island called Metirodqlo, very near Taguladang. So I decided to write him a brief email. Here's a sample:

Mr. Sokslarokokolus:

My concern with your research has to do with the overlooked factors. And some inacuracies in the logic of your presented work. As you recall, there is a formula to validate an argument e.g:
All A are B
No B are C
Therefore, No A are C

Unfortunately, you argument does not show validity. Being overweight does not mean success or wealth. To the contrary, the pattern you have alluded could be argued in many fields... Your work alienates the "high-number of Asian wealthy/successful men, many of whom hold positions beyond the glass-ceiling, yet have a healthy and thin appearance" (Donging Hankon & Pimp Daddioo, 2009).

What about race? Were most of the men surveyed white or minorities? Again, the Van-diagram used in other studies mimicking yours show homosexuality to be prevalent among overweight-men as well... Psychologically, I agree with Dr. Sheela Ley Sowjoecee's work "Don't Tell My Husband: We Knocked Boots Till Six O’clock." That sucess cannot be defined by material things. Success can be anything that individuals identified as goal, the pursuit of it, and the sense of achievement they receive when reaching it.

If we take into account the economic variable. As in, women find, not the overweight guy attractive. But the prospect of finding a stable source of income and security. Yes, your study does have some merits.

Respectfully,
FMM

3 weeks later Dr. Sokslarokokolus replied to my email and I was astonished. Here is a sample:

Dear Fidel:

Thank you for taking the time to comment on my work... I do agree when you say that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" but that depends on "who is holding the beauty":) Yet 5,100 of the Bay Area women surveyed described their partners as overweight men with good-paying jobs. You forgot to note that. The women surveyed were "Beautiful". I will leave the topic of beauty alone due to its complexity.

About your decision to stop running 18 miles a week, plus crunches, pushups, etc. And substituting your athletes diet for Popeye, inenout-burgers, superburritos, heavy dinners at Yack in the box. I say do it and prove my theory, right or wrong...

My offer for employment will stand and held until September, 2011. Only, if I receive your reply, with the correct answer, in 15 seconds: "I take the dope from an African, stuck'em one time in the back again, I took the keys and the 35Gs, cause I'm following Dominicans" (????:).

I will be extremely delighted to set a tentative meeting... Perhaps the university can even help you get started on your "Pleya-Hate-ta Degree."

Best of Luck
Dylan

10 seconds later:

Is Lil Shawn... Brooklyn is in the House!

Fidel

5 minutes later:

See you in September!

Dylan

30 minutes later:

No thanks Dr. No amount of money could possibly buy the happyness I feel inside my chest devoting my days to the needy. I love the families I work. You don't undertstand Dr. I love my job. My order and allegiance is with them. Besides, I love eating bad sushi on Thursdays surrounded by seaco

So fuck you and your reseach! But I say hell-yea to the Pleya-Hate-ta-Degree (Happy Faces to You Sokslarokokolus).

Btw, anyone who tells you they come from Spain are bullshitting you. They're most likely Moros or Cabezitas. There are things, you need not say, they are obvious. Just like when cops and firefighters die, they are immediate heroes and 6 month later they get canonized.

Infantil Quimera

2011-04-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

Rafagas desaforadas envileciendonos la vida
Arramblando con petulancia, tierra y cerezo
Vehemencia peligrosa que sopla avida
Izando lobregas oriflamas en cada fronda

Quimerica ventura; alveo del candor infantil
Apercibime de tu partida a deshora, imprevisto
Zarpaste con prudente afonia
Memoria retentiva que ni la puta orla despunta

Sobre este llano somos penuria y exiguo, en desidia caminando
Exanimes turbas que descollaban, osados por sus pueblos
Vehemencia peligrosa que un dia soplara avida
Hogaño, cenotafios, maraña y senderos en polvareda

Explico a la plebe, eterna marioneta subnormal
Estos mis versos blancos (de arriba)
Aunque anapestos o coriambos mi corazon codicia
Una pasion efimera que goza preterir de eso que se dice de "cerdos y perlas"

Hostigados de tanta penuria, quien no esta?
Miserias asediando el mundo
Este que nunca fue melocoton en almibar
Redoblando cuadros funestos en cada costa

Que coños sorteara en alborada esta puta vida?
Y que fue de aquella alegria de niño?
Esa, que se largo arredrada por el granate de la herida
Una eterna escaramuza la vida, colmada de filosas estocadas

Tanta lucha para llegar a la muerte!
Los muertos en ello estan, vidas derramadas como hojarasca en otoño
Y la audacia de los heroes, una frusleria
Para la pleble y su incauto tropel bestial

Aplacar tanto dolor, o mi señor, es casi un ensueño
Cavidad la zozobra en el pecho no tiene
Una pesadumbre que se filtra en el sueño
Endriago aterrador que ya no tiene dueño

Pero dejemos que azote la tempestad, ruede el mundo, retumben truenos
Y que bruñidas sigan almas y aguzados los deseos
Pues aun consuela que den frutos los cerezos
Y que en la gresca habitual no flaqueen, brazos cansados, o cicatrizados puños.

Story Time

2011-03-01T14:25:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, a well established agency prospered along the San Mateo Peninsula. It grew, respectable and popular in its "Nanny-ism" enterprise. The agency's noble work stretched from the South San Francisco to the East Palo Alto streets.

One very bright and mild morning a new employee was hired and given a very modest function at their East Palo Alto branch. Every morning he would lift-up his jacket's collar shunning the foggy, almost gelid, weather. There he worked along side two, maybe three, very special characters: supervisor Pelu, nanny-assistant Deslour (Aka: Ulul), and teacher Mahonesa Ceedonqueta.

Supervisor Pelu had spent time, years perhaps, in several state penitentiaries. And worthy, she was of multifarious exploits for stabbing, beating... rival inmates. Faded insignias wretchedly tattooed on her hand, told macabre tales.

But she was resurrected at Quebrada College. Were she was taught a pedagogy so simple; yet so complex it was almost esoteric. Paradoxically, those who learn it paid a tuition fee. Except female Pan-Troglodytes who learned it out of maternal instinct and free of charge.

Pelu was a Canmeji woman with beautiful pulpy arms and legs. A big woman she was. Who tried extenuously to speak with eloquence and civility. Like a poliomyelitis victim trying to move about with preeminence. But betrayed she was, time and time again by her Integumentary System exuding odors of el barrio, the ghetto, pauperism... And by her ill-fated, inherited predisposition to gravitate towards vices.

Nanny-assistant, Deslour (Ulul) had been from adolescences through her late forties, an avid goat-herder; roaming the hills of her native Mishoakan with a herd of 400 goats. But California, the Bay, emboldened her to seek out lucrative aspirations. So, Ulul soon discovered that her 2nd grade education was worth a mop and a bucket in Mecoji but a nice, portly, pay-check in California.

Ulul's features resembled that of supervisor Pelu: heavy set, with gorgeous flaccid biceps. Separated only by one very exquisite something running down her bulky shoulder in vivid Nipponese ink: a fine tattoo limning a large group of women deep frying Great works of literature.

Her necromancy was a gift from matriarchal upbringing and not to her fault. Ulul would use it occasionally to procure wealth or free vain things. Being miles away from Mishoakan made her conjuring feckless. She retained but one puissant peculiarity, a nefarious-vipera aspis gaze.

On the other hand, teacher Mahonesa Ceedonqueta was a contrast to the landscape and people. Her 15 minutes of fame with Espreenga Jerry, savored like truncated, bitter, ambitions in her morning palate. She was furious to see herself, an overworked and underpaid Nanny. At the service and mercy of a demographic she despised. A loathe well hidden within her bone marrow.

She was an artist, dissimulating her seethe with smiles and apologetic phrases. And it all seemed most natural as she had a very fetching face and neck. Citing in the mid-day sunlight Ohthere of Halogaland. And during storms her irises outlining an ireful Barent Sea.

Teacher Mahonesa celebrated her viginti et duo spring on earth. Yet, her blond genealogy appeared to stretch 1611 years back, all the way into the Battle of Adrianople. Where Ceedonqueta's grandparents and Fritigern scattered together the ashes of Great Men with an utmost barbarity.

But unlike the latter two characters Mohonesa had some virtue and honesty. Besides her dwelling inside a 365 day premenstrual attitude. There was some ethics and righteousness in her nature.

To the new employee, Pelu and Ulul's natures presaged one debacle after another. One distressing and massive irony they were. The man saw their esqivoza-ways as a furious, progressive and ruinous precedent. A precedent that would one day lead to the inevitable wreckage of a beautiful and illustrious agency.

He, the fledgling employee kvell over the Agency's mission statement. Its goals felt tangible like clear warm river stream, passing freely through his hands. Nurturing with its benignant flow, prosperity among thousands of deprived children and their parents.

But Pelus and Ulul's repugnant and unethical ways impeded all veracious labor. Their vices were eroding the man's good intentions, making lassitude a peremptory thing. Concealed within the agency's devotion to its workers, Pelus and Ulul's villainous practices flourished. Growing like the Taenia Soliums inside the intestines of Chirimoyo's children.

With unscrupulous avarice, they devised ingenious ways to turn all that was at their disposal into profits: innocent children's security social numbers were sold to unknown mercenaries across the bay; spaces in the program auctioned; some food delivered, cleaning... services were monopolized by Pelu's relatives; hundreds of recipients phone numbers sold to marketing companies. Even the agency's benevolent overtime and traveling remunerations were deviously manipulated to profit their egoist purses.

Pelu had tapped all phones, monitored workers every move. Making sure her enterprise was not compromised. Ulul even stayed after-hours, parked outside the site, sitting in her car watching who knows what? And their multitudinous Canmeji consortium was impressive. Impeccably interwoven by bloodlines or some dantesque covenant.

Three days was all the man required to unriddled their pathetic, fraudulent, carrion buzzard tactics. They seemed archaic and burned out. Twenty years ago Ricans Puerto and Cansdomini used them with such a degree of superbness. The city and the Feds had to create a special unit.

So, while the evening light scattered over the firmament. The man picked up his mournful heart. Watching long clouds stretch across mountains. Refuge he took in his Moralia and De Rerum Natura. And sanctuary in his conviction that all he had tried to do was to uphold Common Good and Truth!

Note: Any resemblance to real or actual person(s) (living or dead) is pure coincidence.

Vrykolakas

2011-01-03T16:28:00.001-08:00

Obtusely darker and colder, felt the night, engirdle in mist and drizzle. Dusk was so akin to dawn, raising heavy, almost tenebrific. Evidently, we were nearing the winter solstice, incubator of storms and long shadows.

Through the side entrance of our tenement; our bodies yearning the warmth of some rusty heater; we stumbled upon caliginous hallways and one inscrutable tall figure. It stood engrossed figuring what key would open the once vacant apartment.

Out of habitual cordiality we passed and murmured a greeting. The hair was shoulder long, dark-blonde and healthy as if kept by Carthusian monks, his voice had an Iroquoian tone. The gentleman turned his corpse-pale face towards us. His circulatory system embroidered upon his throat, forehead, buccae and laryngeal prominence.

He starred at us through a Salientia green. Eyes that appeared submerged in a pool of chlorine or 14 grams of Nederwiet and 2 of maizena. He uttered something in a pronounced Conrnish English. "Our new tenant" said he was, "one desperately" needing a housekeeper.

We recommended to him Yaneth-Housekeeping Services. As long as no gold, cash, or tlaxcallis were left in tempting positions, arousing purloin instincts within Gloria Yaneth (proprietary). He could expect a fine job!

When we parted. I murmured "scuto circumdabit te veritas eius non timebis a timore nocturno." And as if everything was concinnity and harmony among us, he answered "quoniam angelis suis mandabit de te ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis." A long baleful silence fell upon us. And his effeminate vibe stretched beyond the realm of kinaidos, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and sodomi. And into that of metaphysics, sepulchers, and Vrykolakas. A vibe that scared the shit-out of us.

Next morning I called Yaneth and explained to her the deal: all work must be completed before twilight and nothing she saw or heard was to be gossiped. Paid she would be $600 Euros per 3 days of deep-cleaning. She replied in her plebeian but delightful manner "shit yea!"

All Yaneth remembers is filching a golden cup, encrusted with red and green stones. A dusty cup, lying in a corner, near a 6-feet wooden coffin that smelled of astroglide and geraniums. Thus, she saw no harm in taking a thing she suspected would end up in the garbage.

That same night, three hours past midnight somebody knocked on her window. Astonishingly behind the glass she found a Pitted Brad, with a doppelganger siberian-wolf gape. That made her feel a warm furor-uterinos; a wetness that slid down her thighs. He stumbled into the room, butt-naked, swinging side to side an abnormally large mandingo's penis... Rigoberto snored while she climaxed 888.5 times.

Next morning she awoke feeling frail. Found delicate piercings around her jugular, clitoral area, and a severely torn anus. Notwithstanding, Rigoberto awoke blissful, reminiscing pinworms and five years at Mejico's Santa Marta Acatitla Penitentiary. Smiling, as he applied an unguent made from Persian/Mede goats grease to his re-torn asshole.

The waning-Gibbous moon shined as I headed for the ER. Yaneth laid in bed surrounded by doctors. Their faces had a woebegone expression. The physicians diagnosis was anemia/hemoglobin deficiency. Certainly Yaneth had fucked-up! They administered: Rabavert and Imovax, Levaquin and psychotropics. Emulating, Baltic treatments for Lyssavirus and the deadly Hunts Point gonorrhea.

I tried to to convince Yaneth of accepting my advice. She had but a few days to live. "Bite him back", I urged, "go to his place half-hour after dusk. Bring a cherry-slurpee with you. Gulp it as he raises out of the coffin; brain freeze will not let him read your thoughts. This will be your 5 to 10 seconds window to bite the fuck out of this saraza."

But her peers benighted advices dwarfed mine. The following rainy evening, she sought legal action from El Guapo & Sasquatch, LLP. We found the firm squatting, between a live-poultry store and a billiard joint, on Middlefield Rd. As we opened the front door, the clean air almost made a dent. But timidly the odors of burned lard and sauerkraut returned to sit upon our nasal cavities.

The office managers were 2 mejican Seadonkeys. They sat around unperturbed scavenging and chewing calamities. They chewed on tacos made out of very personal matters and calamities, dripping red Ethic salsa upon their vulture like hands. Poking fun, laughing, and farting in high pitches, at the ill fate of their "poor, stupid, bastard" recipients.

Sasquatch persisted on befriending me by accentuating the fact that we had the Bronx in common. I told him very frankly how much of a shit-hole I thought the Boogydown was. That neither pride nor street-credit made me rejoyce to think I was raised around: crackheads, pimps, hookers, bodegas, sidewalks painted with dog shit, and 1,825 sleepless Grand Concourse nights.

Adding, that If I mentioned the Bronx it was out necessity, cause background-checks linked my former addresses to that shithole. You would have to be a motha-fucking "Retard" to be telling people with such pride ya fram tha Boogydown. He then repeated the phrase "you're definetely right, definetely right" 88,897,315 times.

El Guapo and his pharaonic head agreed to help Yaneth for a nominal fee of $20,000. Half of which needed to be remunerated on the spot. I gave Yaneth my utmost Inimical response. Furious El Guapo slammed his wurst/kielbasa fingers against his desk.

In his mejican-patois he fumed, disparaging cultures and countries south of mejico. Glorifying his semester at Mejico's University for People Who Wannabe Lawyers (UPWWL). With teary eyes, he boasted on how pretending to be a Hearing Impaired person had helped him get a Bionic-Spy (hearing aid), arcane pedagogical methods and nasty kiddy secrets.

He vaunted about his true passion: to work with children and acquire a chilcare license from Quebrada College. So that Sasquatch and himself, could open a Head Start Center. El Guapo used the Greek words Pedo to refere to children and Philia to express a friendly love for them... While he spewed these dangerous lunacies, I admired all the posters adorning their office: Macaulay Culkin, Strawberry Shortcake, Peter Pan, Powerpuff Girls, the Olsen Twins, Maria Eugenia Llamas "La Tusita", Shirley Temple, a 3 year old Van Damme, JonBenet Ramsey, Smurfette, Herve Villechaize and a "We don't need no stinking badges" bumper sticker.

Three days later Rigoberto called to infor me that Yaneth paid El Guapo & Sasquatch, LLP, the stipulated amount. Who inturn finagled El Santo & Blue-Demon Scutarius to take her case for $2,000. But her Vampire-Harassment case was swiftly dropped, due to a fucked up Burden of Proof.

Days after her case was tossed out of court; Yaneth began to grow feeble and disoriented. Very soon she spotted death scythe coming around the corner. And had no choice but to follow my advice!

One week passed and a full-moon rose above a cold december sky. Something awoke me, a sound coming from the balcony, like that of a bird's pecking. Behind the glass door I found Yaneth, dressed-up like Batty-Boy. She was now a full Vrykolakas, possessing all the powers endowed to them. Yaneth expressed her deepest gratitude for my advice. She asked me if she could come inside so we could talk. But I gave her "tha finga"... She laughed and farted.

From time to time I would hear of her exploits and victims. She had developed a refined taste for Tongan blood and Tampico. Because of their cold-blooded nature Mejicans and Peruvians were safe from her fangs.

Yaneth grew wealthy and powerful. With her Vrykolakas powers she grew so audacious, flying to El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua... Round-trip, bringing back tons of poorly pasteurized cheeses, Maizena, and other high priced commodities. She would even transport undocumented families on her back and make fortunes. Undetected by radars and US Customs, she would piss on them from about 1000 feet high. Upon arrival Yaneth would feed on eight, 300 pounder Tongans, as all the flying made her very thirsty.

These exploits bought her: 10 fhord trokas and a 4 houses around the hills of San Carlos, Burlingame and 4 more in Palo Alto... Months passed and days grew obtusely darker and colder with the coming of autumn. Shadows had begun to expand and mornings were colder. Around that time Yaneth came to me, begging for help, she had grown tired and wanted a be rid of her curse.

I flew to 116th St, on a very crowded flight. We agreed to meet near St. Nicholas Ave. at 10pm. We had an appointment with Franchesta & Yialordy, owners of Botanica Aydediantre. Yaneth landed upon the Upper Manhattan, near Audubon and West 181st, close to the bridge.

On the verge of the feast of the Archangel St. Michaels the Santeros perfomed their work: spitting Brugal and Vizcaya on her naked body, flogging her badonkadonk with bitterwort; while chanting "ese lechon quiere cojer pon, con el hijue puta en el microphone, el bacalao a mi me gusta afeitao, pa' toas las choris en los new yores, pa' los maliantes en las prisiones..." Ridding her body and mind of the Vrykolakas curse 4 eva yo!

FIN

Taumaturgia

2010-11-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

No soy de esos que cicatean la Fe! Siempre entrego celestiales votos primero y dejo que la fortuna se lleve lo terrenal. Noble adepto a las providencias, a todas aquellas desprovistas de banderas, escudos, parroquias, capellanes o pastores.

Mi Fe la vivo entre la modestia incolume y la parca soledad. Y sea que la vida me sortee buenas o malas rachas, esta jamas me desatiende. Por ella murmuro cada noche subrepticias plegarias pa'que se vuelen, espantadas, sin pagar un puto diezmo a nadie. Plegarias que se elevan para unirse al destello de los buques en alta mar.

Resultame, por lo antedicho, una cosa engorrosa avenir con gente que pone su Fe en manos de corpulentos pastores, siniestros ancianos y demas misticos de menguados escrupulos. Obsequiandoles esta venia sagrada. Pa'que se lucren de lo lindo, subastando milagros, bautizando naves e indultando pecadores. Sufragando por 30 monedas de plata, aqui o en el jardin de Getsemani, Reverendas Cagadas.

Todo tiene un origen. Por lo tanto, puedo decir con certeza que lo que aqui narro, tiene una sola causa, esta hija de puta Fe:

En los inmuebles de otras ciudades las bañeras son de granito o marmol. En el nuestro estan echas de una mierda reciclada que ni es plastico, ni baquelita, ni la polla! Esto les da una tendencia resbaladiza y fragil. Detalle que al inquilino de arriba le vale culo y medio de burro o menos. Y se la pasa dandose prestigiosos Tinasos con trios o cuadruplos, despues de cada polvo. Viva Dios! Quel mal-parido, sodomita, es poco aficionado a la higiene y se baña tres dias por semana.

Un dia de estos, la bañera del susodicho no pudo mas y se agrieto. La grieta filtro galones de un blanquecino liquido sobre nosotros. Y del encielado humedo, como tormenta sobre Kampot-City, escurrio un goteo inofensivo que tornose pronto en torrente.

Lo dicho hizo que surgieran terribles grietas. La colina invertida (imagino) se formo al expandirse el latex de la pintura. Colina y grietas, aclaro, dieronle a este achaque, una estetica singular.

Siendo ignaro en asuntos de fontaneria y dada la mezquina naturaleza de nuestra casera en asuntos que piden remiendos. Decidime llamar a Rigoberto Casiviola Contreras. Quien sabe un poco de todo, cuando la recompensa es buena. Poniendole un precio de $150 a una labor que matrimonia, fontaneria y albañileria. Paseme entonces por las afueras de su gruta y dejele las llaves del piso y media paga.

Caminaba flematica la tarde, escoltando un anochecer ataviado de celajes albaricoques y zagales ventiscas. Agobiado por tantas cosas regrese, a eso que llamamos hogar, buscando aliviarlo todo con un duchazo, mendrugos y un spritzer de Albillo.

Tenia la certeza que Rigoberto habria terminado su trabajo. Y ocurriome lo fortuito: En los pasillos del edificio aguardabame una turba terrible. Desconocidos que hacian largas filas, provistos de veladoras, rosarios, e infinidad de bisuteria religiosa. Entre las filas se paseaban mercaderes de chicharrones, tamales y un paletero que hacia malabares pa' no chocarse en los pasadizos.

Cuatro hombres bigotudos se plantaban, como plastas, justo a la entrada de mi hogar. Estaban armados con dagas y trinchetes que traian enzartados en los cinturones. Armas-blancas que exhibian mangos de calaveras y virgenes amorfas.

Ofuscado cruze la puerta pero uno de los bigotudos me retorcio el brazo, arrimandome contra el cuello, un trinchete tan filoso que basto apretar su filo para hacer brotar mi sangre. Gloria Yaneth (mujer de Rigoberto) le grito, evocando vendedores y pregoneros de antaño, y el bellaco-bigotudo liberome.

Trataba de detenerme la sangre. La sentia corinta, tibia, humedeciendome la mano. Rigoberto se acerco y entregome una calcomania. En ella se apreciaba un tornillo correteando a una tuerca. Y mascullo que esa calcomania era la contraseña para entrar sin ser degollado.

Albertus Brandt estaba echo una mierda, igual que Molenaer y Faustino Bocchi... Todos echos añicos desmoronados en el piso. Ademas se habian mangado lo poco que tenia. Ausentes tazones, soperos, refrigerador y demas cosas. Quedaba dentro un hedor, una hediondez terrible a sahumerio, channel, pie de atleta, obsession, ruda, cabras asustadas, y cardamomo.

Y pregunte con la fuerza de mis pulmones que coños pasaba? Gloria Yaneth contestome con un bofeton que me dejo un destello de relampago en la mirada. Luego, me tironeo y me dejo, ahi donde se apelotonaban hincados, hombres, mujeres, niños. Lloraban unos, otros susurraban oraciones. Alguien me solto un bastonazo que me dejo (de dolor), hincado mirando perplejo aquellas pronunciadas grietas.

Respeto pedia una vos para la señora del Tepeyac. Era el que me dio el bastonazo. Incredulo le pregunte que a cual señora se referia el? Y con un guiño de ojos me señalaba la mal-parida gotera, chorreando su liquido albino a destiempos. Y mire, juro por Dios que contemple ese pedazo de techumbre. Pero nada sagrado vi!

Si crei ver un espejismo de varias cosas. Examinando la cuestion, desde angulos-agudos divisaba el perfil de Don Ambrosio (marques de los Balbases); desde los obtusos, aquello tomaba un hermoso parecido con el Albatros de la Jasta; a 140 grados diria que bien podria ser Nuestra Señora del Lujan, la Virgen de la Bien Aparecida, Nuestra Señora de la Merced, o Saint Brigid patrona de Irlanda. Y cuando me puse de pie sentime mareado y vi un destello, una ultima silueta, la de Guanyin (Señora de la Compasion).

Y en medio de aquel solemne disparate Gloria se entregaba alegre, como el Tucuxi al caudal Amazonico, Gloria Yaneth a su altruista colecta: $30 por adorar y $45 por enfrascar botellitas con aguas taumaturgicas. Por su lado Rigoberto pregonaba entre los incautos la consigna de suelten la feria, suelten la feria. Aturdido preguntabame donde cojones pondrian la puta carpa, la rueda de caballos, o los saltibanquis?

Un fulano regordete y descarado sostenia mi guitarra, una Taurus Aranesa. La manoseaba con la mayor brusquedad. Le aborde con mucha cautela y propusele un trueque: un cd con 90,000 corridos; fotos de Espinosa Pas y El Komander (sonrientes) autografiadas con la X de los meros-meros. Se le iluminaron los ojos. Asintio con un ademan de cabeza y me entrego la guitarra, no sin antes dar un sonoro escupitazo sobre el ya no tan pulcro alfombrado.

Con el instrumento en mano emprendi huida para meditar mi represalia. Pero un reten de Peruanos me detuvo, ametrallandome con su vocinglera. Una pareja: un diminuto viejo de tez manchada por la viruela y un acne volcanico y su mujer (mas joven, microscopica y bastante aporreada por la vida).

Me escupian la cara con su jerga andina. Auto-denominandose representantes de La Cofradia Tepeyac. Empoderados por la archidiocesis de San Francisco para recaudar todos los diezmos. El cholo vociferaba otras subnormalidades con la altiveza del perro finquero. Se decia poseedor de varios doctorados en las ciencias y las letras. Y tanto conocimientos atesoraba que ofertas a las presidencias de Croacia, Gabon y Uruguay se le hician una real puñeta. La señora, recalcome con argucia que ella fue cosmetologa, astrologa, puta de las buenas, ensalmadora y posteriormente periodista.

Hoy, me gritaba el cholo, ellos vivian El Sueño Americano. Siendo empresarios prestigiosos de Eamwey, Yierbalies, Ditchnetworm, y Cooky Head Jinkins. Cargos y sueldos tan fructiferos, que cada quincena salian con hombros dislocados. De pesados que eran los fardos de billetes que se ganaban. Ademas tenian un ahorro cojonudo con el que habian comprado un Jet (un Dassault Falcon 10) para hacer el reparto del San Jose Mercury con aladinica eficacia.

Finalmente sali y senti ligero el anochecer. Menguaba la luna y brillaban mas las estrellas. Camine hasta el farol de la esquina. Me sente, cruze las piernas y respire profundo. Profusa sangrabame la herida. Toque unos acordes tarareando, me ha tomado el tiempo para verlos otra vez, duermanse un poquito y recíbanme... Y por mi mente corrio una memoria, una alegria, que me puso al umbral del llanto, borrandome todo aquel dolor.

Senti la noche suspirarme un viento tibio y sutilmente perfumado que me serenaba. Una mujer de ojos Tudescos y cabellera castaña, opaco la luz del farol. Dijo que habia visto como la gente llegaba en hordas, incautaban mis humildes pertenencias y se libaban orines de cuadrupedo. Respondi, que si otro fuese yo, aplicariales la ley de Caifas. Empero no estaba en mi llamar a los Fachas, pues estaba muy consciente que ellos solo joderian a esa gente incauta.

Intrigada le echo un vistazo a la herida de mi cuello. Tarareaba una cancion casi audible, shush baby shush, shush baby shush... Con los ojos fijos y llenos de una ternura que jamas he visto dijome "todo sanara".

Luego pasaron los bomberos con sus sirenas y luces, escoltados por 20 Chacurras. Los vi subir hacia mi apartamento con las pistolas desenfundadas. Vi marcharse a la dama entre la oscurana. Y cuando me palpe el cuello, juro por la Virgen Santisima que ya no sangraba.

Amainada la trifulca, regrese a mi dilapidado hogar. Y me tope con un Facha terrible, corpulento, color mortadela. Que me despachaba una multa por $500, con una caligrafia digna de un tetraplejico. Una multa que se me extendia conforme a una clausula, que decia el Facha, que decia el alcalde, que no se podia andar por ahi venerando a nadie, en areas residenciales. Que para esas cosas tenia que tramitar una licencia en el ayuntamiento... Amen!

Dear Mrs. Whitman:

2010-10-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

Dear Mrs. Whitman:

First I would like to express my admiration for having Princeton & Harvard as alma mater studiorums, and for breaking though the Glass Ceiling with the impetuousness of the mid-afternoon tropic's sun.

Secondly, I must tell you how pleased I am to hear you are a Long-Islander! As I am impressed to know of all your achievements in the world of business. You have, indeed, broken ground in a society still dominated by Old White Men (OWM).

These plural paths you have built, much like the one Appius Claudius Caecus set-out, are at this very instant, fomenting, inspiring, young women to become oblivious to gender when it comes to accomplishing... Anything. Thus, the choice you have made to run for Governor of California has agitated within me the need to exercise a right, I had adamantly refuse to exercise in this business like Democracy of ours.

Sure your deeds inspire beyond the genders, races, ethnicities but I have chosen to emphasize your impressions upon women. Presently, it seems, they have so few (bona fide) female role models able to lead: my daughters, my sisters, my mothers... Towards emancipation from society's vices, praying each day, upon them with the slightest intention of nurturing their intellect.

Naturally, we must take into account that some are born with a instinctual character that seeks vices as means for prosperity. For the latter you will pass taciturn. The case of your former housekeeper (e.g.) Nicky Diaz (if in fact this is her real identity) who is undoubtedly seeking a lucrative payment from Mr. Burns or his associates. But you know well enough that an empowered individual has little need to mimic the nature of reptiles. That combination of "Will" to work with hands and intellect is the very element that makes me, us, them look towards you Mrs. Whitman for some, much or minimal but prosperous changes.

Let me be very frank with you Mrs. Whitman. I have always been skeptical about voting for many reasons. Perhaps too many to illustrate at the moment. Voting has always felt to me like a symbolic process than an objective mechanism. By this I mean that in reality, voting will not put money in my bank-account, lower my rent fee, repay my school loans, etc.

Generally when you perform an "action" you have a "reaction". But back in 1990 the impecunious community I was a citizen of (on East 196th St. and Jerome Ave), a community whose irony resided at the closest subway station, named Kings Bridge Road, got nothing out of voting. Being a veteran of these cohorts, survivors of many calamities, desperately fighting for prosperity and fortune. Two fragile things that have eluded many of us till this very day. Thus, you can perhaps begin to sympathize with my disbelief in futile protocols (like voting). That in our times, seem to favor the wealthy and their perenial enterprise of becoming wealthier.

Anyway, around that time David Dinkins came to power, his proposals to aid the city's poor, fix the streets potholes and better the standards of living, fell into an illusory promise. And us, the poor, living among billions of Periplaneta Americana, fell even deeper into the septic-hole we were already in. Indeed people voted in 1994 (with some re-gained confidence for) Rudy Giuliani. He reign over our city with an iron-rod and cleaned it up with his "Broken Window Approach". Yet, I, nor we, or they, felt no real change except for the cops and overcrowded jails.

The subway fare climbed from $1 to $1.25, $1.50, to $1.75. Again the destitute people, who stood in lines to cast their votes, expecting some kind of reciprocity for their action were fooled. And summer came, and fall pasted, and summer came again and all remained the same. Except for the fees. The parking tickets and rent fees increased and the already wealthy bought better cars, planes, and yachts.

But as I get closer to the quadraginta spring of my life, I am starting to shed some of this skepticism. As a matter of fact I am debating whether or not I should join the ranks of voters. Disparities aside (concerning parties) and considering the present state of total chaos and misery, desolating the beauty of this great state that is California. A state which I have no allegiance to, have no debts or quarrels with, but whose terrain and people harvested in me a deep affection. Something very rare at this point in my life. A territory that has all the potential and beauty to become the jewel of the west coast.

So it occurred to me that (despite my analogy sounding a bit crude) I am in fact a Virgin-Voter. And I have mentioned above, that am growing less skeptic, less pessimist. A sudden change in me, that like the autumn equinox brings change in foliage, watching your feeble looking adversary, Mr. Jerry Brown (AKA, Charles Montgomery Burns); embodying the legacies of Ed Koch/David Dinkins/Marion Barry, inside a bad tailored suit. A man whose image and dereliction caused in me a renewed motivation to become a registered voter and perhaps let you Mrs. Whitman, be the first woman candidate to deflower my Vestal-Voting-Right.

But there is more to your sober reputation (as a business woman) that draws me into your campaign Mrs. Whitman. I have read your (various) proposals addressing many issues. And I agree with most of them. Being a Naturalized citizen, whose parents made all legal arrangements to enter this country legally. Subsequently and progressively, crawling out of the septic tank of poverty that was the Bronx in the 1980's. Was no small matter!

Getting that GED, getting that job to pay for rent and other expenses... Till finally you get that university degree, after many years of evading the trapdoors of society, reading books like a biological habit, and accumulating debts to pay for accredited academic institutions... All for what?... One day you realize that there are no more jobs because you're either under qualified or over-qualified and you find yourself a mercenary at the mercy of Nepotisms, Scrutiny, Prejudicial Interviews, Middling Appreciations of your talents, and many other hardships that plague the job-markets today. Scavenging for a job position that 15 years ago, no one with a HS degree would even consider.

We the underprivileged of California need not much but a chance, that golden opportunity. From time to time we hear of city managers making nearly $200,000 salaries. How is that possible? How can this person who has but one credential "a friend inside" make a fortune in such desperate times? And it makes, me, him, and that other guy with the poker necktie, wish we had Vito Corleone's phone in our pockets.

The elements to bring about a quick, palpable and positive change to us all. One that will create employment/academic opportunities for the hundreds of men and women, like myself, who today withstand the cruel consequences of the present state of affairs. A condition as cruel the State's summer sun which turns the hills arid and flamable like the Moro's lands. In the mean time, our hopes, like dilapidated silver or copper shields, are slowly dropping to the floor and we are being vanquished by the rigor of our adversities. Are elements, that in my humble belief you, Mrs. Whitman command!

(Concerning the Ms. Diaz's incident, I feel you demonstrated overwhelming benevolence. Sure, you could have turned her to DHS, but you didn't, for whatever reasons? Maybe you suspected she was illegal or that the social security she furnished was fake but undocumented (EWI) workers are the backbone of this country. No one who has legal status will market their skills (mechanic, painters, gardeners...) for $5.50hr. The Chinese have a saying that might explain the circumstances better, they say "Cheep Good". As a matter of a fact Mrs. Whitman, the hourly rate you paid Ms. Diaz ranks much, much, much hire than what I. Who despite my days wasted in academia and my pledge allegiance to the flag... Have barely scratched at any of my former jobs.)

All this said and done, I ask that you take into consideration: the thousands of Legal and Well Documented Californians, desperately looking for a window of opportunity. Requiring, besides God's or the God's hope. Something to sustaine the body. Not that Obama hope, that fades in the pharynxes of the poor like cotton-candy.

And IF in the end, after betraying all the Socialists principles inhibiting my life by voting for you... Prosperity and fortune shall continue to escape me, us, we, they, them. I will have proven a personal hypothesis and thrown away 2 hours of my life composing this very remedial letter to you.

Sincerely Yours,

Fidel M. Moran
San Mateo County, California

Poetry, Calliope & Flyguy

2010-09-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

Poetry today is a versatile thing, anyone can be a poet, anyone can write a poem but few, very few works can withstand the destructive forces of time. For example the Akkadian (Melca Keyjoc) Gilgamesh is credited by some historians for having written the first epic poem known to humanity. Similarly, (in his Sanskrist) the great Mahabharata tells us of Krishna's mission to plead with Kauravas for peace. Ironically these epic works have been upon the shelves of world libraries for thousands of years.

We can appreciate the relevance of poetry not only in the epic tales but in many other areas: in the architecture of Louis Le Vau and Andre Le Notre; in Goya's mural The Dog; or in Polykleitos Amazona Herida. All of which reflects an impressive (inner) necessity to express ethereal ideas. Much like Pericles desire to celebrate the heroism of his brothers, the fallen Athenian hoplites in his poetic oration at Kerameikos. Even the sad quadruped intuitions of Xanthus, written in some Ionic dactylic hexameters, can be interpreted as a beautiful epitaph to a hero's destiny.

Someone told me that Poetry (perhaps I should say art in general) has its own academic branch called Aesthetics. Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that looks at the way we see the world. A world that I believe, gifted individuals perceived in fragments of beauty, horror, bravery, misery. Things with such a power of inspiration, they compelled El Greco, Corot, Shakespeare, Lucius Varius Rufus, Sisqo of Dru Hill, Jose Rafael Hernandez Pueyrredon, Andrea del Sarto... To produce sublime work. Bringing us (readers, listeners, spectators) closer to a higher power. And whenever I reiterate the fact that poetry is everywhere, I look back at various liturgical practices and find it. It is there, in its hymns, psalms, mantras, even in the Melca Keyjoc's Salat.

Calliope could not be more proud of Thomas Dylan and his "... Death shall have no dominion". From the pre-literate dark oral traditions to the age of Hemingway. Inspiration has moved individuals to produce reflections of emotions at the highest levels. Outlets of the soul, state of minds, call them what you will. Channels through which individuals are able to reach or connect with a higher power. Unfortunately, as with all things, we are not all born with such gift.

Today people (industries) force-feed-us singers, songs, artists, poets... But their mediocrity precedes them, their lack of inspiration and beauty, their lack of magic. They stir nothing within us but pity. Unworthy of Calliope's blessing they will fade into nothing, they will become cheap imitators... And the world will never remember them.

But I. I have found one, one man, among Calliopes chosen few, I found a worthy and blessed individual whose poetic work will move even the Shiprock of the Navajo nation. A man who represents the Neo-Athens that is New York City. And here, I have taken the liberty to provide you with a very brief sample of his celestial work:

Boceto de Pedro Bucio (Et al)

2010-09-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

Mis colegas el Dr. Ljotr Halldor, eximio sociologo portavoz de la Universidad de California-Berkeley y su reputado colega el arqueologo Hallgeirr Gautierganzen (Honoris Causa). Juntos, entablamos varias conferencias con el Sr. Pedro Laponderosa Bucio.

Nuestro objetivo: indetificar las posibles variantes que llevaran al susodicho a perpetrar con impresionante franqueza, actos lascivos con cuadrupedos, canibalismos, idolatria hacia la osamenta humana, acopio de craneos... Entre otras cosas.

El estudio (pudiera) resultar significativo para descifrar los origenes de arraigadas teorias heliocentricas vigentes en toda la comarca Mejicana. Donde aun se piensa (con necedad equus africanus asinus) que esta plasta de pais es el centro del universo.

Los habitos de estos pueblos Axtecas pueden resultar hermosos pero funestos. Por ejemplo, entre sus tantos inverosimiles vivires, persiste esa mania de buscar habitaculos en las cavernas mas profundas. Donde coexisten aglomerados pueblos enteros y sus alcaldes. Pueblos cuyas indumentarias son (en epocas de bruma): la manteca de chivo; y las pieles, cabezas, y garras de los Ursus Arctos Californicus.

A continuacion presentamoles un boceto, un resumen mas bien. De una investigacion que desafortunamente se postergo, dadas las condiciones tan susceptibles que hogaño atraviesa Pedro Bucio. Quien, atormentado por fieras gonorreas y una infausta eventualidad de poder manifestarse VIH positivo, no pudo relatar mas... Que lo siguiente:

Pedro Bucio resulta un hombre terriblemente asombroso para cualquier discipulo de la materia. Un personaje con facultades mentales electrizantes y una lucides irradiante. La cual facilmente podria iluminar penumbras de villorrios orillados al Danubio en feudales tiempos.

Pedro es un experto avezado a dar catedras en multiples campos, fluctuando entre la metafisica, la antropofagia, hasta chocar con personales discrepancias con la obra cinematografica maestra Don Herculano Anda Suelto. Por lo tanto, resulta una barbarie que de sus 400 mujeres, Kora Senovia Bucio le juzge por ser recalcitrante adepto del filosofo Zenon Dosekis.

En pocas palabras el hijo de Ergastulo Espiridion Bucio (amablemente peyorativado Maximus Rapere) es un ejemplar impecable de la sabiduria, el caracter, weges des lebens de los Michoacanos, Regiomontanos, Pasitosdurangenses, Nayaritos, Zacatecos, Uruapas, Pigmeo-Pueblanos, etc.

Todos estos elementos estan juxtapuestos a la diestra de un oscurantismo profundo, tan profundo que discernir entre lo bestial y lo humano, semeja batallar a los Wendels de: Cueramo, Coalcoman, Nocupetaro, Purtlandiro, Cuajimoloyas, Yaxe, et al (Vease: Eaters of the Dead). Y adjudicarse la espada de Buliwyf para desafiar estas hordas de antropofagos.

Pedro Bucio erroneamente conocido como Pedrito Le Violeur, natural Michoacano y orgulloso Mejicano. Se deleita mirando telenovelas, rascandose los pies, y manducandose 12 a 15 tacos empapados en una viscosa salsa, cada seis u ocho horas. Este congenere con los sus-scrofa-domestica y su zahurda es de puritisisima casualidad. O como dirian en Roma cose della vita.

Citar a Pedrito es hacer dualidades hermosas al hablar y masticar. Es yantarse los tacos para tener una necesidad perentoria, saltar del poltron con la mayor bestialidad posible. Es introducirse en el cagadero, defecar apuerta abierta. Con el objetivo de inundar recintos con un vaho hediondo. Cerciorandose (con miramientos de veterana nodriza) que cualquier residuo de excremento ligado a dedos o uñas, sean integredos a las dietas diarias.

Acontinuacion ilustraremos algunas de las fascinantes costumbres, filosofias, etc. Que hacen de Pedrito y sus pueblos gente tan asombrosamente Seductores:

* En su nativa Michoacan su padre Ergastulo Espiridion Bucio se dice que llego a raptar y violar casi 600 mujeres. De estas se caso con 50 de ellas. Engendrando en cada estupro un total "Descomunal" de hijos. Entre esta multitud de vastagos solo reconocio como legitimos unicamente a 125, entre estos a Pedro Laponderosa Bucio

* Pedro relata que su padre Ergastulo, fue un hombre pragmatico y abierto. Esto lo supo una tarde despejada cuando su "ruco", montado sobre una fosa-septica, recitabale a su pene los nombres de cada una de las mujeres que habria deshonrado. Cuando abruptamente lo interrumpio un tremebundo y sonoro pedo, al cual Ergastulo le replico con tono de sarna en la voz "tu callate guey que tu tambien tienes tu historia"

* Segun la filosofia de Pedrito los hombres viven para trabajar, trabajan para tener lana, la lana es para pistear y comprar trocas-perronas-chingonas. Añadiendo que una vez el hombre esta en edad de trabajar como bestia y pistear o viseversa, el susodicho puede entonces proceder a violar

* El "Arroz con Leche" es imprescindible en ayunas para ellos. Este platillo se cocina con varias tazas de arroz con bichos, un litro de leche de yegua, uno de leche de toro, y el ultimo de vaca-pinta pero arisca

* De los Centro Americanos Pedro dice que todos son una bola de Indios. Y que las mujeres Centro Americanas no son buenas por que jieden menos que las de su tierra. Pero que la carne de estos "Gueyes" es buena, suave y dulce como la de los venados. Por lo tanto los de su comarca degustan mucho de un platillo que llaman "Catracho Asado"

* De los Sudamericanos Pedro dice que los Peruanos y todos los que terminan en "Ano" son igual que los Guatemaltecos con la pequeña diferencia que son mas negros y mas feos

* Coito con todo tipo de cuadrupedos es muy elogiado en su natal Michoacan. Y son precisamente estos recuerdos que le traen vagas y exitantes memoria de su primer amor con Maclovia-La burra-prieta

* Sobre el origen del fuego Pedro dice que no sabe. Pero que tiene la hipotesis que pueda provenir del foforo-chilango

* De los Gringos, Pedro tiene un parecer bastante inusitado: dice que son una bola de pendejos sin causa; que el gringo-asado indigesta, sin embargo sus craneos son los mas codiciados por grandes y hermosos. Y que la mejor arma contra el gringo es producirles lastima

* Cuatro cosas le causan temor y pesadumbre: 1. La posible muerte de Julio Preciado 2. El bramido de Espinoza Paz 3. El agua y el jabon 4. Papanicolaou

* Entre los de su comarca la cinegetica de Centro Americanos y Sudamericanos acarrea mas dicha que las peliculas de Pedro Infante. Carne que se zampan con tortillas, elotes asados, pulques, mezcalito, y cervezas tibias

* Para los Michoacanos (segun Pedrito) la bruma del atardecer o la madrugada causa en ellos, terribles ansias de comer gentilicios asados: Catracho, Guanaco, Nicas, o Ticos. Durante estos dias se arman de antorchas, brea, garras de oso, y sub-ametralladoras. Y se entregan de lleno a la caza de los mentados. Notese que de los Chapines no se consume nada (por que indigesta). Solomente se conservan sus craneos pues asemajan mucho al de Pedro Weber Chatanuga

* La bruma (niebla, calima) es aquello que sugestiona a estos Mejicanos a elegir San Francisco y las ciudades en torno para vivir y multiplicarse al cubo.

* Pedro nos reitera que "La Bruma" causa en ellos una premura horrible que los obliga a buscar cuevas profundas, desnudarse para luego arroparse con pieles de ursus-arctos, y luego acechar Gringos y Centro Americanos. Los capturados son propiamente decapitados, luego asados o guisados en un mole que destaca la region del individuo. Sus craneos son posteriormente encalados y apilados a los pies de su Totem, que en este caso es... El culo desproporcionado de Jeany Riverra

Notese Que: De 108 Milliones de Habitantes, 49% Viven Pauperrimamente... Fortgesetzt Werden

One Bad Dream

2010-08-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

Thus, I awoke that sunny morning, embraced by a high fever, shivering, and puking. My throat was magma and my head an anvil in Alexius I Komnenus Crusader's army.

K said that it was all just an inoffensive cold. But I felt as if the soul was being expelled from my body with each convulsion. Unmoved and delighted she pulled some cherry-nitekell and gave me two crimson-shots of this bitter, sweet and mentholated syrup, filled to the brim.

So I laid on the bed, washing the poison's after-taste with seltzer. Agonizing and watching the news:

Skies over Spain covered in colossal clouds of ashes, flooded rice-fields in Burma and Cambodia, earthquakes dilapidating villages along the coast of Americus Vespucius. It was official: nature had unleashed her terrible Cerberus upon humanity.

NVC's anchors said the giant'sbaseballcap-wearing dudes at Gboogle, were hit by the Chāonéng-Yīngxióng, lightning-cyber-operative, that led to a vengefully sweet plundering of their precious Gaia. WAVC said it was Zeus, drunk and angry pissing on Gboogle for using sacred Greek names to baptize mundane shit programs. The VVC, soothing and eloquent said "China had big-balls and had just given a herculean and smooth Fuck You to Gboogle. ZNN announced angry tornados falling upon small towns and one killer coal mine swallowing the lives of 20-24 men.

When oblivion came over, my soul vacated leaving my body hollow. And I awoke in some provincial tavern, somewhere upon the shores of the Messina Straits:

The time was neither dawn nor dusk. Sea-breezes brought in soft seaweed winds. A magnificent place it was; edified high upon some cliffs overlooking turquoise waters. Tables and chairs were scattered under tall and shady plum trees. Scattered sat the people, speaking in low tones. I walked towards an empty dark-wooden table facing a blushing horizon.

Marcello Mastroianni came over and asked me for a light. He was sitting at a table near me, with Fernando Gomez, Luciano, Don Quevedo, Don Machado, Alvar Nunez, Anthony Queen, Hector Lavoe, Cortazar, and Juan Rulfo. And other great men... Whose names I had forgotten.

I told Marcello that "il mio Italiano e debole", while he walked me over to their table. They were all drinking The Sweet Mamertine wine. Except Hector he prefered rum. Machado shook my hand then poured me a full glass of crimson-wine. Alvar reached over and we held forearms. Cortazar said "Salud".

A murmur grew behind me, it was the heroic Maquis sitting amiably with The Blue Division and Mercedes Sosa. In the same way JFK, Il Duce, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, and Thomas Malthus sat candidly and cheery. Far in the distance the splendor of the Argyraspides shields surrounding our King reflected ambivalent amber lights, predicting neither dawn nor dusk.

Quevedo was fluent in Latin so he escorted me to a long table were Plutarch and Phocion sat deep in conversation. I recognized Brasidas and Demetrius Poliorcetes. They were all sitting side by side at the Kings table. But it was Virgil who asked Plutarch to introduce me, he hesitated so Eumenes took me under his wing and walked me. Passing many familiar faces I stopped to pay my respects to Sertorius and Sulla.

He, the King, of Kings stood, wearing a lion skin upon his head. Surrounded by many heroes. His eyes, reminded me of a time when Giants walked the earth. Raising his cup of wine to heaven, said both in his native Macedonian dialect and in Greek, something. Something Plutarch told Quevedo it meant felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. And I bowed to show my gratefulness but Xenophon pulled me up saying "ελεύθερο ανδρών μην υποκύψουμε".

Minutes later, something about the turquoise sea lured me away from them. In the distance I saw Myrmidon and Cretan ships and vestiges of Felipe's armada. Mick Collins was already sitting on the stone-wall near the edge of the cliff. He noted that polaris was bigger and higher, he shrugged his shoulders and slowly walked back to a table where, Georgee "El Caliph", J. Borges and Ernesto debated over Fernet-branca, Greenore or Chivas.

I was in the middle of some melancholy. In between some nostalgic thoughts watching the waves crash. The end of May crossed my mind and the wind delivered an outlandish melody, a song, that made Fernando Fernan scream in Spanish "Y que mierda es esa ostias. Me cago en la leche... Que fusilen al musico cojones!" But the melody pressed on. It was Marc Anthony's "Viviendo".

I was certain it was dusk because someone had started lighting-up oil lamps and the stars were shining heavy upon the purpling sky. The sea was like a soft-silk-summer sheet. And somehow the night, that night, reminded me of Manhattan, its skyline and of the places and moments that were long gone in my life. I saw my sisters, my brothers, and the line of my peeps back to the beginning. Their faces shining upon the horizon and fading with the expiring sun.

"Fa freddo" whispered Anna Maria Bellucci, wrapping her arms around me and resting her face on my shoulder. She showed me the front page of the Newsday displaying a piece of Milton:

Of Natures works to mee expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou Celestial light
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight

I awoke 36 hours later! K said I had been talking in my sleep.

Senate Bill 1070 & Mr. Scoochme

2010-08-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

Scoochme Deah is really into the SB-1070. I mean he is without a doubt a very patriotic, American Gunho type of guy. He spent his 19th, 20th... 25th birthdays up in some God forsaken mountains fighting Moros in Afghanistan and Iran, smoking hash and copulating with prostitutes "whose genital odor" he will never, ever, ever forget.

Mr. Deah is indeed a racists, xenophobic, hydrophobic and a Redwood City, CA native. He is also a very brave and very business minded dude. He fought with courage leaving blood and tears on many battle fields. The Khyber Pass, and the cities of Pumbeidtha and Talafar being his most memorable fights. Talafar is where he lost his right arm. Guess, he never saw that road-bomb coming.

I like Mr. Scoochme Deah. He is frank and speaks from the heart. Yes, sometimes he can be a bit of an asshole. But despite his sometimes insulting honesty, we both agree upon the fact that Senate Bill 1070 will hurt many people.

He calls me Castro because my first name is Fidel and I never correct him because I am afraid to piss him off and he'll shoot me. I should also point out that Mr. Deah hates Mejicans and Moros. He also hates Blacks but not as much as he does the latter two. And I'm still in the process of finding the causes for his malicious predesposition for some minorities.

Mr. Deah owns a landscaping company that strictly hires Mejicans. He specializes on treating them like shit. I tell him that his treatment of these workers is neither ethical, christian, nor humane. Scoochme laughs right in my face, takes a drag of his Kamel and replies that they enjoy being treated like animals, otherwise they would leave. He emphasizes that they are free to leave anytime but they won't because they love money and trucks too much.

When discussing SB-1070 I try to remind Scoochme that "12 million undocumented immigrants does not automatically mean they are all Mejican nationals. There are many overstayed I-90s. For example the housekeeper who cleans your home. You know, Ms. Gloria Yaneth Chavez who came from El Salvador and now lives surrounded by luxury and public assistance in San Mateo, CA." Adding that his myopic/racists ways did not let him see the boat loads of undocumented Russians, South Americans, Chinese, Indians...

Scooch, looking hard at the concrete, gulping some beer, and lighting-up another Kamel says to me "look I DO NOT support SB1070. Why would I? That's just stupid. It makes no sense to me. I say let them come. You know how much money I've made from these poor bastards? Shit, just bought me the X5 and the Ranchroover for the bitch, have those properties in San Carlos and Millbrae. You tell me, would you work like a mule all day for $40? Even on Sundays? Without insurance, without overtime... Fuck no! So to me, these assholes are a gold-mine man! Fuck that crazy Arizona prune. I am all for illegal immigration. Who else would clean an 8 room house, plus the livingroom, pool, and front yard for $75? Just look at all the (non-profits for profits) corporations, contractors, sub-contractors who made their fortunes from these Beast of Burden, and their misery, and their children's misery. We can't prey on illegal Chinese or Koreans because they are just too smart..."

After having some tacos at El Burrito Prieto Nayarito, Scoochme Deah tells me that if the SB-1070 was helping to push illegals into California "then Arizona really looked alright!" Because he would be flooded with Amigos begging for work and even Gloria Yaneth Chavez would have to lower her housekeeping rate to compete with all the other Meximalans housekeepers. Even the Peruvian-cholos who monopolized the paper routes in the Bay Area would be threatened by the waves of newcomers, forcing the Incas to cheapen their services.

After putting together Scoochme's argument in support of SB-1070 I realize Mr. Deah was after all, rigth! Yes, in his own obscure way he was right. All of which made me realize the genious in Obama's Silent Raids strategy.

It is very simple Scoochme added "if you take away the water from the fish... Get it? But we need these fuckers to build, rebuild, serve... For a cheap-shit price and consume our goods at a citizens rate. Therefore, we will never take away the H20 from El Pescado".

April: Wedding in Hokkaido

2010-08-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

(Ding, ding) subway doors open. The crowd rushes in through the middle-door while the train's conductor shouts "let-em out, let em out... 72nd Street next... Watch for closing doors" (ding-ding). My fake, Broadway Swiss reads 15 to 7. (Ding-ding), the doors open again, new crowd rushes in and out. The frosty winter air squeezes in. I feel my ears and hands begin to defrost. Am glad to be in the middle of the train-car where the heat seems to linger. Am staring at a thought, it's a JLB poem, titled Despedida. And so immerse in its content I am, that the empty seat in front goes unnoticed. But someone takes it with lightning speed.

The poem neighbors ads from Blooms and Maycees. I close my eyes and recite the first verse. The train stops in the middle of the track; the conductor says "we have a train ahead of us." I look down and see her face. Her cheeks and nose are blushing, she is shivering, her hands in her coat's pockets. And am wondering where did the 3 years spent healing the wound in my heart, rethinking the plan, fortifying the pilars of my life go?

She approaches me with her usual shy and cordial Nipponese manner, "hello, how are you?" as if the 19 months, one week, and 6 hours we spent entangled in a romance that nearly killed us both, was water rushing under unknown bridges or strange rivers. And not the Rubicon.

I say that I'm doing well... I guess. Ask "You?" and she takes her black gloves off. Wedding-band on her finger. She smiles, tells me she is going back to Yokohama in early April to meet her family and her fiancé. After, they'll be traveling to Hokkaido for their moon of honey. The train slides slowly through the long tunnel and there is no light at the end. I say "you look happy". She fakes a smile.

I say that "I am sorry for everything" there is a long silence. I want to hold her hands and never let go. Grab an uptown 3 to the old French cafe where Gianluca Grignani sings his La Mia Storia Tra le Dita. But we can't do that. It just cannot be. Just like yesterday feels like today but it is not.

She says very softly that it was hard letting memories go. Nodding I reply "Yap! Burned the pictures, the letters... Almost burned this whole damn city, like Nero, to erase you." She tries hard to keep the smile and her composure.

I should stay in the city and finish what I started, she advices me. I say that everyone is moving out. That is already February 2004 and the charred building smell never fades away from Manhattan. Adding that perhaps we all needed a little exodus to start over.

Instinctively I put her long black hair behind her ear. Her chin resting in the palm of my hand. As if it was November 1999 all over again. Her Kalamata-olive eyes shining. She takes my hand and holds it for a minute and adds "Am lucky to see you for last time."

I say "Akichan don't cry. You gonna be happy ovethea.” But all I really wish is to walk her home one last time, hold her for the last time, tell her what she already knows is in my heart: the open wound, the bleeding, the crimson-blood flooding the cotton around my chest; that first love cutting so deep like a strike from a Praetorian blade. But neither of us can revive or heal what we wounded together. Life will not allow it. Benvolio will not escape the sentinel lions guarding the gates around 40th Street to save our love. Life will keep both houses (Capulet and Montague) upon the shelves. And there will be no last kiss for us.

We pull away from 34th, I see the lights of the station get swallowed by the cold darkness of the tunnel. Conductor says that 14th will be the next stop. "I get off next. Are you going down?" I say yes, that am going to "Walls" because I feel like walking that stretch from "Battery" to my house. "But it's, oh so cold!".

And I want to tell her that the winter winds sweeping the summit of the Ural Mountains are not as cold as that evening's inccident; that her showing me the wedding-band and telling me about her wedding is fuck-up in any country, in any language. That she should have avoided me. That am hurting like motha-fucker inside. And want to cry and damn her, the winter, and all the roads that led me to her. But Flyguy interrupts me. He stumbles with his guitar through the train's side doors.

He stands at one end. The train is moving slow. I don't recognize the chords. Until his voice hits a beautiful sad, sad, sad-ass song with that Soul of the Black Folk sadness that would bring even Rommel's 7th Panzer Division to tears.

It's the Commodores "Oh, no". And am thinking, "shit, I've heard this tutti-frutti song hundreds of times" at the bodegas, in elevators, at the diner, in a taxi... But it never made any sense until that evening:

I want you to want me
I'm goin' crazy knowing' he will be your lover tonight
And when he comes I'll let you go
I'll just pretend as you walk out the door I need you to need me
I wanna hold you but you're holdin' someone else in your arms
When I close my eyes I see your face
I'm just not sure how much my heart can erase
Oh, no
I can't sleep anymore, baby
Oh, no
I can't think anymore, baby
Oh, no
I'm goin' crazy with love over you

The doors slam shut at 14th and she is one more among the freezing crowd. She waves goodbye and rushes up the grimy stairs. Flyguy carries on with his tune. The train rushing through the tunnel, the blood through my veins, the Swiss ticking and ticking.

But somehow I know Borges is watching over me, putting his arm around my shoulder like an old friend. I read his "Despedida" like a prayer, like a sacred mantra, over and over... Because I don't want to weep for that bitch. Because frankly I can't cry anymore:

Entre mi amor y yo han de levantarse
trescientas noches como trescientas paredes
y el mar será una magia entre nosotros.
No habrá sino recuerdos.
Oh tardes merecidas por la pena,
noches esperanzadas de mirarte,
campos de mi camino,
firmamento que estoy viendo y perdiendo...
Definitiva como un mármol
entristecerá tu ausencia otras tardes (J. L. Borges).

Purgatorio Mundialista

2010-07-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

Don Virgilio de Toshiba me condujo, via high-definition, un Viernes 11 de Junio entre candilejas hacia los estadios en Pretoria, Munsabi, Yatusabes, y Tacandela. Donde por treinta miserables dias, purge carne, y alma. Mudando mis principios, transformandome en un televidente mas.

Y asi fue que vislumbre los horrores de las televisoras "de balde"; plagado por llagas, ulceras, espasmos estomacales (colitis), y un asco que se agraviaba con la brisa que soplaba hedionda a Moro. Senti fugarseme la vida. Y te pedí alivio, O, Dios!

Con el llanto en flor y el alma encrespada dispute el orden de tus designios:

"O, Dios, de este mundo se desvanece con diligencia asombrosa lo hermoso y sublime. Y en su lugar proliferan Crapulas y mundos banales. Padre eterno, explicad me, como tolerais estos sacrilegios, estas barbaries descomunales. Que irrespetan los días plomizos, los soleados, y los Domingos? Dios... O, Dios! Creador del cielo y de la tierra. Decidme si esto que veo es El Mundial 2010, aquello "el cielo, esto una mata, y esto arena, mas allá el horizonte y el mar... En algún sitio, la mar?"

Irritado y moribundo, cuestione ese orden celestial: "O, Dios, por que no machacais con furia atroz a las televisoras: Univimiope, Telenadieselafuma, o Telemundana? Soltando sobre estas fabricas de excremento un fulminante rayo. Acaso sus groserias subnormales y banales se mueven con garbo ante tus ojos? Ni te causa ofensa que los Picapiedra se autodenominen lumbreras y pastores. Duchos guias trogloditicos?"

Por que O, Dios, semejante vilipendio con mi espíritu?

30 días purgasteisme, azotasteisteme, con tal salvajismo que sentí derramar cada dia pocos de vida y bocanadas de mi espiritu con cada hora.

Que vilipendio, O, Dios! Despertar y mirarle las caras, a ese par de hemorroides, esa mancuerna de hijos de puta, narra partidos, ese par de Mejic-Anos. Que sin misericordia me hacian soltar arcadas terribles. Causandome una cagalera copiosa y terrible, cada vez que el mas grotesco de los narra-partidos gritaba "asshole, asshole, asshole, gooool-asshole."

Decidme O. Dios, si estas fechoria te causaban algazara?
Miserable de mi, O, Dios! Pues su tormento y fanfarroneria transgredian todo limite humano. Y con sus cuerdas bestiales pronunciaban nombres arcaicos, casi ignotos. Los que mascullaban con sus osicos (lame-culos):
"Pos orita tienen la pelotita los Teutones, orita los Lusitanos, y ya mero un Iberico, y pos indudablemente Tutun era enano, pero muy bello, eso si."

Los humildes televidentes que pueblan estos parajes, se comunican entre si en un dialecto muy parecido al castellano. Esta plebe se preguntaban entre si, por que cojones los pendejos, Narra-Partidos llamaban "Tetuntes" a los Alemanes, "Luisitos" a los Portugueses, y "Pericos" a los Españoles. Añadiendo que "Tuntun era enano y feo pero no Pendejo".

Que días, O, Dios, Cuando te suplicaba de rodillas: "tened misericordia y mandanos a San Tony Tirado y a San Norberto Longo!"

"Para la mano! O, Dios" Te gritaba! "Y no permitas que esta gente grosera derrame su imbecilidad sobre un pueblo de por si imbécil y sumiso."

Padre Eterno, os imploraba: "Anunciadles a esos gilipollas-exiliados de Miami que (el mismisimo) San Jose Antonio Primo los desprecia, por Gusanos, Cobistas, y Rastreros. Y le derrama salud y larga vida a Fidel por tener testiculos de Toro Cretano entre ingle."

Que semanas esas, O, Dios, señor de los cielos y las estepas! Donde nace la felicidad en rojo-sangre, amarillo-oro, y morado-betarraga.

Justicia y una encomienda clamaba. Un milagro de tu Arcangel San Antonio Durruti: "que le zampara 500 tacos de dinamita al culo de ese guarro-cabron (con pinta de maricón asolapado). Mal llamando El Gordo de Molinos. Ese saco de mierda, esa metropolis de manteca, que mancillo a la Sagrada Furia Roja ensalchichando su cuerpo de animal-sudado en una camiseta tan hermosa."

Perdonadme O, Dios! Mis palabras soberbias, mi postura altiva. Es que padre mio, aun no comprendo que Coños hace Don Calibos robando aire? Ese cadáver que atufa la vista, ese anciano decrépito, esa quimera, mala-cosa. No comprendo tu logica, O, Señor? Por que dejas a Don Calibos en su Sabado de Mierda. Que zapatee las dormidas dignidades de un montón de pendejos que venden su poca humanidad por $1.50.

Como Señor Mio, le dabais libre albedrio a ese Chileno, enano hijo de puta que habla como si tuviese novocaina en el osico, o un pollon de negro entre dientes. Ese Chileno, hijo de puta, maestro en el arte de humillar a gente analfabestia; gente pobre en holgura y espiritu. Ese enano cabron, cabecilla de una panda de pedofilos y una momia-chola-peruana (con falsete de urraca), consejera de mongoloides.

No es justo, O, Dios, que cada día el culo de Shaquira se ponga mas robusto, mas hermoso, y lujurioso, y que al ritmo de el mentado "Pedorro" caigan 19,000 puñetas (diariamente). Mientras que la salud de Cerati desmejora.

Y venga ya Coño! Que tampoco es justo que me tuvieseis a mi y a tanto incauto prisioneros de esta imbecilidad por 30 días! Sin el alivio de una cojonuda ESPN. Con LOCUTORES Ingleses, Holandeses cojonudos, y un gilipollas (Alexis Dalas).

Ni justo fue el espejismo, la falsa esperanza que me diste con la televisora Cuatrera. Aquella que fomenta el comercio agropecuario. Axteca-America (o el tuerto entre la panda de ciegos). Y jamas imagine que estos ojos mirarian al "Dragon de Comodos" dirigiendo un programa de farandulas. Ni idea que la atarjea esa que es Mejico, tenia farandula.

"Ventaneame las Pelotas Porfavor" se llama el show y sus presentadores son: la susodicha Dragon, dos tias buenas (una con un culo impresionante), un muñeco jorobado, y un anciano acaponado y diminuto.

Padre Santo que estupefaccion cuando salto a la pantalla un hijo de puta Moro. Primero gemia y luego dio unos alaridos espantosos. Este Camello se auto-denominaba lider de una banda de rock (El Tri). Asustado pregunte "Coño, no me jodan, y esta mierda que es Padre Santo?" Una cosa abominable, un aborto musical, una copia turbadora de ACDC y la Ostia que es Brian Johnson.

Al Dragon de Comodo no le basto atormentarme con esa Nota y tubo la ponzoña, la osadia de eruptar que "Mejico-DF era una ciudad segura y hermosa. Mas aun que la Metropolis Atenea que es New York City." Añadiendole a esta tabarra que: Maradona, Messi, La Bruja, Caniggia, Tevez, Batistuta, El Rojo, eran una mierda.

Y que Kuau, el Chichaito, Santo, Blue Demon, The Brothers Almada, Rafa Marquezote, Guero Castro, Pajaro Tata, Tlaloc, y Pepe "El Toro". Eran machos "diadeveras", diestros con el balon, la sopladora y el machete. Y que ellos (los Mejic-Anos) eran un pueblo sagrado, historico, bragado, revolucionario y valiente.

Pasadas las convulsiones, regrese a mi mismo. Y te grite: Padre Eterno, TU que alzastes a las juventudes libertarias, a la tercera brigada mixta, a las columnas guerrilleras que derramaron su sangre en la America Central de los 80's, que le diste tu venia a San Simon Bolivar y a la hermandad Filiki Eteria, y luz al faro de hercules... Respondedme O, Dios, O, Dios como permitis que semejante Ciruela Paleozoica oprobie lo inestimable?

De que revolucion habla ese Dragon de Comodos, O, Dios? Que revolucion, ni pollas en vinagre! Ese tio que se ponia una braga de puta en la cara y se tomaba fotos con un fusil de madera, el tal comandante Marcos? De Pancho Villa, ese rustico comedero, donde me pegaron una guarrada de virus? No me jodan!

Que no es evidente, O, Dios, que ese Pueblo sumiso no conoce la dignidad, ni la verguenza, ni naaa. En los llanos de estos parajes andan saltando como liebres. Bragado pueblo Axteca que da su culo y el de sus progenitoras por un poco de nada. Una plaga le llaman los gringos. Gente de medula embustera y servil.

Despiertame Padre Mio cuando ese pueblo (Bragado) deje la novela y se arme de cojones, haga la guerra, y transforme esa cloaca que es SU pais. Hasta entonces, a Callaros la Jeta Coño! No me vendan mas Lastima que aqui la regalan en cada esquina (y que si no fuera por el profundo respeto a Juan Rulfo la sigo... Me cago en Judas!)

Mi entrada al Paraiso fue un Domingo 11, cuando tu misericordia llego finalmente y Virgil Toshiba me condujo lento.

En tu senda habian rios verdes, grises volcanes, y el sereno Mar de Arafura. Tambien vislumbre a Maradona fumando tabacos junto a Fidel y Chavez, a Puyol alzando las picas sobre Flandes, y a San Iker llorando su victoria... Y no me importo que todo fuera una farsa.

Y con el cuerpo echo trizas y los ojos encapotados. Te alabe, O, Señor, creador de los cielos y la tierra. Y supe que para el mañana queda una anemica esperanza, un consuelo susurrado y diminuto: Tele5, PBS, CNN, el Ave... Y que tu esencia estara por los siglos de los siglos en Gongora, en Aesop, en los ecos de Nestor y sus Dardanios, en las brisas de playa giron, y en un Llano en Llamas... En el vago recuerdo que nos quedara de lo que fue la Mar del Caribe.

Dedicado a mi amici: Pedrito "El Violador" Bucio, Rigito "Tuntun" Contreras, Tio Lupe Casilaviola, Juan Penas Stamuyprieto, Juanillo Yamerolaviola, y Milingo Andatieso

The Things People Say

2010-07-15T14:49:00.001-07:00

"Iniesta, Iniesta, despierta macho... Breda se rindio y La Furia abraza nuestros pechos. Ellos no pasaron. No pasaran!"

I hear people saying things all the time. You know they express their feelings, observations, advice, thoughts to their friends, siblings, their grandmas, their cell-phone or just some random ear. Many times I hear things in public places and think to myself "Man, that's bull shit". Most of the time I don't really give a rat's-ass. However, sometimes people say interesting and even comical things. For example:

One of these days, at the supermarket, I heard a pair of *Assholes (*Jay St. vernacular for rude and ignorant people) boisterously say that they were buying several pounds of a special cut of beef. I mean it wasn't like these pair of Billy Hills were buying Wagyu cuts. So the butcher says to the dick-heads "Ouh these are nice! Perfect for grilling". To what the Gunghoes replied "No dude we going to feed this to our dogs". Now there is nothing wrong with that. I mean if you have the $, you could even have the butcher make you some nice long-thick sausages and shove them up your... Obviously these Barbarian motha-fuckers have no clue what Famine is. And this is why the world loves Americans, what the fuck am I saying, the Galaxy adores Americans! Lastima, que a todo Chancho le llega su San Martin.

Recently there was all this commotion about some riots/protests on the other side of the bridge. It was all over the local news. Now keep in mind that around here a Cats-up-a-tree make news. So I get in the elevator, in walk some techy types. They were furious saying that all the rioters were behaving like animals, that all the Bay Area is in desperate need for more cops, that the trial was unfair, that is human error to shoot a subdued black-kid in the back, that people take dumps and never flush the toilets so people in their office can measure how much fiber they're consuming. So I thought the incident they were speaking of, the Gestapo had already deemed an "assassination or murder in the 1st degree".

The one with the spiked-hair, looked at me as if asking for some piece of mind, so I says "cops in the Bayarea, face too many Cats-up-a-tree issues and get hooked on video-games were they have to shoot "Cans" (mexicans, salvadorans, africans, dominicans, southamericans, asiacans...). Training is key, I believe, now if Bayarea cops trained in areas where you need a pair of balls to be a public servant, say... Around South DC, East NY, Upper Manhattan, Mexico DF, or Sao Paulo, Brazil. They be better cops, acquiring great training or dying in the process (which is essentially part of the job). I mean, check the Amadou Diallo case; NYPD did not hesitate to put 41 bullets into this man. But again "Soundview" is not a 911-Cats-up-a-tree kind of neighborhood"

Last Saturday I says to "K" how much I would love to be in Elmhurst eating some calamari and veal for lunch. It must have been around 9AM, we were getting ready to pay for a shitty bagel and even worst coffee. Ahead of us was this woman wearing her gym-cloth, showing off her beautiful Badonkadonk. Anyway, the woman was already on her cell-phone bullshitting-away. When Boom! I hear her say (in a moderate tone) "so she has vaginal discharge? is it cream-cheesy? That might be a UTI. Nou, not the university dummy... Does it smell like Vietnamese fried-spring-rolls dressing? What do you mean? Yes, the one you deep the spring-rolls in. Never mind. Does it smell like dried shrimp, or Limburger cheese? Oh! That's bad, was he wearing a condom?" K who is ill equipped for understanding the technicality of the Californian lingo did not understand, so I interpreted what the woman had said with colorful details. Furious K said "that's one nasty bitch", and we left without our bagels and coffees.

But sometimes people say nice things. Like the time I was at some bank were they keep a TV in the lobby and they had this local channel on, you know, the one with the acronyms that sound like throat-cancer or pimps' drink (KRON-4). So I take my Paccino pose on the sofa and Evelyn the weather lady comes-on and am like "Damn" because she's dead gorgeous. Some brotha was sitting next to me. So, we-chilling, watching the lady do her thing, she's saying that a cold front is coming in from the Pacific and the wind is going to blow like a motha-fucker. And brotha says to me "damn, she mad pretty. She one beautiful lady, no doubt. She the kind of woman you take to the tropics or some place nice, you know what I mean?" So I says "No doubt, no doubt" nodding.

Other times people are just philosophically Nuts. I remember one occasion way back in the mid 90's, sitting inside BMCC's theater, waiting for Registra to get a class schedule fixed. Waited for like 3 fucking hours. Right in front sat an individual who had been talking-shit. I knew this cause his mouth never ceased to move. With the walkman on, I couldn't really hear what the fuck he was saying, until it ran out of battery. He seemed to be talking to a short person sitting next to him, who was either mute or spoke too softly to hear. For a moment, I thought "shit! the Man must be either a senior student or a professor."

He was eloquent when speaking of domestic and foreign politics. I remember clearly, how he spoke of Kant's work saying, "the world was made of rational actions but experiences were the building blocks of creation. Therefore reasoning alone without experience will lead to failure." From time to time, he would laugh as if the person sitting next to him had actually said something. The last thing he said, really confused me but it was said with such conviction, as if he were some politician on campaign "My team supreme, stay clean. Triple beam lyrical dream... And I'm bigger than the city lights down in Time Square... Ten years from now we'll still be on top." When I heard my last name calledout I walked down to the stage to get my schedule. And I passed the row were this dude was sitting. I notice no one by his side. He had been talking to himself all this time.

Last summer I went by this store to get me a cold-drink. There were some very high pitched men discussing, Mexican Wrestling vs. the U.S. WWF. The Mexicans were saying that the "luchadores" were less fake than the WWF-fatsos. The non-Mexican dudes argued that their wrestlers were a joke, that any pot-belly laborer could put on an "El Santo's" mask and become a wrestler. Naturally, they exchanged verbal abuses between each other. Than, boom! This homeless-looking-dude, holding a case of beer steppeds up and says to the group "Fuck that! Have you seen La Chiquita Lopez vs. Mandingo... Now that's one hell of a fight!!!". To what the group of wrestling fans replied, "so who beats who?"...

Sentimiento Perentorio

2010-04-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

No se puede, no hay manera, imposible defender la mirada
Proverbiales escudos Mirmidones escoltando corneas y retinas
Endebles y lustrosos estos ojos
Consintieron una imagen, un deseo, una siesta de mocedad

Subyugada sin sentido como la mar y sus rompeolas
Como los rios verde-oscuros que se arriman al espigon
Que un dia nada podra contener, olvidando sus cauces
Y mudaran lo manso, lo docil por brutales correntadas

Un vendaval que abraza mi pecho con furia
El capricho del destino acometiendo contra mis pauperrimas cotidianeses
Y cuando levanto la cara, atolondrado y le miro de pie en su catedra
En dorados cabellos, pechos porcelana, calcando a la hija de Dione

Lenitiva hermosura que casi seda mis medulas
Que casi aplaca un dolor punzante e hijo de puta en mi espinazo
Sera posible que los testiculos de Urano fecundaran manos tan delicadas?
Mal parido sea Thomas Mann y su anatomia de la belleza!

De cuando en cuando se desliga de su piel un aroma a flor de Maalatie
Es un aroma prudente que levemente se pasea por los espacios del paraninfo
Que me recuerda al mar. Aquel de memorias lozanas y juveniles,
Un oceano que presiento, aun con los ojos cerrados

Y en este mundo donde se corrompe todo
Donde se parte la explanada en pastizales y lilas
Y se alzan las sierras altas, grises con sus Maquis heroicos
Donde la ley es vida y la vida ley

Aqui te encontre
Con un nombre que no encaja en semejante torso
Cierro los ojos y se apagan la luces
Oigo tu vos y se enciende un sentimiento extraviado

Into the 80's with Ms. G

2010-03-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if this was a bad thing or a good one. I mean when I look back at things, the past, I find humid summers and Lalin walking down from the freaking bodega armed with a very arctic Colt-45. But all and all, the City was an amazing school, a school for life… But shit, sometimes I wish I could change a few things, here and there.

For example, today I was thinking how great it would be if I (or we) were back in the late 80’s. The high-school years with our (sending all my love) Linear-haircuts and heavy-metal jackets, eying 21-Jump-Street, listening to LL, Eddie Santiago, Stevee-B, G Lamond, GnR, Tesla, and all these other hairy-motha-fuckers. I was thinking this as I exited Ms. G’s class. How great if I, if we all, had (had) the chance to growup in a less hostile environment. But fuck it, this was our luck, Carlito Brigante would be very proud of us, thaz-fou-sha!

Yearning to be young came in through the classroom’s open windows. My yearning was not the perverted "wanting to be young-again to screw teenage girls" kind of way, Noup! No thanks, I don’t need the gonorrhea, etc. Neither was I wishing, the going bald-grandfather-in-a-convertible wanna-be-young pathetic look. My feeling was more like a mirage of the past, a sensation that tiptoed in the wind and was wrapped in a sunny-day with tall cherries and pink/white blossoming braches. It was a pleasant almost innocent feeling.

I mean Ms. G is the epitome of the 80’s "MTV-Babe" and there I was sitting in her class. Sharing her vast knowledge on an academic branch I’ve always loved, thinking "how ironic". And trying to picture my 9th grade friends expressions with their sideway newports and silver lighters. How many nights did we dream of a woman like this, to hold her hand, do the movie thing, and the school dance? But fuck, all we got was a dyed Puerto Rican at the GED-class and a shit job at Caldors (pronounced Kaldoes in Yonkers).

The other day Ms. G got angry and reprimanded the class because some students came in late, my heart pounded like Fujian thunders. Her anger was captivating, flushing her face with a soft-strawberry-short-cake light. But her annoyance lasted seconds and she was again the "sweet child of mine" babe she always is. On most days there is little time to contemplate her serene-blue lagoon irises. But today the spring’s lights made them shiny.

So I wondered what her sign was, if she went to her prom with some Neanderthal dude (like the asshole next-door to her). I know for a fact, back in the days, she would have never given me neither a first, second, not even a (pity) third look. Anyway, she must have been in her last year of HS when I was dropping-out of mine."You do her too much honor" said mabrotha from a 12th n 6th, phone, so I reminded him to "dicunt ei Caesaris tunc ait illis reddite ergo quae sunt Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei Deo."

You see, Ms. G does indeed epitomize the late 80’s early 90’s, dream girl stereotype. And it’s fuckedup that people think of other people in such a myopic way just because someone put the idea that we are this, you are that, those others are special because they look like that, and we are mutants because thats the way it is.

The thing with Ms. G is that she is actually a very bright person. Her intellect runs parallel to her beauty. Her lectures are captivating and innovative, shattering the stereotype: gorgeous women are mere objects of admiration (uhum!) and other things. Fuck that! She is an outstanding teacher/professor. And I'm happy, glad (my heart filled with joy), and proud to meet a woman who has displaced the overweight-balding-gunghoe-male-dickhead teacher.

And please Ms. G, accept my apologies for drifting back to my shortlived HS-years and thinking of you. You in that GnR "Patience" video. It was such a beautiful spring day and your blue-lagoons caught me off guard.

As you can imagine I'm expendable. And that's ok! If I go, if they kick my ass out the door, none will remember me. But you Ms. G. You are irreplaceable, you are the inspiration to so many young girls. These teenage girls who are in desperate need of Brothers, Sisters, Fathers and Mothers and a classroom Heroin like you.

This said, I hope that cocksucker principal recognizes the "Lighthouses of Knowledge" you (and Ms. K) represent to hundreds of students, (especially to the ones drifting out to sea); gives you the merits, the pedestals you deserve.

I mean just look at what your up against: that guy sporting the anthropophagus-tribal earrings, is he really a teacher? Or the other old dude with the long hair, is he teaching Astrology? Or the gargoyle who graduated from Stanford and teaches HS kids how to be mediocre. Fuck that!

Ms. G, I've known in my life time great teachers. Tough motha fuckers straight from the Boogydown, who despised being the Remora that fed on the failure of one, two... Generation of students. I, Ms. G, kept the "Gallic Wars" and Hermann's "Beneath the Wheel" because these teachers inspired me to do so... Today as I came out of your class I saw all of them in you!

My Anabasis is yours now... May Athena light your way always!

The Chronicles of Pancracio Tinoco

2010-02-12T16:28:00.000-08:00

Yes the grass looked greener and the earth was darker, as if all summer days had been erased from its four billion year memory. On the other side, heaven articulated commands, incensed voices, thundering, flashing beautiful lights upon the hill. Some walked their dogs. But I, I walked myself, through paved and muddy trails, amusing my eyes with salt-water. Watching a feather diver, dive, one fearless pelican breaking wrestles waters.

Where the waves surrendered their desires I stood. Planes smashed gray clouds. Pancracio Tinoco was there, sitting idle, sipping small fragments of sky and earth with his eyes. He said that nothing here resembled Lovago or Juigalpa. Nothing here spoke of Granada or San Carlos. Nothing reminded of home.

Examining his trembling hands, he said, time had passed over his body like shadows over the land. Yet his recollection of things, people, places, and faces was very much lucid.

Eight months to cross Managua, Tegucigalpa, Chiapas, a trek filled with hardships and dysentery. Pancracio boarded The Egea, a Jaliscan fishing vessel around midnight, sailing across The Sea of Cortes… After a long swig of his Coruba Dark, he paused to reflect upon his journey, frowned, and said no other night would ever be so adamantly dark.

From the port of Manzanillo he sailed over 1000 miles to Ensenada where he had a bowl of turtle-soup for breakfast; the lime and spinach in the soup helped settle his stomach. His first hot meal in many days, washed down with Carta Blanca and the vestiges of precious Flor de Caña.

It was dawn in San Diego when the border patrol caught him. Five weeks passed before his release. Octavio Gerson, his half brother paid the bail and together they drove from San Diego to Bakersfield, there he found a job at a carwash working 12 hours a day for $50.

Suddenly, days had turned to weeks and months to years. Rainy Spring mornings in San Luis Obispo found Pancracio perched upon tall pines, chopping overgrown branches. The nostalgia in his soul was like a silky wind, coming and going. And the three years between Lovago and California felt like hours, like a deep dark ravine inside his heart.

At the Santa Cruz Inn he washed dishes through the summer, from 5am to 6pm. His hands were always red and sore. But he endured the burning feeling, as poor people endure all things to survive.

At sunset before heading to his rented room (a mutated garage), he sought the quietude of the sea, smoking cigarettes as if he would never smoke again, sipping Caribean rum, reflecting upon the coming of his 50th birthday.

She made his years in Freemont palatable. For once in his life Pancracio felt as if happiness had forgotten to evade his heart. He knew she was not in love with him but it didn’t matter. The scorching hours laboring, plowing gardens, and harvesting flower beds in Palo Alto; just as long as she was there, awaiting his return at dusk... He would provide a roof overhead, sustenance, and some cash.

The accident left his coworker Abel Arsenio dead. And when he opened his eyes at Palo Alto's Medical Center her face was missing. There were many doctors and nurses but not a single familiar face. His spine, ribs, and skull were shattered and the doctors did a damn good job welding them back.

Four months he spent recovering. But she never called or visited him. Perhaps the hospital hallways frightened her. And Pancracio knew he would never see her again.

Adolescent years in Lovago plowing tobacco fields, walking pebbly roads barefoot, nights burning up with Yellow-Fever, turned Pancracio into a sensible man. A man well fitted for calamities. So, the court's notice to vacate or the $15,000 gone astray which he kept hidden in a sock inside a hole under the sink, did not suprise him. She vanished leaving behind a box of baking-soda inside the refrigerator and a note he never read because he didn’t know how.

Life at the South San Francisco shelter was appalling. So Pancracio said he favored the streets and squandered his days collection cans and bottles. This afforded him cheap rum and cigarettes to wash down his pain medication. At the soup-kitchen the meals were sufficient to keep him going. And the cold ground enough bed for his tired body.

“Look there.. There where, the sky ends” Pancracio pointed towards, a long curved bridge stading over a lengthy stretch of water, “a fishing-vessel bounded for the port of San Juan del Sur…” The tide was coming in and I saw no ship, only rain clouds. I left Pancracio to his rum and cigarettes. People walked their dogs but I walked myself.

Yes the grass looked greener and the earth was darker, as if all the summer days had been erased from its 4 billion year memory. On the other side, heaven articulated commands with an incensed voice, thundering, flashing beautiful lights upon some hill.

Furia Abraza Mi Pecho

2010-01-16T15:01:00.000-08:00

Aqui donde vivo toda la gente anda alborotada. Una cosa curiosa verlos asi compungidos y mocosos de tanto mirar tragedias por television. Los Californianos son hombres y mujeres espantosamente hipocritas, roñosos, pero sonrientes. Jamas dicen lo que sienten, ni sienten lo que dicen. Terriblemente hoscos hasta para cagar.

Un par de dias hace que un sismo percutio un pais muy pauperrimo en la region del caribe, Haiti. Que digo percutio, Asolo con tal envergadura que la miseria es una palabra demasiado ligera para expresar el sufrimiento que vive esta gente; que cuando alzan la cabeza es solo para mirar tendaladas de muertos encarroñandose bajo el sol matutino del tropico.

Se me hace inaudito maquillarrse de tanta solidaridad y pesadumbre. De la misma forma me asombra el espiritu teatrico de esta gente, que salta entre candilejas a resucitar finados de piel negra. Poco les falta traerse a los muertos, obsequiarles santa sepultura y novenarias aqui mismo. Este fervor compulsivo o "Pollas en Vinagre" es una cosa que me tiene con asco y pensativo desde hace 5 noches.

Nadie, pienso, tiene derecho de envaselinarle el ojete a nadie con el proposito de pegarle estocadas de compasion al mentado. Pues la compasion, Como El Amor son sensaciones, espontaneas, prematuras, hermosas.

Aqui donde vivo toda la gente anda alborotada procurando (con porfia insistencia) que cada Californiano en su Eutopico vivir, construyan mausoleos en sus patios. Y darles santa sepultura a los miles de difuntos Haitianos. Con el proposito de que sus infaustos espiritus puedan reposar entre huertos de solanum lycopersicum y citrus reticulata.

Sentir es de todos y Pedrito "El Violador" Bucio, un hombre brutalmente pensante, que tambien siente. Aunque su sentir sea grosero, es menos quimerico e hipocrita. Aludiendo a los subsidios millonarios y anuales cobrados por esta nacion caribeña donados por: Japon, China, la Union Europea, USA, y El Salvador. Pues, comforme a sus datos este ultima pais Centro Americana entrega anualmente entre 80,000-120,000 machetes afilados a los pueblos de Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Miragoane, and Gonaives... "Y no se puede" dice Pedrito "hacer de tripas corazones. Si estos negros no tienen el sentido comun de quemar o encalar (usar la cal) con sus muertos para evitar las pestes... Que se jodan!"

En las ultimas 72 horas se pueden observar multitude de mujeres rubias sobre calles y avenidas, desgarrandose los cabellos y sus vestimentas en solidaridad con NBC, ABC, CBS, y los Haitianos.

He notado que estos excesos de bondad causan, ademas de fervor, orgasmos, euforia, e hilaridad (de la buena) entre ellos. Que se pintan liberales, sonrientes como el aspid. Mujeres, enternecidas o folladas por tanta ternura, preparan sus tetas para amamantar a los huerfanos de Port-au-Prince con furia.

Trever Nevershawaz un lugareño tosco, viejo, nautico que dice haber visitado Haiti unas veinte veces sobre una nave Belga. Ilustra el estado tan deplorable de aquellas ciudades. Mucho antes del terremoto. Relatandome en su natal dialecto Flamenco que todo su "Crew", a excepcion de Emseehama, asumieron que Haiti (por la pinta) sufria sismos periodicamente. Y que el Canis-Lupus-Callejerus en barbacoa era el plato nacional y tipico de estos negros.

Emseehama, capitan del buque , se merendo un buen trozo de carne y arroz con coco, y dijo que ningun terremoto dejaba a un pueblo en tal decadencia de espiritu. Que ese padecer era genetico y que Dios-Todo-Poderoso vela por los nativos de ese lugar... Las Tribus Caribe, Tainas... Que por fortuna estaban muertas.

El Dr. Morris Wausblek expresa que "este fervor, teatral y efusivo, no resucita a nadie. Mas de 200 años hace que Haiti padece pobresa, hambre, corrupcion, enfermedad, deforestacion, sobre-poblacion y SIDA...El terremoto es una raya mas para el tigre".

Al tratar de justificarle, al Dr. Wausblek, que a mi parecer los Californianos (Gringos en general) y sus gestos apoltronabanse frente al mundo como un pueblo Bueno, Noble, y Solidario... El Dr. Wausblek, me miro de reojo, solto una carcajada y consecuentemente me dijo con serenidad, "vete a la mierda".

Anatomy of a Song: Rosita's Laments

2010-01-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

Mission Street Research Center on Latin American Studies (MSRCLAS) and The Northern California Association for the Hearing Impaired (CAHI) spearhead several investigations rendering "Los Lamentos de Rosita" as the most ambitious, exuberant, herculanian musical work in Central American history. According to MSRCLAS's executive director Gungho Guy "the structure of this Cumbia is so complex... It is almost sacrilegious.. An attempt to create a master piece that cannot be fully comprehended without six-shots of poorly distilled Agua-Ardiente".

The anatomization or break-down of Cumbias such as "Los Lamentos de Rosita", requires a meticulous study of their musical and lyrical structure. According to Dr. Den Isgey (head of research operations at CAHI), the musical arrangements for this particular piece are so discombobulated and monotonous, only hot tropical weather, swatting flies while eating greasy food, tons of ear wax and gulping down liters of local "moonshine" make the melody, mildly tolerable, yet orgasmic.

For both entities 48 months of research have yielded nothing but discrepancies and brand new cars. On the other hand, city officials funding the projects are lamenting and expressing their own concerns, asking themselves "Wadafuck! You wasted all this loot, and still we don't know the true meaning of "Rosita's motha-fucking laments"...Shiet!"

Jim Dreenks Tankarray of San Mateo County, a former friend of Pedro Derapist Bucio (formerly known as "El Violador"), believes Los Lamentos de Rosita (or Rosita's Laments) is a simple Cumbia of the worst kind. Whose message could be summarized as the painful story of a widow (Rosita), her deceased husband (John), his penis, and her grief for losing both. True-that!

Tio Walter Bonilla a prominent janitor at UCLA has produced interesting work on toilet-bowls and on the true meaning of "Los Lamentos de Rosita" alluding to a new hidden Erotic message. His work focuses on the impact of the song's chorus: "Oh John Me Dejaste" or "Oh John, you left me".

Tio Walter explains that on a recent trip to Central America and after drinking 5 shots of domestically produced sugarcane liquor and blazing-some-trees. He began to noticed the chorus sounded more like "Oh, John what big hole you have left me with" repeated over and over again. Thus, Tio Walter questions whether or not "Rosita is lamenting the loss of her husband? And if so, in what manner: did John leave a big hole in her heart? Or is the big hole between her legs?".

CAHI rejects Tio Walter's hypothesis on the bases that "we have no evidence demonstrating that Mr. John was in fact a Mandingo, or a normal man. Therefore, Rosita's grief cannot possible be caused by the loss of the decease's genitals". On the other hand, Gungho Guy finds the assumptions paradogical but true.

In 2010 independent researchers from Staford and U.C. Berkeley, aided by a billion dollar fund from the Itwasalladreamisuedtoreadwordupmagazine Foundation, will continue the meticulous examination of "Los Lamentos de Rosita". So that Columbia and NYU students can laugh their asses-off and humanity can finally begin to understand the complexity of the Central American cumbia.

In my humble, un-funded, and mediocre opinion I say that the confusion lies in Sound and Regionalisms. If we listen closely to the pronunciation of the Central American word for Hole (Hoyo) and Big Hole (Hoyon). They appear to sound like "O-Joe" and "Oh-John".

John a name of European origin distorts the true meaning of the song because of its homophonic association with the word Big-Hole e.g:
Literal song's chorus: "Oh John me dejaste! (Oh John you left me!)"
Distorted chorus: "Hoyon me dejaste! (Oh John what big hole you left!)

Concurring with UCLA-Tio Walter Bonilla's observations, that indeed John must have left a tremendous void in Rosita. Yet, pin-pointing if the void lies within Rosita's heart or somewhere else will require additional state funding... TBC (to be continued)

NOTE: This blog is way too humble to post such sublime, almost celestial piece of music. So if you wish to sample "Los Lamentos de Rosita", hea-ya-go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGH7xmwqijk

Prof. Pace's Newspapers

2009-11-13T14:40:00.000-08:00

Newspapers are great vehicles. Chauffeuring domestic and world calamities around neighborhoods in big cities and not so big. Newspapers celebrate-celebrity’s birthdays, drop columns on Iran, and resuscitate dead people by writing about their death. These papers carry the burden of building colossal stories for eternity.

Prof. Pace made us read the NYT & WSJ for home-work. And it was like bad-medicine. He recommended we pay attention to their technique and vocabulary usage. When all we wanted was to read the Newsday or the Daily News. And their coarse stories, city gossip and things we could relate to. But Pace insisted, we should endure and fight the temptation to read this shit newspapers.

The Mechanics, he insisted for writing properly were difficult and needed to be reinforced not only by our text-books but with fresh ideas as well. These ideas, techniques, mechanics would come from respected sources. But in the end very few of us took his advice to heart. The NYT and his older brother the WSJ were difficult to read inside a train. Elongated pages were bizarre things in the light outside Yankee Stadium.

So, for an entire semester the class bought these respectable sources of information, twice a week. Just to get the extra-credit for bringing Monday's and Wednesday's edition of the paper. What percentage of the class actually read it? Few, most badmouthed the tediousness of reading an editorial written by an old-fuck with a bad case of hemorrhoids-flare-up.

Our class or Prof. Pace’s class had about 20 something students. This would equal to 80 papers bought per week and an estimated 480 newspapers bought during the entire semester. How much of this information was actually read and how much of it achieved Pace’s objective. I don’t know? I certainly learned a lot with the surplus of newspapers in my house. Not academic stuff. But things you can actually do with old newspapers.

Old editions came in handy when packing moving-boxes you could wrap porcelain dishes carefully with either the city or international sections. Expression of politicians and famous actors were excellent for spreading under your pets-cage, clean grimy windows, or wiping spilled “something” from the floor… Amazing just to ponder how many Mexican piñatas would have been stuffed with the bulk of 480 old-newspapers?

On the verge of Christmas, fell the last day of Prof. Pace’s class. Chicho came in late, as it was the Boricua way; and said to me, in a Bronx whisper (which is not a whisper at all) that there was no toilet-paper in the toilet, so he had to wipe his ass with the editorial section of the NYT… What bravery I thought to take all those meticulously written words and with a sudden back-stroke make an asswipe of them all!

El Tiempo

2009-11-05T16:13:00.000-08:00

Quien dice que el tiempo no pasa?
Si cuando pasa lo hace sigiloso
Y nadie sabe si EL se detiene en algun lugar a tomar la brisa
Si las canas en el pelo son del tiempo o de las penas

En Vietnam el Mangosteen fecunda cada 15 años
Su pueblo, sosegado espera sus frutos amoratados
A orillas de un caudaloso Bach-Dang
Agridulces como el triumfo de Quyen

Hay tiempos malos y buenos tiempos
Cosechas abundates y campos arrasados
Horas caducadas y alboradas por llegar
De momento se siente el sol y de golpe el viento

De momentos es la vida, la felicidad y EL mismismo tiempo
Despota, es el reloj y no la luz de los dias
Un tirano, hijo de puta, liandonos a sus manecillas
EL Tiempo… Y nosotros prisioneros de EL

Descarriados los rios se pierden en el mar
Igual que la vida en la muerte
Pero regresan nuevos detras de la montaña
En el manantial; o en la preñez

Galopamos la juventud sobre pastizales de vida
Para llegar a la vejez morosos y achacados
Mientras EL sigue igual que siempre
Pasando sobre nosotros con el mismo impetu

La Vida es una mierda
Y la mierda un abono cojonudo
Emperifollando las avenidas de Hokaido
Con cerezos en flor

Quien dice que el tiempo no pasa?
Si cuando pasa lo hace sigiloso
Y nadie sabe si EL se detiene en algun lugar a tomar la brisa
Si las canas en el pelo son del tiempo o de las penas?

Can't Really Explain It

2009-10-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

"Can’t really explain it... I'm so into you" (Quote has nothing to do with post)

Why do people stick their hand out their car-window while driving? It makes perfect sense to stick your hand out the window to give another driver The Finger for cutting-too-tight as is the Yellow Cab custom. Other logical reasons might be bug, wind catching (a popular hobby among the British), or smoking. But (here, I won’t say were, cause…) people stick their hands out the window, trying to get mutilated, just for the hell of it. What da fuck?

How come X (won’t say which, cause…) individuals never flush right after defecating in public toilets? Which makes me wonder if during their childhood, city toilets were crafted based on Feudal designs?

Many restaurants (won’t say what kind of food they serve, cause… Chiefly the ones on Mission St. and Redwood City) workers are allowed to used their nude-hands (which they just sneezed on), by nude I mean glove-less. And sanitation gives a rat’s-ass! Didn’t Pres. Obama just declare a health emergency? Just watch how many people preparing your burrito (Oops) are wearing gloves. Do you know if they wipe their ass with the left or the right hand? And if Jerry Brown gets elected they'll be preparing food with their bare feet. What da fuck?

Why are people holding signs in the street? Are they human advertisements? Who was the corporate asshole, son of a bitch, mother fucker who thought of this shit idea to exacerbate humiliation, mortifying people and their need for a job; trampling upon the dignity of these human beings? I would like to know what kind of dickhead can come up with such a brilliant marketing idea… I would like to know so that I can begin my proposal to the Executive Director of Hades requesting an eternal impalement for the corporate ass-wipe who thought of this shit. (Me cago en todos sus muertos… COÑO!)

Unsecured-Wifi: is exactly what it is: unsecured or a Hacker's paradise. Why am I still using it? Because it’s free and I don’t give a fuck if some grimy-juvenile delinquent, or an old pervert, or techy-SOB from the Punjab or not is raping my hard-drive. I knew about this like in 2000 when Naoko was doing her C++. So I’m cool with it. Is it the tap water; or do I really look that stupid?

I seen too many kids roll their boogers into little-balls and eat them. Lately, it’s becoming a trend among adults: Eating boogers. I heard of urine-therapy for medicinal purposes. Where I live (I won’t say it cause…) dry-mucus seem to be a nice appetizer for some drivers, much like dried salted cashews. What da fuck?

The term “Mara” comes from the Central American regional jargon. The literal translation is “Group of Friends” e.g.: Hey wait let me say hello to my Mara (Friends). Disappointingly the term has now taken on a new meaning and it is now synonymous to Gangs/Gangster-Mara/Marero. NOT the elegant, romanticized, well dressed, manicured Italian-Mafia gangsters from New York City. NO-NO-NO… Maras reflect, if remotely or at all, the Italian gangster modus-operandi. I say remotely because these Gangs (most) can hardly match the complex structures of the Italian Mafia. Indeed most will end-up in a penitentiary, they are also violent, and abide by a troglodyte code of ethics. Code of ethics is too much of a term.

Anyway, where I live I see many young kids emulating “Mareros”: dress codes, music, decadent behavior… etc. Not showering and tagging is that an aspiration or kids are just stupid? I understand the Latino-kids and sympathize; in the end they are just trying to survive. Now if you are nearly middle-class, almost middle-class, or middle-class and non-Hispanic. Dam (Damn) you are stupid! What da fuck are you doing? Better donate your legal status to one of the laborers you see down the corner… Then, head for Central America and join a REAL mara if you think your hardcore!

Una Postal

2009-10-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

Se la paso saltando. Como hoja en el viento. Me llego esta tarde. El cartero la puso junto a los cobros de luz, gas, telefono y otras mierdas que llegan a diario. Me llego un paraje hermoso, donde apenas se distingue el peñon de Gibraltar. Una postal manchada, agrietada, y fechada 2 de Junio del 2003.

Cojones! Ya pasaron 6 años y yo sin darme cuenta. A donde se fue el tiempo?

Estaba perfumada con un olor humedo, como cuando se hiere la tierra, bajo la sombra, donde no le seca el sol del verano. Su remitente: Angelica Lucia Alqueazar. No tubo mas que citar a Sanz y escribir ocho lineas con tinta azul-marino para decirme que en Madrid estaba lloviendo y que todo seguia como siempre. Solamente que no estabamos juntos y el tiempo pasaba lentamente.

Angelica Lucia remitio la postal a mi direccion en el lower-east, imagino que por asuntos del corazon no la envio desde Marbella. Aguanto llegar a Madrid, a su balcon, a que las luces de la ciudad se encendieran. Para escribirme 8 frases y una cita.

Esta reboto y se fue tocando buzones en el Bronx, DC y CA. No puedo decir, con precision, cuanto tiempo permanecio Gitana. O cuantas manos le rozaron mucho antes que las mias. Dedusco por las manchas grasosa, su captor post-master o no, comia alguna vianda mantecosa. Mientras le rozaba con pulgares anchos y le miraba, sin comprender la magnitud de aquellas 8 lineas.

Se dice que el viento trae muchas cosas y arrastra las hojas. Se dicen tantas cosas que ya no se sabe cual de todas creer. Y con el ventarron que hacia afuera, pense que la postal bien seria una jugarreta del viento. Una cosa insolita.

Este Junio la bendita cumpliria 7 años de andar por ahi como hoja en el viento, cargando 8 lineas y una cita, la de una cancion gastada. Una melodia que en su momento nos llevo al borde de un llanto telefonico terrible.

Dodekathlos, es hablar palabras mayores. Y Hercules no podria con un decimotercero ya esta cansado y Yo tambien. Por lo tanto resumir las 8 frases de Angelica Lucia Alqueazar es pedir una labor en palabras mayores. No se puede.

Si puedo decir que ese dia. El dia en que Angelica escribia las 8 lineas llovia en Madrid y el tiempo pasaba con seguridad lentamente. Lo se por su caligrafia ovalada, larga, y precisa. Seguro se filtraba el agua y se corria por las cornisas. Estaria sentada en su onceavo piso, acompañada de un cafe y su agua mineral, tendria la escasa luz de un atardecer lluvioso en la frente...

La penultima y ultima frases aparecen resaltadas con tinta azul-marino. Dicen: hasta pronto, que me cuide, que recuerde cuanto se me extraña, y que su hogar podria ser el mio si lo deseara. Y luego la firmo: Angelica L. Alqueazar, en una esquina. La derecha.

On the Topic of Vernacular

2009-10-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

If a particular form of speaking transcends beyond the triad, permeating a substantial segment of our society, but differing from the Lingua-Franca or official language (English as is the case here) it is generally identified as a Dialect. Languages have a defined manner of speaking, or reading-writing them "Properly". They (languages) are subject to rules, standards, and other things, that strive to make a universal or Lingua-Franca of them. Imposing, if you will, a parameter of reciprocity and accuracy for the manner in which we communicate.

But neither English nor Mandarin (two very powerful globalized languages), are spoken with the precision set by the standard prosody, phonology, and other colorful lexicons. In ancient times Greek and Latin unified the known diplomatic and business world. But even then, Callisthenes and Plutarch noted the abysmal difference in tone and color in the Greek used by the Argyraspides, as they shouted “Fuck You” to the Persian armies.

Francisco Petrarca (aka: Petrach) is my hero and a great friend of my friend Dante and Edmund Spencer. In this non-triad of ours, we find a great-deal of comfort when reading Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron satirizing of Medieval culture (in Italian). Vernacular or not De Vulgaria Eloquent was read, along with the emancipation deeds of Cantar De Mio Cid, somewhere in Naples or in the Kingdom of Castile. These works were read but not in Latin.

Seven hundred years later languages are still evolving: English, Spanish, Mandarin, Bengali… Evolving away from the standards set by the Roya British House of Rarara or the Real Spanish Academy of Rarara. People in the markets, barbershops, and luncheonettes are speaking in ways/manners dictated by their idiosyncrasy, culture, social status. They are not afraid of saying “Up-Yours” in two ways, the proper and the Vernacular; in the Gaelic or the English!

And to illustrate my idea further I have invited Eruditus in the matter:

Exempli Gratia:

La Sequia

2009-10-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

Ayer llovio. Los noticieros anunciaron, titubeantes, la tormenta 42 horas antes. Decian que el aguacero era la ruina del fenomeno que azotaba entonces la isla Kribati. Pero los cielos permanencieron azules. No hubo augurio celestial alguno o gris pronostico que insinuara aquella terrible tormenta. Aquella hermosura plomiza que se desplomo como llanto infantil sobre las llanuras y las cordilleras.

Se comenta entre la gente que el sol aqui, en el Norte de California, rara vez escatima sus rayos. Desde Marzo solo pare dias rubios a 26,000 años luz. Y los cielos que pinta, ya no se sabe, si son mares, ojos, o el techo lo que se alza sobre nosotros que somos su pueblo.

Y nadie se imagino que dos meses antes que falleciera el 2009 lloveria. En el sanatorio los enfermos ardian con una sed de lluvia pero la muerte, subita, les arrebato la vida mucho antes que la naturaleza pariera la primera tormenta del invierno Californiano. La duraznera y el cerezo silvestre tambien sucumbieron dejando los vestigios de aquella esperanza de lluvia en sus troncos y hojas marchitas.

La señora de la cafeteria donde compro mi matutino café dijo que ensoño una tormenta tropical hermosa. Esto me lo dijo una semana antes que lloviera. En el sueño, ella corria desnuda sobre arriates sedosos, embarrandose la planta de los pies. El agua le azotaba y los arboles de Mango, verdes y altos, se mecian con el viento. Tanto asi que sus frutos repicaban casi sazones, casi maduros al ritmo de una cancion atmosferica.

A mi me lo dijo un olor. Un aroma a suelo y matorral humedecido. Y no me sorprendi cuando en la madrugada no toco el sol mi ventana, como es su costumbre, filtrando la luz por entre los renglones superiores de la persiana-americana. En las calles persistian penumbras largas y pequeñas luces municipales. Y una llovizna, arisca y plateada, arrinconaba charcos oscuros por las esquinas.

Cuando el dia llego a medio-dia la tormenta maduro y solto un torrente cabron. Unas tres o cuatro horas duro el asedio. Un chaparron mudo, sin truenos, pero armado de un viento filoso. Que sin piedad mutilo cientos de Eucaliptos. Impregnando El Camino Real de un aire amentolado y triste. En sus costados, las veredas hacian lagunas ovaladas y desmesuradas que los coches reventavan con rabia. Para que luego, las hormigas se alzaran, desbandadas, a los montes y las alturas.

Ayer se me antojo, como cuando eramos niños, caminar descalzo bajo la lluvia. O refundirme en aquel rincon ahumado para mirar el fuego de la chimenea consumirse… Y contar los minutos para el primer hervor de la sopa. Mientras el viento repasaba con ligereza la huerta y el cipres.

Institution: The Peninsular Libraries

2009-10-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

Many things are institutions: organisms established for the purpose of Social Order. All institutions arises out of the collective efforts to build something for a certain purpose (educational, ecclesiastic, legislative, or military). Perhaps, these very institutions will inevitably guide collective efforts towards tyranny, democracy, utopia or God. Who can say for sure?

Homeostasis keeps the body in constant equilibrium through a complex and collective effort between organs and the neuro-endocrine system. Thus, homeostasis works sort of like an institution does today, keeping a standard rhythm in society. I imagine that celestial forces worked just as hard, as the founders of any ecclesiastical, legislative or judicial institution in our present day (keeping order within bodies).

And this is why America is great, the greatest still. America as in the United States of America… Yes I said it, America is great! A great and relatively young nation with nearly intact organs (legislative, executive…) constantly pumping new-ideas and setting parameters for others. I’ve minor discrepancies with some of their institutions which appear overly-benevolent with matters that need a? How should I say this? A more Sulla approach!

America isn’t great because you can drink coke or sprite; eat burger-king or mcdonalds; or because the same Arabs/Persians/Medes/Moros who hate it get to live here too. America is great because any troglodyte, literate or illiterate, has Rights… Gets a lawyer, food, medicine, doctor’s-care and barbecues mammals at the park on Sunday and leaves all the garbage for city-paid employees to pickup. Grand!

The resources American institutions provide to the general public… Holy shit! Just look at America’s libraries. Most are highly equipped, with gee-zillions books, ranging from “How to Peel Cassava” to “Australopithecus Peeling Cassava”. With such an awesome array of technical-tools and facilities that it makes it a pleasure to know tax-deductions are going to support such an honorable institution.

In this critical times, when unemployment rates have reached a staggering 13% in California and the greatness embodying America’s institutions is in a process of recovery. Libraries, from San Mateo to Palo-Alto are stepping-up to the challenge of providing employment resources, human development tools to the unemployed and giving underprivileged people genuine and “Sustainable” support.

Fuck that! Kinkos charges $5 for three-seconds of internet and .50 cents for prints, plus an additional .5 cents for the air breathed within their premises. Starbucks has hardly any tables, usually these are filled with Employed-lazy-people who pretend to be conducting some kind of fancy business-conversation but in reality they’re just bullshitting, while drinking coffee. Anyway, their coffee sucks, bitter as motha-focker, costs an average of $2.80 per cup, and you have to have a wireless plan ($80 a month to $20 a day); or an iron-ass to sit in those wooden-chairs for 30 minutes.

So where in the world will a desperate mother, with like 3-kids at home, and out of work, find a resource that does not imply spending the last $10-bill she has in her purse, to apply for a shit-job that only accepts online submissions? Who will create her email account for free? Or help her with a resume builder reference?.. Indeed my friend!

I say that: Medical and Educational institutions serve as Symbols of a nation’s greatness for these institutions are the product of Collective Efforts. And a Collective Effort is Democracy at work or what Phocion and I call Common Cause. True that! Hospitals and public schools need some minor changes such as: greater parental accountability and less pharmaceuticals puppeteers. But that's just me talking shit.

Fuck the Romans! They did nothing at Fort Dun Aonghasa. Yet it stands as a magnificent monuments, translating the splendor of a town, the collective efforts of a country, their people… So how do monuments relate to institutions? I don’t know but at the time I wrote the above, it made sense to me.

I guess what I mean, aside of being useful and splendid, the Peninsular Libraries reflect (like mirrors do) the noble intentions of: a people, the county, cohorts of philanthropists, communists, republicans, democrats (call them what you wish), of making true Societal Development or Social Impact.

Riding the Rail

2009-10-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

14 years spent riding up and down Manhattan entrails. Used to take the 4-line to 59th so I could transfer to an R headed for Q-Gardens but usually I stepped-off at Long Island City. With time things changed and I went underground to catch Fs or Es headed for Rockefeller. Or flew upon a scarlet downtown bound 2 or 3 express (raka-takata-takata-takata).

And it is a shame, a dam shame I can’t put this 411 on my resume. Shit! You know it takes years of practice to hold a cup of hot-coffee while standing on a crowded, rush-hour train. It is a fucking piece of art: the train rocking side to side, your coffee on the right, your left hand holding the rail, and the battery-battery-one$-lady trying to squeeze between your balls and the woman reading the Newsday.

My brother Charly is an eminence. An Artist if you will. He can read the paper, drink coffee, and play music on his pod; while standing cool on a very-crowded downtown 5-line. Charly says, there is no need for Shakespeare or Euripides. He has seen all the drama on NYC’s Subways. But it takes time, nostalgia, and distance to eventually realize there is drama, folklore within these seemingly small habitual incidents.

Who can forget the eternally pregnant lady on the F-line? On her knees upon the grimy car’s floor, pleading for her baby’s life, tears in her eye, like Hecuba at Menelaus feet. I saw her act nearly 45 times in 2 years. And Black-Willy made such compelling argument every morning on the ride down from 125th to 86th justifying his state of homelessness, that you would think he had studied law at Columbia. We all agreed, when on an uptown 3-line someone yelled “God-dam that brotha can sing” after hearing for the 60th time Sugababy do his Bryan McKnight impression. Amazing, said some tourist when awed by Dynamic-Four’s acrobatic performance to the beat of hollow-white paint buckets.

There are a few comical recollections. Like the guy wearing really short-shorts in January and the beautiful girl sitting next to him, perplexed by the sight of his giant penis sticking out. The hookers wearing short-short skirts and no panties and we all remembered the one on the left had a piercing. And holy-shit I almost threw-up when urgency called upon a crack-head (not politically correct term. Vernacular for drug-addict) and he took a dump (defecated) right in the middle of the Times-Square transfer-tunnel.

Hard to forget the humid/hot days of mid-July, the crowded 6 local train without AC, you and like 500 other people stuck on a dark warm tunnel and a homeless guy sleeping right on the navel of the car. That stench stays with you for at least 24 hours. Much like the echoes of the Erhu at Bowery or the Quena at 149th Grand Concourse, linger past midnight in the city that never sleeps... Where the brave may live forever!

Para Mercedes

2009-10-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

Que año mas hijo de puta y aun le restan 2 meses. Escribo esto muy afectado por la muerte de Mercedes que se suma a la de Antonio. Con ella se va mas que una vida, con ella se pierde un poco de la humanidad, que tanto nos hace falta.

No supe de su muerte hast ahora que lo lei en la 21 pagina del New York Times. La noticia me tomo por sorpresa, asi como la de Antonio. Dejandome un nudo en la garganta, como cuando se va un amigo, un hermano, un alguien cercano a nuestro corazon. Asi siento este luto. Vi su cuerpo sin vida, extendido sobre el piso brilloso del parlamento en Buenos Aires. Y me pregunto por que me siento asi? Yo solo conoci su voz en los cassettes y su cara la vi en la tele y en las portadas de sus discos. Me pregunto por que me sabe amargo que Mercedes no este con nosotros.

Hoy vine con una buena intencion. Queria escribir cosas lindas, amenas, alguna historieta divertida. Pero asi no se puede. Me falla la memoria y resbalo en la pesadumbre que me causa saber que la gran Mercedes ya no esta…

No somos eternos dicen los que saben. Se entiende, pero coño una cosa es decirlo y otra creerselo. En fin, nada se puede hacer, es ley de vida. Solo quedaran miles de epitafios repicando tu gloria Mercedes. Como aun se repican las glorias de Antonio, Fernando Fernan, Luciano… Y demas genuinas e humildes lumbreras!

Las luces de Buenos Aires, Madrid, New York, y este pueblo de mierda donde vivo se encenderan, como se encienden con cada anochecer; opacando las estrellas que se asoman ariscas en el firmamento. Vos, Mercedes seguro estas con ellas:

“Y cuando llegue el día del último viaje, y esté al partir la nave que nunca ha de tornar, me encontraréis a bordo ligero de equipaje, casi desnudo, como los hijos de la mar” (A. Machado)

On Research

2009-09-30T15:27:00.000-07:00

Like three years ago. Around 2006 I made some independent research on Remittances. The work focused on the issue of how: money sent by migrant workers to various Latin American countries affected the economy of a particular nation. Sounds easy; but it was not! I spent nearly six-months compiling statistical data, reading many, many, published investigations on the subject. And holy-shit was it boring at times.

My hypothesis was something like: if Latin American migrant-workers stop sending money back home, such and such countries economies would collapse. Now, making the statement was the easy-part. Having the ground to pitch a tent for the statement was the problem. Pretty soon, I found myself narrowing and narrowing the ideas, running into many issues, and drinking many cups of coffee.

For example Migrant Workers… I just wrote this word and you are already thinking “Undocumented Workers”. Remember not all workers are migrants, not all migrants come from Latin America (LA). Anyway, the other matter had to do with narrowing the specific country where the workers would be sending the money from. There are, believe or not, migrant workers in Australia and Europe.

The second matter was looking at demographical data from different sources. This data gave me an idea of which nations… But wait before that I had already narrowed my research to: LA migrants residing in the US and their remittances as the Independent variable (or the action that makes the reaction); and 3 Latin American countries, whose domestic economy was highly dependant upon these remittances.

Bullshit aside I did learn a lot. I learned that the money people send to their families back-home makes, as they say here in Cal, Hella-differences. This buying-power was (is) transforming LA (not that LA) at a super-fast rate. Environmental, demographical, health, and other changes were taking place do (in great part) to this influx of dinero-$.

Beyond south of the border, families were buying houses, horses, land, and cars. And people were actually gaining weight. In turn we saw changes in the environment. More houses were being built and deforestation came along, followed by other environmental changes. And the skinny-guy, down the corner, no more! He was now officially overweight. Thanks to migrant remittances.

So, are/were remittances bad or good? All depends upon whom. There were many people, a small percentage, who did not receive any outside aid. These families, who earned wagers according to Latin American standard, were suffering. Because they could not afford the cost of living (food, rent…) which was influenced by ones who could (the ones receiving external aid) afford it.

Now you know anytime someone sent money back-home; the $ sent did not stay under the mattress, right? Nor did senders get to send their remittances for free. They paid a fee to a bank for each international transaction. In turn, the receiver paid tariffs on food and such. Unfortunately, these intricate processes led (according to my investigation) to NO proven sustainable change.

Sustainable is just a big-word for saying that these LA countries did shit (nothing) to prevent (or contain) poverty, create jobs, or prepare future generations for a globalized-economy (which requires technical skills and a baseball-cap). In fact, (and according to my research) El Presidente encouraged his people to leave. Through his motto, “be daring, risk your life crossing the border, then send me a postcard, and then a money-gram”.

Now, today, with the US economy in the state of recovery, migrant workers are turning back; back to their homelands beyond the border. New questions arise: Will “El Presidente” be able to accommodate his returning citizens and how will these economies survive without the remittance boost? Will there be a new slogan?

Four Hundred Mornings

2009-09-29T11:19:00.000-07:00

I think the light above us was dusk
Leisurely electric ones lit the city life
And the shadow down the street was you
You in your trench gray winter coat
Holding the withered petals of a red-rose… My gift

At the bar your eyes turned to jade
Almost matching the parsley upon the veal
Beyond the blushed Petit Verdot expression
Singapore had left a honey character upon your skin
Autumn was in your hair and outside
Perched somewhere on the Central Park trees

And your voice echoed in the nearly empty restaurant
We stumble on a little courvoisier
And I moved the chairs so we could dance
Holding you and saying, the skirt & boots made you taller
And you laughed. I said that I missed you
Then you kissed me and it was. As if it was my first kiss

Somehow the night swept us out. Out to a cosmic sea
Our vessel, tinted sweet, sour, and bitter
I said it felt like love
You pressed your breast, your fragrance against me
And we made vain promises:
A kid, a home… A rainy day in Madrid

400 mornings I woke up next to you
You stayed passed Christmas and spring
Just for me… Procrastinating
And I could never imagine Amsterdam without you
Or the summer rain soaking us and Madison
Or that heartbreaking noon at JFK

Mañana de Septiembre

2009-09-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

Se me escapo el alma una mañana brillante de Septiembre del 2001. Cuando aborde aquel anden gris de la calle Chambers en Manhattan, New York. Lo aborde ahi justo donde terminan o se parten los portales del alcalde y su alcaldia. En la esquina me tope con el viento. Entrariamos pronto en otoño, pense. Y luego cruze Broadway para buscarme un café en el Diner. Mientras Aetios me servia un regular with cream recorde que era Martes 11. Afuera, aguardaban aglomeradas aceras y decenas de taxis mostazas cruzando veloces semaforos verdes.

La tarde del 10 de Septiembre se desplomo una tormenta terrible. Que azoto Manhattan de tal manera que fue casi imposible cruzar Brooklyn-Bridge. La lluvia sereno muy pasada la media-noche. Y amanecio un paradogico clima tornasol con cielos casi despejados. Un dia bueno para caminar 5 cuadras hasta: BMCC-CUNY. La susodicha universidad.

Esa mañana encontre al mendocino Alejandro emergiendo de un subterraneo. Traia un paraguas en su funda. Compartiamos la clase de historia y el morbo por los pechos de Vivian. Caminamos, animados, discutiendo los distintos angulos de Vivian. Y de por que Garcia Marquez era mediocre pero afamado. Alejandro dijo que los Colombianos tenian buenas cosas pero Marquez no era la mejor. Y que tomar mate en NYC era por nostalgia, y en Corrientes era por costumbre. Una respuesta sin sentido, pense!

A las 9am, en punto, el Dr. Gumbagiani se remontaria al siglo VII para cabalgar de punta a punta el Imperio Carolingio… Minutos antes nos golpearia un sonoro-trueno las espaldas. Un retumbo terrible que crecio y se perdio en eco. No hubo tiempo para conjeturas. Faltaban 10 minutos para las 9. Y con el ruido nos perdimos en la trifulca del electrico graderio.

Escalamos hasta el 5to piso. A medio llenar estaba el aula. Vivian nos saludo con un leve respingo de sus hermosos senos, pasamos apurados a tomar unos asientos aledaños al ventanal. Y el Dr. Gumbagiani se incorporaba a la campaña belica en Roncesvalles, anunciandonos la muerte del Britanico Roldan.

Alguien. Kanwel dijo que fue el boricua Pachanga. Que dio el primer alarido que las Torres Gemelas ardian. Para que luego, se nos echara encima la clase entera, atiborrando el area panoramica del aula.

Recuerdo como juntos mirabamos tremendas fumarolas flotar rumbo a Newark. Apresuradas cruzaban negras por encima de las molleras, los carros, y un rio triste. Tambien miramos como abruptamente un avion plateado corto el panorama y se hiso mierda. Golpeando una de las torres con tal fuerza que la logro traspasar de lado a lado. Una estocada de fuego que nos dejo atonitos.

Despues de los ecos y el miedo. Gumbagiani supo hablarnos y regresarnos un poco de serenidad. A unos 25 rostros conturbados nos dijo con su caracteristico estilo, italiano-judio-bedford-stuyvesant “que nada, ni un coño tenian que ver esos aviones con nosotros!.. Un piloto borracho de Jersey probablemente”. Y no permitio que las Sirenas, ni sus llantos se robaran nuestra calma. Nos pedia, con nombre y apellido, tomar asiento y calma.

El presidente de la susodicha universidad, evacuo aquel plantel quince-minutos antes que las estocadas de los 2 aviones derribaran una de las torres. Y para evitar las salidas sobre Chambers. Juntos, Kanwel, Alejandro, Naoko, y Alan-Wu armamos una fuga terrible por las escaleras de emergencia. Una fuga que nos puso en Harrison & Hudson.

Sobre Worth St. estariamos cuando nos golpe aquella nube gris. Una neblina espesa que se pegaba a los costados de los pulmones y West Broadway & Church St. Justo ahi se desplomo Naoko, abatida por el aire. Se desmayo. Alan-Wu se restregaba los ojos y vomitaba. Yo queria hacer cosas parecidas y no podia. Imposible, sostenia a Naoko entre mis brazos. Una procesion de gente corria, renqueaba y se desplomaba, calle arriba y abajo. Ellos, nosotros, todos, añorabamos cruzar la frontera mas alla de 14th St. O mejor aun el East River. Y dejar aquel averno atras!

Kanwel montada sobre la espalda de Alejandro, cruzo Church y se toparon con el Serpico-NYPD. Era un cacho mas alto que Pacino. Quien llego hasta nosotros descorbatado en su traje gris (straight-cut). Se disculpo por solo tener una botella de agua-tibia. Y mirando a Naoko le pregunto “cariño podes caminar? Bien. Sigan derecho hasta cruzar la 14th… O por Dalency para Brooklyn”.

El Serpico-NYPD cambio el revolver de mano; con la otra me paso media botella de liquido. Y luego se fue con el arma en diestra. Se fue trotando. Y se perdio en una espesura de humo, gritos, y calores. Se perdio en un acto de valor.

De los heroes y el heroismo. Tantas antologias leidas. Sabia de sus hazañas y la formacion de sus ejercitos en el campo. Por lo tanto los heroes no eran ajenos a mi. Sus caras eran familiares, las miraba en pedestales, monedas de oro, en los murales del MET y en los escudos plateados. Y erraba, pensando que todos Ellos estaban muertos!

Tres mese o dos depues, nos cayo encima una tarde en Noviembre. Entre Amsterdam y Broadway se desplomo. Estabamos los cinco: Kanwel, Ale, Naoko, Alan… Charlando tomando tragos. Habia llegado un invierno pronto y largo a la ciudad, hacia frio. Estabamos tristes. Amargamente mustios al recordar lo nuestro: la ciudad y sus luces. Aquello que fue y ya no era. Y sentiamos una nostalgia pesada que con cada trago se tornaba mas y mas ligera.

Un hijo de puta desato el llanto de algunos de los comensales en aquel ahumado boliche. Dilatandonos las heridas con canciones tristes que solo nos recordaron los dias alegres en la ciudad. Y de la tristesa pasamos a la oracion. Haciendo incapie en nuestras peticiones a San Bill Clinton de Arkansas y Santa Hillary Rodham of Illinois, pa’que regresaran Manhattan a sus dias de gloria y prosperidad.

“And I thought of all the bad luck and the struggles we went through. And how I lost me and you lost you… I am learning to live without you now. But I miss you sometimes… All the things I thought I knew, I’m learning again… Trying to get down to the heart of the matter but my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter but I think it’s about Forgiveness, Forgiveness…” (D. Henley)

The 911 Anecdote

2009-09-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

The rain had started on Monday, September the 10th. It was an unusual late evening storm, spiked with lightning that (almost) kept me from crossing Brooklyn-bridge. Abruptly it stopped around midnight. And Tuesday, September 11th dawn sunny and bright. And the forecast for autumn was nothing but a cool-breeze. That morning of 9/11/2001, we talked about Buenos Aires as we walked. I said that pretty soon, it would be chilly enough for a bitter Mate. But Alex said he preferred strolling through Corrientes than sipping Mates in NYC.

We were on our way to a 9am class: professor Gumbagiani’s History-II. My coffee was perfect, hot enough, sweet enough, creamy enough a nice combination to the sunny-morning. And seeping it made the climb to BMCC’s portal pleasant. Upon the crowded steep people paced, the city pace, trying to reach their classrooms on time. While traffic on Chambers moved frantically towards city-hall or the west side hwy. One more boisterous morning in NYC, so dense with noise there was little room for bird-chirps or hissing trees.

When we reached the college’s doors, on the lower-level, we heard thunder. Alex said it could not be thunder. It was louder. Like a thunder (to the 3rd power). More like a gas-pipe explosion or a building demolition (was my hypothesis). The noise stayed at our backs, as we rushed up the electric-staircase to the 5th-floor, beating the 8:50 clock. The class was near full. Vivian sat in her usual corner seat, restraining her luscious tits from escaping her wonder-bra’s grip.

Prof. Gumbagiani was lecturing, as if there would be no tomorrow. He praised Theodulf of Orleans and Peter of Pisa for restoring literacy, order, and technology upon the Carolingian Renaissance. At that point someone screamed “holy fuck the twin-towers are on fire”. From that fifth-floor classroom, we saw the plume of dark smoke and heard countless sirens, howling along the perimeter.

I remember. We were all there standing by the skylight. I felt as if by mistake Vivian had pressed her tits against my back. But it was some Korean classmate’s shoulder. The general guess was fire. Fire started by some electrical malfunction. Then came the second-plane, we saw it crash and resonate like a bulk of dynamite. Six sirens passed and I could hear many more coming in the distance. “Be cool” shouted Prof. Gumbagiani and “get the hell away from the windows”.

We sat uncomfortable in our seats. Twisting our necks and murmuring. It must have been 9:35 or 9:40, when the professor guided us through our fears. He got personal in his Bedford-Stuyvesant way and said “the pilot was a drunken jersey driver”. And as he began to do his “saying-no-but-leaning-towards-yes” Mel Brooks impression, the (college) president interrupted him and made an emergency evacuation announcement. Minutes later came-in, a sweaty campus security, urging us to “get the fuck-out… now”.

And that we did, through the frantic hallways. One student fainted, few cried, others trampled or laughed. Faculty and security made vain and tense suggestions to “keep order”. Kanwel, Naoko, Alan-Wu, Alex and I took the swift concrete stairs. Made a right on Harrison St. turned to Hudson and Hudson turned to an enormous wave of smoke. That’s when Naoko fell or fainted and Alan-Wu said his eyes were stinging like a motha-focker.

Someone handed us bottled water. The water was warm. He was some kind of Serpico, taller perhaps. We read the NYPD on his badge while he stood there; in a gray suit with no tie, clasping the heat, the handgun I mean, with the left hand. “Can she walk? Can you walk honey?” he asked Naoko. He was calm as a Dublin drizzle. She nodded. He stared at the mess, the misery, growing beyond Chambers and said “good. So take Broadway and head uptown… Forget-it… Dalancey is the only way out to Brooklyn!”

Not a single brave one. I thought. They, the heroes had died a long time ago. We had their chronicles. Knew their deeds inscribed upon pedestals, silver shields, and golden armors. And as the cop ran opposite us, into the flashing-sirens, into the darkness, and screams… We felt pusillanimous and vulnerable. When we saw him walking into death like that, we thought the deed required a genuine pair of kryptonite-balls… This was beyond Hollywood. A pinch me, am I dreaming catastrophe. But, he, the Serpico-NYPD, rushed head-on and without a silver shield into Hell.

Then came November and winter and 6pm. And we were all sitting near Amsterdam close to Broadway inside French Roast. On the verge of tears we were, drinking bitter shots. Kanwel started to cry mourning her friends at Windows on the World. Alan-Wu said he would enlist to fight the terrorists. Alex wondered if we would be excused from taking the midterms. Naoko was worried about her mom, being worried about her. And I drank three shots too fast. Someone opened the front-door, luring the smell of winter inside. And someone else played the song “Pictures of You” vilipending our wretchedness.

And there we were, alive and mourning. But, oh lord, how sad we were! Manhattan landscapes and portraits of happy-days, hunted us whenever we crossed the checkpoints at 14th. We had lost something that would never be found. Someone had broken our hearts, stolen our faiths, in a single September morning… Fuck the politics, circumstances, wharevaa! Something we love was wounded, our mother, our city was ill.

And we prayed. Oh lord, did we pray, to Saint Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Saint Hillary Rodham of Illinois to heal our city. To turn the clocks back… Back to like 1995!

Sorteo de la Necesidad

2009-09-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

Es demasiado ambiguo llamar cualquier cosa “Una Necesidad”. Pienso? Las necesidades son variadas y complejas, con caracteristicas biologicas, fisicas, materiales, o emocionales. Todo depende, me explico?

En la B-street de San Mateo me encontre con una hipotesis. Estaba ahi clavada en un tablero la pobre, una mañana de fin de semana. Una teoria sobre lo que podria constituir una Necesidad. Una cosa de locos; una hipotesis escrita dentro de un mediocre periodico de pueblo. Venga ya… Que nadie me lo va a creer!

Aburrido uno se lee cualquier plasta. Y eso me paso. Luego de leerme varios articulos vivaces, de como jovenes-idiotas se desviven fumando marijuana, manchando las paredes con jeroglificos que nadie entiende. Hasta lograr su objetivo final: recibirse con honores de alguna institucion estatal… Entre estos lei uno muy interesante que cito-textualmente. Unas clausulas bastantes graves. Inventadas por aquel organismo esteril que es Las Naciones Unidas:

Considerando que el desconocimiento y el menosprecio de los derechos humanos han originado actos de barbarie ultrajantes para la conciencia de la humanidad, y que se ha proclamado, como la aspiración más elevada del hombre, el advenimiento de un mundo en que los seres humanos, liberados del temor y de la miseria, disfruten de la libertad de palabra y de la libertad de creencias (Preambulo, 1948)

Una tabarra de cita! Que sin embargo refuerza aquella pre-conception que ya tenia de lo que forma, contundentemente una Necesidad:

Sosegar la sed y el hambre son cosas de poco pensar. En general las necesidades biologicas requieren pocos esfuerzos. Con la excepcion de la mujeres que se prostituyen por necesidad. Comer, dormir, obrar y engendrar para que siga vivo el espirutu son poca cosa. Sabermos libres es la otra... Esta es la buena.

Hace muchos años. Unos 15-18 años atras, acosado por un empacho acudi a la farmacia de un pueblo. A la salida me tope con una anciana y sus nietos. Harapientos, mocosos, se masticaban unas tortillas de maiz, sumergian sus dedos indices en un poco de sal que luego se llevaban a la boca. Una nube de moscas y moscarrones les acompañaba, ron-roneandolos.

Cuando le pregunte, me dijo que ese era el almuerzo. Ella, era la abuela y que los padres de los 5 niños estaban muertos, los mataron unas balas de M-16. Que con el abuelo y una pala excavaron la fosa, sobre un predio donde casi se miraba el mar. Y trabajaban seis meses en las podas y los restantes en las cortas de cosechas. Ellos no conocian la ciudad, ni la radio, ni el televisor, y los aviones los conocian por que pasaban botando bombas de 500 libras. Ninguno sabia leer, ni escribir. El tiempo lo median las sombras y los inviernos las tormentas. Tampoco sabian del secuestro de Europa por una banda de Minoicos. Pues estas mierdas no eran importantes no se podian sembrar, ni comer, ni nada.

“Tenemos Necesidad” dijo la anciana con la mirada llena de luz, “sufrimos mucho pero asi es”. Yo en mi memez no entendi nada. Ahora que ella, seguro esta en la gloria, le comprendo la leccion de vida.

Con este parametro por delante llege finalmente a la conclusion que las Necesidades son una mierda. Que ni las Naciones Unidas, ni nadie podrian definir en un absoluto. Por que la felicidad que es la Necesidad satifecha, no es reciproca para nadie. Y para estos menesteres, esta supuestamente Dios, para surtir ecuanime: Necesidades vs. Felicidades.

Y quien dijo que no hay discrepancias en el surtido de las mentadas? Si las hay, unas mas grandes que otras… Este es el mundo!

Los Maestros

2009-08-25T17:08:00.000-07:00

Estabamos con Verena en el Punta-Arenas. Un dia celeste de esos que cunden los Marzos de El Salvador. Sentados frente al mar estabamos. Almorzando boca-colarada y gallina asada, bebiendo refresco de granadilla y botellas de agua mineral con hielo. La sombra era buena, holgada, una marquesina de palmas entretejida. Una sombra cojonuda gruesa que permitia ver con claridad la meseta plomiza del oceano y como en dicha se perdian camaroneros con sus barcazas nevadas.

La contorcionada carretera, hedionda a perro muerto, nos llevo hasta San Alfonso-La Libertad y su enjambre de playas. Y la brisa de aquel caluriento medio-dia nos dejo en Punta Arenas. Verena se extravio premeditadamente de Sister Cities y su attaché Suizo, para venirse conmigo de pinta. Un pretexto: agotar nuestra platica. Aquel tema ofuscado sobre los pseudo-delegados-internacionales. Un puñado de gilipollas y paraliticos turistas disfrasados de Observadores Electorales, era mi unica sintesis. Pero Verina de manera muy anglosajona e diplomatica me llamo “Miope” y se cago en mi argumento. Recordandome la vieja teoria sobre la gota de agua y la piedra.

Yo le atendi cada una de sus frases e inauditamente, pensaba en Maria Fernanda, la Española. Maria era la viva replica de la virgen de Fatima. Pero las dos se hospedaban en el Torogoz; una pension mediocre con poco que recordar. En esta se hospedaban tambien diversos miembros de: Doctores Sin Fronteras, Redes Solidarias, Share Foundation, y yo.

Cuando la brisa mecia el verde-seda de los cocoteros, sus ojos, los de Maria Fernanda, me miraban. Tambien recordaba su piel dorada con una viveza terrible. Mas aun, cuando Verina me tomo de la mano y descalzos nos hicimos a la mar. La marea estaba baja y el oleaje apenas molestaba las pantorrillas. Y al romperse las olas, el golpe tenia un acento Madrileño que frustraba las ganas… Impetuoso, el sol, nos correteo hacia umbrias espesas. Verina se bebio casi de golpe una orange-crush, se desplomo en una hamaca, y se embozo con la sombra de unos almendros.

No se de donde salio la niña? Caminaba bordeando la marea, el oleaje, evitando arenas candentes. Andaba desnuda de pies, cargando sobre la mollera una enorme canasta. La niña era menuda, su vestido estaba desteñindo, sucio, su piel quemada. Y se empecino en llegar hasta nosotros para vender fruta-cortada y bisuteria.

Tenia, para la venta, pedazos de coco, sapotes, guayabas; gargantillas y pulseras echas de carey y piedras de mar. Andaria la niña, estimo, en su decada de vida. Su sonrisa estaba lejana y lugubre como pelicano sin bandada. Miraba de re-ojo una melena vikinga dormida y con vos de zenzontle mercadeaba su canasta. No compre nada, pero pague por todo, y le pregunte que haria con la ganancia.

Abasteceria la alacena de su casa con frijoles, arroz, aceite. Hablaba en segunda persona la criatura. Eso creia que haria su progenitora. Pero ella queria unas calzetas y zapatos de charol. Para que la dejaran de joder la Seño y el Profe: Los Maestros. Con sus reglas de acero, sus varas de guyabo, sus cinturones de cuero; y el caracter encolerizado, violento de puta madre.

Le fastidiaba a la Seño y al Profe su desnudes de pies, y ella no comprendia por que? Si el colibri, la iguana, y el mismisimo Nazareno camino descalzos alguna vez. Yo trate de explicarle a la criatura, disimulando aquella nube triste que se agolpo en mis ojos. Que ellos, Los Maestros, le pegaban por alegria, pues se miraban reflejados en ella. Y eso les acarreaba una nostalgia de su niñes, quizas? Le dije y se me cerro la voz.

Verena, se levanto de su hamaca y le explico que en Europa, Canada, y los Estados Unidos, los maestros son pueriles y facilmente los manipulan los estudiantes. Tambien le conto, en su castelllano quebrado. Que presos estarian muchos por pegarla a tan fragiles niñas como ella! Y la criatura esbozo una tremenda sonrisa de dientes perdidos. Añadiendo ironicamente, que en dichos paises los estudiantes hacian llorar a los maestros de tan bestias que eran.

La niña le pregunto si los niños que trabajaban de dia se desmayaban en la clase de fisica por la tarde? Si los maestros los regañaban, cuando les chillaba mucho la tripa de tanta hambre? Si los pupitres eran de piedra o de cemento? O si alguien reparaba las goteras en los inviernos; y si los perros-callejeros podian quedarse echados en las afueras de las aulas rascandose la sarna?

Cuando se marcho la criatura, Verena tiro su cara contra mi omoplato y se echo a llorar. Blasfemo contra todos los Santos, el Niño Dios y sus iniquidades. Despotrico, encolerizada. Sollozaba y apenas lograba decir que los gobiernos y su autoridad eran una mierda, una sarta de hijos de puta. Azarandome con su vaiven de idiomas. Despotricaba en Aleman, Castellano, Ingles, y Frances; reduciendo a los ediles de la mentada nacion a boñiga y cosas peores. Estaba poseida con un espiritu guerrillero, queria alzarse en armas, asechar San Salvador y gritar “Libertarias” desde un cerro, un “Pital” nevado.

Not The Same Without You

2009-08-19T16:51:00.000-07:00

“K” threw away my sneakers! Shoes for running they were and I had them since July of 2000. Next year Pheidippides and I were planning a surprise commemoration for them. And to celebrate our decade-old bipedal relationship we would cross golden-gate. But “K” threw them-away, said they looked dirty, ragged, and the left one had a small hole near the toe. Said she was ashamed to see me walk in them among people wearing brand-new and expensive sneakers.

I made several arguments, stepped on some legal-grounds, to avoid losing the shoes. Inanimate objects that I felt were indeed part of me, my life, companions along bridges and fields. Crossing them and conquering together. Many times, we scale San Mateo’s Pyrenees and Palatine hill at Coyote Point. And only once did they falter, that April morning, when the dew and grass conspired to sprain my ankle.

Harsh and adamant, “to the dumpster with these fucking shoes” she, “K”, screamed and subsequently grabbed a garbage bag from under the kitchen-counter and placed my dear-old, rubber- sole, Bucephalus in it. And plead, did I, on their behalf to the point of childish tears. Banal attempts to subdue “K’s” practical, unsentimental, mature, down to earth, ways of thinking.

But I… I remembered! Crossing the East-River through the Manhattan bridge's indigo-painted steel, feeling my lungs expand on Flatbush Ave. and the joy. What joy; to palpate Adams St. under my feet and sense one sea-scented tip of wind brushing my earlobes. We slowed down at Brooklyn Bridge’s plexus, to dodge the tourists and admire the city in her gray, glass and lights outfit. Our prize: one and only one, to embrace her. My NY Athena for whom I will endure a thousand more perils and derisions.

Once, after jogging along the sea-shore at Half-Moon bay. I remarked to “K” that I had felt as if I were running barefoot. But she misunderstood me and thought I meant uncomfortable. And from that time-on she persisted on me buying new fucking-shoes. This was around late May or was it June? The new sneakers make me look like the rest of the nice-Californians who like to purchase nice equipment and special things to practice any dam sport. Shit! Ancient civilizations ran butt-naked and barefoot.

When I said barefoot, I meant freedom, feeling the earth under my feet. Sure nice-Californians-smiled (out of mockery or habit) at my shoes, they were dirty and worn-out. But I liked them! We share many experiences, ran, sometimes walked hundreds of streets in many cities. And I wondered, on sleepless nights, whose hands in Sri Lanka crafted the dam-shoes. What boy/girl, young man/woman, southwest of the Bay of Bengal made a pair of bloody shoes that lasted nearly a decade? Surely, they were not capitalists.

So here Taprobaneans/Sri-Lankans, whom-ever made the shoes (my dear Becephalus-sneakers). Forgive me for I don’t know the word for gratitude in Sinhala o Tamil. But here, accept my outmost gratitude for your harsh and underpaid work! The shoes “K” threw away, which you made, I bought on sale, at the Roosevelt field mall in Long Island. Destiny made those fucking shoes travel nearly 22 hours on a plane just to be with me. But it was all worth it. RIP my dear companions!

Atonia de Espiritu

2009-08-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

Sedimentario o metamorfico pedrusco que ni palpa, ni percibe
Inmutado con la brisa que con tisues la espesura solivianta
Piedra de mierda! Descalabradora de tobillos
Apoltronando su igneo acantilado para obturar un horizonte punico
Demetrio Poliorcetes, impreco a Rodas y su escollo de mierda!
Y en su litiasis renal, alguien, maldice perversas rocas

Sentir el surimiri matutino o el rebasar de las horas
No es cosa de rocas
Con el reumatismo apetecen: medulas y vertebrados de granito o zircon
Envidio la roca que siente nada y es ajena al dolor
Envidio un corazon de magma, desliadora de pasiones
Escudero, cojonudo, en amores
Hormigon de mierda, apeadero despiadado
Que rompio mis unicos zapatos
Peñascosa explanada
Sordamuda a los gemidos de un vendaval o una madre

Entre las diagenesis del mediterraneo
Duermen heroes que sueñan con Brasidas
Y alcanzan poco sus arrecifes
Pa’ contener la furia tremenda del Duque de Medina
En la costa jamas habra panteon suficiente para Machado
Y menguara el marmol en las canteras
Por que su vida no es para las piedras de mierda
Sus versos patrimonios del Altisimo!
Y no calaran mis pueriles versos los oidos de Don Antonio
O por el coño, que me descalabrara!
Lapidandome con guijarros!

Trocha pedregosa del putas: es la vida
Zancadillandonos en vesperales luminosidades
La uña encarnada el grito, y la pregunta?
Quien cojones puso esta puta piedra en el camino!
Fue el amor, sera el azar, o la guadaña?
Cosas inauditas del destino... El trance al infinito

Gruta adentro repican con zafiedad unos bramidos
Brama el cielo, se empapa la tierra repica la lluvia
En los tejados, en el suelo
Y me lloro una esperanza, una pena, una nostalgia
Sentado en la puta piedra

A Orillas del Potomac

2009-08-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

Tube la intencion de exponer/examinar prosiciones coetaneas al tema de “Salud Publica”, y las futuras reformas al sistema. Que por cierto es un tema quemado. Incendiado por las H.R. 3200, H.R. 1495, S. 698, y demas actas, cuyas finalidades son las mismas: una supuesta metamorfosis. O mas bien, unos delirios de promesas monotonas, que ni pretenden, ni pueden modificar NADA! El presidente Obama y su persuasiva catedra le dan buena pinta a la fabula, tal citron al pollo, y el pueblo energumeno se lo traga, con pan, tortilla, y pepsicola.

Por lo tanto, escribir de ello seria como mearse en un regato, en un dia gris de noviembre, a medio chaparron. No tendria sentido. Pues ya existen cientos, que digo, miles de ensayos, articulos, y otras cabronadas escritas que solamente destacan un monton de DUDAS. “Ni-Sis-ni-Nos”. Descojonados pedazos de calamburadas caracteristicas del Washington Post y sus starbucks-adeptos periodistas.

Cinco factores estan en juego: Obama y su buena voluntad, gremios-medicos (sus sueldos), cofradias boticarias (y sus ganancias), los temibles Lobbyists (en planilla), y la zozobra de un pueblo Estadoinidense que pretende vivir para siempre. Factores que solo afectaran de modo economico al iluso y comun plebeyo (como ego/mei)! Surgira, si es que se asoma algo; una reforma de tonos Obamescos, que repite lo dicho en discursos vigorizantes y tornasoles. Una reforma reciclada y tibia.

Frustrado, zancandilie de editorial en editorial empalagandome la vista con sandezes. Empalago que resulto un excelente movil para treparme a la azotea de mis recuerdos. Embelesandome hasta dejarme a las orillas de un caudaloso y oscuro rio Potomac. El oleaje de la memoria, como mar picado, acarreo un tan solo pensamiento, que nada tubo que ver con la mentada “Reforma” al sistema de salud.

Washington-DC, 2006: Quizas era Agosto o finales de Julio? Huelia a tormenta cuando aborde una 42 rumbo a “Metro Center” y la brisa advertia su severidad. Dicha tempestad finalmente se desmorono, entre la avenida Connecticut y la 19 calle. Faltarian 2.3 tres manzanas para llegar a Farragut. El aguacero era terrible, abrumando canaletas y ventanales.

Un trafico horizontal, se divisaba sobre la calle “K”. Los audifonos tañian una cancion (la de arriba), casi unisono al 4/8 de las gotas. Cuando vire, ella ya estaba ahi, parada frente a un almacen de ropa. Me llamo, sin decirme nada. Ella caminaba descalza, y yo recorde botellas rotas. Se me ocurrio tambien que le faltaba mucho para ser indigente. Empezando por la blusa e falda de mezclillas, y las alpargatas que sostenia entre dedos manicurados. Y esa tez, tendria su origen en San Carlos de Bariloche, Cabo Frio, Sao Goncalo, o Vidigal. Como se sufria tanta lluvia, sin paraguas; sin morbos de nigun tipo, sonriendo, caminando bajo semerenda tempestad. Empapandose sin sentido aquella melena vestal?

A medio-bloque me apie. Un charco me esperaba, remoje mi zapato, el agua estaba tibia y eclipsada. Y me cruzo por la mente un dolor de talon que tube cuando niño. Virando a mi derecha ella se perdio en el desolado bordillo. Y mas alla de ella, manzana y media abajo, sequitos de diplomaticos partian sombrias (en dos), pa-no-mojar su Acobaltada Indumentaria.

And What Ails the Little Town?

2009-07-31T16:39:00.000-07:00

Book-covers are generally poor indicators of literary quality/finesse. Many great books have horrible-covers and vise-versa. So, judging books by their cover will inevitably lead to reading disappointments, or not. And metaphorically speaking, some people like to use the same principle when throwing a conjecture on top of: lives, ways of leaving, personalities/temperaments… of foreign individuals. “Do not judge a book by its cover” is a rather strong statement. Because “Foreign (Foreigner) does not certainly mean that is: poor, bad/wrong, unqualified, dirty, mischievous, foul-smelling, sinister…etc. Plus all other shit people say about other people who are outside their familiarity circles.

It is ok to dislike some people and adore others. It’s healthy! Why not? We have preferences for many things: coital positions, ice-cream, fruit, wines and cheese. Fortunately, depending on whom, religious and other institutions impose tolerance upon its citizens, a nostrum solution which leaves human nature to do its work: Rebel. And so we jump in to the racial wagon again. Expecting to be unified by the grace of God(s) and not skin colors. Regrettably, the latter will crazy-glue communities anytime.

Your book-cover is your exterior, your outer look; your body; skins which will decay, reticent, leaving bleached-bones to posterity and succulent eyeballs for the maggots. If, you prefer cremation, the process will be less grotesque. Sure, we are beyond the skin and the bones. Certainly, we are endowed with spirit, soul, and the intuition to love one-another, regardless of big-penises, voluptuous breasts, long-legs, tallness, or baldness. For in reality what matters is not the Substance, but what Langston Hughes, Machado, and Neruda saw within beasts, men, women and landscape: True Beauty.

The dilemma is sense, particularly: smell, touch, and sight. Impairing or enhancing our judgments, depending on the situation. Such is the case of lions, tigers, and pumas, although Carnivora and Felidae unite them, species divide them. On the other hand, we have Reason on our side. Our cities and ports have one common Phoenician-Hellenic ancestry. We are, after all, one-humanity “Homo sapiens”, divided into shades of skin and nothing more.

A funny thing, I have never experienced such disparity, as I have here in California. When, my dear-old-CUNY-Jewish professor Mr. Lapidus, read out-loud paragraphs from Doctorow’s “Ragtime”, they sounded more like anathema fairytales of a long-gone America. And not the factual derision minorities face on a daily bases. Sadly, it takes years, perhaps a decade or two, to realize that we are beyond skins. That there is good, great and fucked-up in all of us; that God is colorless, odorless and bicultural and-that I am yet to meet him, her, them, the God, The Gods, in Hades or at the Pacific Rim, where they dwell and eat pink-guava ambrosia.

So thank God for the outliers. Rare like shooting stars, looking through tacit eyes of blue, light-blue, black; with solidarity and virtue they dissipate the feeling, the despondency growing behind your chest and mine. Preferring not to perpetuate Stereotypes, and shit-like-that. Giving you that “Sincere”, benevolent, but yet miniscule “Benefit of the Doubt”, cause Ms. P, knows that: if you hit me it hurts, our blood is crimson, her tears are crystal like mine, and hunger calls us equally in visceral growls.

For the Kids

2009-07-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

Soy partidario de fomentar la educacion bilingue. Si lo soy! Enseñele a su hijo(a) la lengua “Madre” en la tibia atmosfera de su hogar: la sala, o la cocina si le place. Proveale un adiestramiento fundamental del 2ndo idioma: oral y escrito. Hagalo, aplicando ortografias basicas, enriquezca su vocablo con floripondeados sinonimos y metaforas coloquiales. Examinen juntos las diversas fracciones que conforman la etimologia de la palabra, de cosas, de nombres, de civilizaciones.

Por otra parte. No soy partidario de institucionalizar el “Bilinguanismo”, si es que existe tal cosa. Pues, engendramos generacion tras generacion de “Niños Mudos” o “Mudencos”…. Predomina o no predomina el Ingles, me pregunto en la sociedad en que vivimos? No es la misma sociedad, donde taciturno alumbra el “Faro de Hercules” y duermen los antiquisimos cimientos de una ciudad alzada por Sertorio. Yo hablo de los Estados Unidos de America donde el idioma mercante e diplomatico es el Ingles.

Aparte de lo decorativo/hobiesco, que proposito tendria entonces, el adiestrar futuras generaciones, en como dominar “Oral y Escritamente” una segunda lengua? Que en nuestro caso seria, demograficamente hablando, el Español. Si los objetivos son el “Desarrollo (Integral) Academico” de futuras generaciones que nos lleven a romper “Los Cercos de la Pobreza Heredad”; nuestra prioridad seria que nuestros hijo/as se enfocaran en aprender debidamente el lenguaje que les lleve al cometido. Un Ingles pulido y coherente, enriquezido, una fina retorica y ensallos que demuestren mecanismos y razonamientos propios, transcendiendo mas alla de los niveles primarios. Por lo tanto aun no entiendo, como los Ministerios de Educacion, gringos se empecinan en fomentar el Bilinguanismo en sus brillantes escuelas publicas.

En algunas escuelas primarias de California por ejemplo, los niño(a)s aprende a leer, escribir, las ciencias sociales y naturales en castellano. Resultado de algun oscurantismo pedagogico que dice que esto les acarreara algun bien, pienso? Y ultimamente se hacen esfuerzos sobre-humanos para encuadrar a los padres de familia “pa-que” ayuden con el adiestramiento de los crios. Desechando los sondeos estadisticos que muestran que gran porcentaje de los latinoamericanos, traspasan fronteras cargando ademas de sus pobrezas. Altos niveles de analfabetismo.

Esta variante igual que la ingnorancia y otros troglodismos-feudales-rurales, se transmiten con sencillez. Agravando la situacion que nada mas conduce a un limbo academico profundo y oscuro. Por lo tanto, tenga en mente que 21 paises, tres continentes (America, Europa, y Africa) mantienen el Español como su lengua oficial. Si usted no puede enseñarle debidamente, comprele un boleto a su hijo(a) para que se foguee y aprenda debidamente el “Castellano”, si esta es la finalidad? De otra forma 2 años de inversion estatal en un programas de ESL bastan, para que su hijo se nivele y se esfuerze por hacer UNA cosa BIEN o nada!

* Y por si no le basta remirese en este espejo. Fijese en la de cagadas ortograficas y demas horrores, cometidos!

Fog My Mountain

2009-07-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

In procession, unwearyingly, he egresses. Mimicking the specters and the illicit affection
Out of bliss exhaled by the sea, he was
Osprey and lynx cast sinister and angled gazes, out of spite or admiration?
Tenderly, he palpates, brushing-aside, her conifer and acacia gown
Ashen hands longing to explore a thousand blossoms… And the skin, of many soils
A torso of clay, gluteus of silt, and the pelvis of humus

Dawn and dusk squatting at her rear, yawning gusts of wind and scarlet auroras

Flocks of siskins rejoice and scatter songs, announcing the copulation’s summit
Relentlessly, verging illumination or gloom he dissipates
Somnolent into Capricorn’s tropic upon swift-clouds, with lightning speed, he journeys
Down her skirt, buckeye and juniper whisper in native brushes
While locusts, poplars and tobaccos hiss their olive melancholy

Amid her mahogany and chinquapin clavicle perches an insolent dwelling, a lonely home
And irrational lodging, scarring her magnificence silk-tassel patch
Broad tanoaks curl-north cervical-vertebrates, elevating her crest of knobcones
She is belligerent overlooking St. Regis Tower, McKensson’s Plaza, and the Pyramid
Disdaining their amber lights and shimmering windows
That opaque constellations and the cove’s halo

Her outer-skirts of alder, hoptree, and elder-berry, make a spacious latrine
Crouched, she micturates upon a profound and crystal reservoir
Releasing a cool leisurely trickle down her shrub-less trail
Sedimentary stone-hands keep the liquid from spilling out to sea
Precious and cerulean, as the heavens, it remains, swaying in the wind
From the sky’s plexus Helios strives, pointless, to evaporate this watery urgency

June’s mornings, lightens her lengthy eucalyptus mane
But moist November hands turn it a pale-green
And her breast of poppy, aster, and skullcap blossom in the heats of late March
On trimesters, marine drafts run Victorian brushes through her head
Subjugating valley and shore, with her splendor
Claiming reign over the topography and the towns within it

For his misty hands she is exclusive and tamed
Instinctively surrendering the sensuousness in her life; he will come… She knows
Mimicking the specters and the illicit affection Out of bliss exhaled by the sea
Palpating, he will brush-aside, her conifer and acacia gown;
And ashen hands will explore blossom breasts…Skins… Of many soils

Yaneth Chavez, NYT, ABC, y Moraleja

2009-07-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

Que elementos encallecen los animos para subvencionar projimos o instituciones beneficas. Estos resultan peliagudas y desalmados al examinarlos; un deslizante contratiempo para el New York Times y sus lumbreras. Venga-ya! Que en Madrid o Barcelona seria una trama que facilmente desmenuzaran los bragados tercios-periodisticos del ABC (informacion objetiva). Mientras que aqui, maquillan la realidad con una sarta de pedejadas. Menudos, frustrantes, matutinos colicos los que causa esta prostitucion de la realidad tan obviamente casta.

Charlie mi hermano de sangre y amigo por que si! Supo definir con tal precision este meollo. La fuente de su saber? Una sala de emergencia en Bronx-Lebanon, y su galeno cometido: “Y usted tiene seguro? Y ellos, me miran con la expresion fruncida. Vos sabes? Y luego sacan un Blackberry de $300 para llamar a la casa por que no se saben su numero. Indagando, te das cuenta que tienen flotillas de autos, diversos planes de cellular, y subsidios para medicina, alquiler, y demas… De caridad en caridad, pasan a una troglodisima y reverenda opulencia. Este mal vivir-rastrero causa pena, posteriormente aburre y se desprecia”.

Y por mucho tiempo vivi en discrepancia con Charlie. Pero Yaneth Chavez y California apedrearon aquel nostalgico y vago bosquejo que tube de la epopeya de los ahora peyorativados “Mojados”. Ellas, Yaneth e amigas, no representan una estadistica contundente. Por lo tanto, lo dicho, me pone en el soberano predicamento/error de pluralizar esta horda de expatriados, como una retahilada de gorrones-sacacuartos.

La Yaneth y su camada (bastagos, et al) le escamotean al estado de California un estimado anual que oscila en millones. Estos millones cubren diversos subsidios: rentas, medicamentos, medicos generales y especialistas, pensiones alimenticias, etc. Sus necesidades, sin embargo, no tienen limites, son tan hermosamente enormes como el firmamento, o las arenas del Gobi, o la sed del dromedario. Urgencias que saquean las alacenas del mismisimo St. Vicent de Paul.

Su modus-operandi es asombroso. Libre de impuestos los mancomunados y mezquinos sueldos de Yaneth y Rigoberto, facilmente raspan los $6800. Y sus vidas que son un enjambre de necesidades y zapatos caros, se ven en sosobra por el pauperrimo estipendio. Porende sus amigas y ella (Yaneth), confabulan metodos alternativos para generar ingresos adicionales. En los que se destacan: arrendamiento de cuartos (tipo motel o a largo plazo), venta illicita de comida, prostitucion (vocacional o cotizada), venta de hierbas-buenas y demas trinqueterias. Elevando los ingresos familiares a $7400 por mes. Indudablemente dicha suma ($7400) “Excluye” subsidios estatales/caritativos, estipulados arriba.

Y a mi que coños me importa la vida de los demas? Muy poco o nada. Una simple y salutifera observacion es lo que hago. Me aflige que 1700 pickup trucks (bernacularmente llamadas Trokas), 800 autos, 550 mini-vans, patrimonios de Yaneth y sus amigas, se zampen de golpe toda la gasoline del condado de San Mateo, California? Si el feudalismo los fogeara adrede para que lograran terribles faenas en honor a la bestia de carga? Acaso, me molesta que Yaneth sise numeros de socials y acaudale creditos con American-Express? EN LO ABSOLUTO.

Y resulta trascendente y paradojica esta moraleja, moldeada por nuestra (percepcion de la) realidades inmediatas… Pues son muchos los incidents que ameritan la pre-disposicion de la sociedad y sus leyes para resguardar al desvalido, al anciano desamparado, a los huerfanos hambrientos… La problematica surge al querer distinguir Legititmos Desvalidos pero al hacerlo no despeñarse y caer en Lagunas de Lagartos.

Sabra Dios que diran de Yaneth y su camada, los emigrantes que de igual manera sufren pobreza e incertidumbre; que aguardaron una eternidad bajo calcinantes soles en el tropico, en Asia, y Africa. Sangrando onzas y gotas de pipi; soportando los escrutinios del personal gringo en las embajadas… Y finalmente de litigio en litigio lograron ganar un pasaporte-visado, una residencia permanente, una ciudadania. Que diran al saber que millones les hacen la puñeta, cagan y no dejan ir el agua?

* Notese que todos los personajes aqui mentados son puramente quimericos!

My Dear Chronicle

2009-07-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

“If I knew then what I know today” is an appealing quote for some of us whose lives continue enduring the hands of fate. And I say this, whenever I reflect upon the nature of things surrounding me; particularly my academic choices which persist on leading nowhere. Dead End Job Street is what I mean. And it would be rather irrelevant to hold responsible for my loser-status the dilapidated university that graduated me with a sociology degree. Since the choice was, after all, mine.

I was, never the less, in high spirits to have graduated. Feeling like Virgil on his way back to Beatrice's home, that windy May of 2007. Expecting the Doors of success to be a 711! Yes, with a mere glimpse of my resume recruiters would offer nice leather chairs, modest starting salaries of 40’s and up, offices surrounded by pleasant and attractive ladies, endless-cups of French-roast, and health plans that fixed crooked/yellowish teeths and eternal lower back aches; perhaps I would even qualify for a little acupuncture.

Red-winged hawks and eagles talons swaying snakes would fly on my right forecasting, as with Trajan and Sulla, the coming of good fortune. At anytime Max Weber and Durkheim would send me a brief postcard (from beyond the grave) remarking my great achievement and dedication to a field of study, once exclusive to the sons of wealthy and noble English dudes. Only Karl’s letter would be lengthy, tinge with candle wax. He would stress, again and again, my need to engage in causes that led to a commune-wealth; even if the salary was shitty and meager.

Tired of freezing and sweat-swamping our bums in arctic-winters and super humid summers; “K” (my fiancé then… Now wife… Unfortunately) and I headed for California and not NYC where my spirit remains. My once a month paycheck from Alicia for the interpreting gigs at Georgetown ceased. And the doors in California slammed on my face, involuntarily nominating “K” pillar of our economic life. Our humble apartment edified upon a street, ironically named “El Dorado”, a place that replicated, not in the least, that 80’s dream-image of California. In reality it resembled more a Mexican/Guatemalan rural-goat-smelling-stand-n-deliver sort of barrio.

The job offers never materialized. In two years I made 889 employment submissions that yielded 345 phone screenings, which materialized to about 100 face to face interviews. That led me to my present on-call-bases (once a month paycheck) as a HS substitute teacher; one “Hell” of a job, for which I am enormously and eternally grateful… So how did we survive all this time?

Yaneth Chavez, “K’s” half sister, labors as housekeeper, making roughly $750-$900 per week, a yearly and happy $44,000 tax-free salary. She was nice enough to hire me, paying me $35-45 a day. Rent, food, cell payments and climbing unemployment-rates where the circumstances leading to my metamorphosis “Fiderella/Cinderella”. And off I went to clean houses, up and down the peninsula. Abhorring my parents, myself, my life and fate; kneeled upon Italian marvel and oak wood floors, I cleaned the diarrhea, urine. I vacuumed dog, rabbit, and pubic hairs, and polished wood, marvel, glass and brass objects. Of the wealthy and wanna-be wealthy homeowners in Burlingame, San Carlos, Belmont and other Bay Area cities.

Ms. Sharpe’s place was my favorite housekeeping-assignment. It comforted me to clean her house. Her good taste in furniture, quilts, and Iberian, Gallic and Napa wines made me feel at home. Although she lacked a taste for literature, no Cortazars, Miltons , not even a cheap-paperback Sartre. On the other hand, she was exquisite in her choice of panties. And the choices made sense when I met her in person. Deliberately, or not, she would hang them in the backroom. Some had exotic-Nipponese embroidery, as if weaved by Eros spiders and her weekend thongs were of a refined silk. And I excelled myself, cleaning every corner, vacuuming all angles, as if it were a sacred house or my own. When sweeping her portico’s floor, I envisage Ms. Sharpe, myself, and two tall-glasses of Fernet with cola: sitting there in conversation, recapping special moments; her green-apple candles awaiting the twilights.

Four months was all my lower-back could stand of the bending and lifting and of Yaneth’s Paleolithic frame of mind. So destiny steered and Kmart took pity, hiring me at $8.50 hr. Two weeks I lasted but “K” says it was 4.5 days. Grants writing for my sister’s non-profit came next, at $800 a month for 8 months, then came some Moran family-aid, and finally the Sub-job.

So, with all do respect to my former professors/doctors, for whom I have the deepest appreciation: Ausbrook, Richards, Datz, and Harkness. If I knew then, what I know now:
I would have chosen nursing, nurse aid, radiology… Or any other academic path within the Sciences field, a career path that would almost guarantee a Real Job. With benefits, marketability and biweekly checks. Sufficient income-source to pay for(rising) food, gas, rent, and Ms. “X’s” monthly allowance, repay my nearly $33,000 in student loans. And still have twenty dollars leftover to buy me a paperback Aeneid.

So look at this picture attentively future Lit, Soc, Polisci... Social Science majors. And learn a lesson! And please disregard all of the above IF: you recently won the lotto, are already wealthy, you parents are both MDs, or if you would like to be buried as a pauper... Like myself... FOGETTABOUTIT!

The Perils of Our Time

2009-07-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Many things trouble our lives; they seem heavier and uncertain, our lives. Like clouds drifting in an unparallel sky or leaves chasing each other in the autumn wind. Even the weather has conspired with our doomed economy to spike misery with a touch of James Joyce. New York City, the greatest city in the world, has suffered one hundred and seventy-one days of rain, in the last ten months. But rainy days are small-matters for the brave citizens dwelling in this megalopolis; it is the faith lost that worries. It is this apprehension between unbroken news depleting our faiths, our wills. Newspapers bringing Michael’s funeral into our homes and tired troops from Iraq to the unemployment line eroding the fabric of our lives.

The regression of humanity protrudes, behind distant hills. The simple humanity spearheaded by Plato, Pythagoras, that we lost, swallowed by the perversion, or rather immersion of our minds in futile labors, selfishness, and that unquenchable lust for futile things. This incapacity to create original concepts, beautiful and simple, doomed us all. Our lives, now troubled by the lurking avalanche of misery that awaits us in the years to come, “it is lonely when you are always right” wrote a writer once. And we will be lonely no more! As we progressively begin to share the very same day to day ailments that ail citizens in the streets of Calcutta, Porto Prince, San Pedro Sula, Jakarta…

It is the meandering, as ruminants do with pastures and time, which troubles our lives. This everlasting mania to exacerbate and broaden even the smallest matter, making a Michigan-lake from a glass of water, the drip that permeates our hearts of stone. And so we legislate against love for the sake of morality and pedophilic clergies. We strive in vain to prevent the union between a lonely woman and her English Mastiff. As politicians play homophobics on Sundays and homosexuals on Mondays and pitch battles against “Sacred Bands of Thebes”. Parameters for love and taxes for all, ironic twists weighing heavy on our souls… Thus, we forget that in our sorrows, in our loneliest hours, the Being listening, is the one bearing our troubles, and lighting the candles in the darkest stormy evening. So Fred said love is beyond good and evil and Jorge Sanz that loyalty was a bitch.

The road to regain our past will be cruel and despicable because then we will have lost the necessity to feel eucalyptus scented breezes hissing through blond and tall grasses. And the sentiment of Joy felt when contemplating, the most beautiful women on earth, who populate the hilly terrains of California, will have vanished. Much like the blossoms perishing in the first heated days of May.

Many things trouble our lives… And we are hungry, tired of searching, and poorer by the day. And in the end, these very things unite us with families in Freetown, Bujumbora, Moroni, and Mogadishu and perhaps will make us stronger. These perils have breach our tendencies to squander time, water, bread, love… And rethink the BC-premise that life, knowledge and power are not synonymous of courage, strong, or Gods will. But that calamities, time, and chance comes to us all.

Pistis, Elpis, Agapē... Mitera

2009-01-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

“La montaña nublada y densa, casi azulina, estaba poblada por un desorden ancestral de pinos y maples. Sobre ella ceñianse nubes blancas y grises y el viento soplaba ocultandose en la ondonada, raspando solamente con su cresta el agua verdosa del rio”. Y asi quize iniciar el relato. Hablaria de aquel pastizal extenso que es la campiña Americana y su cordillera Apalache, embozada en neblinas vespertinas. Territorio que desciende varias millas al sur de la tumba de Alexander Hamilton, desmoronando girasoles y campanillas en cada estepa. Sobre estas llanuras escribio J.G.M Ramsey. Sobre ellas se paro Ulises Grant con su ejercito. Y bajo sus cielos, adornados con cuerpos celestes y brillantes: Andromeda, Pegasus, y Orion-El Cazador dormitaron tribus Chiskas. Y ocurrioseme tambien que sobre este suelo espesaba mas aun la noche. Quizas pense “sera para que revolotee con gracia la luciernaga o deambulen las animas”.

Sus veredas son angostas y parten en dos la topografia-tosca acechando al peregrino en cada curva. Y en sus cielos arriban, con pinta de borrasca tormentas que golpean con furia la palazon. Y su aire impregna el pecho de una nostalgia, unas ansias de sostener el mar con la vista. Vascodagama en su lecho, moribundo, se dice experimento estos mismos sentires.

Una noche de tantas, llovio con furia, una furia que mojaba todo, hasta desbordar el rio. La lluvia propago neblinas en las alturas, humedad en el valle, y estupor en los cuerpos. Un fastidio que fecundo cigarras por noventa dias. La gloria, eso si, era un trinar esporadico que surcaba el aire en alas coloricas. Y mi alegria felina, tenia ojos de nazareno, y rubicunda melena. Dos esmeraldas que aludieron aguas inquietas de un brazo. Un brazo de mar. La Mar.

Un dia de otoño rociaron bellotas los arboles y el sol era tenue como lo es en primavera. La brisa, que anhelaba ser galerna abofeteome el rostro. Y alguien tropezaba con una alfombra de oro y cobre. Era la hojarasca. Y los pasos, la voz, y el rostro eran los de mi madre. "Ella que no me dio la vida" pense! Y asi quize concluir el relato.