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1.

MY NEW NEIGHBORS have finally arrived! T., I., M., M., J., J., and A.

A small family: mother, grandmother, and four kids (three boys, one girl, age 7-12). Dad (or Mom's cousin I ain't sure which and don't want to pry too much into personal relations yet) runs a landscaping business (it's okay to talk about work, yes) on the other side. Has his papers and everything from the 1980s amnesty period. He was smart enough to get legalized and keep out of trouble. Seems like a nice guy. But I expect him to come and go a lot because of his work "over there" while the mother and grandmother and children will be living here 100%.

The month of being all alone with the big house empty in front of me is now over. No more lonely fires in the little fireplace in front.

Oh, and, of course, no chance that Maria and I will rent the house, not now.

We missed our chance. Sigh.

2.

"He was smart enough... to stay out of trouble."

There are a lot of petty criminals, some not so petty, being DUMPED "back" into Mexico from the U.S., in a wave of deportations. Yesterday one of them shot a local police cadet.

The ones who did not "stay out of trouble" are only the tip of the iceberg. ICE (immigration customs enforcement) agents are rounding up people whose only crime (resist temptation to put quote marks) is having entered the country without "papers"

ACHTUNG – PAPERS, PLEEZ

immigration whether legal or not IS the story of the next century of economic struggle.

U.S. ice-agents are rounding up people not convicted of any crime and deporting them. Others are leaving "voluntarily" after being ordered by courts to leave the country. One such family found its way into the front page of the local paper this week. Their kids were all born on the other side and so are U.S. citizens and may stay over there. But mom and dad are living with grandmother in Tijuana now.

There simply is no solution to this "problem" and throwing World War II propaganda at it (i.e. THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS ONLY opportunities) will not solve it either. We are reaping the end result of a long, Long, LONG process. The fact is that the United States of America and the United States of Mexico are deeply, intimately, and powerfully tied up together. We depend on each other. The U.S. has received for more than a hundred years a simple source of cheap labor, and Mexico has had an escape valve for social pressures, pressures which

CENSORED deleted

...another civil war or revolution.

3.

Spend several hours today reading out loud and working the text. Mixing together the English and Spanish texts, sometimes line by line flipping back and forth, sometimes stanza by stanza. Trying to select where the two languages can follow each other wham wham wham like shotgun blasts, and also the other where, when larger pieces of one language must develop, to be followed by the other.

I read out loud and then read in silence. I turn on the clock in the computer and time myself. I find it is growing, slowly, bit by bit, especially if I slow down and savor each word, not rushing through the get as much as possible into a limited time, but instead, letting the text tell me how long, what speed, where to go fast, where to slow down, where to pause. And while I work and rework the editing, the text itself is changing. A word here, two words there, and then translation.

Performance is, and will be, I hope, an entire experience and growing process for me. I want to present it in serveral different venues, feeling the audience and feedback and critique in the glances and comments, in the looks and noises, in the paying attention and the ignoring me.

4.

I am going downtown again tonight. To another art exhibition opening. Another series of paintings, and talks with other artists and writers.

It is a show in the city gallery, in the culture palace, the historic building that used to be city hall, long long ago. Tonight I will meet an old ex-policeman who will talk to me about the days fifty years ago when he used to bring arrested offenders here, right to this building, sir, and upstairs to the office of the judge of the tribunal. Ah, napoleonic justice, I will think, when I hear that word, tribunal.

The exhibition is called "neighbors" and presents pieces from a mix of artists invited from Tecate, Ensenada, Mexicali and San Diego. Strictly speaking, no Tijuana artists. But of course many of them show up, as usual, at the inauguration to celebrate their "neighbor" comrades. The show is a mix of styles, abstract and representational, all paintings, no sculpture (unless I missed something).

As a writer and foreigner living here in this frontier city next door to the towns where I grew up (across the line), it is a great pleasure to finally see this historic building open again, after several years of stunted re-construction. It is late in its return, but seems excellent in its execution. After three years, this building is at last open again (it officially opened last autumn). The gallery space is certainly better than it was before. Lovely high ceilings with (seeming to me, who am no expert) good track lighting. And, very Very VERY important in a public building, a good pair of bathrooms for men and women, with its entrance around the back corner, tastefully tucked out of sight in the back patio.

There is music tonight. Classic rock and roll songs from the 1960s.

5.

13 . 4 . 7

The day turns no confusing now with number of the
month margins dictate new line you know how you can
tell the value of a coin simply by its size are these
borders and lines that rule our lives new line margins.

De rodillas te pido desde Tijuana escribo palabras
de la canción he de poner acento sí ¿o no? pues no
se olvide uno si siempre tiene el idioma en el oido
y por eso le recomendo estimado lector la imersión sí.

The famous bar who knows why it's famous I don't know
I only heard so and believe yes in spite of knowing
the owner now deceased QEPD began with another
a block away still carries his name over there.

La cantina famosa yo me siento y gasto dos dolares
tras dos dolares cada cerveza hace cien años costaron
no más quince centavos tres nikels pues pero dentro de un
siglo todo ha cambiado y subido hacia ya dos dolares sí.

6.

Hey, Dani, come with us, we're going to Dandy. (A. says).

They all pile into a big car to drive three blocks. No. Five blocks. No thanks I'll walk. Ah, poeta, camine por todas las calles de la ciudad. Sí como el maestro Pancho Morales.

I walk over and meet them there. All crowded around a tiny table at the back of the dense room, under metal ceiling, wooden beams jutting out from the bar, racks of glasses hung up there, I have another beer and then another. Take it michelada style, in a glass with lemon juice and ice. I'll probably be drinking a lot of those in Hermosillo next month.

Hey, Dani, (L. says) you know that was totally bitchin' (chingón) the way you walked around the public last year at the reading at west fargo. I mean with most of the other poets people were sitting and drinking and hardly listening at all except for the closest tables, and then you come, walking all around and reciting from memory into the wireless microphone and people froze, their bottles at their lips, their eyes following you, I could see them it was so barbarous, amigo, the way they watched you come and go, yes. You should do something like that in Hermosillo. You are going, yes?

Yes.

I put a dollar in the juke box and I swear my songs don't come on for almost two hours that's how crowded the place is tonight.

I wait I want to hear my songs I wait, sit through three different groups of people, writers and artists who come and go, until at last my songs come on. By then it is almost two o'clock and the owner lady has left leaving the bar in the hands of her faithful bartenders they are all women that is one of the charms of the Dandy is all the lovly ladies who tend bar and serve drinks there.

It is still jam packed when I finally leave but I hardly know anyone any more everybody I know has gone home long ago but I stayed for my music. I don't usually go to bars and this is a change for me. To stay almost until closing. I briefly think of staying longer to see how everyone gets thrown out at two o'clock or whether this is one of those places that have "special" permits ho ho ho.

But no. I am beginning to feel tired and I still am not drunk and I don't want to be drunk that is so... disabling. Better go home while I still have a few dollars to buy food for the next few days.

Goodbye Dandy. See you later.

Too bad David never showed up.