Just dig this link for today. I was at a memorial service for Abbie Hoffman in Central Los Angeles, near Alvarado Street. It was packed. So just click here to get to know a little about him. More will be coming as I have just found my copy of Woodstock Nation, one of the many expressions he coined.
I Love L.A. is a song written by the talented Randy Newman, who holds a record also-ran for the Academy Awards till he got an Oscar © for "Monsters,Inc." One of his uncles, Alfred Newman, the composing music streak is with the Newmans, wrote "Conquest" -- one of the two well-known University of Southern California marching band staples, also a song of film soundtrack. Given USC's latest tournaments we should call Conquest how The West Was Lost. That quarterback from U of T was unforgettably hungry for the title; two years or three ago was it?
The irony lost is read between the lines of the mordacity of Randy Newman's lyrics, in which he is criticizing our plethora of villages, Greater Los Angeles. Wikipedia says he feels ambivalent about Los Angeles. I guess we all love the sunny days when we can cruise by to the sound of the Beach Boys. We cultivate our bermudas and slightly pampered manners, uncouth ignorant wannabes nouveau riche Los Angelinos that we are. Or plain obese immigrants ignorant of each other.
Nic and I have been on a project of identification of the revitalization of downtown and south central. Our first homes were on and off USC campus, an area quite similar to the ghetto shown in "White Men Can't Jump." The 1992 Rodney King riots created empty lots on Vermont past USC. Ours are long boulevards and avenues. During the latest riots the media announced repeatedly there were no police on the street. There was a party for Chief Gates. Rodney King -- Can't we get along? -- lent his name to the riots of spring 1992.
I'm 55. Rita Lee will be 60 on December 31. Arnaldo Baptista turned 59 in July. Sérgio is 55. We are part of what Rita herself called geriatric rock. Os Mutantes, the rock bridge along history.
A friend who belongs to the Dylan generation boasted she took care of her body. True. and? uhn-hun? So?
Mine is the contrary of an herbalife© infomercial. I was so cutie pie thin. I'd like to believe I'm still a cutie pie. A big round oatmeal smart cookie.
We have had our contretemps. Arnaldo Baptista's presence on stage is no short than a miracle. Rita Lee herself talks about her inner demons. I flipped and got committed to an asylum. No lobotomy; just electric shock treatment. Seven treatments and woke up. Sid Barret wasn't so lucky.
We are scarred but saved by the music we dig and make. Loki. Rock exorcises us. (I'm gonna run and TM this before the evangelicals co-opt it.)
What about our siblings and family? 
Continue reading "Os Mutantes - Geriatric Rock ? That's Me!" »
Pensaba que era linda pero se ve muy fea.
(Unknown)
It's that Narcissus finds ugly what isn't his reflection
(Caetano Veloso - Sampa)
On Friday evening there was a storm with lightening and heavy rain. I couldn't care less; it was similar to a Rio de Janeiro storm. For a native Los Angelino it's scary, especially after having spent the summer in dry southwestern France, in the countryside. When there is a storm everybody unplugs there. Lightening can get in and damage a TV set, for example; or the phone.
Los Angeles gathers 164 languages, zillions of cars, infinite solitude, many little communities, from the fancy-schmancy Bel-Air to the very poor ones in central Los Angeles. There, hot-pillows motels reign for a fast shot or smoke or whatever; little churchfronts promising salvation suck more suckers; pawn shops take goods no questions asked. Lots of basura on the sidewalks, human lives trashed or litter. Skid Row at night looks like a sea of cardboard papers sprawled on the sidewalks with toes pointing at rats while the cardboard heaves and inhales and exhales. This is my city, too.
To think white flight screwed the neighborhood where U.S.C. is located. White flight in the Bronx moved us to Rio de Janeiro.
Back here at USC, in the Oingo Boingo, Tom Petty, Depeche Mode era, I find out I am not white enough or have the education to teach. After my master's in linguistics at 'SC, listening to the darn marching band my son loves so much, there I go for a graduate course in education, plus emphasis on bilingual Spanish credential.
In Brazil we say Argentinians smile when there is lightening. They are "known" as being conceited, what do I know? Brazilians feel funny being the only Portuguese speakers in South America. Argentinians smile because they think God is taking their photos when there is lightning. They ask for the mapa mundi of Buenos Aires in a bookstore. Maradona scored a goal with the hand (of God.)
In Los Angeles we can't afford to despise the Argentinos. Or Spanish, a reality prevalent in our county. Or Jewish holidays, or Lotus Day, bla-bla-bla-bla.
While cruising my former 'hood, near 'SC, the thoughts of Rodney King came haunt me. The discomfort of street vendors and poverty, the buzz on Jena 6, was our city at risk of a riot again?
Yom Kippur dinner at a nice restaurant. The bourgeois dad saying he expects people he invites to be there. He nearly drools arrogance onto his beard. I am in bermudas, as usual, in my Adidas; we got cash for a bite. The waiter is from Sandinista country, a mestizo. He can converse small talk in twenty languages, maybe. We sit in the back facing ANA-MIA Asian chicks. If they are sideways they fit in a vynil LP jacket.
Little by little we loosen up. We down the excellent Los Angeles tap water. Gabriel is with the marching band, back in Santiemonica.
Los Angeles is tough ugly shine-you-crazy-diamond land, somewhat like São Paulo city, the Paulicéia Desvairada, recklessly hallucinated São Paulo immortalized in the collection of Mário de Andrade's 1922 modern poems. São Paulo is the first or second urban sprawl in the Americas, depending on the source. How about our Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles de Porciúncula, the capital of "Blade Runner's" dystopia? Some left it, I love it. Enjoy yet another new très kewl opening sequence to the film, based on a Phillip K. Dick paranoid fantasy. Another.
Continue reading "What's Los Angeles Like? It's Like São Paulo" »
Crash is a film we love, about us los angelinos our dystopia our cars our lives. We are one crahing conflicting feelings when watching ourselves in Paul Haggis' film.
This is the official site of the Oscar winner of 2004.
Won't you play around with it? I need to sleep. And then drink some coffee.
Would you like some, too?
When at Saint John's Medical Centre, I O.D. on TV. Promises of weight loss abound. As big promises as my bunda [boo˜dah]
I decided to try the FDR deal. famine. deprivation.repeat. Not that it was a cheap-O deal. When I started I looked like this:
The NYC Met Museum has great brunch. What can I tell you?
I am a foodie.
Moreover, in addition, also(weak!)
I am spoiled like Kitty Carlysle, our cat. Zee Ruler.
At Saint John's there was a fuss over my using a credit card sent with delivery to Saint John's Room 42-42.
FDR - The New Deal is fantabulastic (oh how dated, tina.)
I'm gone to Rio de Janeiro's Pedra da Gávea ta chill in the winter sun. FDR's food packages, rationing, this new deal allows me ta offer you my pin-up photo. I ate like a horse and never went hungry. From a 469 lbs. wreck a Jibcrane wouldn't lift, I became a "Foxy Lady." Albeit I miss being an L.A. woman, no city can beat the fun Rio de Janeiro offers. My friend "Botafogo Jorge" is wild.
FDR-The New Deal! Just a mere seven days. Trial offer or your money back. Weight not included. back f'r sure. Includes S + H. (Sex with homo sapiens.)
While surfing the Net I found a series of photos in a site similar to Flickr. Every time I go to France, I go to Albi, and get lost in two splendid sites. One is the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum. It contains amazing posters, watercolor art, pencil sketches, everything is original. Some areas are darker so the light won't destroy the pencil drawings kept under glass.
Outside we bathe in the beauty of a Lenôtre garden. Those are the world famous ones with curves of different foliage, architecture/sculptures he designed for the Versailles and the Toulouse-Lautrec family.
Albi has a small city center. The next stop is the Cathedral of Saint Cecille. The French pretend the Muslims never got to France. They occupied Portugal and Spain. And the southwest of France. Richerd Wright wrote about the impact of Islam on these peoples in "Pagan Spain." The main trait is fatalism, meaning "Only God knows."
The cathedral took about 400 years to build. There are aspects of pretty developed gothic arches, there is the blue pigment that made the region rich. The altar displays an awesome "Judgement Day" as interpreted by recent converts from pagan religions. I really like the sinners and their environment.
Capital sins being: ire, sloth, envy, gluttony, avarice, luxury ( sex addiction),and the worst of all of the, the one that sent Lucifer to hell: Pride.
Young Goodman Brown, by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a perfect example of pride as a sin. He thinks everybody in his village is a devil worshipper. He becomes a lonely guy. The Puritans, the founders of New England, and the USA, had notions of hard work as redemption from sin. No wonder they were shipped out of England.
I would like to leave you a link to this Moorish/Gothic/Romanesque cathedral. I hope you appreciate it (and Albi) as much as I do.
The Album by pfjc at webshots.com. Just awesome. Click.
