Returns

And so I return...after a summer hiatus due mostly to the firewalls and technical high fences that the IT gang of Indians working on the fifth floor of my building have imposed on us hapless users. This is how it will happen: I will write my posts as a google doc, then email it to myself, then catch that email in the iphone, then transfer the message content to my blogger app inside the iphone, and finally post from there for you to read.

Well, I am working on lots of stuff these days. A super duper secret musical project is on the works. Writing my thesis proposal. And listening to lots and lots of music, the musical flow is endless. I highly recommend Janelle Moene’s Archandroid. That shit is da shit. While dancing ‘Oh, maker’ (the first R-B-yish sci-fi post polka ever)....think about Monxito.

On the other hand, I highly discourage you all go seeing Inception. It kind sucks, and it is sorta pretentious. But not quite.

People can't be this fucked up...

Could this be true?:

“The real reason that BP is drilling this relief well is that they want to have a functioning well for recovering oil from the reservoir before they destroy the leaking well. In other words, BP is hedging its bets that state and federal governments will not allow further drilling after the spill is stopped, so they’ve hyped the necessity of a so-called relief well in order to guarantee their company’s access to the oil field once the crisis ends.”
- Don’t Blame Offshore Drilling by Christopher Brownfield, The Daily Beast

The President needs to nationalize the relief effort. Period. Among leftists, I am the most extremist pro-market/believer of capitalism you might ever find. And I am ready to debate my position for as long as necessary. Nonetheless, nationalization is what needs to be done. BP employees in the Gulf are to be magically turned into federal employees, the Fed is to supervise everything and to ‘politically’ own the problem (so there is at least some kind of reality-based incentive -like votes- for someone to do something), and BP is to foot the bill.

In a fit of madness, Chris Matthews uttered the terrible word that my Buddhist brain has been avoiding: execution. Yes, in China they execute people for shit like this. I stop.

Ohhhh. I can not fathom how such a nasty thing could be true. Not even from BP. Really. Not in a time like this. Not with the oil already 12 miles into the marshes. It can not be possible. Can it?

Cerati

I am not used to think about rock and roll divinities as mortal human beings. They were born to make noise, to rock it out, to inspire, to modernize our souls. And so it always comes as a huge shock when they get struck by the inevitable human plights of illness or death.

Last year, it was the sudden and devastating passing of Luis el Terror Dias, a giant of rock, the grand father of Dominican tuki tuki, a poet, a superb guitar player, and a close friend and guru of some dear friends of mine.

Last week, Ronnie James Dio. If you ever heard Dio's powerful tenor, it was impossible to imagine it ever being subjected to extinction. But today he is no more.

This week we desperately await for good news about Gustavo Cerati, Argentinean singer-songwriter, guitar player, and rock divinity. He suffered a stroke after a concert in Caracas, and is lying in a coma. The most optimist prognosis is plainly awful. Cerati, the consummate Buenos Airean yuppie, the cosmopolitan dandy with a shinning elitist soul, the over-affected tenor, the slick and moody Kierkegaard-look-alike porteño, only 50 years old and so near of being no more.

I would not understand and love Spanish rock as I do without Cerati and Soda Stereo, the band he led from the early 80's to the mid 90's. I would not love rock as I do without Dynamo, Soda Stereo's 1992 masterpiece. Elegance itself would feel empty without Bocanada, Cerati's 1999 awe-inspiring gem.

These moments, argh, they make me feel like a child: I just don't want Cerati to die. I don't want him to be paralyzed or bed-ridden. I want Cerati to blast it out forever. To be eternal. And so I cling. On the verge of prayer.

Ouch

Julio Aparicio gets gored...you know how I feel about that. He survived, but the bull was swiftly dispatched by a gang of manly matadors in very tight pants.

Slick Barry

Well my dear people, Obama is gonna do shit about the spill. Nada, rien, nothing. Why should he?

It turns out that even if the whole Gulf of Mexico turns into a frying pan of bubbly steamy oil, this biblical catastrophe is going to have NO impact on Obama's approval numbers, it is going to be of no consequence for 2012, and hence, he's gonna do crap about it.

Where is the GOP and its rabid, irrational opposition? -Drilling, baby, drilling and accusing Obama of being too tough with BP!

Alas, I expected, just because of cheap electoral politics, to hear at least one Republican say: 'the President is doing nothing because he is a rich lawyer from Chicago, an incurable elitist, and he does not care about people down South'. But no. The GOP is offering no leverage by numbers or polling.

Everything and everyone is conspiring to bring the oil right to our shores.

And what are we gonna do about it? -Vote Palin 2012.

Apple Cider

This article on Gizmodo is important, for it signals the shifting grounds of the technology wars: the blogosphere is cannibalizing on Apple. Suddenly, Apple is not THAT cool or innovative, or liberal or fun or creative. It is old, grumpy, resentful, capitalist, police-friendly; and Google leaps ahead of Apple.

Steve Job’s overeaction to Gizmodo’s breaking the news -and publishing juicy photos- of a lost, never-seen-before, super duper secret iphone 4, achieved something few of us could believe just a month ago: the techie-heads crapping on Apple. That’s what happens when a multi-billionaire sends the cops to the house of a harmless nerdy tech website editor.

There is something scary about Google’s drive for global domination. Its omnipotence and omniscience. Yet, it is somehow understandable and with many historical precedents: it is a business and it wants to be everywhere and be used by everyone. The strategy is simple: cast a wide-net and be everything to everybody. The sheer size of Google’s global empire has made it impossible for them NOT to adopt an open platform philosophy. It has been the only way to attract an impressively diverse customer base. So by keeping it loose, they keep it together.

Apple’s vision and philosophy are different. Apple, unlike Microsoft, is not interested in having 100% of the planet using their Macs. They have around a 5% market share and they are comfortable with that. The gross of their money, however, comes from elsewhere: ipod and iphone sales. In the last decade, Apple has been steadily marching towards a technological and philosophical close-down. An obsessive compulsion to have people experience their products in Apple’s terms exclusively has become evident. Though it is impossible to perfectly close a whole computer with a fully loaded operating system, Apple has been moving towards controlling more and more, the ways their computers can be experienced and enjoyed. They have done this by limiting choices and by devising proprietary technology that works only for that 5% of the world’s computers. With ipods and iphones they have achieved what was impossible to do with a fully functional computer: complete lockdown. All in the name of the Apple experience.

Meanwhile, like a cheap whore, Google keeps selling itself the world over. And the more it expands, the more open it has to be....and the more chaos it can potentially engender.

Google fought the China’s Communist Party to a draw. They took a stand, on principle. If Google was able to fight the People’s Republic of China’s government to a draw, it will crush Apple and its petty tyrant. Apple runs the risk of becoming not only a joke, but even more painful, irrelevant. That will not happen today. But just as Google’s strategy for world domination is a long term one, Apple’s demise will take years. But down it will go. Unless it opens up.

My Garden, China and Dio

My wife is away in China. And I am kind of lost. I have trouble sleeping. The only things grounding me are my daily yoga practice, my garden and my guitars. And, yes, spring.

Today, I have been tending my garden in the backyard, along with my downstairs tenant/friend/drummer, Jose Anibal. We have the drum set right here, I have my computer down here, my amp and my guitar, and the sun. We have been rocking it out to the enthusiastic applause of our four African neighbors. The tomatoes are gonna flow after this for sure.

This will be paradise perfect if only my wife, Libertad, were not in China. I miss her smile, her hands, her voice, her smell, all of her. She is the legged and roaming flower of this garden.

I feel insecure about my writing because she has not read it and commented.

I don't feel like commenting on politics that much. Only the oil slick is politically present in my brain, and the thought that my friends from New Orleans are moving out of there because it just too much.

Too much is also the fact that Ronnie James Dio, who gave us the devil horn fingers, died today of stomach cancer. And, that's how I feel: like a Rainbow in the Dark. RIP.

As you can see, I am rambling. That's what happens when Libertad goes to China, and when my guitars are near me. I feel no guilt though, this is who I am right now: incomplete and musical. And as Stuart Smalley would say: that is OK.

Il professore, Carla, Tamar, Chris, Nader and Matt

For years I have been paying matriculation charges at the GC hoping for each semester to be THE one when I finished my Thesis Proposal. I've foolishly given CUNY thousands of dollars. And the proposal was nowhere to be seen at the end. A painful separation and sweet reconciliation from my beloved, new jobs, the death of my mother. Life always got in the way, and academia seemed farther each passing day.

This semester I thought: if I am paying, let the GC give me something back for real. And so, I ended up registering at the Writing Politics seminar.

It has been the best decision I've made in the last few years. And I have to thank all of you, il professore, Carla, Tamar, Nader, Chris and Matt.

You all took me out of my stupor and pessimism. You have energized me. You have given me back my academic and scholarly confidence. You have reacquainted me with the thing I love the most: the healthy and public exchange of ideas.

Our classroom is the healthiest of learning temples: a bar with good friends, without the endless flow of Bourbon. It has been, by FAR, the best experience I have had at the GC.

I love how we have all grown in concrete ways right in front of each other. No fear, just growth.

I have lost some of that paralyzing self-consciousness about my English. I have become a better writer. And for that I have to thank you all. And my dear wife, Libertad.

So, professore, thanks for watering us, for letting us be, for being so fast of your feet, for being so fucking smart, for allowing us to be clowns, encouraging towards each other, cruel, and funny.

And to the rest of the gang: I expect you all at my parties in the Vegan South Bronx!

THANKS!!!!

A slick of rage

It might well be my extremist instincts, but in the blink of an eye I have passed from enthusiastic support for Barack Obama, to an Olympic irrational rage toward his administration. From wanting him to befriend Lula da Silva, to wanting Lula to get Jiu-jitsu on his ass. And all because of that stubborn slick of oil in the Gulf.

I never thought that Obama's administration could end up bogged down in the same waters that defined W's inept administration: the Gulf coast was become Obama's Watergoo.

My beef? -Obama's parroting of BP's underestimation of the extent of the catastrophe.

BP says 5,000 barrels of oil per day, the administration parrots 5,000 barrels.

BP says that the amount of oil is irrelevant to the aggressiveness of their response, the administration parrots the same crap.

Well, it turns out that the spill is much more than 5,000 barrels per day, according to independent researchers and experts. And it also turns out that those are OUR waters and we have a right to know how much oil is spilling out. Just because. Regardless of the response, we have a right to know the truth.

I am afraid that Obama's slickness is spilling out of control, and the Gulf's catastrophe has brought it all out in all its ugly blandness.

To see this administration's utter impotence in confronting the spill and their complete dependence on BP's estimates is scary and nauseating.

To read Ken Salazar and Janet Napolitano begging on their knees for BP to cover the damage costs beyond the 75 million dollars of liability that the law requires is as humiliating as having Chinese tanks roaming free around Pennsylvania Avenue.

In these kinds of crises is when administrations grow or unravel. I want to see a couple of heads roll. I want blood. I want to see Obama and his cabinet sipping some tea à la pétrol.

For Homeownership

For the past few months my dear friend and world-renown SOHO resident communist, Chris Michael, has been shrewdly arguing against homeownership as against the virtues of renting. Chris's arguments are cogent and well-reasoned. Yet, today I want to present a counter-argument of sorts: how homeownership can be used as a tool in a progressive agenda.

When my wife and I bought our house in the South Bronx, after selling our beautiful one-bedroom apartment in Clinton Hill for over double of what we bought it, we had no idea of what owning a townhouse, a real house, meant. We didn't even know shit about the Bronx. With our coop apartment in Clinton Hill, we were responsible for our mortgage and a quite steep maintenance fee but, on the other hand, we never had to worry about anything concerning home-repairs and maintenance. We didn't even paid for electricity! Everything was done for us.

At first, our 4 story house (plus basement) seemed like a gigantic proposition. What were we going to do with so much space? It was a house with an independent garden apartment, but still it was considered a one-family house. We knew we were going to rent the first floor, but did we really need the other three floors just for the two of us? What about that ever present flow of friends and acquaintances trying to make it in NYC? Perhaps -we thought- we should rent the top floor two bedrooms to some of them, depending on their situation, and our needs. And so began our house-as-a-communal-refuge project. In the five years we have owned our house, countless friends have made our house their home, and we have derived immense satisfaction in knowing that not only they help us pay the mortgage with their below-market-rate rent (our one bedroom garden apartment goes for $850 per month), but we have helped lots of people to 'make it' in the city, or at least supported them giving NYC a try. From a now-successful actor to a junkie friend looking for a friendly detox environment, we have provided a safe heaven for people that have become part of our family. Our house has been their house, and we have created community thanks to the ownership of this blessed space.

About two years after moving here, we began what we christened 'The Bronx Salon Series', a series of public events where academics and activists presented their projects and/or papers to a public audience, followed by an open discussion and a party afterwards. Green projects (like the South Bronx Food Coop and the Green Workers Coop) were launched and made public in the parlor room of our house. We have had scholars from Berlin talking about hip-hop in ethnic enclaves in Paris, Warsaw, New York and Berlin, and we even had Marshall Berman present his last book, On the Town, here, in our parlor room. Friends from the GC, from Columbia University, from other academic institutions, PLUS our neighbors (the projects included) have enjoyed our discussions and parties. Doing that in a place that you don't own might be a little bit difficult. You could get away with doing it once or twice, but it would be a tough sell for any rational landlord. 'Yeah, it is cool, use my property to host public panels and invite the people from the projects and whomever wants to come'. The series has been possible only because we own the place.

Then we have our basement. The basement has served as a recording studio and rehearsal space for at least 6 different music bands since we moved here in 2005. Our musician friends know they have a free space for rehearsals, that they can make as much noise as their music calls for, at almost any time they wish...that is a rare opportunity in this overcrowded and noise-conscious city. We have recorded four CDs in that basement, some of those CDs are now part of the NYU library, the New York Public Library, the University of Puerto Rico's library and the Library of Congress. Again, owning the house, the sense that we could do whatever the fuck we want without asking for permission, is what has allowed us to provide that service to our friends. Again, our music projects have created a sense of a shared community, and it has been a source of immense personal satisfaction and pride for the artists and for my wife and I.

One day, about three years ago, we got an invitation from Mayor Bloomberg to come to a discussion with city planners about plans the city had about our hood. Why? It turns out that we are now considered to be important cultural and neighborhood leaders in our area. Every time that there is a plan for our neighborhood, we are invited, and we make the most of it...we say no, we say yes, and they have listened to us. In those meeting, plans have been scratched because we -and other 'important cultural leaders'- have made it clear that we will raise hell if they go ahead with a rezoning or closing a green area. We have gotten that humble clout because of the projects we have done in our house, and we have developed those projects because we own the place; we are not renters, we cannot easily move away if something is not of our liking, this place HAS to work for us, or else.

Last week we began experimenting with planting our own vegetables in the backyard, and we have friends already talking about helping us do a communal garden in our roof (they will buy everything we might need, including the special soil -produced here in the Bronx- that is best for roof gardens).

And next week we will begin our own radio station, with the antenna transmitting from our future roof garden. Most of the neighbors that own their own houses have already given us their approval to post re-transmitting antennas on their roofs. The idea, initiated by one of our tenants, is to to provide an open neighborly space for the discussion of issues affecting our neighborhood, and to play good music. We are still working on the programming, but we already have the servers, software and antennas ready to go. Our first experiment with the system -this weekend- was a resounding success.

Owning a house can be a drag, it is true. It is a lot of work. It forces you to learn about pipes, boilers, electricity, plaster walls, beams, drainage systems, etc. But, as with everything in life, it is absolutely dependent on one's attitude and approach. 95% of the friends that have rented in our house move out and stay in the South Bronx, blocks away from our place. Two of them even bought their own apartments in the borough. The idea, I guess, is to move beyond public/private artificial distinctions and to think beyond one's own self-interest, without disregarding hard facts as mortgage and oil payments, being a responsible landlord, and paying the bills. Our friends help us pay our mortgage, and we in turn have given them a progressive space for experimentation and community building. That's what owning a place should be all about: making it your own.

Silly bikes

Excellent post -via The Daily Dish- about silly bikes: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/04/ban-silly-bikes/

Two ears and a tail

Spain's most famous torero, José Tomás, has been gored. He almost didn't make it out of México, where he was on tour. Didn't know they had international bullfighting tours.

Up there is José Tomás with a bull's tail on one hand, two bull's ears on the other.

I know you know what I think.

;-)

I'm no Dutch Bag!!!

That's my bike up there!!! Literally. Photo from Robert Caplan, for the New York Times. Yes, my bike was featured in the New York Times. About three years ago. So, why write about it now?

That bike is pure me. Scruffy and misleadingly disheveled, but loyal, dependable, tough and hard working. I keep it looking that way on purpose. See, I live in the South Bronx, and there are still plenty shady characters around. And they also have to make a living. One of them once told me: 'stealing bike tires, copper cables and ladders is a tough job, but someone's gotta do it, and that's me!' My bike has survived, chained in the sidewalk, for five years. It is chained with two super tough military grade nuclear hardened chains. But the two times I've been a lazy ass, and have used only one chain...ha ha ha, those fuckers: two back tires gone, 35$ a piece. They let me know that they are watching me. Keeping me sharp. Last time I almost got into a knife fight with a 400 pound lady -with nasty body odors and a worst dope habit- who I KNOW for a fact that took my tire.

That bike I use almost everyday to shop my veggies half a block away. Why not walk? Because I own a bike and I take it out for a ride as much as I can. That bike cost me 12 bucks. That's a bit more than my family's daily portion of vegetables. I bought it legally (right in front of the precinct) from an old Puerto Rican dude...I exchanged it, bartered it...gave him my old race bike, got this one.

Well, the point is that the other day I saw this brand new Dutch bike riding around my hood. Foreign person riding. I did my research because it happens that I've seen a few of those bikes around Tribeca (on my daily meditation walk)...those bitches start at 800$. I could buy 67 of my 12$-bike for that price. It also happens that they are the latest fad according to the NY Times, who is always on top of such urgent items. Dutch bikes are in?! Well, yes.


Dutch bikes are very heavy, making them a pain to handle in NYC's crowded spaces. They are slow and you know what NYC thinks about slow; they were designed for a city with no significant slopes (Amsterdam) and for commutes that average 10m. Long story short: they are not NYC friendly. Actually, they are a nuisance and plain dangerous on these streets, where bikes have to be supple and tough to rough it out with cars, pedestrians, buses, etc. But again, just as with Apple products, my beef is not with the poor bikes, it is with the stupid people on top of them.

When I saw that Dutch bike in my hood, I could only think that my bike: a) had been in the NY Times, b) offered me an excuse to yell to the 400 pound women to go fuck herself and that she was very ugly (a favorite line of attack in street confrontations, it always works!) in front of everybody. That incident cemented my reputation as a crazy unpredictable dude, and the creeps have been mostly friendly from then on. c) Is living proof of my philosophy: extend the life of what you have and tinker with it. d) was only 12$.

What was that person doing with a Dutch bike in the South Bronx? Was it an omen that more Amsterdamers are coming our way? I have been thinking about opening a bike shop if more Dutch bikes are needed....I will sell them for 1200$ a piece. I could buy 100 of my 12$-bike with that much cash. Customers will feel very European, and I will feel very South Bronxean. It is a tough job, but someone's gotta do it!

The Green Softness

Almost from the moment I became vegan many friends and acquaintances have confessed thinking deeply (and secretly) about veganism, animal rights, the necessity of killing animals, etc. Some have even considered doing it themselves. Some have moderated their animal intake. A few have even taken the leap towards veganism.

All of this without me inviting them to do shit, without me preaching nothing to them. Mind you, I am full of possible sermons I would LOVE to give; I am packed with statements I would want to jam down people's ears; but I have always instinctively felt that in the case of veganism (dealing with something so culturally significant and so personal as food) it is better to lead by example. People are naturally curious as to why I made the choice, and they ask. And I pleasantly answer. I already have the story all weaved out. My thesis, Peter Singer, joke, seeing the light, joke, personal benefits, how fun it is to cook vegan stuff, an environmental micro-statement, etc.

But, it is HARD. Because, yes, while I do think that it is more efficient to just let people be themselves and not throw sermons at them, I REALLY believe that people eating animals just because their taste buds control them ('ooohhhh, I see, but I just love lamb shanks soooo freaking much!!!!) is morally wrong. Period.

Most people, I think, do it just because of good ol' ignorance. They just don't know. I was one of them. That's perfectly fine with me. I am neither the most compassionate guy around, nor the smartest...and I changed. So, I assume that if I could do it, anybody can. But then there are those who DO know or understand, and who feel threatened, or feel judged by me (they are right about that one!), and they want to fight...and I am all Ric Flair baby, go for it, swing my way.

What is strange is that for those, I ALSO have a standard answering kit. It is louder, more strident, more aggressive, but the message is the same: try not to hurt other sentient beings unnecessarily asshole, you know better.

It is such a hippie, Jesus-wannabe answer!!!! Behind all the ethical paraphernalia that's what it all boils down to. Such a huge lifestyle change because of such a trite and common-sensical reason. Yes, that's the truth. There is nothing glamorous about it.

I try hard to be soft when a dead-ender comes my way. Because I have realized that the real reason I get mad is because it still maddens me how being vegan has unexpectedly changed other areas of my life as well. That is the most dramatic change. It is not about not having lamb shanks.

Believe me: if you are willing to question how and what you eat, you are willing to question the way you do almost everything. And that means a richer, but more difficult and complex, sense of what the human will and freedom are. You just learn not to operate by following your 'gut' automatically. And at times that can be paralyzing, frustrating and exhausting. The truth is that while I am way beyond those mythical lamb shanks, I am still adapting.

That paranoid feeling

Lately I have been rather worried about a paranoid feeling, an aura, an unspecific sensation, that Steve Jobs wants me -personally- to buy an iPad. I know, it sounds soooo self-centered!!! But it is a feeling similar to the Hinckley-Jodie Foster things that almost killed Ronald Reagan. But, still, Steve’s voice is the self-proclaimed voice of progress and techiness, and I’ve always seen myself as a progressive, so there is a strong sensation of cognitive dissonance; because I just don’t recognize the voice of progress anymore.

It seems that the new progressive injunction is: BUY MORE STUFF!!!! And the first item in this new party line is the iPad. A 10” shopping mall; a shopping mall light enough to rest in your lap. That is not the beginning of progress, that is the beginning of debt and mental slavery.

For from what I’ve read, the iPad does not lend itself to even medium level creative work. Difficult to write in it, photos are better edited in a regular computer, and the devise does not have what it takes to do acceptable levels of music recording. It is a devise for you to play stupid games, surf the internet, buy music, buy movies, buy tv shows, buy apps, buy books, etc. More, more, more.

In truth, I began being extremely concerned since seeing the photo of one Rey Gutierrez, with an Apple tattoo in his hand, in the NYTimes. It has worried me because the trend is clear: to be a hardcore consumer, in debt and a mental slave will become stylish, hip and cool in a very short time.

I have done some serious music recording in a computer. I have edited video. I have built complex websites. I have done serious photoshoping. And I have always used a PC. And the issue is not PC vs. Mac. The issue is between thinking intellectually honest people and posers. I have never understood why ‘creative’ people claim so easily that Macs are obviously better for creative stuff than PC. Not true. They are certainly not worst than PCs. They are just about the same. I prefer a PC, but not because they are better. Simply because I know how to work better in them and (very important) all of my Latin American friends in South America use PCs and file swapping, software piracy, etc. is easier -for me- with a PC. But I have also worked on Macs and they are...the same. It simply depends on what you are doing, how well versed you are in what you are doing, and how new or old the computer is, software system requirements, etc.

I have an instinctual need to ‘see’ and exercise ‘opting out’. No Mac, no PC. These days I am using a Linux-based operating system. And I do some creative work there (like typing this), because it offers many choices and I can tweak and tweak and tweak, and at times I switch back to Windows because I know how to do somethings better in that platform.

But it has come to pass that I have known some people that own a Mac because they want to feel they are intelligent and part of the creative class. And it gives me nausea. Literally, it is a very serious aversion to Mac cult in general, not to Macs as such.

Since when creativity can be had in a supposedly simpler, easier, stylishly designed and VERY expensive machine? How can people be so stupid as to buy that idea? I am not a PC person, I just want the tools that allow me to create freely, that allow me to tweak, to go in-depth into multi-layered options....it is called freedom. The more of it, the better. If Mac offered more of that than a PC, I would own a Mac. But, still, I wouldn’t wait in line for hours to get their latest crap.

I read a few years ago that Apple stores are one of the best places...to meet beautiful people. Wow. Why? -Because it has other Apple users!!! People just like you!!!! And the best place to meet people more similar to you, your own tastes and interests? -Your bathroom mirror.

There is a creepy desire for sameness and that elegant minimalist elitism in Apple’s stuff. There is a worrying laziness in the idea that you can be creative the easy way; that the way to creation, the road to it, is supposed to be easy, stylish and expensive. But now, good God, not even that. Because now here is the iPad. And it is not about being creative anymore (in fact Apple and Adobe, the owners of Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flash are in a mud fight right now); now it is about being a stylish consumer, about owning things designed for the use of retarded people, and about feeling hip and in the avant-garde of technology and creativity because you own a 10in shopping mall. It is ironic that many Mac people that I know don’t own a TV set because that is -you know- soooo mainstream, but now they will probably carry a perfectly developed buying machine with them at all times.

It is scary to watch how the world might be on the road to getting even more consumed by consumption, how it might become easier still for posers to get away with their destructive shit (the people driving gentrification in this city? Most of them are mac users!), and how the world of art will become even more inane and irrelevant.

Yes. Because technology and tools make or break an art piece, or an artist. And stupid tools will generally result in stupid art. And artists will get even more stupid and more full of shit and eventually gallery managers and curators will have to do all the talking, because thanks to their closed, ‘easier’ to use and very expensive machines, artist will forget how to say intelligent or relevant things. It is beginning. I have seen it.

And this brings me back home. I like that Latin American ideology of artistic modernism where it is about the raw joy of struggling and giving birth to a product or piece, about being able to get inside things and understand them and either enjoy them as they are or conquer them for the better. It is about engagement. About creating stuff with intelligent and OPEN machines (the reason why all of the musicians I worked with from Latin America, who happen to be some of the best musicians I have ever met or heard, mostly prefer PCs).

Obviously whatever you prefer is perfectly fine with me. But if you prefer to be a Mac user, be specially aware if your other behaviors might be affecting rent prices in your hood (they probably are), and PLEASE don’t get a stupid Apple tattoo.

The conservationists

Sad but true. If they could, billions of poor people around the world will probably go to their local Walmarts (or national equivalent) and buy thousands of gadgets, unnecessary home appliances, their 128 toilet paper rolls super savings package, four or five 3D plasma TVs and so on. They will probably also own a huge SUV, eat a lot of stake, and will for sure yell ‘drill, baby, drill’ at their preferred political gatherings.

It would be an egregious effort in global positivism to think that the ‘conservationist’ practices of most of the world’s poor come from anything but sheer necessity. Their TVs last 30 years and their cars 15, and their radios count their age in the decades, primarily because there is no money for new stuff.

Yet, there is a part of the common folk, at least in Latin America, that cherishes their ‘conservationist’ practices. People that take genuine pride in their magical abilities to make things last forever. These people develop a deep sense of ownership of their stereo sets, for example. They have opened their TVs and soldered new transistors or changed vacuum tubes; they have repaired their own stoves and know how they work; they can identify mechanical mischief by ear; washing machines, fans, and cars are eternal beings in their hands.

Some will argue that in a way it would be more environmentally efficient to have new appliances and cars because they are generally more energy efficient, but the answer to that legitimate concern is:

a) not all new appliances use less energy than older appliances (although LCD and plasma TV’s are more energy efficient than old TVs in a per square inch basis, the fact that new TVs are generally larger in square inches makes them use more energy than the average traditional TV set).

b) there comes a point in which from so many changes/repairs and upgrades done to any given appliance one has to ask if the appliance is ‘itself’ anymore. After all, even the human body almost completely regenerates itself -at a cellular level- in around 7 years.

c) many of the repairs and upgrades that these conservationist do are done precisely to make things more efficient, to do more with less, do things faster, or expands any given appliance’s capacity.

That is how I have SEEN it work in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina and so on. It is probably how it works in other developing parts of the world as well.

There is a higher-culture component to all of this as well.

And there is a lesson to be learned from this attitude. Once things are brought forth to the world, once they are here with us, progress is not necessarily attained by developing new things, but there is a value in letting things be useful and operable for as long as it is reasonable. True, most people in the developing world would rather have a new 300in super duper plasma LCD web capable 3D-ish TV, but learning and knowning how to make that early 80’s TV set last, a skill most commonly found amongst the world’s poor, is a value in and for itself. For once, you are not buying the latest Sanyo crap that is soon to be outdated by the newest Sanyo hot crap. Two, while making things last you learn about how things work, you acquire a better understanding of mechanics, electronics, physics, the behavior of plastic, cables, etc. and that is even democratic because, as they claim that Foucault said somewhere, knowledge is power. Three, my late 70’s rotary dial TV set keeps me active, and a bit healthier, for it just doesn’t recognize some of the remote control’s commands, and yes, I have to stand up and turn down the volume myself. Weird, but nice. That makes me feel like I am in control.

Junk-ism, cellphones and my well-traveled PC.

In La Paz, Bolivia, there is an open market just for bartering and exchanging used goods. I give you my used pen, you give me your used lighter. And then you can exchange that lighter next week, or next day, for -say- some pliers. And on and on.

Today the Times ran this article about the new usages people around the world are finding for their good ol' regular cellphone. Having no cash to spare, and no readily available broadband, people are inventing new ways of keeping their cellphones 'cutting edge'.

The idea is not about having something new, but about getting out the most of what you already have. This is not a philosophy, this is the way things are in most of the developing world. You just don't buy the iPad (a devise people still don't know how they might be able to use) or the latest cellphones, or a new car, or the upgraded iShit, just because you can, you simply extract the most juice out of what you already have.

I guess I had that frame of mind when I bought a PC and beat the crap out of it for 9 years. I juiced, pressed, exploited, re-wired, put more RAM, a new-but-used hard-disk, and eventually just plainly canibalized that computer. There are still parts lying around the basement, this past weekend the speakers from that Jurassic PC provided the soundtrack for my backyard's Spring cleaning.

That computer of mine, at the beginning I used it even as an answering machine, radio-receiver, wrote my thesis there, my wife wrote her thesis there; 'it' lived in Quebec, Montreal, Williamsburg, Fort Green and the South Bronx, at one point the poor thing was just a fax machine...but I kept it. Because I could still manage to get something out of it.

However, it is not only about keeping what you already have. It is about finding new uses for it. It is a parallel growth of usages, instead of the use and replace paradigm. You have something really existing, a thing, in the world; for example, a cellphone, but instead of adding more cellphones or 'better' cellphones, you try NOT to keep on giving birth to new phones endlessly, and hence adding more crap, more stuff, more junk, to our world, but rather invent new uses for the stuff that already exists.

I guess that I am trying to organize some kind of techno-environmental thoughts in here, but some philosophical ideas are also begging to be heard....and so, I will stop and continue later. This will be a multi-post micro-project.

An expanding circle of compassion

I just finished watching The Cove, the film that last week won the 2010 Oscar for featured documentary. (Trailer can be seen here).God bless bittorrent!

It is about the cruel, and completely unnecessary, killing of dolphins in Japan. A very bloody affair.

The film got me thinking about the idea of an expanding circle of compassion. How, at least in the Western world, ethical and political thinking has moved -in baby steps admittedly- to include an ever growing group of beings into the ethical and political realm. Slaves, minorities, women, people of color, the disabled, etc...very slowly, but surely, have been included into a realm that approximates at least some kind of legal equality and worth. Battles are still to be fought, but still, at least the moral high-ground is held by those calling for equal and fair treatment.

Yet, every one of those struggles for inclusion were fiercely opposed by those in power. By what Obama would call 'the status quo'. Rights are always seen as a zero-sum game. The more rights 'they' have, the less rights I would end up with; that seems to be the logic. More for them means less for me.

Why is it so difficult to discard seeing rights as a zero-sum game? One would like to believe that the more rights any group has, the more one's own rights would be solidified. But that is obviously not the case.

Which leads me to The Cove. Do dolphins, or any other animal for that matter, having right to a little more humane treatment from us...does that really mean alienation from any of our human rights? Do dolphins having the right NOT to be senselessly massacred, diminishes our rights in any way or form? I am not talking about giving animals the absurd positive right to whatever, education or voting, but about bestowing them -at least- with the negative right of not being massacred unnecessarily.

I, personally, would like to expand the circle of animal rights way faster. Yet, I understand that ultimately the best way to have a solid movement in the right direction is -unfortunately- to proceed slowly, not in a revolutionary manner. But it is the case that regarding animals and the environment, the idea or gut feeling that the more for them means the less for us, is deeply rooted.

If you can, watch The Cove; it is an eye opening experience about how our perceived rights can degenerate so easily in thoughtless tyranny and senseless abuse towards those beings that are still almost completely outside our circle of compassion.

The Varieties of Hippie-ism II

There are times when it looks like the political extremes (right and left) end up touching each other, making contact, in a kind of perverse feedback loop.

I suppose this logic is mostly visible in behavioral terms. While defending their own unique agendas, there is indeed commonality among political extremes; for in their radicalness they become intolerant in their quest for what Stanley Kubrick called a 'purity of essence'. In other words: extreme left and extreme right differ in content, but they commune in form.

David Brooks goes a little beyond this line of argument in his column of March the 5th, 2010. Arguing that the Tea-Party (or multiple Tea Parties) and the Hippies movement of the 1960's share not only the methods or tactics used to bring attention to their ideological positions, but -more important- a common belief in what he terms 'mass innocence', the 'assumption that the people are pure and virtuous and that evil is introduced into society by corrupt elites and rotten authority structures'.

I would not know how to argue against that point directly. Yes, they do have some things in common formally speaking. Yet, I feel there is something quite off in this line of argument. In fact, I was thinking exactly the opposite thing just yesterday evening.

As an intellectual exercise it is interesting to juxtapose both 'movements'. This exercise might teach us about political tactics and theater, how to deal with these radicalized groups, etc. But, still, we have a political and moral responsibility to see things for what they really are.

In the specific case of the hippies and the tea-parties there are two fundamental difference that Mr. Brooks is not considering:

First, what William James called 'morbid-mindedness' and 'healthy-mindedness'. It is the difference, to put it in regular American English, between being a born-again Christian and being a New-Age mystic.

Second, the Tea Parties are a mob-y movement that stems from economic resentment, while the hippies came -for the most part- from the privileged classes of America.

Hippies invented New Age. The Tea Party phenomenon is inseparable from the Christianist movement.

The Christianist movement is morbid: they are obsessed with evil, evil-doers, Mexicans and sin. The world as such is inherently threatening for them, and force should be used to curb the evil out there.

The hippies, well, they were about peace and love. Remember? This is what James calls healthy-mindedness.

True, the hippies had their conspiracy theorists, like Mr. Chomsky the pamphleteer; yet, it was a movement mostly founded on the belief that the world was fundamentally good. This is not what the Tea Partiers believe. They think that the world is out to get them; that they have to defend themselves against those damned Islamo-Mexicans, erect taller walls, hoard on food for a potential civil war, etc.

So, while Mr. Brooks is partially right he is also way off-target. The hippies and the Tea Parties are much more different than alike.

the Varieties of Hippism

Brooks column today is pretty interesting, but I find it deeply off.

He calls the Tea-Partiers 'hippies'. Ok, David, yellowish enough. You grabbed my attention. But how can he explain, for example, the original hippies propensity towards New Ageism, while the Tea Partiers (he calls them hippies as well) bend towards Christianism?

I would write about this in a future post.

Free Willy!!!

Nader referred to this in last week's class, yet, I HAVE some thoughts about Tilikum the Killer Whale.

Veganism is more than just not eating animal products; and there are many reasons as to why people take up veganism, ranging from ethical concerns for the welfare of animals to health reasons. Count me on the first group.

Yes, veganism keeps me healthier (though I smoke one or two a day and drink too much diet soda), but I became vegan primarily due to ethical concerns. At this point, however, the image of chewing meat grosses me out...but I try not to judge others if they want to feed on innocent beings.

As a matter of fact, I think that even if I die a vegan at 100 I would have eaten more meat than most people on this earth will ever eat. That extreme was I with my meat eating habit. But I digress.

I have always been of two minds regarding zoos since becoming a vegan. I understand the need to study animals and their behaviors, especially given the excellent job we are doing destroying their natural habitats. I also see zoos as an excellent tool in making people more sympathetic to animals. I guess that once you look a gorilla in the eye, something radically changes deep inside you. And that is a good thing.

Yet, I have also seen my fair share of abuse in zoos (zoo visits in Quebec and Puerto Rico come to mind). I have seen MAD polar bears and hyenas. Animals banging their heads against their cages, with crusty blood in their furs, walking back and forth non-stop. This was BEFORE I was vegan, and it broke my heart. To break an animal's spirit to the point that you can recognize madness is a pretty sad and demeaning sight.

Which brings me to the killer whale.

What the fuck are we thinking? Do we think we can get away with breaking an animal's spirit and not have it push back at us with lethal force? This whale has so far killed 3 human beings! The killer whale in question, Tilikum, has been described as 'difficult, depressed and usually temperamental'. Surprise! Take a 12 thousand pound whale, cage her in a pool, and force her to dance and splash and jump to entertain a bunch of suburban bratty kids....wouldn't any being be depressed and difficult as hell? If I were that whale I would have exercised my second amendment rights with full force. I would be wearing an NRA badge. They would have to call me Rambo the crazy ass blood-lust whale.

I know that the world is not going to turn vegan any time soon, but is it too much to ask for some good ol' common sense? These are known as KILLER whales! They are very beautiful and cute, yes. And so? It reminds me of Herzog's Grizzly Man. Those bears ARE cute as hell, ohh so chubby, ohhh so furry! And they munched this good-intentioned guy alive. At one point in the movie they interview an Inuit (?) and the guy much or less says 'my people have been running away from grizzlies for 7 thousand years, because those damned bears are violent and can get nasty! and here comes this guy who thought he could share a bed with 'em coz they are cute and furry; if you ask me he got what he was looking for!' I agree.

Don't get me wrong. I feel truly sorry for the trainer that got killed by the whale, for reals. But, there is also a part of me that is whispering a big 'yes!!!! there you go killer whale! do your thing! Be the best killer whale you can be!'

Leave the animals alone. Don't abuse them. Don't use them for entertainment. Treat them with respect. They are not here to serve us. And if possible, don't eat them or turn them into bags, jackets and/or belts.

Playing Chicken in Turkey

This is a RE-post of a posting I did yesterday.

I'm gonna step out of my bounds by a lot here...but,

This OpEd about Turkey gives me the chills.

It is an interesting and quite long story, but me and my partner own an apartment in Istanbul; and so, I try to keep myself abreast about what's going on.

Long story short: the party in power, the AK (Islamist leaning), has been arresting military figures, academics, journalists for some time now. The reason? Their alleged membership to Ergenekon, a secret and extremely complex organization, that many Turks refer simply as 'the shadow state' or the 'state within the state'. A very paranoid idea, but still, it is real. Ergenekon exists. But this past week they arrested four ex-leaders from the military. The higher brass. And the military is not happy at all. It is becoming evident that the party in power is using a legitimate concern (Ergenekon) to bully the military into political submission. It is more complex than that, but it sounds like what I just described.

The particularly troubling part is the author's opinion (which I share) that: "The A.K. government’s disdain for its critics and its intimidation of the media hardly make me confident about the next episode in this drama." (my emphasis).

The thing the US needs the least right now is a coup d'État in Turkey. And, understanding some of the political dynamics of the country, and having many friends who served in its military, I think I know were things are heading. Will it be successful? Don't know. The military has already lost a lot of its prestige, but consequences there will be.

Today there is new article in the New York Times about the situation; the author believes that Turkey has already crossed an important threshold, and that the military seems to unwilling or unable to react in the ways it has done in the past (orchestrating coup d'etats).

In the Streets of L.A.

In the New York Times today:

"Although hardly as pressing as the threat of nuclear proliferation, there is also a strong sense of exasperation among Latin American leaders with the United States. Just last week, those leaders agreed to form a new political group that, unlike the Organization of American States, includes Cuba and excludes the United States and Canada.

The new coalition is meant to rival the O.A.S., which some countries consider a tool of American dominance in the hemisphere.

Riordan Roett, a Latin America expert at Johns Hopkins University, said that the organization was only one more example of the diminished standing of the United States in Latin America. China, he said, has replaced the United States as the main trading partner of Brazil and Chile, both growing economies. And while the Obama administration’s leading Latin America appointments were delayed by Washington power struggles, Europe’s political influence has filled the void.

A visit from Mrs. Clinton, he said, is not likely to be enough to repair the damage.

“I don’t get the sense that there’s a game plan for Latin America,” Mr. Roett said. “And Latin Americans don’t get that sense either.”

---

Where to start?

There are two ways to see this: we deal with Latin America pro-actively or we do damage control. The first one implies a position of strength, the later of weakness. It might be the case that only damage control mode will do by now.

When I was young and naive I thought that government was the institution capable of dealing with everything at the same time. That's why we had bureaucrats and experts. Acting in the Middle East didn't preclude having a cogent policy towards Africa or Latin America, for example. Ahhhh! Naive me!!! That seems not to be the case. Primarily, or so my theory goes, because everything important that we do demands the presence of our President. The Europeans weep if Obama does not flight to Madrid for a meeting, or if he is too busy to show up for the vote about what city will host the next Olympics, Gordon Brown kicks his secretaries because Obama didn't meet with him, the Indonesians remove a statue of Obama because he has still not visited the country, and so on.

When I write about this I write as a loyal American (of Latin American stock) that is primarily concerned about OUR interests; with a reality-based understanding that -by and large- our interests can be framed in a way that turns them into regional interests. And that the interests of the region can become -by and large- American interests. There will always be differences, of course, but the main body of our engagement in the region should be framed around our shared concerns. Differences can be negotiated or fought out within that context.

What is clear, though, is that ignoring the region is not paying out and will be catastrophic in the end. China and Europe are filling the political void left by the United States in Latin America. Which means, to give but one example, that it would be even more difficult to organize a regional bloc against Iran's nuclear ambitions. And those are a LOT of votes in the UN.

If we continue driving in this direction we will either 'loose' all of our standing in the region and allow China and Europe to take charge, or we will end up trying to get back in charge the Reagan way, through the funding of ill-faithed revolutions and civil wars and shit.

We have taken Latin America for granted. 75 thousand Peruvians died in a civil war, but we were still primarily obsessed with the Israelis and the Palestinians. Over thirteen thousand guerrilla fighters alone have been killed in Colombia's civil war since 2002, but we still have Amampour in Jerusalem and Tehran showing us how the world is going to end. Why? The Americas, are after all, our hemisphere.

It seems that the region is paying the price of not having its militants blowing up themselves in restaurants and bazaars!

The saddest thing is that there is a current of Latin American modernism and idealism, especially from the lefties in the region, that wants the Americans to be engaged. An ideal vision that the United States is the clumsy brother from the North, but a brother nonetheless; an ideology that is always striving to differentiate between the good and hardworking regular American people and their silly government and greedy corporations. Yet, nothing is being done to tap into this existing narrative that seeks friendship rather than confrontation.

This Pan-American idealism has been there since the times of Bolivar, and is all pervasive. Nothing we have done has changed it, not even our support of Pinochet, Trujillo and the Contras. That is, until now. That ideal vision of the true America is what drove Fidel to visit Harlem back in the early 60's, it is what made the founding figures of literary modernism in the region (Ruben Darío and Pablo Neruda, for example) to consider Walt Whitman and Thomas Paine main influences. It is what gave the confidence to José Martí and the Puerto Rican revolutionaries fighting against Spain to organize their independence movements from New York City.

But I guess that the US is betting that the indians down south will come into the fold when we need them for real. By then the region might be too busy in a collective Londonesque Grey Tea soirée or pigging out on Chinese noodles.

What a pity.

(my op-ed touching on some of these issues is here)