Sunday, March 23, 2008

"Me voy a mover!" or should it be "Me voy a mudar!" The beauty of Spanish is its simplicity yet most of us who've been raised on "this side of the border" away from the land on the continent where our ancestors originate, always seem to trip on best-practice word usage. Well, its a good thing the Latino population is growing in leaps and bounds within the U.S., we'll be able to put more words in the dictionary, regardless of their properness. OK, yeah, I'll agree that this may not necessarily be a good thing. I mean why push for the creation of more dialects ala spanglish, since there is an authoritative Spanish language "center" a few thousand miles away, across the Atlantic (in Spain)? I'm not studying Spanish. In a perverse way, I sort've enjoy stumbling across not-so-proper terms that don't conform to grammatical dogma. And now that we're all connected via the Internet (except the selvas / rainforests perhaps, where kind peoples have not been messed with), it doesn't take long for a term to become more popular than what's in the dictionary. But, lets accept "mover" for the moment. I'm trying to say that I'm 2,000 miles east-southeast from where I was living when my last post was banged out. Me movi de California y ahora vivo en Tejas. Change of residence card filled out in the USPS: old home=California, new home=Texas. I miss both!

LOL! I miss northern Calif. and my relatives and friends and slightly thinner air. And I miss Texas too. What! I AM NOW IN TEXAS, so why am I missing it? I hadn't lived in Texas for over two decades and, amigos y companeros/as, it is quite different than when I called it "home". I miss that old Texas. Ahhh, parts of it. Hmmmm, but the new Texas, for me, is interesting too. I'm liking it. I like the burgeoning diversity -- more cultures, nationalities, more languages, and stubborn clumps of progressive politics that burst through dirty, soul-less stretches of cement and asphalt. I like the shift from smothering good 'ol boy conservatism which in reality was never a political "ism" but merely a convenient pecking order of privilege and connection to latifundista families (plantation social/economic types) who got here in the 1800s. I ain't saying its Berkeley or St. Paul, but the social environment has changed. Bush notwithstanding, there are promising political reps from grassroots to State Capital legislators who speak some truth every so often, and the message gets broadcast, printed in the 3-4 Texas dailies, or gets posted on YouTube. We from Calif. can't be too smug, can we, when we foisted homegrown Reagan on the U.S., not to mention Prop. 209, Prop. 13 ad nauseum.

There's movement here in Tejas and Barack Obama didn't do too bad a few days ago when his Causa replete with "SI SE PUEDE" -- an old grassroots slogan from militant mainly Mexican, farm workers unions going back to the 1960s -- swept into campuses, barrios, campos, and inner city centers scoring heavy attendance. Yeah, campaign slogan is "YES WE CAN!" but that's the beauty of "movements in the making" -- its got automatic artistic license and the human river knows the power of YES or SI! Affirmative, there's buses everywhere to get on. There's hope. Obama ain't perfect and he is a politician, but he's the one whose speaking more truth. The Mexican-americans/Mexicanos/Chicanos probably can pull out a few more Causa slogans in the Southwest -- la rebeldia ain't new and the roots are deep. Sharing political thoughts among the most downtrodden or disenfranchised in any society is always positive for all. I can't think of one "color" or cultural group here in the USA in these past 25 years who hasn't been ravished and its families and neighborhoods torn asunder by a NAFTA treaty, an Enron, healthcare monopolies, or a union-busting big business conglomerate. A ver que pasa. We shall see.

You know, I'm gonna go on a limb without even checking it tightly, I don't think you can say el "mudamiento". I like movimiento

Music? If you haven't heard it yet, check out www.jango.com This is social streaming radio where you create your own stable of fav artists, bands, genres, and get to mix it up with other Jangistas if you want. Opened up my vision a lot, seeing where the music flow is headed regardless of nation.

Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime (The Korgis)

Alone Again, Naturally

Magic ... rarely are the stars aligned - - - Olivia Newton John

Dusk in Yucatan

Dusk in Yucatan
Harmony Concepts, photograph 01