2/22/2008
Sleep comes like a drug
In God's country... --U2
Boise, Boise, Boise.... My life is now lived among strangers. Even the majority of my students are strangers. And when you go on the road, like I do every month, you live with, eat with, walk with, laugh with, drive with, count on, speak to, sign books for strangers. It's kind of disconcerting, I will confess. I'm like a possum or a marmot--I'm not sure I even like strangers! I don't like to come out of my tunnel or my rotten log in the forest. I like to be in my vehicle, though. Driving around my Big Back Yard, known otherwise as The USA. I'm teaching a course on The American Road this semester at UIC. We're reading Kerouac and William Least Heat Moon. And, amazingly enough, two students have already bailed out of school and taken off down Route 66. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's this relentless Chi-town winter. But my students have the wander-fever and they're going.
But anyway, you go to Idaho, and you find that strangers are friends and feel, even for a couple of days, like family.
#
It was snowing, as usual, at O'Hare the day I left. I was in the side terminal, where United has its regional jets. Apparently, Boise is not a major destination. The interesting thing about it, if there can be anything interesting about my 100th visit to the United terminal, was that I was sitting near the doors to the inter-terminal shuttle. Every time they opened these doors, snow blew upstairs and floated around over our heads. How weird is that? I was writing in my notebook, and I thought, No--a snowflake did not just land on my page inside the building! But it did.
#
Boise sleeps at the feet of holy mountains.
Paul Shaffer, from the great and famed (in the west) Log Cabin writing/literary center picked me up. We plowed through the holy light in his hybrid, and we drove down the street that was the old Oregon Trail. Ghost buffalo ran away from us. Shadow grizzlies humped through the coffee shops. The wraiths of settlers and pioneers coughed in the alleys.
The Log Cabin itself is a lovely...log cabin! It's old, and we prowled around looking at haunty things like axe and adze marks in the old timbers. How cool. If I lived in Boise, I'd try to weasel an office out of Paul. I'd run tape recorders all night to pick up EVP ghost voices, and I'd drink coffee all day looking out my window at the river and making believe I was writing. I picked up some lovely Limberlost books--Robert Wrigly, Jim Harrison, my crazy pal the apocalyptic prophet John Rember.
My name on the marquee in front, and even bigger on the marquee of the Egyptian Theater.
Paul took me to the Grove, my fancy-fancy hotel with a blue carving of a riverbed running down the facade and flowing with steam. I guess it's like a cloud-river. Room 926. Good bathtub. I made tea of myself immediately in hot water and read Least Heat Moon. Room service sandwich and coffee. Ah. I know why I love the hotel rooms: it's a very comfy rotten log in which the rabid possum can hide some more.
Paul came to get me for a Basque supper. Boise is a Basque town. We ate massive doses of Basque food, all kinds of stuff like fish and squid in ink and paella and lamb stew. Good lord. The Basque wine was blood red and "peppery." I met my new pals, the strangers Al, Janet, Al and the lovely Dunnia. After we ate, they took me out on the sidewalk in the Basque section and showed me "URREA" carved into the sidewalk. We stood around pondering this amazement.
Then I went back to the Grove and watched Hillary and O'Bama on CNN.
#
Breakfast at the Grove. Salt crepes made with salt, pepper, and a small sprinkling of more salt. It was so salty, I could taste salt in my coffee.
Being on the road, you do stuff to keep yourself busy, or to look busy so the waitress doesn't think you're a nerd-ball goober staring into the corner. Aha! The local paper! YES! The writing was direct, to say the least: a 16 year old hostage apparently "thought she was a goner."
"Everything all right, sir?"
"Yes, great. Thanks. How about a little more salt for my drinking water?"
Great moments in American Literature, #987:
Waitress: "Sir? Is that a Grateful Dead t-shirt?"
Writer: "Um. No. It's a pirate shirt."
Waitress: "I really like skulls."
#
At a loss, nothing on the schedule for ten hours, I stormed out of the hotel for my usual splendid walk. I like to pay my respects to the history, ruling landscape and defining water of a place. The mtns were to my left, jutting insanely behind the capitol dome. The river was behind me. I went for the mountains. I was on the Oregon Trail. It was a brisk 39 degrees.
I passed under my name of the Egyptian. The main marquee said: "Comedy Legend GALLAGHER!" I wondered if I should hit a watermelon with a hammer that night.
Hang a left at the dome and cruise town, block by block, going up and down side streets, looking in windows at chocolate and coffee, coffee and chocolate. My sodium crepes were sending up ghastly eruptions of yarch, and my hotel coffee sloshed in my haggis-bag like an ocean in a bottle.
A madwoman about 4 feet tall on the corner: "Hi. Hi. Yes you. Hi there. Talking to your backside. Hi. There's 5 in 7. (Mumble.) Hi!"
On down to the Record Exchange. My frozen nose was stinging and unleashing cascades of protest all over my lip. Inside: CD mania and incense. As soon as my nose and ear lobes stopped burning, I resumed my massive stride back toward the snowpack.
Walked for over an hour. Walked up a great sweat. Walked back to the room--too nose-froze to make it all the way down to the river. I was thinking about the Lewis and Clark statues by the dome. How you walk up the Oregon Trail and stumble on them, life-size, standing on the ground. Talking to an Indian guide. It makes the whole place seem like a haunted house.
#
Paul appeared for a quick run to the Snake River Gorge.
Boise so clean that seeing a dropped cigarette is a shock.
Out into the desert. The ground brown and gray. Free ranging cattle wandered by the road and watched us with bored expressions. Where there were shadows, there was old snow. White shadows.
Way out, no cars.
We pulled off at Birds of Prey. It sounds like an amusement ride or a zoo. There are two outhouses. Thirty miles in every direction of sheer silence. Intoxicating silence.
I DID NOT KNOW THAT: this area has the highest concentration of birds of prey in the country. As we walked away from the car, a thunderbird--well, a golden eagle--flapped above our heads in slow motion. Hoof prints. Claw marks. Paw prints. 10,000 gaping burrows. We walked along the ancient lava flows and suddenly, the world fell away and there was the deep black gorge with the green river curling below. Falcons shot up and down the faces of the cliffs. A big hawk flew along the river bank. A conglomeration of ravens looped lazily in the air, looking like a feathered atom with twelve electrons. They gossipped as they rose and drifted over to us to spy on us and shout a few insults.
#
That night, there were a few hundred people at the theater. They had a bar, so everybody was sipping beer and wine. They were selling popcorn.
It went well. I was happy. I got a long standing O at the end--it took me by surprise. And the signing line was very friendly and very warm and pretty long. I have become the king of long signing lines.
Afterward, my new friends took me to the Gernika bar. I hadn't eaten. The kind people in the bar made me a Basque tortilla--an omelette. Writers and pals gathered at our table. It was generally hilarious. Then, the oddest thing anyone has said to me in a long time sent me off to bed.
A very stylish woman who had attended the reading and who was sitting at a near-by table let me know that I was "yummy." And she wanted to lick me. Lick every part of me.
Gosh. Well! That's the spirit, my dear!
The next morning, I spent a sweet hour with college students, then dragged myself onto the plane to fly home to ice, ice, more ice. Thinking about joining my students on Route 66. Thinking about taking Cinderella to Barney's Beanery on Santa Monice Blvd. Hamburger omelette and sourdough. Coffee, and hold the salt.
Yummy,
L
Oops--Out of Time
In God's country... --U2
Boise, Boise, Boise.... My life is now lived among strangers. Even the majority of my students are strangers. And when you go on the road, like I do every month, you live with, eat with, walk with, laugh with, drive with, count on, speak to, sign books for strangers. It's kind of disconcerting, I will confess. I'm like a possum or a marmot--I'm not sure I even like strangers! I don't like to come out of my tunnel or my rotten log in the forest. I like to be in my vehicle, though. Driving around my Big Back Yard, known otherwise as The USA. I'm teaching a course on The American Road this semester at UIC. We're reading Kerouac and William Least Heat Moon. And, amazingly enough, two students have already bailed out of school and taken off down Route 66. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's this relentless Chi-town winter. But my students have the wander-fever and they're going.
But anyway, you go to Idaho, and you find that strangers are friends and feel, even for a couple of days, like family.
#
It was snowing, as usual, at O'Hare the day I left. I was in the side terminal, where United has its regional jets. Apparently, Boise is not a major destination. The interesting thing about it, if there can be anything interesting about my 100th visit to the United terminal, was that I was sitting near the doors to the inter-terminal shuttle. Every time they opened these doors, snow blew upstairs and floated around over our heads. How weird is that? I was writing in my notebook, and I thought, No--a snowflake did not just land on my page inside the building! But it did.
#
Boise sleeps at the feet of holy mountains.
Paul Shaffer, from the great and famed (in the west) Log Cabin writing/literary center picked me up. We plowed through the holy light in his hybrid, and we drove down the street that was the old Oregon Trail. Ghost buffalo ran away from us. Shadow grizzlies humped through the coffee shops. The wraiths of settlers and pioneers coughed in the alleys.
The Log Cabin itself is a lovely...log cabin! It's old, and we prowled around looking at haunty things like axe and adze marks in the old timbers. How cool. If I lived in Boise, I'd try to weasel an office out of Paul. I'd run tape recorders all night to pick up EVP ghost voices, and I'd drink coffee all day looking out my window at the river and making believe I was writing. I picked up some lovely Limberlost books--Robert Wrigly, Jim Harrison, my crazy pal the apocalyptic prophet John Rember.
My name on the marquee in front, and even bigger on the marquee of the Egyptian Theater.
Paul took me to the Grove, my fancy-fancy hotel with a blue carving of a riverbed running down the facade and flowing with steam. I guess it's like a cloud-river. Room 926. Good bathtub. I made tea of myself immediately in hot water and read Least Heat Moon. Room service sandwich and coffee. Ah. I know why I love the hotel rooms: it's a very comfy rotten log in which the rabid possum can hide some more.
Paul came to get me for a Basque supper. Boise is a Basque town. We ate massive doses of Basque food, all kinds of stuff like fish and squid in ink and paella and lamb stew. Good lord. The Basque wine was blood red and "peppery." I met my new pals, the strangers Al, Janet, Al and the lovely Dunnia. After we ate, they took me out on the sidewalk in the Basque section and showed me "URREA" carved into the sidewalk. We stood around pondering this amazement.
Then I went back to the Grove and watched Hillary and O'Bama on CNN.
#
Breakfast at the Grove. Salt crepes made with salt, pepper, and a small sprinkling of more salt. It was so salty, I could taste salt in my coffee.
Being on the road, you do stuff to keep yourself busy, or to look busy so the waitress doesn't think you're a nerd-ball goober staring into the corner. Aha! The local paper! YES! The writing was direct, to say the least: a 16 year old hostage apparently "thought she was a goner."
"Everything all right, sir?"
"Yes, great. Thanks. How about a little more salt for my drinking water?"
Great moments in American Literature, #987:
Waitress: "Sir? Is that a Grateful Dead t-shirt?"
Writer: "Um. No. It's a pirate shirt."
Waitress: "I really like skulls."
#
At a loss, nothing on the schedule for ten hours, I stormed out of the hotel for my usual splendid walk. I like to pay my respects to the history, ruling landscape and defining water of a place. The mtns were to my left, jutting insanely behind the capitol dome. The river was behind me. I went for the mountains. I was on the Oregon Trail. It was a brisk 39 degrees.
I passed under my name of the Egyptian. The main marquee said: "Comedy Legend GALLAGHER!" I wondered if I should hit a watermelon with a hammer that night.
Hang a left at the dome and cruise town, block by block, going up and down side streets, looking in windows at chocolate and coffee, coffee and chocolate. My sodium crepes were sending up ghastly eruptions of yarch, and my hotel coffee sloshed in my haggis-bag like an ocean in a bottle.
A madwoman about 4 feet tall on the corner: "Hi. Hi. Yes you. Hi there. Talking to your backside. Hi. There's 5 in 7. (Mumble.) Hi!"
On down to the Record Exchange. My frozen nose was stinging and unleashing cascades of protest all over my lip. Inside: CD mania and incense. As soon as my nose and ear lobes stopped burning, I resumed my massive stride back toward the snowpack.
Walked for over an hour. Walked up a great sweat. Walked back to the room--too nose-froze to make it all the way down to the river. I was thinking about the Lewis and Clark statues by the dome. How you walk up the Oregon Trail and stumble on them, life-size, standing on the ground. Talking to an Indian guide. It makes the whole place seem like a haunted house.
#
Paul appeared for a quick run to the Snake River Gorge.
Boise so clean that seeing a dropped cigarette is a shock.
Out into the desert. The ground brown and gray. Free ranging cattle wandered by the road and watched us with bored expressions. Where there were shadows, there was old snow. White shadows.
Way out, no cars.
We pulled off at Birds of Prey. It sounds like an amusement ride or a zoo. There are two outhouses. Thirty miles in every direction of sheer silence. Intoxicating silence.
I DID NOT KNOW THAT: this area has the highest concentration of birds of prey in the country. As we walked away from the car, a thunderbird--well, a golden eagle--flapped above our heads in slow motion. Hoof prints. Claw marks. Paw prints. 10,000 gaping burrows. We walked along the ancient lava flows and suddenly, the world fell away and there was the deep black gorge with the green river curling below. Falcons shot up and down the faces of the cliffs. A big hawk flew along the river bank. A conglomeration of ravens looped lazily in the air, looking like a feathered atom with twelve electrons. They gossipped as they rose and drifted over to us to spy on us and shout a few insults.
#
That night, there were a few hundred people at the theater. They had a bar, so everybody was sipping beer and wine. They were selling popcorn.
It went well. I was happy. I got a long standing O at the end--it took me by surprise. And the signing line was very friendly and very warm and pretty long. I have become the king of long signing lines.
Afterward, my new friends took me to the Gernika bar. I hadn't eaten. The kind people in the bar made me a Basque tortilla--an omelette. Writers and pals gathered at our table. It was generally hilarious. Then, the oddest thing anyone has said to me in a long time sent me off to bed.
A very stylish woman who had attended the reading and who was sitting at a near-by table let me know that I was "yummy." And she wanted to lick me. Lick every part of me.
Gosh. Well! That's the spirit, my dear!
The next morning, I spent a sweet hour with college students, then dragged myself onto the plane to fly home to ice, ice, more ice. Thinking about joining my students on Route 66. Thinking about taking Cinderella to Barney's Beanery on Santa Monice Blvd. Hamburger omelette and sourdough. Coffee, and hold the salt.
Yummy,
L
2/18/2008 Countdown to Ecstasy
2/17/2008
Sunday: rain falls and freezes on piles of snow. One giant three-toed turkey track outside the door, rabbit and possum tracks and what is that--a fox? Our phantom coyote running through?
Immigration Monday will be created by Grace this week, of Clarke and Grace fame. And that's it. I have said all I can say about that subject. I'm taking the blog back for poems and writing and nature and spirit. If I have anything to say of any value, anything NEW after 100,000 words about immigration, I'll post it here. Rarely.
To the anonymous poet who asked such good questions about my poem "Valentine"in the comments section--yes. Indeed. Mystic. That's me.
All true love poems are also poems to God. Indwelling fire illuminating the beloved. Perhaps the beloved is a pathway to the divine? And I do read Rumi. Love Rumi.
Eros is mishandled (no pun intended) because the erotic is also sacred, but we forget.
If you read any part of Hummingbird's Daughter, you'll see the mystical bent is the hook where I'm hung.
#
By the way, "RobertP." He writes me sometimes about obscure rock bands I ought to hear. Yes. My inner teen prays to the God of Rock that it's THE Robert P. Hammer of the gods...Valhalla I am coming....
#
Leaving tomorrow for Boise. They say we'll have a crowd of 700 there. Those of you who have been on the journey know it started with about five in bookstores and 15 at readings. I did one reading in SF that had exactly two old men in the audience. One was homeless, one was asleep. In LA, I had two folks in the seats, and when the bookstore announced it was me, they got up and left. At Ol' Miss nobody came at all, and my hosts took me out to lunch instead. I will always remember the manager of Midnight Special in Santa Monica telling me, when nobody showed up: "The other managers in the store get writers people want to see. I always get writers like you!" Ha! How can you not laugh?
(All right, at the time, you don't laugh. It was a bad week on a bad tour. I had the flu. I'd lost all my plane tickets. My publicity staff had abandoned me for Dan Quayle's tour. But, at least, there was this: after the deadly Santa Monica non-event, I fevered my way back to the Beverly Hills Hilton in a cab, and Gloria Estefan ran into me charging out of the elevator with a dress over her arm. Bam! She was very small. I was not.)
I don't like to leave home. But I don't like my home being here. This is one of the universe's little tricks to keep me working. If I ever stumble into Rancho Urrea (Cabora Norte?), where there is a barn to write in, a garden to pee in, some trees to talk to, a pond for turtles, a pig or two, hummingbirds, and really big mountains out the window, I might never tour again. Why do it? I have way too much to talk to the elk, beavers, magpies, marmots and wolves about. Don't even start with the buffalo and pronghorns. Bears" Bigfoot? Fuggeddaboutit. Me and Cinderella, as the Wallflowers song says, Got it all together. It would be us, under quilts, watching the TiVo!
Start a press of my own so I can publish unknown writers. And my own obscure crap like Wastelanders (see blog posts) and cartoons. Go solar. Get off the grid. Eat apples.
I'm afraid I'll turn into one of those strange fellows in overalls and wild hair.
But I'll probably do writing retreats out in the barn. Plenty of tea and coffee. You're invited.
4ever Alive, L
VALENTINE
Immigration Monday will be created by Grace this week, of Clarke and Grace fame. And that's it. I have said all I can say about that subject. I'm taking the blog back for poems and writing and nature and spirit. If I have anything to say of any value, anything NEW after 100,000 words about immigration, I'll post it here. Rarely.
To the anonymous poet who asked such good questions about my poem "Valentine"in the comments section--yes. Indeed. Mystic. That's me.
All true love poems are also poems to God. Indwelling fire illuminating the beloved. Perhaps the beloved is a pathway to the divine? And I do read Rumi. Love Rumi.
Eros is mishandled (no pun intended) because the erotic is also sacred, but we forget.
If you read any part of Hummingbird's Daughter, you'll see the mystical bent is the hook where I'm hung.
#
By the way, "RobertP." He writes me sometimes about obscure rock bands I ought to hear. Yes. My inner teen prays to the God of Rock that it's THE Robert P. Hammer of the gods...Valhalla I am coming....
#
Leaving tomorrow for Boise. They say we'll have a crowd of 700 there. Those of you who have been on the journey know it started with about five in bookstores and 15 at readings. I did one reading in SF that had exactly two old men in the audience. One was homeless, one was asleep. In LA, I had two folks in the seats, and when the bookstore announced it was me, they got up and left. At Ol' Miss nobody came at all, and my hosts took me out to lunch instead. I will always remember the manager of Midnight Special in Santa Monica telling me, when nobody showed up: "The other managers in the store get writers people want to see. I always get writers like you!" Ha! How can you not laugh?
(All right, at the time, you don't laugh. It was a bad week on a bad tour. I had the flu. I'd lost all my plane tickets. My publicity staff had abandoned me for Dan Quayle's tour. But, at least, there was this: after the deadly Santa Monica non-event, I fevered my way back to the Beverly Hills Hilton in a cab, and Gloria Estefan ran into me charging out of the elevator with a dress over her arm. Bam! She was very small. I was not.)
I don't like to leave home. But I don't like my home being here. This is one of the universe's little tricks to keep me working. If I ever stumble into Rancho Urrea (Cabora Norte?), where there is a barn to write in, a garden to pee in, some trees to talk to, a pond for turtles, a pig or two, hummingbirds, and really big mountains out the window, I might never tour again. Why do it? I have way too much to talk to the elk, beavers, magpies, marmots and wolves about. Don't even start with the buffalo and pronghorns. Bears" Bigfoot? Fuggeddaboutit. Me and Cinderella, as the Wallflowers song says, Got it all together. It would be us, under quilts, watching the TiVo!
Start a press of my own so I can publish unknown writers. And my own obscure crap like Wastelanders (see blog posts) and cartoons. Go solar. Get off the grid. Eat apples.
I'm afraid I'll turn into one of those strange fellows in overalls and wild hair.
But I'll probably do writing retreats out in the barn. Plenty of tea and coffee. You're invited.
4ever Alive, L
2/14/2008
I was burned by bitter drought.
You drenched me.
I was sliced by hunger's knife.
You fed me.
When desert devils came for me,
you stood in the door and held the line.
I was sullied in my soul.
You bathed me.
I was choking on no hope.
You saved me.
When I had gone both deaf and blind,
you whispered two words against the night:
Everything. Always.
Immigration Tuesday
You drenched me.
I was sliced by hunger's knife.
You fed me.
When desert devils came for me,
you stood in the door and held the line.
I was sullied in my soul.
You bathed me.
I was choking on no hope.
You saved me.
When I had gone both deaf and blind,
you whispered two words against the night:
Everything. Always.
2/12/2008
I spread out like a fungus. I caused itching all over America. I tried to quit, and they pulled me back in!
The insane assholes of xenophobic America are blasting away at me for my SF Chronicle rant about the border fence. Yee-haw! The rodeo is ON!
See my previoius post today. I hate this shit.
I am going to surrender Immigration MOnday to my new pal, Dan Kowalski. He's the big gorilla of Bender's Immigration BUlletin. It's better and snazzier and free. Go there now!
www.bibdaily.com
Mad Dan coudn't control himself. He liked the essay and made a website! Yeah! So go there and look at it and post your diatribes there. Dan can take it.
http://theyhateusforourthongs.blogspot.com
For a guy who plans to abandon the immigration cause, I seem to have new websites. Huh. Go figure.
Writing Meditation and Snow
The insane assholes of xenophobic America are blasting away at me for my SF Chronicle rant about the border fence. Yee-haw! The rodeo is ON!
See my previoius post today. I hate this shit.
I am going to surrender Immigration MOnday to my new pal, Dan Kowalski. He's the big gorilla of Bender's Immigration BUlletin. It's better and snazzier and free. Go there now!
www.bibdaily.com
Mad Dan coudn't control himself. He liked the essay and made a website! Yeah! So go there and look at it and post your diatribes there. Dan can take it.
http://theyhateusforourthongs.blogspot.com
For a guy who plans to abandon the immigration cause, I seem to have new websites. Huh. Go figure.
What is it about snow? It makes everything seem bucolic and tender. Then it turns brown, gray and black and makes everything look like Hades. Then it melts and all the million dog poo landmines in the back yard start to appear. But then it snows again and the manure becomes mini-Alps and life looks poetic.
Speaking of dog poo landmines (I am a master of the segue), my recent SF Chronicle essay poking fun at the border fence brought on a crazy I hate you mail experience for me from my old pals, the patriots. I reiterate that I am tired of immigration. Tired of talking about it, tired of researching it, and tired of writing about it. I am going to very soon stop the Immigration Monday blog because--as I have been telling many of my correspondents lately, I started blogging to explore writing and God and nature and dreaming and shamanic haiku gardening with you. Somehow, the political monster took over.
Cinderella hates the Immigration Monday, since she's seen it consume my writing/thinking energy. I don't write poems, I write border news. Duh. Yeccchhh. Blech. I rush hoime to scan for juicy immigration bits. For what? I don't know. I'm very close to Mission Complete.
Maybe I'll do an Immigration Monday Monthly Report. How will that be?
Next week, I go to Boise. I think--I hope--we're talking about Hummingbird and not Devil's H. If you live up there in God's Country, come see me. Or tell your friends to come by.
Here's a thought much closer to the heart of what I want to explore with you:
"The life that moves toward an innocent vision moves with increasing freedom. Hate can consume us in a wave of bitterness, but whenever we sense the shared core of innocence, we rise on a tide of joy." --Hugh Prather
Innocent vision!
I got joy like a founatin, I got joy like a fountain,
I got joy like a fountain in my heart! Hallelujah.
L
EXTRA! EXTRA! I Monday Side Dish
Speaking of dog poo landmines (I am a master of the segue), my recent SF Chronicle essay poking fun at the border fence brought on a crazy I hate you mail experience for me from my old pals, the patriots. I reiterate that I am tired of immigration. Tired of talking about it, tired of researching it, and tired of writing about it. I am going to very soon stop the Immigration Monday blog because--as I have been telling many of my correspondents lately, I started blogging to explore writing and God and nature and dreaming and shamanic haiku gardening with you. Somehow, the political monster took over.
Cinderella hates the Immigration Monday, since she's seen it consume my writing/thinking energy. I don't write poems, I write border news. Duh. Yeccchhh. Blech. I rush hoime to scan for juicy immigration bits. For what? I don't know. I'm very close to Mission Complete.
Maybe I'll do an Immigration Monday Monthly Report. How will that be?
Next week, I go to Boise. I think--I hope--we're talking about Hummingbird and not Devil's H. If you live up there in God's Country, come see me. Or tell your friends to come by.
Here's a thought much closer to the heart of what I want to explore with you:
"The life that moves toward an innocent vision moves with increasing freedom. Hate can consume us in a wave of bitterness, but whenever we sense the shared core of innocence, we rise on a tide of joy." --Hugh Prather
Innocent vision!
I got joy like a founatin, I got joy like a fountain,
I got joy like a fountain in my heart! Hallelujah.
L
2/10/2008
Whoa. There's just too much good stuff for one posting! Looks like the SF Chronicle ran my border rant today, not on the 20th. They interestingly enough ran it with Duncan Hunter's piece explaining why the fence is needed and a good thing! Ah, spirited debate.
Oddly, I like Duncan Hunter. I'd like to have coffee with him. Bi-partisan bi-cultural idea exchange. So, when you open the paper's website to look at mine, read his. ALWAYS: look both ways before you cross the street...or border.
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/10/IN25UJSCR.DTL
Can't we all just get along?
Immigration Monday
Oddly, I like Duncan Hunter. I'd like to have coffee with him. Bi-partisan bi-cultural idea exchange. So, when you open the paper's website to look at mine, read his. ALWAYS: look both ways before you cross the street...or border.
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/10/IN25UJSCR.DTL
Can't we all just get along?
February 11, 2008
No amount of make-believe
Will help this heart of mine.
Your dream-world is just about to end.
Your dream-world is just about to fall.
Your dream-world will fall. --Midnight Oil
Happy Valentine's Day.
____________________________________________________________
As you know, I started this blog to discuss writing/spirit/career with my readers and students and friends and peers. But we took this side-trip to Immigration Monday. Like any great road-trip, it's all in the detours. Right? How esle are you going to find the Jolly Green Giant statue in Blue Earth, MN? (I wonder what the Giant's view is on immigration? Since the small brown huamoids scuttle down hsi many rows of veggies and keep them cheap, I will venture that the HO-HO-HO Green Giant is SOFT on immigration!) Still, it seems that I spend most of my lit-blog time writing this IM material. We are looking at putting it all in its own archive, so you Immigration Researchers can access the rich manure of this mulch-pile, while the haiku, inspiration, gardening/God/Zen/Jesus/rock'n'roll/wild turkey/tree hugger types can stay in the writing workshop side. That's what I'm hoping. Separation of church and state. COMING SOON.
Watch the S.F. Chronicle of Feb. 20 for my newest unfit-for-primetime rant on...uh...immigration! Actually, it's about the border fence. I think it's funny. But, you know, whenever I raise my head from the bunker, the maniacs start shooting. Let's hope they post freakazoid attacks on the message board here so we can all enjoy them!
#
The Official Immigration Lawyer of Immigration Monday
I just decided. We e-mail and chat and I think she's great. So, un-requested: Florence Chamberlin, P.A. That's my IM warrior! I hope to feature an editorial from her soon, since I'm tired of writing about this stuff.
www.chamberlinimmigration.com
#
Immigration Law News
Thanks to Florence, I have been reading the AILA news. (American Immigration Lawyers Association.) You want to get right to the heart of the news and cut out the crap? Try taking a peek at what the professionals who have to do this battle on the front lines report. It's a wonderful read if you're a border maniac like me. Look for the "Pulse" e-magazine at:
www.aila.org
#
Mung-Munching Morons of the Month
If you peruse the Drudge Report like I do (and you should--it's Righty but full of interesting stuff, and Drudge links to many many news sources so you can do your own IM research), you saw that a picturte of nerdy Hillary and Bill back in the bad haircut/hairy legs years graced a headline that screamed: HILLARY WILL GIVE AMNESTY TO MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS.
Holy cow, Ma! Circle the wagons! The beaners is comin'!
This posting was offered by the "think-tank", Numbers USA. A group doing some hard thinking about the daunting issue of Illegal Immigratrion. The point of their article was this: Hillary will allow ten to twenty million beaners in the country to stay in the country!
Wait. Ten million is a lot fewer than twenty million. I thought you guys were NUMBERS USA.
Wait, wait! Do you mean you don't know the numbers? Or do you not know the difference? I know the difference between 10 and 20.
You either don't know the numbers, or you feel there's wiggle-room on the numbers, so that the ten million OR SO people in between 10,000,000 and 20,000,000 are not much of a margin. Gee, that's the kind of thinking that led to our fabulous economic recovery we're enjoying right now. That whole Iraq thing and cutting taxes. That booming real estate picture. That fine stock market. Could it be that the morons you hope to panic and stampede are easier to sway if 10 MIL isn't enough? 20 MIL might really sock it to 'em?
Maybe you're hoping the minds of your constituency will skip over the 10 and go right to the big 20--or blend them together into 30 MILLION!!!!
I'd like to borrow ten...OR...twenty dollars from you.
#
NCLR
National Council on La Raza. They have a stop the hate campaign. Numbers USA would tell you they are sneaky America-haters. But you should look and see and think for yourself:
www.wecanstopthehate.org
#
Official Troubador of Immigration Monday
TOM RUSSELL! My amigo, Tom. He, of the lonesome deep voice and the heart-breaking songs. He of the Texas border country and the big cowboy hat and the swooning ladies and weeping cowboys. He, wh was friends with Charles Bukowski and writes the most amazing songs. He has an anthem I love, and if you read this blog you might love it, too. It's called "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?"
Watch the viddie on Youtube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LAkAposVLKA
He also has a killer Border Patrol song--no, it's not a hate-the-BP number.
#
Try, Try Again
Last week, I offered you two interesting sites with stories on immigration and the Dems, and immigration and the GOP. The links didn't work. Let's try it this way.
First, you ought to hook up with Truth Out. They'll send you nifty stories and columns and I won't have to put them up here.
www.truthout.org
The GOP story. Try:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/01/AR2008020103260.html?
For the Democrats:
look for Maya Schenwer at Truth Out. The piece is called "Immigration, the Democrats' Invisible Issue."
#
Speaking of the Post
Juan Sanchez sent me the very useful link to The Houston Chronicle D.C. reporter, Richard Dunham's, column. It isn't always about Immigration, but immigration itself isn't always about immigration.
www.blogs.chron.com/txptomac
#
All righty then. Another happy gathering of immigrant lovers, America haters, fence-jumpers, beaners, Pinkos, weak-kneed sissies and errant cops, sheriffs, BP agents, lawyers, "illegals," and the idle curious. It's a typical beautiful day the the Immigration Monday Rancho. -7 degrees and a ferocious wind.
Aren't you glad you're not out there, walking the empty spaces?
Who did you vote for? I aint tellin. You know me--I was either going to go for Hillarity or o'Bama. I'm mad at both of them, though. When they appoint me Immigration Czar, I will take them to task. This is my campaign promise to you, my core constituents!
Both Barry and Billary voted FOR the boondoggle known as Your Border Fence. They KNEW it was a sheer waste of money and a stupid gesture that the Minutemen are doing better and cheaper on their own! They knew it, but they didn't care, because they were pandering to base and shitty instincts. I hear (9/11) a lot of talk (terrorism) against the (Bin Laden) "politics of fear" (Iraq) in America (illegals). How it's bad. How this is a new era of HOPE! CHANGE! Wait--didn't I hear one of the candidates say a version of "I'm a uniter, not a divider"? Oh my Lord, no!
But a cynical vote for a fence neither candidate believes in is a vote for more fear and loathing. Shame on you, you little piglets. Do better.
Again, I ask: is John McCain the only visionary left on immigarion? Oops. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity just popped a cerebral hemorrhage. Sorry.
The fence is costing you, personally, $1.2 billion. Now, NUMBERS USA would lost that as: One or Two BILLION DOLLARS. The issue comes up often that illegal immigration is costing schools and hospitals a fortune in border states. Of course, if we hadn't wiped our nether parts with $1.2 billion and flushed to down the john, we could have invested it in--hey!--schools and hospitals. But, or course, that's soft.
Today's Chicago Tribune (SUnday) has a great piece on Arizona's new draconian laws on immigration. I'll probably post it this week as an IM Extra--it's that interesting. The harsh new rules are accomplishing what Oklahoma wanted to accomplish with its own harsh new rules: self-immigration. That's right! Peeps are pulling up stakes and running to Texas, California, New Mexico. Voila! Problem gone! Shazam! New probs in Texas, California, New Mexico!
And, oh gee, what a bummer, there is suddenly a financial crisis in OOOOOOOOOOOklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain! I AZ. All that filthy beaner money. Gone.
Do you remember when this happened on the east coast? We, of course, mocked the crap out of the towns in New Jersey that forced out the "illegals" then started whining that they were going bankrupt and started trying to lure "illegals" back.
America: you cannot have it both ways.
You cannot hate and love.
You cannot represent change and pander to the staus quo.
You cannot chase 'em out and cry about their being gone.
You cannot build a fence that can't work, won't work, can't be built, is not long enough and can't be paid for and complain about those who criticize it.
You can't be immigrants and assault immigrants for being immigrants. Well, you can. And you can be laughed at as hypocrites.
ReDefine the Line.
I Am Immigration Czar of America.
Who Would Jesus Deport?
Amnesty for The Jolly Green Giant!
Luis
Weatherman
No amount of make-believe
Will help this heart of mine.
Your dream-world is just about to end.
Your dream-world is just about to fall.
Your dream-world will fall. --Midnight Oil
Happy Valentine's Day.
____________________________________________________________
As you know, I started this blog to discuss writing/spirit/career with my readers and students and friends and peers. But we took this side-trip to Immigration Monday. Like any great road-trip, it's all in the detours. Right? How esle are you going to find the Jolly Green Giant statue in Blue Earth, MN? (I wonder what the Giant's view is on immigration? Since the small brown huamoids scuttle down hsi many rows of veggies and keep them cheap, I will venture that the HO-HO-HO Green Giant is SOFT on immigration!) Still, it seems that I spend most of my lit-blog time writing this IM material. We are looking at putting it all in its own archive, so you Immigration Researchers can access the rich manure of this mulch-pile, while the haiku, inspiration, gardening/God/Zen/Jesus/rock'n'roll/wild turkey/tree hugger types can stay in the writing workshop side. That's what I'm hoping. Separation of church and state. COMING SOON.
Watch the S.F. Chronicle of Feb. 20 for my newest unfit-for-primetime rant on...uh...immigration! Actually, it's about the border fence. I think it's funny. But, you know, whenever I raise my head from the bunker, the maniacs start shooting. Let's hope they post freakazoid attacks on the message board here so we can all enjoy them!
#
The Official Immigration Lawyer of Immigration Monday
I just decided. We e-mail and chat and I think she's great. So, un-requested: Florence Chamberlin, P.A. That's my IM warrior! I hope to feature an editorial from her soon, since I'm tired of writing about this stuff.
www.chamberlinimmigration.com
#
Immigration Law News
Thanks to Florence, I have been reading the AILA news. (American Immigration Lawyers Association.) You want to get right to the heart of the news and cut out the crap? Try taking a peek at what the professionals who have to do this battle on the front lines report. It's a wonderful read if you're a border maniac like me. Look for the "Pulse" e-magazine at:
www.aila.org
#
Mung-Munching Morons of the Month
If you peruse the Drudge Report like I do (and you should--it's Righty but full of interesting stuff, and Drudge links to many many news sources so you can do your own IM research), you saw that a picturte of nerdy Hillary and Bill back in the bad haircut/hairy legs years graced a headline that screamed: HILLARY WILL GIVE AMNESTY TO MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS.
Holy cow, Ma! Circle the wagons! The beaners is comin'!
This posting was offered by the "think-tank", Numbers USA. A group doing some hard thinking about the daunting issue of Illegal Immigratrion. The point of their article was this: Hillary will allow ten to twenty million beaners in the country to stay in the country!
Wait. Ten million is a lot fewer than twenty million. I thought you guys were NUMBERS USA.
Wait, wait! Do you mean you don't know the numbers? Or do you not know the difference? I know the difference between 10 and 20.
You either don't know the numbers, or you feel there's wiggle-room on the numbers, so that the ten million OR SO people in between 10,000,000 and 20,000,000 are not much of a margin. Gee, that's the kind of thinking that led to our fabulous economic recovery we're enjoying right now. That whole Iraq thing and cutting taxes. That booming real estate picture. That fine stock market. Could it be that the morons you hope to panic and stampede are easier to sway if 10 MIL isn't enough? 20 MIL might really sock it to 'em?
Maybe you're hoping the minds of your constituency will skip over the 10 and go right to the big 20--or blend them together into 30 MILLION!!!!
I'd like to borrow ten...OR...twenty dollars from you.
#
NCLR
National Council on La Raza. They have a stop the hate campaign. Numbers USA would tell you they are sneaky America-haters. But you should look and see and think for yourself:
www.wecanstopthehate.org
#
Official Troubador of Immigration Monday
TOM RUSSELL! My amigo, Tom. He, of the lonesome deep voice and the heart-breaking songs. He of the Texas border country and the big cowboy hat and the swooning ladies and weeping cowboys. He, wh was friends with Charles Bukowski and writes the most amazing songs. He has an anthem I love, and if you read this blog you might love it, too. It's called "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?"
Watch the viddie on Youtube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LAkAposVLKA
He also has a killer Border Patrol song--no, it's not a hate-the-BP number.
#
Try, Try Again
Last week, I offered you two interesting sites with stories on immigration and the Dems, and immigration and the GOP. The links didn't work. Let's try it this way.
First, you ought to hook up with Truth Out. They'll send you nifty stories and columns and I won't have to put them up here.
www.truthout.org
The GOP story. Try:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/01/AR2008020103260.html?
For the Democrats:
look for Maya Schenwer at Truth Out. The piece is called "Immigration, the Democrats' Invisible Issue."
#
Speaking of the Post
Juan Sanchez sent me the very useful link to The Houston Chronicle D.C. reporter, Richard Dunham's, column. It isn't always about Immigration, but immigration itself isn't always about immigration.
www.blogs.chron.com/txptomac
#
All righty then. Another happy gathering of immigrant lovers, America haters, fence-jumpers, beaners, Pinkos, weak-kneed sissies and errant cops, sheriffs, BP agents, lawyers, "illegals," and the idle curious. It's a typical beautiful day the the Immigration Monday Rancho. -7 degrees and a ferocious wind.
Aren't you glad you're not out there, walking the empty spaces?
Who did you vote for? I aint tellin. You know me--I was either going to go for Hillarity or o'Bama. I'm mad at both of them, though. When they appoint me Immigration Czar, I will take them to task. This is my campaign promise to you, my core constituents!
Both Barry and Billary voted FOR the boondoggle known as Your Border Fence. They KNEW it was a sheer waste of money and a stupid gesture that the Minutemen are doing better and cheaper on their own! They knew it, but they didn't care, because they were pandering to base and shitty instincts. I hear (9/11) a lot of talk (terrorism) against the (Bin Laden) "politics of fear" (Iraq) in America (illegals). How it's bad. How this is a new era of HOPE! CHANGE! Wait--didn't I hear one of the candidates say a version of "I'm a uniter, not a divider"? Oh my Lord, no!
But a cynical vote for a fence neither candidate believes in is a vote for more fear and loathing. Shame on you, you little piglets. Do better.
Again, I ask: is John McCain the only visionary left on immigarion? Oops. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity just popped a cerebral hemorrhage. Sorry.
The fence is costing you, personally, $1.2 billion. Now, NUMBERS USA would lost that as: One or Two BILLION DOLLARS. The issue comes up often that illegal immigration is costing schools and hospitals a fortune in border states. Of course, if we hadn't wiped our nether parts with $1.2 billion and flushed to down the john, we could have invested it in--hey!--schools and hospitals. But, or course, that's soft.
Today's Chicago Tribune (SUnday) has a great piece on Arizona's new draconian laws on immigration. I'll probably post it this week as an IM Extra--it's that interesting. The harsh new rules are accomplishing what Oklahoma wanted to accomplish with its own harsh new rules: self-immigration. That's right! Peeps are pulling up stakes and running to Texas, California, New Mexico. Voila! Problem gone! Shazam! New probs in Texas, California, New Mexico!
And, oh gee, what a bummer, there is suddenly a financial crisis in OOOOOOOOOOOklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain! I AZ. All that filthy beaner money. Gone.
Do you remember when this happened on the east coast? We, of course, mocked the crap out of the towns in New Jersey that forced out the "illegals" then started whining that they were going bankrupt and started trying to lure "illegals" back.
America: you cannot have it both ways.
You cannot hate and love.
You cannot represent change and pander to the staus quo.
You cannot chase 'em out and cry about their being gone.
You cannot build a fence that can't work, won't work, can't be built, is not long enough and can't be paid for and complain about those who criticize it.
You can't be immigrants and assault immigrants for being immigrants. Well, you can. And you can be laughed at as hypocrites.
ReDefine the Line.
I Am Immigration Czar of America.
Who Would Jesus Deport?
Amnesty for The Jolly Green Giant!
Luis
2/06/2008
I'm typing with frozen fingers. I have the best scam on earth, though: a bad back. So when it snows--again--and again--and again--Cinderella gets out and shovels. Then I feel really bad about it, and I go relieve her, then throw out my back.
More snow. Our old pals at O'Hare have cancelled 500 flights. After cancelling 500 yesterday. And you know what happened to us with our attempted NYC flight. Someone call the conspiracy theorists! Russia and China are using their weather-control tech to isolate Chi-town so the terrorists can strike! We're trapped like rats!
Well, it looks like my publishers so far like Into the Beautiful North. I got an email that said: GREAT. (Caps theirs.) Yes! I rule! I cannot wait for you to read it. I think it's a good laugh out loud then honk into your hankie kind of book.
In a couple of weeks, I'll try to leave Illinois (Illin' Noise) to go to Idaho. What do you think? I predict a few hours in O'Hare or the Boise airport, stranded. Hope Starbucks is open.
I watch the terrible films on CNN of the tornadoes in the south. I'm remembering my own small tornado story. I was down in my family's home town, Rosario, Sinaloa. It's the basis for the hometown in Beautiful North. (I wrote a lot about it in the book, Six Kinds of Sky.) I was in my uncle's house with my girl cousins--Irma, Nancy and Melba. The elders had gone off to the wilderness for a picnic. And we were there in the crushing heat of a Sinaloan June. It wasn't prticularly stormy--though June is the rainy season. It was cloudy. Suddenly, the sky turned yellow-green. Almost orange. It was dead silent. And then the windows started exploding.
I ran upstairs with Irma as the little girls hid under the stairs. We were trying to get the windows closed. The door of the house across the street peeled off and flew into space. And slivers of glass were flying all around. One sliced open my foot. It didn't hurt all that much. Probably because I thought we were all going to die. Plus, all the blood really impressed Irma. So I got to be really macho for a minute.
After the apocalypse, the girls washed my foot and put bandages on it and cooed about what a he-man I was.
Nowadays, I don't even shovel out my own driveway. But I feel too good about my book to worry about it much.
I'm not writing anything or touring anywhere till Idaho. I don't know what to do with myself. Think I'll go work on some poems.
See you on the road this year: Idaho, New Hampshire, Texas, California, Oregon, Vermont. As Joe Ely said: The road goes on forever, The party never ends.
Except when it's snowing.
L
Immigration Monday 'Nuff Said Edition
More snow. Our old pals at O'Hare have cancelled 500 flights. After cancelling 500 yesterday. And you know what happened to us with our attempted NYC flight. Someone call the conspiracy theorists! Russia and China are using their weather-control tech to isolate Chi-town so the terrorists can strike! We're trapped like rats!
Well, it looks like my publishers so far like Into the Beautiful North. I got an email that said: GREAT. (Caps theirs.) Yes! I rule! I cannot wait for you to read it. I think it's a good laugh out loud then honk into your hankie kind of book.
In a couple of weeks, I'll try to leave Illinois (Illin' Noise) to go to Idaho. What do you think? I predict a few hours in O'Hare or the Boise airport, stranded. Hope Starbucks is open.
I watch the terrible films on CNN of the tornadoes in the south. I'm remembering my own small tornado story. I was down in my family's home town, Rosario, Sinaloa. It's the basis for the hometown in Beautiful North. (I wrote a lot about it in the book, Six Kinds of Sky.) I was in my uncle's house with my girl cousins--Irma, Nancy and Melba. The elders had gone off to the wilderness for a picnic. And we were there in the crushing heat of a Sinaloan June. It wasn't prticularly stormy--though June is the rainy season. It was cloudy. Suddenly, the sky turned yellow-green. Almost orange. It was dead silent. And then the windows started exploding.
I ran upstairs with Irma as the little girls hid under the stairs. We were trying to get the windows closed. The door of the house across the street peeled off and flew into space. And slivers of glass were flying all around. One sliced open my foot. It didn't hurt all that much. Probably because I thought we were all going to die. Plus, all the blood really impressed Irma. So I got to be really macho for a minute.
After the apocalypse, the girls washed my foot and put bandages on it and cooed about what a he-man I was.
Nowadays, I don't even shovel out my own driveway. But I feel too good about my book to worry about it much.
I'm not writing anything or touring anywhere till Idaho. I don't know what to do with myself. Think I'll go work on some poems.
See you on the road this year: Idaho, New Hampshire, Texas, California, Oregon, Vermont. As Joe Ely said: The road goes on forever, The party never ends.
Except when it's snowing.
L
2/04/2008
February 4, 2008
VOTE!!!
'Nuff said.
#
Immigration and the G.O.P.
www.thruthout.org/docs_2006/020208A.shtml
Immigration and the Dems
www.truthout.org/docs_2006/02010108A.shtml
#
See ya at the polls. Hope it's not the Gallows Pole.
Hang-man, hang-man, wait a little while
I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile....
L
Exercise in Futility
VOTE!!!
'Nuff said.
#
Immigration and the G.O.P.
www.thruthout.org/docs_2006/020208A.shtml
Immigration and the Dems
www.truthout.org/docs_2006/02010108A.shtml
#
See ya at the polls. Hope it's not the Gallows Pole.
Hang-man, hang-man, wait a little while
I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile....
L
2/02/2008
Poor Dagoberto Gild. I have abandoned him to the wilds of New York City.
We were supposed to be on what has come to be an ill-fated panel for the big AWP (Associated Writing Programs) convention this weekend. The bizarre Curse of 2008 started up and caused much mischief to us all. It was a dream "Latin/o" or even "Chicana/o" gathering. Benjamin Alire Saenz, the poet and novelist, contacted several of us who were border-types to come to NYC and represent the new paradigm, the new voice of border writing and immigration wisdom. It was audacious and important: the AWP needed a strong Latino presence, and we all agreed to bring our (in some cases newly constructed) united front to the table.
Ben was the moderator/host/m.c. Sandra Cisneros, Dagoberto, Ruben Martinez, Denise Chavez and myself rounded out the team. They were expecting 600 people to attend, and it was one of the major events of the day. (Today. Ahem.)
Sadly, Sandra's mother passed away. She went into seclusion and didn't want to be put on the dais so soon after this tragic event. We soldiered on. Then Denise couldn't make it--wow. A representative panel without women? But we limped ahead. Suddenly, and most unexpectedly, Ben himself took ill and was hospitalized. (He'll be OK, I promise.)
What? We're on a panel and there's no host? We didn't know what we were expected to do or say or how the structure was going to be planned out, since our head was now out of the picture. Ben even had a plan to have us compose a manifesto/credo about the border and immigration that we would all sign. Begin a bew era of conversation in America inspired by we, the writers.
The most hilarious round of phone calls and e-mails ensued, as Dago, Ruben, and I tried frantically to figure out what we were doing. For a time, since Ben was incommunicado, Denise thought she might rejoin us. Dago and I basically said, about twice a day, "Yo, vato--WTF???"
Comes the week of the AWP. I offer myself to m.c. the panel, and urge the AWP to give Ben a rain-check to launch this important event next year. And then, the storm of '08 hits Chicago. Inches and inches and inches of snow. Cinderella and I start out at 5:00 trying to get to NYC. The first flight is cancelled. A half hour is all it takes to negotiate the next flight and rebook. It's an hour later. It's cancelled. It takes about 45 minutes to negotiate the next flight. It's set for 3:30. It's cancelled. The 4:15 flight is cancelled. The 5:15 flight is postponed till 5:30. Not too bad. To 6:00. OK, no prob. To 7:45. Hmmm. The plane is at the gate, but now the storm is in NY, and we can't land, though we could theoretically take off. The flight is postponed till 9:45. The flight is postponed till 11:00. If we should get the 11:00 flight, we won't actually be in our hotel room until around 3:00 a.m. The woman at the gate takes Cindy aside and tells her, "Don't tell anywone I told you, but the flight isn't going out at all. It'll be cancelled."
The only flight we could gget on today would have gotten us there after the panel was over. Oh, and the one plane that did get out yesterday took our luggage to NYC. So, though I am not there, my underpants are representin'.
According the the panicky cell phone calls I got today--the "I'm here in the audience, where are you????" calls--Dago and Ruben manfully took the stage and recruited a few famous Latinos from the audience and soldiered on. Which is as it should be.
I did deliver my new novel, Into the Bueautiful North, to Little, Brown. By e-mail!
XXX, L
We were supposed to be on what has come to be an ill-fated panel for the big AWP (Associated Writing Programs) convention this weekend. The bizarre Curse of 2008 started up and caused much mischief to us all. It was a dream "Latin/o" or even "Chicana/o" gathering. Benjamin Alire Saenz, the poet and novelist, contacted several of us who were border-types to come to NYC and represent the new paradigm, the new voice of border writing and immigration wisdom. It was audacious and important: the AWP needed a strong Latino presence, and we all agreed to bring our (in some cases newly constructed) united front to the table.
Ben was the moderator/host/m.c. Sandra Cisneros, Dagoberto, Ruben Martinez, Denise Chavez and myself rounded out the team. They were expecting 600 people to attend, and it was one of the major events of the day. (Today. Ahem.)
Sadly, Sandra's mother passed away. She went into seclusion and didn't want to be put on the dais so soon after this tragic event. We soldiered on. Then Denise couldn't make it--wow. A representative panel without women? But we limped ahead. Suddenly, and most unexpectedly, Ben himself took ill and was hospitalized. (He'll be OK, I promise.)
What? We're on a panel and there's no host? We didn't know what we were expected to do or say or how the structure was going to be planned out, since our head was now out of the picture. Ben even had a plan to have us compose a manifesto/credo about the border and immigration that we would all sign. Begin a bew era of conversation in America inspired by we, the writers.
The most hilarious round of phone calls and e-mails ensued, as Dago, Ruben, and I tried frantically to figure out what we were doing. For a time, since Ben was incommunicado, Denise thought she might rejoin us. Dago and I basically said, about twice a day, "Yo, vato--WTF???"
Comes the week of the AWP. I offer myself to m.c. the panel, and urge the AWP to give Ben a rain-check to launch this important event next year. And then, the storm of '08 hits Chicago. Inches and inches and inches of snow. Cinderella and I start out at 5:00 trying to get to NYC. The first flight is cancelled. A half hour is all it takes to negotiate the next flight and rebook. It's an hour later. It's cancelled. It takes about 45 minutes to negotiate the next flight. It's set for 3:30. It's cancelled. The 4:15 flight is cancelled. The 5:15 flight is postponed till 5:30. Not too bad. To 6:00. OK, no prob. To 7:45. Hmmm. The plane is at the gate, but now the storm is in NY, and we can't land, though we could theoretically take off. The flight is postponed till 9:45. The flight is postponed till 11:00. If we should get the 11:00 flight, we won't actually be in our hotel room until around 3:00 a.m. The woman at the gate takes Cindy aside and tells her, "Don't tell anywone I told you, but the flight isn't going out at all. It'll be cancelled."
The only flight we could gget on today would have gotten us there after the panel was over. Oh, and the one plane that did get out yesterday took our luggage to NYC. So, though I am not there, my underpants are representin'.
According the the panicky cell phone calls I got today--the "I'm here in the audience, where are you????" calls--Dago and Ruben manfully took the stage and recruited a few famous Latinos from the audience and soldiered on. Which is as it should be.
I did deliver my new novel, Into the Bueautiful North, to Little, Brown. By e-mail!
XXX, L
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