La verdad yo no sé si soy mexicano como tal y cual la imagen lo indica. Supuestamente los mexicanos decendemos de los Aztecas y los Españoles. Según la historia y la ideologia del estado. Mas yo me pregunto, seriamente por supuesto, si eso es en verdad. ¿Por qué? Porque yo nací­ en Baja California. Un estado federal de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos si apenas 55 años viejo y con menos historia que un foco inventado por Thomas Edison. Esa es la neta. Los mexicanos que a’í­ empezaron a formar el estado por aquellos entonces, de seguro si eran de esos mexicanos ’ideologicos’ pero lo curioso de mi estado es que no sólo mexicanos se han aventurado a pasar un rato ahí­. N’ombre, pa’ na! Ahí­ hemos tenido de tocho morocho. Gíüeros, Negros, Chinos, Nipponeses, Turcos et al. Pa’ 1950 erase ya tocho un revoltijo. Claro que la población mexicana siempre ha mantenido su mayoria pero no creo que los extranjeros se hayan aguantado las ganas de echarse una que otra mexicanita o mexicanito por a’i. Dejariamos de ser mexicanos si así­ fuera. Ya para los años en que yo nací­, 1966, me imagino la sangre local diluida de rasgos Españoles o Aztecas. Yo no creo ser ni Español ni Azteca. Baja Californiano si. Mexicano también, pero no de esos como los pinta el estado.

A mis hijas les inculco ser mexicanas pero más y más me pregunto ¿Qué es eso? No sé, pero lo qué si sé es que mi cultura es rica, de muchas nuevas y viejas culturas.

Chicano Thoughts

I have recently come to the awareness that the rainbow coalition, not to be confused with the failed Jesse Jackson presidential bid of the 90’s, is a hoax to smears us down.

Allow me to expand.

Colors are barrierless. If we keep to our current notions regarding colors, we in society shall always be that which we have decided to be. We are Brown and Proud. That’s our motto. When we accept our color, you see, we accept our place in society. Yet we demand equal treatment and aspire to be at the same level that whites are. It isn’t strange then that there are steps in Crayola boxes. Yet brown can never, in a lifetime, be white, nor red nor yellow. Brown is brown. Brown doesn’t puts us in the color charts of our society and identify us more Americans, than say, reds.

This comes to mind the huge African influx México had in its colonial past and that now Bobby Vaughn is trying to chart. Nobody knows what happened to this influx but theories indicate that because of the caste systems back then in place they thinned out their blood by interracially mixing in order to step up the ladder. That’s why we Mexicans always look for african features in our kids when they are born. ¡Qué blanquito salio! is the most joyful thing you can hear when a baby is born amongst us.

This process that our africanmexican brothers tried seems a little too long and besides, I like my permanent tan that whites so desperately try to get even at the risk of cancer. What to do? Simple, we can strive to come to the upper echelons by our own or other means. By who we are. The color ladder only offers a step at a time in a lifetime. We don’t have a lifetime. Nor is it guaranteed that by toning down our skin we can get were whites are, simply put we must do away with the color caste system.

Hideseek is a wonderful piece of internet poetry, I enjoyed it very much. The pictures blend in very well with the text. I like the light which reminds me of jellyfish that one can see off the coast near Bohusl?n, by Lysekyl. The notion that we are de-evolutionazing is tantalizingly chock-full of temptation.

War Economies

I had a beer today
Angst down my throat
Seem only good
To join the support

Lives at stake
while flipping meat
Laying down
Votes in protest

Down the war machine!
Here here!
Have a beer!
Show your disgust
towards this warring industry

Ezequiel

Aquella tarde prometí­a ser diferente.
Tení­a ganas de aventura, le hací­an falta ganas.
La lucha era cruenta.
Le comí­an las ansias.
Querí­a, de verdad, un cambio.
Un nuevo ambiente, pero el dí­a sólo ofrecí­a, hasta ese momento sólo una vaga esperanza, una prometedora migaja de algún acontecimiento que le levantara del suelo rutinario en el que caminaba.

La tarde acaecí­a, el sol presto a retirarse y la blanca luna de esa tarde otoñal lucí­a ya sus curvas tras la clara atmósfera del cielo azul.

Se le acercó Jorge, un joven de 24 años. ’Hola, ¿Qué tal? ¿Caminas sólo sin rumbo?

Ezequiel, respirando un gran suspiro, sin sorpresa alguna, le contesta, ’Sí­, ando en busca de aventura.’

Al verle el rostro medio desganado, Jorge le contestó, ’Bueno, hombre, con esas emociones no das a ningún lado así­, ¿Vas a reservar boletos en alguna agencia de viaje, ¿o qué?

Ezequiel, alzó las manos al aire, y un tanto molesto le contestó, ’¡Sí­, tú, con el dinero que ganamos en la fabrica!’

Text online: babysitter The Jack Derrida version, according to me, since I didn’t find a full integral text anywhere else.

Read Coover’s The babysitter online. It smacks of 1950’s, like the show Happy Days.

Except that this version is the violent form, insults and all. It could be that this is what all those goody-two-shoes characters really had underneath their conscious. Curiously enough, it also had some of that atmosphere one can find in Raymond Carver’s The Cathedral. Does this ever have a ring to Thomas Newman’s American Beauty or what! The type of suburbia such as the one described in Edward Scissor Hands comes to mind too. Well, I can see why this text is popular, there is a lot of sexual implications. It isn’t too strange then that this period (1969) also had the sexual revolution. I personally find all sexual commentary here a worst outbreak than the outness Victorian prudishness
had when it left those vestiges in the past.

Thought: This text is impregnated with Christian values. The sweetest reward is to have sex. Yet taboos run all throughout the text, impeding men to full fill their acts. Its only Christian moral values that hold them back. Mr. Tucker’s incessant need of an aspirin reminds me of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman with his need of new material things and his failure to see his reality and accept the present.

This also has some of Julio Cortazar’s fantasy style characteristics like those in La Isla a Mediodia (The Island in the afternoon). There is a lot of rave regarding the sentence structure on the net over this text.

John had receently been forced to pull a prank on officer Stacey Maloy. He was told that in order to get in the fraternity he was to pull from Officer Maloy’s locker his baton, without him noticing, and then put back. A witness would be provided, who would keep its distance at all times, to ensure the veracity of the events. Having done that, he went to his girlfriend’s house, Maria, to finish off the feat.

– You promised.
– Indeed I did, but I also said maybe.
– What are you gonna do then?
– Well, I just need to put it back, you know, so that no one notices it.
– Isn’t that, like wrong?
– Listen honey, there isn’t much time left, are you in or out?
– I don’t know, lemme think.
– Forget it, if you’re gonna think about it might as well get in trouble.
– I dunno, the last time you said the same thing and we nearly got caught.
– Duh, that’s because you were wearing reflexes and the cops light saw it.
– You know what? I’m not going, this time you’re gonna have to sort it out by yourself.
– God! I knew, I knew it was stupid to come here and ask you for help, damn it! How stupid can I be! You and I are done.
– Oh man, don’t say that. Alright, I’ll go, but this is the last time.
– Thank you baby, thank you. I promise I’ll make it up to you soon.

You know your hooked when you say that you’re gonna quit right after the next text only to find out that three hours later your still plugged to the net.

They don’t call you info junky for nothing.

You need a fix everyday.

What it isn’t told is how you overdose.

This is how you pass out.

Your body is contorted into the most unhealthy position, slouched, and your wrist is pulsating, begging for attention and rest. Your eyes bulge and you wanna throw up your intestines.

The anxiety regurgitates between your stomach sack and the larynx, except that there isn’t anything to barf.

How do you barf tons of text your eyes have swallowed?

Do you stand by the ledge of your Windows, arms stretched out gasping for air, with a wide open mouth, letting vile out?

And what would you barf?

The alphabet soup? Probably.

In my case a slimy US red-blue sprinkled with a green-white-red Cal-Mex stew blended with a chunky Nordic blue-yellowish liquid.

Yuk.

Baja California

Baja California
Tierra Naciente
Llena de carneros
Sí­mbolo de ti

Tus paisajes desérticos
Que ojos han visto
Llenos de Admiración
Deseando de ti su nación

Te llevo adentro de mi
Como sangre palpitante
Que vida me otorgas
Caliente como tu

Mi piel llenaste de tú sol
Tu tierra mis padres respiran
Tus vientos mis anhelos
Tu agua mi elixir

Baja California tu eres mi ser.

– The Macmillan Dictionary has an entry for duh.
– Duh! Like I wanna know that.
– Ok, so what, do you want to know?

George sat exasperated; this student was fidgety, looked distressed and nothing of substance came out of him.

– Dunno.

Silence. The room of his office couldn’t look emptier, yet he felt the need this student had.

– Why were you sent here? Do you know that?
– I suppose ‘cause my grades are low.
– Is there a reason why they are low?
– Maybe.
– Humm.

George felt resistance, clearly the boy had something going on in his life, what was it?

– Do you like to go out?
– Can’t, my parents got me grounded.
– Would you like to tell me about that?
– It’s complicated.
– That’s what am here for, to help out when complications arise.

The breakthrough was finally visible, why did the student open up?

– I Got caught smoking weed.
-I see, do you like drugs?
– Sometimes, they make me feel good, I suppose there isn’t any harm in it.
– Humm, your parents don’t think so.
– What do they know … All they do is bitch around all day how am not what they expected me to be.
– I see. So they go around telling you how to be.
– Gets on my nervs you know? Pisses me off man.
– Yeah, I can understand that, I mean, who wants to be bitched at.
– Yeah man, so I try to get back at them, I mean they already think am a loser you see. So I piss them off too.
– Humm, by smoking weed?
– Naaah, that’s just for fun,
– I see. So you do like drugs.
– Not really, it’s just that the crowd I hang out with does it, so I do it too.
– Humm, you’re records show that you been an exemplary student all along until last year, care to talk about that?
– Maybe some other time, gotta split, gotta class to go to. C-ya!
– I’ll put you in for next week, is that ok?
– Suppose so.
– Take care.

The satisfaction of helping made George feel good, it was clearly a step forward, maybe he could put Anthony back in track, despite of the rest of society thinking otherwise.