El Gringoqueño

All a man needs out of life is a place to sit ‘n’ spit in the fire.

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From Our Ongoing Discussions About the Nature of Art

June 24, 2014 /

What is art? Laura and I have been discussing this subject passionately for the past twenty-something years. I can’t say we’ve arrived at any firm conclusions, but let me throw one more log on the fire right here.

We were visiting the Art Museum here in Puerto Rico a few months ago and I found myself in front of this painting. Here’s the best image I could find with the artist, Francisco Rodón.

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So I walked up a winding staircase and came upon this huge painting of Luis Muñoz Marin, first elected governor of Puerto Rico in the Puerto Rico Art Museum. I was moved. It was beautiful, exquisite, composition, colors, impactful. First there came a slight choke, then full on tears running down my face. This is silly, I thought. What is wrong with me? Am I having a stroke or something. Sheesh, get a grip, Jim. I wiped my eyes and tried to focus on the details of the portrait, the rivulets of color flowing and gathering in little pools and the patchwork of earthen colors, like seen from high above, farmland, the very face of Puerto Rico. I peered into the tired eyes of Marin. I have done so much. I have seen so much. I am tired. I wish I could have done more, but I am old now. There is pain in the painting, palpable pain. But it is beautiful too, compelling. I could not tear my eyes away as I experienced the entirety of Puerto Rican 20th century history.

I didn’t try to dissect it in that moment. I couldn’t, a mess I was, overcome with what poured out like a tidal wave. It was all I could do to just stay afloat for the ride and try not to drown. It wasn’t until a few months later, reflecting on the experience, and after attempting to explain it others, that it hit me.

This piece is beauty and pain. The best art, like life, is beauty and pain.

To contrast: too beautiful, too pretty, too sweet; it’s a simple gumdrop, a sugary treat bursting in your mouth and gone. Shallow sentimentality doesn’t stay with you, does it? It won’t nourish you. At best it’s a way to mark time, a momentary distraction. Here we have majestic paintings of mountains, beautiful morning lit scenes leading to a little brook, and some pretty flowers. It’s nice, and matches the drapes too. Would that work its way into your soul?

Rodón, could have done this painting much darker, austere desaturated colors, darker shadows, sunken eyes. He could have rendered the patches all angular and jagged. He could have scrawled some political slogan across the middle, an ugly reminder of tribalism in politics. He could have defaced it to “really get in your face.” He could have done so many things if all he wanted was to thrust pain and dissonance upon us, but he knew that there was beauty there too. He painted with such tenderness for Luis Muñoz Marin. Cariño. He made me see beauty in this old man after his life’s dedication, of the battles won and lost, of progress, of mistakes. It was worth doing, but it was hard.

Now, too painful, too cynical, and you risk losing yourself to despair. And suffering for suffering’s sake is a pointless exercise. It will find you, trust me.

Think about art, and if you are honest with yourself, you will find that it does need to be beautiful. It needs to be terribly beautiful, not pretty with little pastel sailboats hung over a couch, but terribly painfully beautiful. And it must challenge you, but not for the sake of shock alone. Art shouldn’t just throw shit in your face and say, see? that’s what shit smells like. Isn’t it shocking? Too cynical, and it loses its measure of humanity. Pain is real, and all people know it. We humans are acquainted with pain in all its varieties. Art should elevate the dialog of pain, not just use it like a cudgel. That is for the lazy and the shallow.  An artist’s job is to capture authenticity, and it takes a reverence and sincerity you can’t fake.

 

We Call it the Easter Dishwasher

June 19, 2014 /

Like most everything these days, home appliances come with printed circuit boards tucked away in various corners of their interiors. These control and logic boards rein over everything from the temperature, to water usage, cleanliness, etc, all to achieve an Energy Star rating.  They do the same job with as few resources as possible. The only problem is that you have to throw them out after a couple of years.

It turns out that the heat and humidity of tropics is murder on the electronic guts of modern appliances, ovens, dishwashers, refrigerators, washing machines. Sure, they’re more energy efficient, but then you have to get new ones every few years because the cost of repair is nearly the cost of the appliance as new. Sigh. How environmentally sound and efficient is that?

Anyway, so our dishwasher started acting up, first not draining properly. At first I thought it was clogged, but it turns out that the drain cycle was just not being triggered properly.  The cycle would not complete due to some control system problem. I took it apart, checked what I could check, studied the electrical circuit diagram, went online and found the part.  $150 but I couldn’t get it shipped to Puerto Rico without jumping through hoops. Sigh again.

After further reading however, the problem didn’t necessarily have to be isolated to the control board. It could be in the touch panel circuit.  Both together would be over $300 and that wouldn’t guarantee it would solve the problem. As a do-it-yourselfer I can’t guarantee my work. If I have misdiagnosed the problem, I eat the cost and try again.  To pay someone else with more knowledge to do it, I would have to chip in another $150-$200 for the work. Now we’re at nearly 80% of the cost of a new dishwasher.

So there I was, the thing wouldn’t drain, and now the touch panel was not working… lighting up in a strange configuration, only turning on and running if the delay wash button was pressed. Then one day it stopped working all together.

Time to get a new dishwasher. And off i went.

Perhaps it was the threat of being replaced. Maybe it had reflected on its life purpose, and got past its existential crisis, maybe it wanted us to reconnect with hand washing so as to appreciate it more. I don’t know, but that stupid dishwasher began to work again.  One day, I closed the door and heard the pump motor wind up and suck the dirty water from its bowels. “Well, will you look at that. Do you hear that, hon? This damn thing is draining!” On a hunch, I loaded it up and pushed the delay washer button, and was greeted with a one hour count down. I danced a jig in the kitchen.The boulder had been removed from the tomb, but I did not know what it meant yet.

For a week, we used the delay button to do the loads and things came out sparkling clean. The water drained. It’s a work around, but we can live with it. Then Laura came to me, “I pushed the wash button, and it started up!”

“Really?!” It was too much to believe, unreal, a complete resurrection.  I had to see it for myself.

Now the question is how long will we have it.  For how long will it walk with us, washing our dishes, freeing us from the hell that is hand washing? I suppose we should rejoice for whatever it decides to give, for it could be recalled at any time. Let’s hope it goes longer than 40 days.

A Man and His Money

June 11, 2014 /

The fat old one that was like a ball gripped his pen and scribbled something on the paper.  “Here, hold these,” he said to the other one who was standing.  “No, no, give me that, you’re messing up my system.  Hold it.” And he snatched a couple back, passed a few tickets to the standing one and directed his pen to the other. “eight, four, twenty-one, seven.  I have a system,” he said, “I have it all here.” The standing one and the one holding a little bag with money and papers in it, both chuckled. “Let’s see…” and he added the numbers, shuffled the papers, passed them to the other, wrote some more, consulted his crumpled little green pad with another series of numbers. “You see? I have it all worked out.” And he flashed it briefly.

The man rested his hand on his cane, leaned back and peppered his compatriots with little bits and pieces to match his little papers. “You know, you have to be precise.  I have a system, There is an order. Let’s see,” he said again. “The seven must be here, and the eight there. The twenty-one has to be like this and add this way.”

The other two nodded and remained quiet.

“Let me tell you something, my money is my money. My wife said she wanted an ATM.  I said, why would you need an ATM? When I go to the ATM, I want my money to be there.  Better to get them a credit card, eh?

The others nodded in agreement.

“I mean, my money is my money.  I need it to be there when I need it… not for some woman and her capricious spending. Don’t give them money, boys. Keep a tight rein on your money, don’t let them waste it.” He paused, consulting his papers again. “All right, I think I have it all, seven plus eight plus twenty-one plus four…” He repeated it one more time, double checking. “You didn’t get those out of order, did  you?  Give me those again.” And he snatched all his little tickets back and shuffled them once again, then dispatched them to the one with the little bag of money.  “Here you go,” and he handed over some bills. “You see? You have to have a system.  The system works.  I’ve been doing this a long time.  I have it all worked out.”

The other two rolled up the little bag of money and departed without looking back.

Windows Update Comes to the Rescue

June 6, 2014 /

We have been watching the TV show Arrow, a live action show about the DC comic character The Green Arrow. The show is sponsored by Microsoft and one can see their products, the unmistakable Windows Metro 8 interface conspicuously sprinkled throughout, with lots of little logos, and other call outs to Microsoft products (Bing etc). This is important, so pay attention.

Scene: Green Arrow is chasing down a bad guy who has someone tied to a bomb that is set to go off on a timer.  Green Arrow’s computer expert, Felicity, is tracking some IP address, wireless tower, whatever to help Arrow locate the evil doer and hostage to avert disaster. Seconds are ticking off, the hostage is crying, the evil doer is laughing, monologue-ing. Tick tick tick.

“Where is he?!” yells Arrow into his communicator

Felicity concentrates on her Windows 8 laptop as her fingers dance over the keys, “Just a second, I almost have him.”

“Oh wait,” says Jaimito, “There’s a Windows Update, and it’s restarting the computer.”

NOOOOOOO!

We all roll on the floor laughing.

This is the Customer Service Agent I Want to Talk to

June 4, 2014 /

I have talked to her, and I always come away awash in good vibrations. This woman speaks to me in my deepest soul. How come I can’t have her voice in my head 24/7.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that. You’re good!”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, you’re the best, now let’s get you that discount you wanted.”

But instead today, I got Chad.  Chad’s useless.

The Little Boys are Still in There

June 2, 2014 /

I normally arrive at work on my bicycle and take a break in the Plaza de Armas in Old San Juan. I usually sit for a half hour sipping cool water and trying to get my body to realize that it can turn off the sweat production. There is always a strong breeze in the shade under the trees and it is a lovely place to relax and people watch.

There were three old men sitting in a row on a bench facing away from mine. I couldn’t see their faces, but all of them looked to be in their seventies, perhaps eighties. One was fat, like a little dough ball with a cane, the other wiry with a baseball cap emblazoned  with USA flags. Did I see a military designation?  Couldn’t make it out. Yes, they seemed like veterans, pensioners passing the time together in the plaza. The one on the left, a dark-skinned gentleman with a lively disposition was searching for something on a tiny handheld radio. “Mira, allí, poco para atrás. Allí está. Aguanta.” Barely audible, he had coaxed a faint song from a distant AM station by holding the little radio just so. I could barely make it out, but then this little old man broke into a beautiful Puerto Rican folk song. He belted it out in a clear strong voice. I’m old, he seemed to say, and I want to sing. A couple of passing older women stopped to chat, to reminisce, and to hear more. After, the friends went back to looking for songs to sing.

It must be nice, I thought, to have such friends to hang with at such an advanced age. I peered at the three men, fiddling with their little radio looking for songs to sing, talking shit about nearly just about everything, the weather, government, who is doing what with whom. Old they were, but animated and lively like little kids, and I could see them, the ten year old boys inside, for whom a song, a tv show, a sports hero, a story, a game are all they need, and all the possibilities of the universe residing strictly within. I concentrated, and their age melted away. For a brief time I saw them as perhaps their parents had seen them in their time of youth – little boys playing in the plaza.

Men, I need to have a word with y’all

May 13, 2014 /

On Mother’s Day, the comments floating around the internet, at least the comments attached to actual identities on Facebook and social media, universally praise mothers. “Mom, I love you!” “Mom, you’re the greatest!” “Mom, you’ve done so much for us!”  And they post touching stories and pictures. It’s lovely.

Then there’s the dark anonymous internet where this gets passed around. Watch it. I’ll wait.

It’s okay to laugh. It’s funny. Misogynistic humor is the best humor.

So men say one thing when they think women are listening, and another when they are alone. I am a man, I know it happens. And this funny video, and it is funny, encapsulates every snide comment that men will make to each other when we don’t think women are listening. The fact that it is hilarious, and it’s Bill Burr, the philosopher poet of our generation, or perhaps any generation, validates our opinions, maybe even giving us the courage to repeat it out loud.

Men, I need to have a word with you all. Have a seat here, and let me explain something to you I feel you are not understanding.

This particular bit uses the comedic device of taboo and double entendre. Bashing motherhood as the hardest profession is taboo, of course. He also twists up the word difficult focusing solely on the physically demanding. In debate, I suppose one might call that a red herring, as it has no bearing on the argument. We are comparing two things linked only by the double meaning of the word “difficult.” Haha, I get it. That’s funny. Men, stop repeating it. You’re embarrassing yourselves.

Now look over here. Right here. I’m not going to explain this again. Motherhood is difficult, but not for the reasons that Bill Burr says, and not for the reasons you might think.

Motherhood is hard, because for so long, women didn’t have a choice about it, and still have only limited choices to this day. No matter a woman’s gifts, whether she posses the abilities and talents to be a math wiz, musical prodigy, skilled artist, brilliant linguist, promising scientist, skilled engineer, extraordinary doctor, principled lawyer, or honest public servant, she is tacitly corralled into being a mother. Our entire society is tipped toward that end. It may be inclined less than it was in previous decades, but don’t kid yourselves; women have fewer choices over their destinies than men do. They are bullied to think something is wrong with them if their life’s purpose does not include children, that if they pursue career over family, there is something wrong with them.

Men do not have this problem, do they?

Lots of smart fantastic motivated talented women are raising children instead of doing something else.  Or perhaps they are also doing something else, trying to have it all, but not advancing as well as their male peers, who are more “dedicated.” There’s nothing wrong with raising children, of course, but the problem is that women are coerced into giving up their ambitions and  having their identities subsumed by their precious talented children, so that they may as well be invisible and frequently are.

Here, mothers, I have a special present for you. Have a special day. We’ll called it Mother’s Day, and everybody will recognize you for your hard work. But the work isn’t hard physically, it’s hard because we make you give up yourself to do it. May as well call it happy womb day!

I could stop there. But why? I can’t identify a problem and not propose a solution. Most of the focus has been on women’s empowerment, helping women recognize their rights, their abilities. There’s the “Lean In” crowd.  It’s all good, but I want to tack in another direction, one that addresses the simple fact that it’s a man’s world.

Men, managers, decision makers in business and in the general workforce do the following:

  • Help women juggle the responsibilities of parenthood with your workplace expectations – provision some plan for dealing with single parents, whether it be day care, activity buses, maternity/paternity leave, flex time, whatever. Treat woman and men as equal care providers. If Bill’s wife is giving birth, find out what their situation is and propose that Bill take some paternity leave so that she can get back to work faster. It will benefit us all in the long run. Make sure Bill is not impacted negatively for his paternity leave.
  • When another man leans over to you and says, “Will you look at the tits on that one,” to describe a female colleague, call him on it. Set the tone of the culture in your workplace. Previously you might have remained uncomfortably silent, but now I say to you, step up, even if it’s your boss – especially if it’s your boss.  If it’s your boss, make an HR complaint about a hostile workplace culture. And it is hostile, maybe not to you directly, but don’t kid yourself, that toxicity will get you sooner or later.
  • If you are a father, take on as many traditionally mommy roles as you can. Balance your wife’s life so that she can achieve her dreams and not sell them to only be a mother.
  • Advocate for the equal participation of women.  If you are a manager, mentor a woman, advance her career, take chances on her. Don’t expect that the issues that affect women are theirs alone to bear. They are yours to bear as well. Take up arms against these barriers as if they affected you and take a bullet for one of your female fellows. The internet likes to call this “white knighting.”  I like that, do it. Be somebody’s hero and help them enrich the world.

If there’s anything I hope you take away from this little piece it’s this: She loves being a mother, but that’s not all she is.  When society (men) expect that women be mothers and only mothers, that’s what makes it the most difficult job.

Dogs and Man and Cosmos

April 9, 2014 /

Loving the new show Cosmos with Neil deGgrasse Tyson. Today, episode two came to life.

The second episode of the new Cosmos began by detailing the ancient relationship between humans and dogs, how we co-opted each other to mutual benefit. Tamer dogs would get closer to the humans and be rewarded with scraps. Those dogs reproduced and the traits that allowed them to coexist with humans caused them to diverge from gray wolves. In turn, humans began to incorporate these new friends into their tribes, using them for hunting, watching, herding, etc.  It has been a fruitful collaboration ever since.

In modern times, a good many dogs are little more than companions to their human benefactors. They are rarely called upon to fulfill their ancient duties. These little doggies, yearning for the times of old, bark furiously at the postal worker, dig for ground animals in flower beds, and scavenge trash for treats. Mostly though, they languish with only the faintest primal ember still burning in their dark eyes.

Today though, our dogs returned to the lives of their ancestors.  An iguana, a big male, perched upon our fence and dared the dogs to do something. They barked and leaped throwing themselves at the high fence in a desperate frenzy. “Look, master, another meatbag wandered into our yard. Ooooo, I want it so bad!” They seemed to say.

I, however, wanted the racket to stop, and I didn’t need the impudent creature impregnating another female, thereby increasing the devastation his invasive species brings to Puerto Rico. I reached up and grabbed him. With my hand firmly around his big tail, I hauled him down twisting and squirming in my grasp.  His thrashings were so violent, I couldn’t hang on. Wow, that had never happened before. He was vigorous and strong and raced free along the fence seeking escape, rising up on two hind legs for maximum speed. Without hesitation, Lucy took off after him, through my spinach, over my basil and peppers where she ran over him twisting her body and grabbing him in her big powerful jaws.

Her blood was excited and I must say, I felt the rush of the hunt as well. Here was a worthy strong opponent, with a razor sharp tail lashing, its strong legs carrying it faster than I could go. And Lucy, 25 lbs of mutt, a funny mix between a rottweiler and dachshund, let her ancestors’ ferocity bubble to the surface.

“Git ‘im! Git ‘im! Lucy!” I yelled. “Good dog! Good dog!” My praise redoubled her efforts as she tore into the shoulder and neck of the six foot reptile. In that moment, I wanted its blood, and Lucy, oh Lucy, she was living the dream, hunting with her master. And her master was happy, and she had blood in her mouth and prey at her feet.

I reached in and grabbed it by the tail once more. It was now far more docile, injured and resigned to its fate. With a quick blow to the machete, I severed its spine taking off most of its head. They have such tough thick skin. I spent the next thirty minutes wallowing in iguana blood butchering the thing as Lucy stood proudly by. I had to put her inside, though, as I think she thought my manner inefficient and sought to speed up the task. “Master, you are doing it wrong. You are wasting blood, and I very much want to eat it. I want to eat that bag of meat that came into my yard, because they are delicious, and I love to eat them.” <- read this in Dug’s voice from the Pixar movie UP.

It’s funny, but only a few days before, we went outside and Lucy came trotting up. “Daddy,” Jaimito said, “Lucy’s hurt.  She has blood.”

I took one look at her panting and trotting playfully. “Jaimito, that’s not her blood. Look around the yard for an iguana carcass.”

As for today, the hunt, the kill, the butchering – we shall dine well, doggies, iguana fricassee is so delicious. You will be rewarded in accord with your ancient assistance.

La Cosecha

April 6, 2014 /
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Javier picking a peck of unpickled peppers. He crawled all over and under these huge pepper plants, selecting red ripe sweet ones for sofrito. I love this photo, the contrast of his reddish hair with the green and the fruit.

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Dat calabaza! A big green Caribbean pumpkin squash. We use them in tons of things, from beans and rice, as a soup thickener, as a soup, and yes, in pie. Delicious. This one weighed 37.5 lbs (17 kg)

 

Functions as Designed

February 18, 2014 /

I passed another tangled iguana carcass on the road today. There he lay, twisted and bloated, flattened in places, tire tracks decorating his thick hide. It got me to thinking how in those moments before his death, that that poor iguana had functioned exactly as he was designed.

His design is among the oldest on our earth. His kind have survived because, although primitive, they are effective. Their design is tried and true. I tried to picture the confidence on his face at the last instant of his life. “I got this,” he thought, as he stared down the barrel of fate, sure that his ancestors throughout the millions of years evolution would protect him. “I have not just prepared for this instant all my life,” he thought, “but for all of existence.”

“Bring it,” he breathed.

And then BAM, it was all over, his spine twisted, the vegetation of his gut splattered this way and that.

What went wrong? He stood his ground. He can’t be chased, because he wasn’t running. That big thing will stop, give me a sniff and then I will whip him with my tail, make a menacing sound and he will leave.  Or perhaps I will climb a tree. But no, this time the big thing did not stop.  The big thing came barreling down with nary a thought of satisfying its belly. In fact, it seemed not to notice me at all.

What do we do when our preparation does not yield the desired results, when it becomes irrelevant, when we function as designed for an environment that no longer exists?

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