1.
Last night and tonight I go downtown. Yesterday I went in the morning, today I go in late afternoon. Last night I went to CECUT and tonight I go to the ex.palacio (palacio de la cultura). Both evenings I drop by the Dandy, first.
Last night I grabbed the late bus home from the river zone – it wasn't but nine and something and the last OTAY-Postal red teexti MercedesBenz diesel busses were rumbling and rattling along the route that ends up out by the fabricas after turning through modulos. Tonight, however, I will linger in the ex.palace courtyard listening to O. and A. talking about rock and roll and soul and rhythm and blues and the degeneration of funk into drugsex-and-goldnecklace rap. They will decide they need to do a radio program on that, and play some of A.'s extensive collection of LPs from the 60s and 70s.
Then tonight I will take the green taxi home from downtown. It will be after eleven and they will charge each of us twenty pesos. I will fall asleep as we go past the airport and almost miss my stop. Well, in fact, I do miss it, but get off at the next, adding only a block to my walk, but changing my usual come-home walk slightly. Good thing I love and know my neighborhood. It's a little intimidating. A little. A.
2.
Tonight will be the inauguration of a collective exposition of paintings on the subject of violence against women, celebrating the day of the woman, the month of women. There are events going on all over town all month long for this. Last night I went to a reading and presentation at CECUT for various women writers and artists, presented by local women writers and artists.
And, like I said, both evenings I stop by the Dandy, first, for a couple beers with David.
Yesterday I came into town in the morning and then I walked ten some blocks all the way from the green taxi site at Fifth and Constitution, across the old town past the park and up the fourth avenue staircase up the hill toward the Casa de la Cultura where I saw Aida and collected my honorarium for last Friday's reading at Mexicali. Then I went and sat down in the cafe they have up there and wrote a few pages of notes.
FILM WITHIN the FILM
I will not always tell you how and when I re-write, nor always when I break the rule of only publishing today what I write today. But here, once, only
you can see editing by tricks and starts and font face/size slips and slacks, how that process continues. Yes.
Miercoles 7 de marzo 2007
I have just been paid. The ink is barely dry when I first set pen these words to paper. Five hundred pesos. I am so happy to see you, she says, ushering me out of her office. I am an old bureaucrat. I know what that means. You better go now I have so much to do but I am not going to be so rude as to tell you to get out, no, I am just going to hint and thank you for coming. The grease of courtesy is such a sweet oil to pour on troubled waters, manners and politeness can save us all a lot of trouble if we only know the script well enough to take our cues. I will add most of that tomorrow. All of that after "five hundred pesos" in fact. And besides it won't even be tomorrow flashback flashforward it will be the day after looking back at looking back uh huh. Okay. Back to the page already in progress at: Five hundred pesos. I believe this is the end of the beginning. The beginning of the end next level.
I climbed up the
moment
I had
f e a r e d .
Up the font size to express.
impress repress depress un-press, superpress, suppress, un-impress, free-press, full.court.press
expression
B U T M E A N W H I L E
It is still yesterday. I am still sitting in the cafe in the building on top of the hill. Up there, see? Uh huh. You can for yourself how old it is. It truly one (of) crown architectural jewels this city at the end of the Earth. I am up there seventy years later reading in the local art rag about Yepez' book. He says (p.132, Tijuanalogias [Umbral y UABC, 2006], Heriberto Yépez) : casi todo lo que se ha escrito (desde la literature, la teoría académica, hasta el periodismo) o creado (pintura, danza, performance, arte-instlación) sobre la frontera México-Estados Unidos, ha sido mediocre, light u oportunista
heh heh ho chi minh this is the semi-fiction lie
for I won't/don't actually see the paper until tomorrow
but heeeee haw hee haw it seemed appropriate to think it might be I BEEbuzzcause we like to think we are all three "mediocre, light u oportunista". Because tha's wha't'He.be'said/wrote: almost everything that's been written (from literature, academic theory, to journalism) or created (painting, dance, performance, installation-art) about the U.S.-Mexico border, has been mediocre, light, or opportunistic and we like to think we are all three mediocre, light, AND opportunistic bouncing up and down on this delicious Tijuana trampoline in the babelling bla bla bla of our "own" semi-fictional self-indulgent authorial divertissment but as always we T.S. Elliot fear we are just second rate no prince Hamlet, no, for yes we have heard the mermaids singing each to each but I do not think they sing for me. No.Híjole muchacho Yépez V.M. principe de los intelectuales pues no sabes como os admiro casi todas vuestras palabras cortan cual navajas igual dulces tal amargas and forget it I can never speak or write Spanish like you. Thanks for being and inspiring both argument and agreement, difference and approval, denunciation and appreciation. You, like so many other intellectuals here in Baja California (Arellano[qepd], Vizcaino[qepd], et al) give us so much meat to eat we are... grown fat.Meanwhile, my pen, my paper, and my dearest set of eyes and ears other than my own, we are still here left and write hand with me in the movie within the movie within the page that rewrote and shall again tomorrow. It is empty, my
whiteblack piece of paper, and it is empty, the little cafe in the old school building reborn years ago as culture center Casa de la Cultura up on the hill of Altamira.Outside the windows is a view of trees and then the valley of the river, full of fields and houses on the other side, the U.S. side. Little trucks are moving down there. I can see a white diamond beacon flashing on the tower of the new sewage treament plant. Or maybe that is out some other window. I forget rewriting what I saw or when or where but it was true once upon a time there was a spot don't let it be forgot for happy ever aftering bang bang bang they are giving the cops automatic weapons. The kidnappings have begun again. Newspapers scream failure and millions of pesos are going to be spent on advertising Baja California tourism. If I were really smart like a fox I would get some of that money for myself but I am not and I am jealous of my independence. These words are my boulevard insurgentes del north yes. Stay free.
One other comes and goes. I will see him tomorrow at the art opening but I don't know that now, yesterday, in the cafe. He was outside talking with Mister A. Then another came.
This cafe literario I forget if they still call it that this cafe was and is the room where I gave my first reading in Tijuana in July of 2001 right here it was and Alfonso presented me how sweet it was how sweet it is looking back sipping coffee I brought my own coffee today in this metal thermos I found several months ago at the street market sobreruedas yes.
But just now I bought a package of two sweet empanadas caseras de fresa mmm folded cookies with strawberry jam inside yum yum. So I have a sweet snack while I write and sip coffee. While I write God only knows what sort of monstrous pile of gonna turn it into tomorrow or the day after no. Dunno. Know ye all by these presents etc.
There's an American movie on the cafe TV. Everywhere you go in Mexico there is always a TV somewhere, shining the lovely path of America Hollywood Marilyn Monroe doctrine conquers the world. But this ain't no sendero luminoso guerilla Marilyn it's some homeless guy with his kid speaking in English and more English all American dialect English they looking for a place to spend the night safe oh yes Gore Vidal said there is no literature left only movies and if it ain't in the movies then it ain't real and this well it's a daytime TV tear-jerker movie broadcast for the housewives at home — or maybe not, maybe it's only a DVD for only here, now, and nowhere else FBI pirate warning — meanwhile the Spanish subtitles flicker on the bottom of the screen balanced on top the refrigerator or cabinet or wherever you may be at the time no, but yes this is how a lot of Mexicans learn English from TV well at least it ain't shoot'em up kill/them all bang bang bang automatic weapons and the kidnapping wave has come back much to the delight of the newspapers screaming headlines oh yes and another set of gruesome photos on the red crime pages where black-and-white blood runs down the street like they did to A.'s son year before last yes. No. No, it ain't fiction. It happened.
Course, not as many as my government and the terrorists is.are fucking mutilating our own and others, in Babylon did Bush the man a stately regime change decree, but no, Tijuana is positively safe compared to what gonna make it real compared to what.
I finish my coffee and go. Gonna go down the hillside outdoor staircase again, pass through the park, and see if C. is home. Then later internet and look for D. in the Dandy. Then the reading at CECUT. Then home.
There are no mine fields on this border. Not. Not yet. Give'em another hundred years and then... then it will be too late. The oceans will have flooded here, and I will be dead. Long ago.
Now just walk down the stairs, call on a friend, go to the reading. But I said all that somewhere else in the future, yesterday, tomorrow.
x y z
8.mar.2007
:
78.winter/invierno
20bsp;
18.moon/luna
50.spaceage/edad.espacial
sectores
gringoticos:
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