Författare: xikano_2

ey, no me lo cases – que no es gay? then again I think *everyone is gay* no, really

Logovo slash reader/critic, fan and sci-fi savant.

Comment taken from the comment box in my Spanish blog of jueves, agosto 14, 2003 titled Random Access Blog microphones

I think that as far as the human constitution goes there is room for every possible sexual exploration, tendency, inclination or thereof in a human being.

Heterosexuals are by far the most bisexual of all, according to me. Heterosexuals are just conforming to a sorts of social more to be as indicated by the norms as established and actively encouraged by a group of people who have vested interest in this sort of enforcement as to what a human ought to comport itself to be when sexual emotions are at play.

The brain has a say in this too, but my point here is that everyone has a potential to be gay in the sense that they have homosexual tendencies whether one is a guy or a gal. That includes me, who gladly confesses that he has had several sexual fantasies about sleeping with another guy, albeit, and ideal sorts of human that happens to be of the same sex as I. Most curiously, this sort of wanting happens mostly at a peak in my sexual arousal every now and then.

For the most part I think of sex as a burden, when am sober if one can say that of the sexual urgencies that envelopes one during certain periods of biological redistribution and periodical movements of the bodily fluids, then I tend not to be at all that concerned about sex or its nature.

And before you start jumping to conclusions allow me to express that having sex is most healthy indeed, it’s just that for a sentient being such as I, these sort of cravings come at a weird time and worst of all unexpected thus interrupting other activities that I’m doing. Quite frankly it disturbs me when I’m robbed of my concentration. I say robbed because it feels as though am being pulled away against my will at times. That and hunger, it just gets to me. Anyway, before I start sounding even more defensive I will continue this gay issue in more detail.

I don’t get why there isn’t more acceptance of the myriad aspects of a humans sexual tendencies, as you read this, you might of noticed that I hint at a possible aspect of humanity that it is very much neglected and that is that humans might just not be of just one sexual orientation at all, there could be more and that if sexual tendencies are any indication, sexual urgencies are more animalistic than one is willing to admit. I say animalistic in the sense that there isn’t any control as to how our sexual desires are being expressed except by our repression thereby.

Why do we try to rein in this wild animal in us I can imagine very well, but since we have been trying to put in order, categorizing and setting up rules as to what is and what is not allowed in humanity, we can at the very least allow the human constitution to express those ones that are most healthy without the diatribe that our so-called modern society underpins individuals to submission.

I’m very proud to say that I belong to a culture that has had an indigenous population that has prehispanic roots and that for hundreds of years have been concerned about gender roles in their milieu. This society of old ways, is to be located in a state in Mexico called Oaxaca. Anyways, the point about the genders is that for many years the Juchiteca society was thought of as a matriarchical society since women there took care of many aspects of society that traditionally in the more Western world is done by males. This society has by the most part been anything but that since the daily chores are divided and only in our western perspective do we interpret said society as matriarchical. And just where does the gay issue coming in here Julio? Well, am getting there, here it is, they’ve included and accepted homosexuality as a distinct sexual orientation from that of a man and a woman. They have a respectable position, as I understand it, in society. I knew of this society via the blogsphere since the Spanish one circulated this bit of info much gladly due to that some ”muxhe”, as they are called in their native language, were running for congressional seats in their state. I found that amazing, that a society, in my conservative and backward country, indigenous people with annals going back hundreds and hundreds of years are more modern then modernity itself.

Rain, icy fresh air and sea sounding,

trees

as they wavered back and forth

with the force of the wind,

swaying as they did,

producing the sounds of the waves.

I like that, despite the fact that am so far away from any shore,

these trees reproduce the magic

the grey,

cloudy days on thousands of beach fronts around the world awash

with their swish swash on contemplating ears and eyes.

The panes bear the day’s raindrops …

A potent glow that pulsates within me
As I like Atlas continue in this unwilling state
Regenerates automatically with new force
Threshold my goal of a place I know

The pursuit is intricately endless
Pointing towards an unknown date
A smile on the horizon drags my life
Where I can rest this constant restlessness
In peace, surrounded by those I cherish

Trapped in this grey zone called the present
I dream of a future I once saw in my past
Will it be there when I arrive?
This mortal coil I bear in my shoulders,
Will it be there too?

Am a Californian not only by heart but by residence as well, I lived under its shadow for over 30 years and my daughter was born in San Diego, California, I grew up in Redwood City for a couple of years and during my younghood I lived, worked and studied at some of its finest institutions in the Bay Area and San Diego County as well. My brain has its share of allocated archives of pure and unquestionable memories from California. The state where I was born is called Baja California and further down the stretch there is even Baja California Sur. Two countries 3 Californias’ that share not only historical ties but linguistic ties as well and have shared institutions for over 300 years now. Alta California and Baja California are those three states former names. California got its name because the spanish explorer that came about this stretch of land said of it, in the first comment about the weather in that part of the world that it was a Calido Forno which translates to English as Hot Oven, hence the name California.

I love California, for me it has more than a beachy cling to it, in fact, beaches have never played a central role in my vision of California, it has been more of a home to me, as homes go one doesn’t give much thought to it, one merely lives there, and so, I fluently speak both of the two most important languages that make up the character of California, English and Spanish; I lived there and that is where all of my mexican familia lives, either in California or Baja California, so I think that I can without a doubt call myself a Californiano which by the way, sounds more native than the English counterpart Californian.

Yes, that sounds nativist and I am. That is why it causes me great pain to hear that some Austrian guy that hasn’t even been born there is running for governor of my precious state. The whole idea and fact regurgitates in me. I quite frankly don’t believe that Xicanos and Mexicanos and the whole Hispanic crowd can get together on this one to stave off this Republican nincompoop from coming to power. Senator Dianne Feinstein has openly opposed this guy and I guess that bodes well for this state but I cannot help but see illbodings for the next months ahead, however, I harbor a small inkling that he will stop running for governor as soon as his coffers begin dwindling down in monies and that spells nothing but good.

Cruz Bustamante is my man because he is a Mexicano. We have waited for over 150 years to get back in power, Pí­o Pico was the last Mexican Californian governor and I believe the time is ripe for a takeover of power there. Although Chicanos are becoming the majority I spouse serious doubts about the coming elections and the results, I frankly believe that we need to start putting aside our differences and let the bickering resume after the election and not before, at best I hope Grey Davis gets reelected.

The only positive thing of all of this is that the anti immigration rethoric has dwindled down a tad and immigrants are being treated more fairly, at least until elections are over. Immigrants, which so happens to be a synonym for Mexicans in California often bear the brunt of the economical woes in Califas and thus become favorite targets for out of state people like Hufftington who relish and spews nothing but hatred for illegal aliens as opposed to her who is a legal alien. The tidings being promised to immigrants these days is actually an appeal to Hispanics in California because those issues are closer to the spanish speaking populace of California than to the average CA man and woman. This litle fact makes me grin with delight because it means only one thing: the Mexican vote is upp for bidding and the best wager gets the votes. I hope we dont bet wrong because the Grapes of Wrath will be ripe for harvesting after the election.

One of the things that bothers me about the treatment, from this distant distance in Sweden, and the conditions surrounding the Maya in Chiapas is how little heed the government gives them. All over the western world governments are caving in to the demands, rightful and long over due, of their native inhabitants. In Mexico this seems to be not happening. Surely there are many people in Mexico that have benefited from government however there are a few disenchanted members who argue, quite rightfully, that they are being pushed to abandon their customs and ways in order to receive said benefits. One sees a dark hand at work here and surely enough conservative voices opine that the indigenous forms of living are incompatible with the current vision of living ways. For the most part indigenous societies are collective, a tradition that goes way back than the more individualistic capitalist oriented vision of our days.

Whats more, indigenous societies are by far few and inbetween, so I quite frankly don’t understand why does the government insist in pushing these people to accept a newer form of living than the one they’d lived for centuries. What does Washington fear? Why this aberrant insistence on dominion, a shackle we don’t seem to rid ourselves from? Why does this vicious and ugly nature have to come to the surface of government when government is to reflect goodness, shouldn’t this dark emotion be held in check? Yet the insistence of some members of the Mexican congress to deny all rights to its indigenous population, the right to govern themselves is seen as a threat to the social fabric of our culture. Why? Because they want to live the way they’ve done so for thousands of years.

I for one agree with the indigenous people of Chiapas and their demand that they be ruled according to their customs. They should have more autonomy than they have now and their thinking about life should be allowed to develop. However, I believe there is a deeper fear here than one can imagine. The kurdish folk come to mind. I believe that Mexico fears a sort of development that the government in Turkey fears with its kurdish population and a persistent belief in a kurdish state of their own. Does Maya writing call for a return to a state of their own? I wonder since maya thought is not widely distributed and hence what little we know has mostly come out expressed by the EZLN, yet there most be outside thought besides that one. I wonder how these dreams and longings are expressed indeed.

Guatemala is a good case in point, there, the civil war engaged in a blatant carnage against the indigenous people financed and fought by Pentagon planners. Thinking and wanting is a dangerous practice indeed, and what would seem baffling to us, oh, let us say the fact that most of the indigenous people refuse to partake in such institutionalized practices that any citizen or active member of society takes for granted such as registering you child, or registering to vote are indeed a sort of message to government which refuses to understand its own subjects if you will. Is government by the people for the people at work here then? Whose interest are then government protecting here? Even if its citizens refuse to vote government has an obligation to its citizens of all persuasions. Government is government regardless if it has voter legitimacy or not because government will rule with or without said legitimacy. Why does then government refuse to listen to the indigenous population in Mexico? It doesn’t seem to mind the money that it collects from tourism which is connected to indigenous practices, never mind giving back a little that it collects back the community.

All in all there isn’t a case for not listening to Chiapas inhabitants and their demands, so why the deaf ear? Government has failed to address the needs of the people there and furthermore it is on the verge of acting unconstitutionally and violating its own law, never mind that art.39 has not been heeded for fear of setting a precedent but I believe that government should indicate a more willingness than it has shown so far. It should see eye to eye with the leaders of said communities and partake more and more in the lives of all mexicans in general.

Well, it’s been a sort of Mexicano week this early in august late summer and I don’t know how that fits in there but ‘late summer’ is what the Swedes call august … so yeah, Mexicans came by, all dressed in their scottish skirts and bagpipes, I believe they’re called that over there in those other Highlands. As the very insensitive newsreporter from our local, and I mean local in all its real potential, said, but so what if they’re Mexican… that’s the spirit *says grinning very seriously …*

The thing is that dudes from the capital of my wonderful and stupendous country (go ahead, you can say that about your own country and get away with it …) decided some moons ago to build a bagpipe band and yes it became a Scottish one at that, then by some weird twist of history, as I was told by one of its members, they wanted to find a connection between Mexico and the Celtic world.

As it so happens, when the now USA that we all know didn’t have those famous states such as Texas and California, a war broke out given birth to those states in a new union. I say that because Mexico is a union as well. During the bloody battle that left many bittered parts tills this day on, back then some very conscientious Catholics felt remorse about killing their fellow brethren in the battlefield so they switched sides …

Yes, you guessed it, they were Scots and Irish men who turned their backs against the USA to whom, by the byes, are traitors and to us, Mexicans and Chicanos alike are heroes. Suffice to say that’s where the connection came in and even congress in the Mexican United States hired them once to commemorate said battles …

So yeah, that happened here in my part of town, in a small city called Eksjí¶ which is celebrating its annual Tattoo festival.

And today about 20 of us mexican residents are gathering in Sweden’s little Jerusalem, known by its real name, Jí¶nkí¶ping for a little meal of sorts and chit chat off course.

Now that doesn’t happen so often …

There is a certain texture about a day that begins with slight greyish opaque clouds and nippy air, you notice how silence gradually turns colder as you becomes aware of the day’s atmosphere. It is one of the few calm and tranquil aspects of the landscapes I am made to experience here in this lonely village, up in the Highlands of Sweden. As I awake to the everyday, not a few number of those mornings turn out to be just like that, there is a quietness that engulfs one and the noiseless streets and still trees suddenly become silent partners in a framed still life.

It is these mornings that make me realize how common and everyday my life is, amidst the blue skies behind the thick clouds drifting away to unknown welkins leaving only its humidity in the immovable air. Once in a while this quietude is torn asunder by the passing of a car on its way to somewhere, leaving behind a disconcerted and deeply in thought mexican man who awakens from a deafening and pacifying atmosphere.

I turn my gaze to the window where the pine trees are forming rows upon rows of trees in an up and down triangle spike like form and a wide open space for cultivation is visible, a few stacks of rolled hay in white plastic dot the field, the green seems wet as it is a deep dark verdure giving one the impression that there is an element of water at hand in its looks.

I slowly walk towards the front porch and I feel the wind caressing me with its crispy fresh hand as the chime sounds its metal clinging to evoke a chinese, japanese, oriental paradaise some distance away and I feel how the temperature is far from mild, closer to fresh yet chilly enough coming from indoors. This very texture brings to mind a sort of seclusion, a fragile apparent solitude that surrounds my senses and which can be broken any second; life is such, still and raucous and me inbetween.

I remember one conversation I had with an acquaintance of mine at Stockholm University. The English department there has a farewell party to close the end of the semester and since I usually am alone, this time too without fail I was alone. I went to the gathering where teachers and alumni mingled with each other in an atmosphere of smoke, laughter, beer and little groups of people with 80’s music blaring nostalgia and oozing yore out its loudspeakers.

As I was alone, and unusual and sad looking spectacle in a society that abhors that kind of sights, I walked in to the place were said event was taken place which for the most part happens at a house-bar called Gula Villan.

Since I am no stranger to most of the people there I did get some greetings and looks as I entered and headed for the bar to get a cheap beer, because that is what one gets in that place, as is advertised that way by the way. Some of them were classmates during the semester and from past semesters as well.

My acquaintance came up to me, greeted me and proceeded to ask me if I came along with someone to which I promptly said no. However, she was with a whole group of people as company who sat out in the lawn and chatted away the early pre-midsummer evening in turns.

As she, according to me, felt pity for me, she invited me to be with her and her group. However, I mistook said invitation to meant a conversation with her. So there I go, along with a beer in my hand and a conversation partner along. However no sooner had we sat down that strange looks began to appear in her eyes to indicate me to join in the group.

She began, simply put, to get uncomfortable with the idea that we were having a conversation aside from the group that she had been previously partaking in and I’m sure that her friend’s constant neck turning to hear what we were talking about while the rest of the group paid attention to itself and laughters which could be heard outloud didn’t contribute to appease her preoccupation. Her whole body exuded nervousness and quite frankly I couldn’t finish my beer fast enough, the whole thing was a cultural clash of supernova proportions. I drank my beer, excused myself and said I had to tuck in early. I think that both of us were relieved that the ‘situation’ had finally passed by, I got up and I parted as I came, alone.

Am in utter disbelief that it’s Thursday already, I mean, like yeah, speechless, you know? I woke up and there it was, in yerface! You rise and it’s like, you know, what day is it? and wam! there you have it, someone makes you realize that it’s Thursday, you know? It’s like dumbfounding to know it, I mean, then you start wondering why is it that you’re a day behind, It felt like a Wednesday, early in the week, fresh and perky, nearly having birds chirping in the dawn, slurping the morning dew in the background but nope, it’s Thursday and all the weight of four unaccounted days of your protestant life goes down the waste basket of your Gregorian calender time and up your humpback like a ton of unloaded crap; am just glad that all in all I only regret that I didn’t live up Wednesday more than I did but then again here I am mourning Wednesday on a Thursday …If I could just feel the same way I did before I realized that it was Thursday I think I can get back on the tracks of my time absent mind ….

The relation between me and the arts has been quite diffuse at best. I like to go to museums which tend to house large numbers of paintings because I admire painters and curiously enough I’ve been to several cemeteries and seen some tombs of quite a number of famous writers. History then is a big part of this acculturation process that seems to be an integral part of my life. In my head, a number of writers have significantly influenced me while others I just like them because of their lifestyles and their convictions which have moved me; painters on the other hand have moved me by the motives they’ve chosen to depict and curiously they seem to express their political motivations in them, a few of them have even written about it such as Salvador Dali’s Dali by Dali originally given out in French and in very quixotic terms and thoughts that house contradictions, a trait I seem to be very fond of lately.

Although some paintings are well renowned for their active and forceful depicting of gross human affairs, like Picasso’s Guernica, other ones, mostly Germans, do it through a curious way that interpretation is done almost exclusively for and by academic circles. Paul Klee’s Revolution des viaduktes is the most recent example I have in mind. This type of protest is subversive at best, hidden and difficult to manifest itself in the public eye. This sort of art leaves one wondering about the belief some painters have regarding the interpretations the unconscious has on the rest of the self which consciously reacts to what the unconscious digests in secret. Yet as I recall my infancy, during my elementary school years in Tijuana, in the Alba Roja school by Third Street now a school long gone and replaced by some ugly modern contraption I remember seeing a deer with a human head in my first grade classroom, years later, when I had become acquainted with some of my own culture’s treasures, I realized that what my child’s eyes had seen was Frida Khalo’s el Peque?o Venado (1946) am almost dead certain that it attracted me because to a child a deer with a human head would most indeed catch ones attention, specially one that has been pierced with 9 arrows.

Paintings however are a new sort of inculcation for me, what really got my brain wondering about the importance of culture has been literature and the ’classics’. I wonder where did this admiration for famous books got started. Did it start by reading comic books? Did it start in school, elementary? How did this avid interest increase, did I became enthralled by what I read and by what others said about said books? No doubt there was an interest awaken when somebody else highlighted the importance of those works of letters. I fear, however, that social status had also a hand in this …

My interest for the classics arose most certainly due to an influence a friend of mine placed on me. His name is José and he used to hang out at a bookstore that sold second hand comic series and other cheap novels that folk in México tend to wharf down like hot salsa tacos after painting the town red. In the store that housed series after series of all kinds of Revistas as they are called, and where folk have a stop in their routine chores like buying milk and other stuff, he sat (or stood) there and read for free the used and very much reread purple novellettes. Inevitably, as I spent more time with my best friend I came to hang out there too. It must’ve of been through conversations were the ego is mostly exposed to such showmanships that I was impressed about the knowledge that it was necessary to have in order to have a good conversation or at the very least sound interesting to others. An ear being the most important object in peoples lives, I wasn’t about to let myself go unsurpassed, I wanted attention too, surely, I guess, that’s how it all started.