Patricio maya

The word radical has been in my head for some weeks now.

What does radicalism mean? What does it mean to be politically radical? How about religiously, sexually, aesthetically, socially radical? Do I know any actual radicals or are they just people who look hip? Would being a radical be a good thing? Or is the idea of radicalism ridiculous today?

Here's the word's history from the Etymology Dictionary:

Radical (adj.)

•  Late 14c., in a medieval philosophical sense, from L.L radicalis "of or having roots," from L. radix (gen. radicis) "root" (see radish).

• Political sense of "reformist" (via notion of "change from the roots") is first recorded 1802 (n.).

• Meaning "unconventional" is from 1921.

• U.S. youth slang use is from 1983, from 1970s surfer slang meaning "at the limits of control."

• Radical chic is attested from 1970; popularized, if not coined, by Tom Wolfe.

James Baldwin, a radical I admire. 

Here's what the New Oxford American Dictionary defines it:

Radical |ˈradikəl|

adjective

1 (esp. of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough : a radical overhaul of the existing regulatory framework.

• (Of surgery or medical treatment) thorough and intended to be completely curative.

•  Characterized by departure from tradition; innovative or progressive : a radical approach to electoral reform.

   

Rad culture, proto hipsters?

Here's what the Urban Dictionary says:

Radical:

adj.- a description of an action or thing which is especially impressive.

n.- an extremist of a belief or a rebel

Did you see Tony Hawk pull off the 900? It was a radical move.

Some radicals I do not admire. 

Radical:

A radical is a person subscribing to a political ideology supporting massive, unmeasured, and rapid change. Radicalism is contrasted with conservatism that advocate minimum change, reactionary action advocating counter-change, as well as progressivism advocating moderate/measured change.

Radical:

A word used by people over the age of 30 in an attempt to sound cool, usually resulting in the opposite.

Jim: (to friend) Hey check it out I got a new snowboard.

Jim's mom: (overhearing conversation) Yeah its totally radical.

Jim: OK you can go away now.

Oh, Morena! If I could only have Jesús turn you into actual flesh and bone, I would take you to the best clubs in East L.A. and buy you lots of Tequila Hacienda Soledad and whatever else you want. 

Once drunk and locos we would make out and dance to my favorite canción in the world right now, "El Sonidito," by the amazing Hechizeros Band. 

After that, we would make love in the backseat of my 1969 Mustang and smoke a joint on the hood (and in the hood) looking at las estrellas, mi amor. 

But alas! I don't even know your real name, Morena. If I could, I would turn myself into a jalapeño can, just so I could be put next to you, between the chili sauce and the Goya products. 

I don't even know what saint I should pray to anymore, dear Morenita. All I'm asking for is that you turn out to be a real-life muñeca.

Just in case, I'm lighting up all of the candles bellow. 

I drive a beat-up, light purple 1997 Toyota Corolla. Besides a handful of trips to San Francisco, this little car takes me over the same Los Angeles streets day after day. On weekdays I normally enter it in a hurry at 8:43 a.m., roll the windows down, turn on some loud music, and rush to work. First, I go West on 3rd Street for about four minutes, then South at unsafe speeds on whichever little street looks emptiest, then West on Wilshire for three minutes, and finaly down a block South on Oxford Avenue. I enter a grey, four floor parking structure that looks like a dinosaur's rib cage and park the Toyota near the stairs on the third floor. Most days I roll the windows up after parking, but sometimes I forget. At this point it's usually 8:56. I start work at 9:00.

Describing the landscape that surrounds you is hard because you're immersed in it. I can easily describe places like Syracuse, New York, where I lived for a year; or Quito, Ecuador, where I spent the first 12 years of my life; or even cities I've visited as a tourist, such as Santa Fe, Savannah, Toronto, and Cali (Colombia). But ask me to describe the Koreatown section of Wilshire Boulevard and, well, I choke on an overabundance of details. Being away from a place helps you remember only the most important details. Time and distance filter out the clutter.

Here's the K-town section of Wilshire Blvd in one sentence: A broad flatish stretch of ethnically diverse people and new cars with a postmodern mix-match of mid-size (30 floors on average?) steal and glass buildings, older churches, art-deco structures and apartment complexes with smog-heavy downtown about three miles to the East and Santa Monica Beach's bright sun about --I don't know, I'm terrible at this-- 8 miles to the West. That's a jumbled-up, marathon-length run-on sentence, but so is this thing called Wilshire Blvd. I bet if I were away, I'd be able to describe it much more accurately.

I could try to describe Echo Park, Hollywood, the 101 Freeway, Downtown and other places where I usually drive around, but that would take forever. Wilshire Blvd gives a general sense of my version of Los Angeles. 

Here's where the collapsing geographies come in.

A couple of days ago, I had a dream in which I was driving my Toyota around the Los Angeles landscape where I came of age: wide open and beautiful bright blue sky, noisy helicopters, oily air, freeways, parking-lot malls, and the worst thing about L.A.'s architecture: a feeling that the city's aesthetic core never outgrew the pastel-colored 1970s.  This core can be seen in the scores of former mid-price tourist motels transformed into apartment complexes that cater to third world immigrants and relocated Mid-Westerners waiting for their big break. All of these complexes have a swimming pool in the middle, a parking lot bellow or in the back, and a gilded/refurbished overall feel.

Not to mention the theme-park architectural lines: Egyptian-inspired, Old-South-West-inspired, Miami-inspired, British-inspired, Spanish-inspired, Italian-inspired. These used to be Las Vegas-like motels, but now house families. Still, just because you sign a contract and the building now calls itself "Chateau Gardens" instead of "Hollyood Resort" does not mean you live in an actual home. You live in a 70s motel.

Anyway, I was in the middle of my dream, driving with my windows down in Los Angeles, probably with those lovely apartment buildings to my left and right, when suddenly, but very subtly, the random Los Angeles street I was on transformed itself into the old street where I used to live as a child in Ecuador.

Here was I, same age as now, in my Toyota, driving down a street that was both Koreatown and Capelo (a sort of uppity pastoral neighborhood outside of Quito, Ecuador) at the same time. The sense of unity was overwhelming. Instead of apartment buildings, there were the big villas of my youth to my left and right. Of course I had the windows down, and of course I was listening to loud music, but now the deep grass and eucalyptus smell of the old country's neighborhood was all around. I drove down the quiet stoned-paved street. My poor car is used to Koreatown's traffic, but not Capelo's stone-paved streets. I could see there were some kids (my old neighbors!) playing soccer over a spotless bright green field with bright white goal lines and even brighter white goals. There were tall pine trees and small flowery shrubs to the side. The small stoned-paved street leads to my grandparent's villa, which was located in a sort of low canyon between the San Pedro river and two green slopes. This was the last place where I lived in before we moved to the United States. 

The same baroque black metal door with arrow-shaped spikes on top was there. I opened it, entered, and parked my Toyota next to the big white house with bright orange Spanish tiles. My car, so used to the grey dinosaur rib cage parking structure, had its worn-out tires over grass. If it  had a mind, it would have been as euphoric as I was.

Instead of jaywalking across Oxford Street and taking the elevator up the Radio Korea building (where I work) I walked down some stone stairs with dark green moss growing in the corners, and found my uncle Xavier sitting by the edge of the basketball court. He pointed to my other uncle, Daniel, who was playing soccer shirtless with a bunch of kids. To the right was the rectangular swimming pool. I had no time for small talk. I took off my shirt and shoes (not enough time to take off my pants) and plunged into the brightest blue fucking water I have ever seen. 

I woke up early this morning --a rare occurrence on a Saturday-- and at some point started turning over this phrase in my head:

I'm nursing that stomach tickle otherwise known as disappointment.

It kinda has a nice sound to it.

The first half is just a bunch of concrete short words that paint a clear image: I'm nursing that stomach tickle...

The second half isn't a picture. It's an idea made of longer words: otherwise known as disappointment.

The first half tries to nail a physical sensation. The second one labels it.

Then I thought that the pronoun "I" should be dropped. It's sort of assumed that I am the one nursing dissapointment. The less words, the better.

So "nursing" became the first word, a verb. That's good. Putting a verb at the start of a sentence makes it immediate.  But the phrase wasn't there yet. There had to be a better verb. Something less worn out and more visual.

After going over a few verbs in my head, I came up with "petting." So the phrase became: Petting that stomach tickle otherwise known as disappointment.

The verb "petting" is more focussed than "nursing." Plus it describes a more complex side of disappointment. You only nurse that which is ill. You only nurse something in order to help it get better.

On the other hand, you can pet a sick or a healthy puppy. Petting is a pleasurable action. Petting disappointment. It's like when you hold on to emotions that make you unhappy.

Then there was accuracy.  The noun "stomach" isn't accurate enough. The upper stomach is the actual place where the disappointment tickle makes it's home. How about: Petting that upper-stomach tickle... Or better yet: Petting that upper-tummy tickle...

The image is now cartoonish. And yet it sounds exactly like what it means: a tickle. The real problem is that it sounds too possitive. Disappointment is a bad, bad feeling.

So a simple adjective came in handy. (Also, "otherwise" was changed to "better."). Here's the finished phrase:

Petting that vile upper-tummy tickle better known as disappointment.

How about that for a Facebook status update?

Here it is in Spanish, just for fun:

Acariciando ese ruin cosquilleo en la boca del estómago llamado desengaño. 

(Sounds cornier in Spanish). 

Spending a good chunk of your morning going over a phrase (at best a poem's or a story's first sentence) seems both frivolous and pointless. But it's also, like, super critical for being alive and stuff. Verbally pining down a fucked up feeling is, the way I see it, the only way to own it. Once you pin it down, you can sort of breathe. 

Only once I had the phrase down was I able to get out of bed and make some instant coffee. Why in the world do I drink that terrible stuff otherwise known as instant coffee? That's a phrase for another day.  

Not succumbing to hyperbole when describing something you love has to be one of the toughest things in writing. So is foregoing verbal pyrotechnics to make way for terse ideas. Understated sentences that hint at underground reservoirs of feeling are harder to write than sentences bursting with obfuscating lyricism. I believe that if I had been educated in England --or at least on the American East Coast-- understated writing would come more naturally to me. The bulk of my English education took place in Los Angeles, California, for god's sake. I'm lucky I can sometimes write semi-coherent photography reviews! 

Growing up I overdosed on poetry too, which doesn't help.

Some of the poets that meant the most to me as I came of age were Paul Celán, Philip Larkin, Pablo Neruda, Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Jorge Luis Borges, Nicanor Parra, Charles Bukowski, Vicente Huidobro and Basho (feels weird calling him Matsuo Basho).

Of all of those dudes, only Larkin mastered understatement; only he picked whispering over singing. Celán whispers too, but it's a more theatrical whisper, so it feels like he's not. Of all the others, even Basho likes to shock. Mallarmé is architectonic, Huidobro painterly, Bukowski and Parra narrative, Borges precise but imaginative, Baudelaire musical and abstractly cinematic (anachronism, whatever); and Neruda, my first maestro, epic-minded but precise, as if Walt Whitman had been influenced by Edgar Allan Poe.

A very musical bunch. I should have read more, I don't know, see, that's the problem. I don't even know. Emily Dickinson? Robert Louis Stevenson?

The most influential thing on my writing has to be my mom's Spanish. When that woman's tongue is on fire --which, unless she's sick or down, happens at least once a day-- she can out-pace, out-maneuver and out-synonym any book-learnéd professor or coked out car salesman. All she needs is her daily cafecito. I must say logic is not her forté. Intensity of language is. I'm not talking about yelling or screaming (though there's plenty of that). I'm talking about Spanish verbal imagination: archaisms, neologisms, guttural sounds, educated, vulgar and even made up. All words are free game when she's bombarding you with language. Abuelita was like that too.

Back when I was a kid and we still lived in the old country, mamá had three radio shows. Three. She did NPR-style news, a cultural show, and a top-40 music show. She sometimes did fictional radio stories too. I remember sitting in the radio cabin, or whatever it's called, quietly doing my Math homework as she read about a coup d'état in the Middle East or something. Out here in the U.S. she has for over 15 years made a living selling vitamins to other immigrants. In other words, she's still talking for a living.

There's also something about coming to English from the outside. As intimate as I am with English, it will never be my native language. It's always been a spectacle, a foreign thing that's always one step removed. I suspect it's the same for many non-native speakers.

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Richard Rodriguez' Day's of Obligation come to mind. The two books are vastly different. One is a classic novel about a charming pederast, the other is a beautiful non-fiction essay collection about cultural displacement. They were written over 40 years apart. Their baroque prose, however, is similar. Both have that all-out-pyrotechnics style. I don't think it's a coincidence that both Nabokov and Rodriguez  learned other languages before English. They come to English from the outside. They're ESL speakers. 

In no way whatsoever am I even remotely comparing my sorry-ass writing style to that of a contemporary essay pimp like Rodriguez; or, worse yet, to that of a 20th century literary master like Nabokov. It looks like people who are not native speakers of a language tend to enjoy fooling around with syntax and word choice more than those who are native speakers because they can, as it were, enjoy the show from the bleachers--that's all I'm sayin'. Native speakers, particularly those who come from countries with a long literary tradition, where all literary styles have been tried before, have a more natural knack for understatement (think George Orwell).

As you always want what you can't have, I wish my prose was more understated and not as loud. I'm working on it, but in writing even the smallest improvements take years. It took me like three years to stop writing in fragments and run-on sentences. Not long ago I thought sounding like Benji from The Sound and the Fury was acually a cool thing. Joan Didion was to blame for that. 

Last time my craving for Tito's Tacos (which turned out to be a bit of a bust) took me to Century City. This time, my taco-craving brought me to the opposite side of L.A.-- Guisados in Boyle Heights. This little mom and pops place is as far from Tito's as you can get.

Attention to detail is not something tacos are famous for, but the folks at Guisados clearly pay minute attention to each taco, making each one an adventurous, borderline gourmet experience. 

Having an able taco-pilot by your side is also very nice. My friend Liz is one savvy local. She said the taco sampler would be the thing to order and that the horchata was great.

She was right about the sampler. It is made of six kinds of small tacos: Mole Poblano, Tinga de Pollo, Bistec en Salsa Roja, Steak Picado, Chicarron and Cochinita Pibil.  You get sweet, hot, textury, limey, chewy and even savory in an Indian curry kind of way, all at once. 

Plus the corn tortillas are hand made and thick. The thickness is neither fluffy nor heavy. The tortillas are thick in a lightly chewy way. And no, they don't taste neutral. A great tortilla should never taste neutral. It's not the freaking Host people! A great tortilla, like the kind you see here, must have a hint of corn. 

There's one thing the Taco-pilot wasn't right about. The horchata at Guisados isn't just great. It's the best horchata I have ever had. Yes.

Like all amazing foods, the horchata at Guisados is willingly deceiving. It looks so cinnamon-heavy that you fear there's something chalky, even grainy, like the crap they sell at Tacos Mexico, coming your way.

The horchata at Guisados is neither. Nei-ther! The cinnamon somehow transforms the milk's body into a complex aroma. Heaven.

That's not even the best. The horchata at Guisados pulls off the seemingly impossible: creaminess and lightness at the same time. OMG. I won't even attempt to describe how that happens because only mystics and charlatans dare describe magic. I'd rather just quiver in awe.

The woman on the left was also having a Guisados religious experience. 

Here was the party in Malibu and here was this long-haired Yoga instructor, who looked exactly like Robert Pattinson, talking about his travels in India and Nepal, and the supreme benefits of Yoga. You could touch and part the white weed smoke in the patio, but you could not detect the feigned interest. It's a subtle skill, folks. There was talk of inner peace, balance, detachment, and transcendence. You know, Yoga saved my life. It can save yours too. Would you like to come by the school sometime? Great! I'll give you my email address. I also teach a class on how to survive as a vegan. Are you a vegan too? Nice! Not to be judgmental, but  one should never fully trust somebody who ingests dead flesh. 

Here was the gallery in Century City  and here was the artist talking about abstraction, fields of color, and how to represent inner feeling on canvas. The paintings were up on the wall and he was pointing out light, texture, depth--oh, that depth! The paintings were not ridiculous. They were not unoriginal. The process had been slow and arduous. Would you like to hear about the process? Are you sure you want to hear about the process? It goes way back. Good, good, you're such a great listener, man. What's your name again? Here it goes. When my parents, siblings and I moved to New York from Virginia in 1973, I had a sort of awakening...

Here was the hip party downtown and her skin looked so spotless, her hair so thick, and her eyes so naive. She was here in Hollywood to act. Modeling was okay, but she wanted roles, she wanted to explore characters, she wanted to turn into others. The Midwest was not bad, but she needed to get out, chase the dream. You don't think it's a crazy idea to follow your dreams, do you? Yes! You have to try it or you can grow old not knowing. In the end, you can at least say you tried it. I see all these people, they think acting is easy, but it's not. I've studied all the methods, done all my homework. That must pay off in the end. You're funny! I promise I won't forget about you when I become a famous movie star!

There must be nods here and there, many questions asked, and eyes wide open at all times. Explanations must always be asked for, even if they're not needed. However tempting, there must never be sarcastic comments made, eyes rolled, nor faulty logic pointed out. If the subject does not believe you're interested --if he/she guesses that you're noticing the clichés-- he/she will speak with caution. This is not good. Caution is the enemy. Creating the conditions for unselfconcious spewing, the goal. 

He was around 40 living with his parents. You can hardly blame him. The house was enormous. It wasn't really a house. It was a mansion and he had a whole branch to himself on a different floor. Then there were the amenities: swimming pool, tennis court, jacuzzi, steam room, the garden, the piano room, the little pond with ducks, and the little chapel at the end of the villa. How could you not live there? The parents were there to offer guidance and company. The help was there to heat up the bread in the morning and make him natural fruit juices after he went for a swim. Lunch, he ate in the city, near the office. But at night, when he came back to the villa, if he got back home before 8:30, the security guard greeted him at the gate, and twenty minutes later, the maid brought him steak and french fries on a tray.

He could sit with the parents in one of the six living rooms and watch the day's goals on the huge television screen. When the parents went to bed, he probably stayed up for an hour longer before heading to his own branch. 

It seems improbable that he brought women into to the village. It also seems improbable that he didn't. He was a sexually vigorous man, who, though not particularly striking, had refined taste in his choice of suits and a funny, if self-centered, personality. There was always the apartment his mother had gifted him in the city. It was conviniently located in the same building as the office. He surely took women there. What kind of women, it's hard to tell; sometimes unwholesome women, though sometimes wholesome ones too. He introduced me to one or two of the nicer ones. They were invariably younger and worked for him or were part of his professional circle. One of them stood out. She was a nice blond, who let me take her Nintendo home. That was a big deal for a kid; I wouldn't have minded her. Yet, he wasn't the marrying type.

He still lives alone now that he's in his mid 50s, except he doesn't live in the village any longer. His parents have passed away and the village has been sold. He lives in a large apartment overlooking the city. He inherited a considerable amount of money, jewels and furniture. In the photos, I can see he kept the black piano and the engraved porcelain chinese table. Those two objects  look out of place in his appartment. They belong in the mansion. Two years ago, he built a jacuzzi in the apartment's bathroom. That also seems out of place in a city appartment.

The plethora of activities and little rituals that must make up this man's days and nights --now that he doesn't live in the village; now that he's no longer thin, vigorous, and kept-- are a deep mystery to me. 

As I had promised, I went to Tito's Tacos on Sunday. The challenge has been met. I stand a changed man. Nothing will ever be the same. But more about that at the end.

First, let's start with the people because people are always the most important thing in any journey. My homey, Josh, also a man of his word, served as Taco-pilot (a neologism coined by himself).

As you can tell by the photo, he was a little skeptical at first. I was too, especially after noticing that the guacamole was fake. No real avocado chunks here folks. At Tito's they give you the chemical stuff.

The Taco-pilot's skepticism changed after the first bite. Can't be said that he loved the tacos, but he found the shredded beef tasty, the lettuce fresh, and the cheese, if anything, abundant.

His final assessment: "I would say they're more good than bad."

My final assessment: I concur with the Taco-pilot's shredded beef pronouncement. It is moist and slightly garlicky, very good.

Everything else is run of the mill. Well, not everything. I liked that they gave us real cups with our tap water; not the little transparent cups a lot of restaurants give you to discourage you from ordering water with your order.

One thing I didn't like were the hard shell tacos. The Taco-pilot didn't seem to mind them so much. In any case, that's my fault because I didn't say I wanted soft shell tacos instead. Why soft shell? Look at the amount of chips (free!). That's enough hard corn for days. 

My friend Liz --who has promised to be next week's Taco-pilot-- had warned me that Tito's was not amazing. Nevertheless, I was hoping  the tacos would be extraordinary. I had Tito's awesome TV commercial in mind.

Now to the best part. Tito's has an eclectic costumer base. I thought it was like that because I had blogged about it a couple of days ago and that had attracted a bunch of my readers.

The ambience isn't too bad either. There's the charm of the 405 freeway right behind, and a small park down the street where you can go pass out next to some dog poop after eating. 

Oh, and the ladies who work there are really nice (except they don't like pictures).

So, how do I stand a changed man?

I'm now 10 lb. heavier, that's how.

10. Buff man in wife beater right behind you takes off his headphones, taps you on the shoulder and says, "I'm a ganstah!" He gets up, punches a random man in the face and gets off the bus.

9. Two weeks later the same buff man in the same wife beater sits next to you in the back of the bus. He asks you if he can "borrow" five bucks. You shell out your lunch money, no questions asked.

8. You slightly cut your finger with door handle's loose metal sheet and spend the next three days trying to decide whether to get tested for HIV, hepatitis, and leukemia.

7. Only old white woman in the bus is angry at all the rude Latino students because no one offers her a seat. You would, but you're standing too. You make eye contact with her, as if trying to tell her you feel her pain. Suddenly, she bursts out in a tirade against all of you "fucking Mexicans invading the country and having like 5 babies by age 20."

6. Is that man in the back of the bus really fingering his girlfriend or are you really, really tired (and/or sexually frustrated)?

5. It's 93 degrees outside. Fat --not fat, humongous-- woman sits next to you, trapping you between the window and her arm, which is thicker than your thigh. She takes out some 7 Eleven nachos out of a plastic bag and smears Velveeta and salsa all over the handles. The bus jerks as you get up to go, so in order not to fall down on her nachos, you have to quickly decide either to hold on to the slimy handle or her soft sweaty shoulder.

4. Senior in Geometry class assures you that bus passes can be easily altered. He says "you'd be an idiot to waste your money on the bus fare and shit." You alter your bus pass during art class. It looks pretty good, but when you try to use it, the bus driver catches you. "Get off my damned bus right now!" he says. You have already spent your bus money. On top of that, you will have to take the same bus with the same driver tomorrow.

3. Packed bus on Wilshire Blvd. on a Friday at 5:45 p.m. Somebody near you stinks up the bus with a silent fart. You look around angrily, trying to find the asshole (literally...eww) only to realize everyone's looking at you as if you'd been the one. The pretty girl in pink is also looking at you. 

2. The bus is on the freeway and it's raining. Diabetic bus driver's blood sugar unexpectedly drops or something. He starts talking in tongues and does not slow down one bit.

1. Right before her bus stop, your goth friend, on whom you have a huge secret crush, says she might commit suicide one of these days because "life sucks." She doesn't come to school and doesn't pick up her phone for two days after that. When she does come to school, she acts normal. 

I'm usually not overly influenced by TV ads, but there's something about this one that gets me deep within the heart. It's like a girl you only see once, but can't stop thinking about for weeks. 

I don't think it's the subtle suggestive techniques, the acting, nor the award-worthy cinematography. Believe it or not, it's not even the song, which I plan to download as my iphone's ring tone.

It's those three flying tacos at the end!

Those three flying tacos are luring me to go there with such power that, here and now, I am making a promise to all of my  thousands of readers: sometime this weekend, I will drive across town to Tito's Tacos on Washington Place in Culver City and have three that look just like the flying ones. The burning desire must be quenched, pacified, conquered. 

So if anyone would like to join me in this quest --I'm calling it The Tito's Taco's Challenge -- pray let me know. It's on me. I only ask you let me take a picture of you at Tito's, as I will dutifully blog about the entire undertaking. 

I’m working on an essay about Steven Rubin’s Vacationland; a photo collection showing at John Matkowsky’s uber cool Drkrm gallery. Drkrm has a history of politically confrontational, sexually deviant, and socially marginalized photography-- the kind I dig.

For Vacationland, which premiers on April 28, Rubin went to rural Maine many times over the years and photographed a few families. The work is journalistic in feel, but, unlike much journalistic photography, also has moments of cringe-inducing poetry.

John Matkowsky has been nice enough to invite me to write about a couple of upcoming shows at Drkrm. This is a kind of open brainstorm for the first essay.

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The best: honest depiction of the fading American hinterlands. To “honest” you can add “empathetic,” and even “loving.”

Hinterland: A region remote from urban areas; backcountry. A region situated beyond metropolitan centers of culture.

People who live in rural clusters kind tend to form subcultures. This is one of them. (Though, to think of it, we all inhabit subcultural clusters).

What can be better: sometimes there's a little stiltedness, as if Rubin were looking hard for a dramatic narrative. (None of the photos here have that quality, most don't). 

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There are 40 photographs in front of me now. I have actually seen about 60 in total, some of which will not be part of the exhibit.

The show has already begun to get some buzz. Two days ago, Time magazine’s Tara Godvin, wrote this about Vacationland in LightBox: 

Rubin sought to avoid the stereotypes of people broken by their struggles or heroically pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Influenced not only by legendary photographer Dorothea Lange but also anthropologist Clifford Geertz, Rubin aimed at creating a body of work that functioned as a “thick description,” a finely detailed document for understanding the context of human actions. Achieving that goal required time.

It makes sense that Time would cover it. Vacationland has a strong journalistic element. Also, Steven Rubin has worked for Time, National Geographic, and NY Times.

I’m not sure about the Dorothea Lange comparison, except for the depiction of poverty. Maybe if you lowered Lange’s volume in half. It’s as if Rubin were one of the people he photographs. I don't see that in Lange. 

Rubin is more like Richard Billingham taking photos of his own alcoholic and poor parents. In Billingham’s photos the tenderness cancels out much of the judgment. It kind of turns your stomach and warms up your heart at the same time.

Richard Billingham. Untitled, 1995

A “thick description”; yes, that’s where it’s at. It means bringing in a lot of elements into the image (cultural, poetic, human, journalistic, sexual, political and economic) to lift the subjects from the cliché. Or, better yet, to free the viewer from judgment or pity so that he or she can bring in empathy and even nostalgia to the photo viewing experience.

To be clear: Rubin frees his subjects from cliché land for us, the viewers, not for the subjects. The subjects have their own lives. We are the ones looking at the people in the photos; we are the ones trying to get something from them.

“Nostalgia!? But I didn’t grow up in the backwoods. And I sure as hell, ain’t white trash.’” A lot of comments in the LightBox blog entry strike some variation of this tone.

Here are four of the most vile:

 

“So these photos will be posted in LA where Hipsters and Elitists can mock the life of Mainers? Is there any plans to bring this to Maine?”
 
“Good Lord, way to give rural Maine a black eye.”
 

“These photographs, while beautiful, depict rural Maine as being full of hopelessness.”

 

“I grew up in Somerset County. graduating high school in 1982 when some of these photos were taken. Yes, these are beautiful "raw images" of the subjects. But this is only a representation of one family and a one sector of the region. Please don't think that all of central Maine is this desolate. We have our beautiful spots too (sans lighthouses and rocky coastline).”

 

I don’t think anyone --anyone worth a damn in any case-- will judge all of Maine, Central Maine, or whatever, as a shithole because of Vacationland.

LA hipsters mock you because of how skinny, or not skinny, your pants are. LA elitists mock you because, nay, they don’t mock, they sneer and whisper.

Places like the one depicted in Vacationland are cool in some parts of LA. Go to any hipster bar and you will see things like PBR, trucker hats, mustaches, wife beaters, badly made jail tattoos, beards, greasy hair, and beer bellies. They're all worshiped. Some of the most beutiful women in Silverlake and Echopark won't sleep with you unless you have a broken tooth and dirt under your nails.

Seriously though, is there that much to make fun of in these photos?

These people are not rich, they have guns, Dobermans, Elvis posters, beat up trucks, etc. Who cares?

Those are just cultural elements. It’s like when non-urban people make fun of baggy pants and bling bling; or when conservative people make fun of earth-conscious vegans.

Take this photo:

The girl's holding a shotgun, her dad's a dumbass, ha, ha, whatever.

Empathy and nostalgia stand behind the cultural clutter. Those who can’t find a deep link to their own childhood in a photo like this are not necessarily hipster or elitist. They’re just unperceptive. 

I've been going to Stories a little more these days, but this time I went to Downbeat Café instead.

The atmosphere at Stories is better, but the chairs at Downbeat are more comfortable. At Stories the chairs are wooden and hurt after a while--especially if you stay for three hours at a time, like I do.

Anyway, after typing away about world dictatorships for a long time, and drinking lots of coffee, I had to use the restroom. That's normal.

What's not normal is the little pink sign I saw above the toilet paper.

I usually follow restroom rules strictly. If they say, don't smoke, I don't. If they say, wash your hands after each use, I do. But this time, to great dismay, I could not.

I'd already gone.  

But, come on! What do the Downbeat people expect you to do? Pee in an empty coffee cup? Shit in the trash can? I don't get it.  

Marina, a slender 25-year-old brunette from the Bay Area, had had a couple of cocktails, so what she told me might not be how she really thinks. But it's interesting anyway.

We were smoking outside Club Underground in Chinatown as "Common People" by Pulp was playing in the background. The topic of monogamy came up. I guess it came up because Antonio, a good friend of mine from Mexico was also in the club. Marina and Antonio used to date. But now he had his hand on a blond's lap.

"Aren't you jealous?" I probably asked Marina. I had had a couple of drinks too, so I was particularly inquisitive.

Marina and Antonio aren't dating anymore, but some people find it hard to witness people they used date hooking up with somebody else.

"Not at all," she said. "I actually helped him talk to the blond," she said and proudly smiled.

Marina has a very pretty smile and uses it a lot.

"If it were me, I wouldn't be able to do something like that," I said. "That's, like, really evolved."

Was I going for sarcasm? I don't even know nowadays. 

If there was any sarcasm there, she didn't pick up on it-- good.

She said that after breaking up with Nick, a guy she lived with for four years, and who does not talk to her anymore, she became more open.

We were entering the subject of monogamy. Just where I wanted to take it.

"Knowing that people are not replaceable helps," she said.

I pushed the subject. I was looking for concrete examples. She didn't mind, but went abstract instead.

"If you're in a long-term relationship, you have to be flexible, so it lasts. Rigid things break, flexible things last," she said, motioning with her hands, as if bending a rubber ruler or something.

I wanted personal details; if possible, names. "So you would let your boyfriend cheat on you."

"It wouldn't be cheating, so long as I knew about it. Plus it would go both ways."

"I thought only men [I should've said, mostly men] had the desire to cheat. Women are more naturally monogamous, no?"

"Women are way more sexual than men think."

A little interjection here can help. Marina is not some ugly, insecure chick, who would let her boyfriends cheat on her because of low self steam issues (like because she thought that was the only way to keep men around or something). She's attractive, smart and sophisticated.

Antonio, by the way, always "gets" attractive women. Thoughtful, green eyed and tall, he's a good looking catch himself.

"I'm dating this guy now --a documentary filmmaker, who's in Boston promoting his new feature right now-- and I don't know what he's up to. There are so many attractive people around.," she said. "How can you expect somebody to not want to be with them? So long as he uses protection, I'm okay with what he does."

"How about you?"

I realize now I was probably asking too much. But hey, there is no such thing as a bad or a stupid question, right? That's what teachers taught us at school. 

"Yes, it goes both ways. Flexibility," she said, making the rubber ruler motion again," makes things last a long time."

At this point Antonio was making out with the blond, who was apparently from Kentucky. Marina didn't care, or pretended not to care.

"It all goes back to the fact that people are not replaceable. Nobody is ever going to replace Nick," she said. "I used to be more idealistic before. Now I know that even if you meet somebody else, however cool they are, people can't replace other people. And that's a good thing!"

"But doesn't that mean you just don't care enough about the person you're dating? If you care a lot about a person, don't you want them to be with you only?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"If I saw an ex-girlfriend with another dude, I would just feel uncomfortable. If I saw a guy kissing my girl, punches would be landed within seconds."

"You need to learn not to care. Well, it's not that you don't care. You care, but you need to learn how to let go, like in Buddhism."

"I guess, I'm just an conservative South American Catholic, after all."

"Everyone's different."

"I'm just playing devil's advocate."

"I know."

We laughed it off.

It wasn't about winning an argument, but about finding out how people think. Sex is a darn complex subject. 

At the end of the night, I dropped Marina and Antonio off at their apartments. Since he lives close to Club Underground in Chinatown, I dropped Antonio off first.

Marina and I were quiet for a bit as I drove her to her apartment in Echo Park. She was thinking about something.

Then, suddenly, she said that at one point she thought Antonio and she were falling in love, but then realized it would just be a beautiful, long-lasting friendship instead.

Sunset Blvd. was pretty empty considering it wasn't even 2:30 a.m yet. We got to her place pretty quickly. 

"You know, it's funny how people are," she said, before getting off the car. "If I hadn't seen Antonio fooling around with that blond tonight, I probably would've gone home with him. It's not that I mind he was with another girl. Like, I even helped him talk to her, you know... It's just that seeing somebody with somebody else, doesn't make you want to..."

"I get it," I said. "One girl at a time."

"Exactly. I don't really care. You have to learn how to let go. But one girl at a time, one per night," she said, laughing,"that's a good rule."

She said good night and walked up the long stairs to her apartment, which is nicely perched halfway up a steep hill overlooking the entire neighborhood. 

68, 69, 70--ouch, I can't, I can't.

I was about to give up on doing 75 sit ups, when for some reason, I looked up at the mirror and was instantly inspired by the person behind me.

I'm not talking about the blond buff guy with the mega deltoids by the punching bag. I'm talking about the older woman at the chest fly machine.

68, 69,70--woa, she has to be at least 70 years old! She be a.m.a.z.i.n.g. dot com

She could be 75 or even 80, but no less than 70, for sure. She's there every time I go. And I go to the gym pretty late, sometimes at 8 or 9 p.m.

Grandma's a working out machine. Most old people at the gym --the very few, who come like once every two weeks-- do a little walking or stretching, sit down at the abs machine, and peace out. This lady goes for the hardcore equipment and stays for a long time. Granted, she doesn't lift much weight, but there's no machine she's afraid of.

It's hilarious seeing these huge dudes who lift 180 lbs, waiting around for this little old Asian woman who lifts 7 or 10 lbs. They have to stand around and watch her taking her time. 

'Cause there's no rushing her. She throughly wipes off the sweat from the machines before and after each use. Sometimes she dusts off the weights for good measure.

After snapping a couple of pics to put up on my wall as inspirational totems, I went back to my toil. The outcome? 80 sit ups. All thanks to Super Grandma. 

Today's book exercise in the Listening and Speaking ESL class I teach was "values." I don't know why I use quotation marks to write "values," as if they were made up or something. Maybe they are.

As part of the exercise, my students were given 11 values and had to write them down in order of importance.

Here they are:

Niky is a tall young film student from Thailand. Lookyee is a Thai girl that laughs all the time like Beavis and Butt-head. Shiori is Japanese girl who plays golf and looks like a stewardess. Francine is a gren-eyed  Brazilian woman with a tan and a strong personalty. And I, their teacher, am an Ecuadorian-American writer who plays tennis regularly. 

I don't know if nationality has much to do with our choices as much as personality and personal sensibilities. Maybe it does.

I'm in my late 20s. My students are in their early or mid 20s, which also is something to keep in mind.

There was a little confusion with the "Love Life" value. I though, woa, some of my students and I are pretty similar, but then I realized that they thought "Love Life," not in romantic terms, but in terms of "Loving Life." It makes sense that they put it so high.

My students were surprised that I chose "Leisure," as one of the top four values I care the most about. What can I say? This is me on a weekday. 

I thought it was interesting that "Family" came up so high on my students' list, but not on mine. Maybe the fact that I'm an only child of divorced parents has something to do with family not being in my top 6.

Also, Niky said he chose 'health" as his number one value because he has a heart condition. He carries a medical tag and pills around his neck. The medical tag says that if he faints, the pills should be given to him right away, or else he could die.

Maybe, in our heads,  the values we lack are the most important ones and the ones we already have are not that important.

"Friends" came out 4th on everyone's list. I'm glad that though we're all so different, we can agree on something like "Friends." At least we're not all obsessed with money and sex or something. Or maybe we are, but just don't own up it.

When did I start wearing sports jackets?

Somewhere lost in an old hard drive there's a 6 or 7-year-old photo of my friend Juan David Castilla and I at a poet's party on Alvarado St. and Temple Blvd. in Los Angeles, where I'm wearing a sports jacket. I am smoking, have long hair and, if I may say so myself, look rather cool.

Though, all truth be told, that wasn't really a sports jacket. It was more like a light brown cowboy jacket I bought at a vintage store around 2002 when I was around 20 years old. But that's how the bad habit kind of got started anyhow. It was close enough to an actual sports jacket. 

Most bad habits start like that, simply and thoughtlessly; only in time do they become monstrosities.

It used to be fun back then, wearing that light brown (Suede? No, it couldn't have been) vintage cowboy "sports jacket." I would wear it to every party. It was slightly hip without being ridiculous; it dressed me up without being dressy. I could wear it with t-shirts or shirts, to punk gigs, fashion shows or art galleries. Oh, it was was perfect for art galleries.

A lot of sports jackets came after that, mostly worn with skinny blue or black jeans. It felt good wearing a sports jacket back then, especially the vintage ones.

Then the mid 2000's got going and the fun habit started becoming a problem.

Things took a turn for the worst by the end of the decade. In December 2008, I bought dark blue suit at Macy's in the Beverly Center (L.A.) for a party at the Syracuse University Club in Manhattan. I loved that suit and wore it with a white shirt and a skinny tie. But I'm not one to wear a suit. I wear one once or twice a year and enjoy it, but no more than that.

So I started using the blue suit jacket as a sports jacket (a bad sign). By then I was already wearing a lot of sports jacket's. I had a heavy grey one, a light summer one, a dark blue fitted one, and a couple of others not worth describing. None of them had the cool factor that the 2002 light brown vintage cowboy one had. Not even near.

Most importantly, I wasn't wearing sports jackets for fun anymore. Sure, sometimes I was wearing them to parties and, once in a blue moon, even got compliments on them, but, really, for the most part, I was wearing them to school. By school, I mean work, not fun. 

I graduated from Syracuse University in 2009 and then came back to California where I have earned money mostly as a teacher. For a while, I was a high school, junior high and middle school substitute in San Jose, California. I loathed that job. Sports jackets must have taken a bad connotation in my brain at that point.

About a year ago, I moved to Los Angeles, where I got a morning job teaching ESL to foreign students in their early 20s. I do this to date and actually like the job. Not so much the sports jackets, which now I just throw on without thinking.  

To be more precise, it's the year 2012, and I am in my late 20 now, and at some point not too long ago I realized that I had gotten sick of sports jackets.

At what point did a sophisticated-yet-hip clothing item become a boring, ugly fashion clutch for me? I can't say exactly when. All I know is that I've reached a saturation point.

I'm speaking for myself, but I do notice the same bad habit in other men and sense the same problem. The same, well, ontological vacum.

Burn your damn sports jackets motherfuckers! Stop being held back by this terrible fashion clutch.

Just kidding. My first instinct is to throw them all away, but I can't just throw away half of my already limited wardrobe. I'm still going to wear sports jackets from time to time, but only when they really fit the occasion, like suits.

One thing's for sure, the minute I catch myself falling back on the old habit, I will toss the damned  rag away and, as hard as it might be at first, I will start exercising my dormant appearance creativity, even on weekdays. May the Clothing Gods help me. 

Stop your dirty mind right now.

I literally saw a lady walking a rooster in Echo Park as I was driving, so I pulled over and asked her if I could take a picture for my blog. She was quite nice about it. Too bad I forget her name.

She said the rooster wasn't hers, but that it just comes over her backyard uninvited from time to time. She does not know who the rooster belongs to, but she "cannot have it coming over like that" because she has some hens in her backyard.

Bad rooster. 

The lady also happens to have a small dog, a Chihuahua I think, so she has a small leash that fits just right. I asked her if it was difficult putting the leash around the rooster's neck. She said no, and then showed me how it was done.

The rooster is very well behaved. It let her put the leash off and on and then walked without making a fuss, unlike some dogs.

I told her I would not make fun about it. She said I could. But there's nothing to make fun of. Now that I think about it, walking a rooster seems like the most sensible thing in the world. I hope this starts a new trend.

Screw dog parks. We need more rooster parks.

Before I go, I'd like put in a good word for the rooster. Nice lady, whose name I forget, can you please let the poor guy visit your hens once in a while? What's the worst that can happen? 

I took these at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest in San Francisco last October.