The Day of the flat tire. I don’t know how many of you have had flat
tires, but today I have been initiated. This is no small thing. I am
sure that aside from excuses for arriving at meetings-work-dentists
appointments late it is a rare occurrence. Let me tell you about how it
works down here. Half the cars drive around with those ridiculous
little donut wheels (small spare tire). It’s almost an epidemic. The
other day I say a BMW (a nice one too) driving around with that silly
little wheel. If he had been in a car locker room the towel whipping
would have been fierce.

It’s all fun and games, however, until it happens to you which if
you live in Puerto Rico, it will. Maybe it has something to do with the
heat (perhaps the rubber is half melted anyway allowing anything from a
toothpick to a hard jolly rancher to penetrate your side wall), or the
fact that the streets seem to have an extraordinary quantity of pot
holes and debris. I don’t know. But today I came out to the parking lot
to find out that I had a flat. Aw man. I breathed a sigh of relief,
however, because thank God that it didn’t happen in rush hour traffic.

I whipped out the tiny silly diminutive God-awfully goofy little
spare tire and cranked up those silly little toy jacks that take a
million turns to go up half an inch, put the silly spare on and drove
gingerly (avoiding pot holes and debris) to Santurce, a working class
neighborhood (some would call it a tough neighborhood) and found a guy
who repaired tires… for, get this… $5. Yes, you heard right. $5.
Tire repair around here is such a booming business that they charge $5
a tire and work around the clock. Hell, maybe I should get out of the
computer racket and cash in on the booming flat business. So the guys
found the hole repaired the tire and slapped it back on in about 5
minutes..

…which is good, great wonderful, brilliant, but remember that $5 I
was talking about? I didn’t have it. I had $4.50. Now I couldn’t
exactly try to scam this guy out of fifty cents on an already
impossibly low fee. Wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t accept credit or
ATM. To further compound matters, I was in an area where there were no
ATMs. Oh, did I mention it was now 5 o’clock. Aw geez, now I have to
navigate down streets that when they were designed were intended to be
two way streets. Today, however, Puerto Rican’s have taken parking to
new levels as cars are stacked on either side in impossible
configurations making this already small two way street an even smaller
two way street. So it became the Samurai on the bridge all over again.
You gonna back up to the nearest cross street or am I? I think not
knave. I have to find an ATM. You will suffer should you wish to
challenge me. It worked, he backed off and up he went to the nearest
cross street. I gave a little wave of thanks and made my way into the
heart of a six pack a day smoker, potato chip snarffing, egg guzzling,
red meat devouring, whole milk drinking, 500 hundred pound overweight
50 year old. CLOGGED is the word that kept rearing it’s ugly head as I
banged on my steering wheel and cursed the accursed traffic and the pot
hole ridden tiny streets. After about an hour, I spied it, an oasis of
money. A-ha, doh!, I’m on the wrong side of the street. Quick stop in a
gas station-run across the street on a pedestrian cross walk that only
half remained-narrowly missed by cars honking at this brazen fool who
stepped out of his car for even a millisecond-lunging for the security
of electronic cash, information age technology that would save my ass,
give me my cash and allow me to get on with my life.

So the deed it done, now I have to get back to the tire shop. To
relive the feeling, reread the above paragraph. Now I arrive back to
the shop and it’s closed. Ah, there he is. I breathe a sigh of relief,
and notice the humble tire change guy hanging out at the bar next door.
Here’s your money, I say, and thanks for your patience. Whew. The day
is done, the tire is repaired, I can go home complete, satisfied, whole
again.

I’ll worry about putting that jigsaw puzzle called the jack, lug
wrench, wing nut, spare tire assembly sometime next month. For now
it’ll just kick around in the trunk. Hey, maybe I’ll need it again
really soon.

Hurricane news: We’re fine… well if you count being without
electricity and water for a week. It was just like camping. NOT!!
Civilization doesn’t lend itself to camping very easily. What I
wouldn’t have given for a tent, a campfire, and a hole in the ground
(for you know what). Cities just weren’t made to be without water and
electricity.

What can I say. It was very impressive. I’ve not seen anything like
it in my life. Right now it looks like winter has struck this Caribbean
paradise. What trees ARE left don’t have any leaves. Normally urban
sprawl is just barely kept in check by the jungle seeking to reclaim
the constructs of man. Now, I look out and it seems that humankind has
won, our defenses have certainly proved themselves over natural
selection.

It’s really sad, but all you see is concrete. "My God, is there
really this much city?" Condado window has 43 cargo containers worth of
glass on it’s way from New Jersey ready to install this coming week.
Soon the skyscrapers will have their quick repairs, electricity will
come back, and we will be on our feet completely by the end of the
year, while the jungle will limp slowly back within years. That is if
we don’t find something to do with the bare spots in the meantime. "Hey
I never noticed that nice spot over there. Won’t that make a nice
McDonalds."

In reality the humans here have lost very little. Perhaps we have
had a bit of inconvenience. And maybe we will finally learn to put the
electrical system underground, as the power poles took heavy a heavy
toll. Then the next hurricane might just pass us by, and we won’t even
notice it was here.

In truth, it threw everything it had at us, and we’re still here. I
think there were only a couple of deaths (heart attacks I think). The
important lesson here is that this horrendous force of nature was
thrown at us almost as if to say, "Hey you!! Pay attention, I can still
kick your ass, " and it almost got overlooked. What people really
worried about was the rotting food in the fridge, the unflushed
toilets, the unshowered bodies, and long lines at McDonalds (they had
power generators).

While I’m glad we live in the twentieth century and the loss of life
wasn’t worse, and most people can weather an event like this pretty
well, I just wonder if we’re missing something. Is the abstraction
almost complete now. Will the bubble of urban life sustain us so
completely and exclusively that we’ll lose all connection… and just
float away.

I know this is a weird way to portray a hurricane, but I can’t help
but feel like it’s all in slow motion, no big deal, just going on
outside the bubble. It’s all so surreal.

But not to worry, today the electricity and water came back on. Looks like we’ll have air conditioning tonight.

I’m talking to myself more and more these days. I have this Puerto
Rican friend that keeps me company. He’s in there with all my other
voices. There are these personalities that I have inside of me,
different voices that rise to meet different situations. There’s
African-American Jim, the one that feels comfortable in
African-American culture using the vocal cant the hand mannerisms and
the manner of so many of the people I’ve grown up with. There’s blue
collar Jim, the one that can listen and understand why management (or
officers in the military) are such know-nothings/know-everythings that
do little but live in air conditioned offices and fuck with the guys
who do the real work. I can understand why people buy lottery tickets,
complain about their jobs, scrape by, harbor the thought in the back of
their minds that they don’t measure up, that someone else has the
power. I listen to their conspiracy theories and after putting Skeptic
Jim away, I actually learn quite a bit. I walk away with new respect,
new understanding, and a greater appreciation for Blue Collar Jim and
all the things he helps me with. I’ve come to realize the past few days
that I’ve got the heart of a blue collar guy and the mind of an
intellectual. I love good wine, fine music, art, and philosophy, but I
really love it all. I don’t use them as talismans to protect myself
from the rest of society, the part that actually makes it move.

So there’s Puerto Rican Jim, the one that calmly soothes me in the
mist of small minded Puerto Rican drivers, or store clerks, or while
people are shoving past you in line. I let forth a silent scream, the
internal battle clearly visible on my face, "They are so small minded.
You’ve got to have order, forethought, planning, organization. Rules
are made to be followed, not bent into invisibility. Why even have them
then? Arrghghghhh!!!!" my brain screams at me flooding the reasoning
processes.

"Listen, Jim, my Puerto Rican voice says, in a somewhat irritated
voice, "What is it that you have in your world? Do you have order,
productivity, and prosperity? But how often do you socialize with
people. How often do you show compassion for those around you. You see
someone on the side of the street with car trouble. Do you help or do
you think that AAA will take care of it? You think of consequences. Who
is this person? Do I know them? What if they rob me? You plan your
savings, squirrel it away for a rainy day that never comes. You hold
yourself inside guarding it from the outside, saving it for some
eventuality. Your feet are slower to dance, your voice reluctant to
sing, your arms heavy to show affection, and your heart is hard and
skeptical. Such is the nature of your Protestant country. It’s your
work ethic.

We, however, live life with immediacy. We don’t save money. We spent
it. We dance, we sing, we say "buen provecho" (bon appetit) to complete
strangers. We stop to help, we listen to the problems of a hurrying
father and respond with our hearts rather than with our heads. Yes, we
get burned, and people scam us. They lie to get ahead, take advantage
of our good nature, but it’s who we are and we are willing to pay the
price. It’s just a different way of thinking, Jim. Live now or live
later. It’s all about what you chose. Sure we drive like crazies, and
we’d cut off our own mother to get ahead a couple of seconds, but
that’s just our passion talking. Sure there are things to work on, but
in general you’ve got to look at it with an open heart and mind. It
can’t just be in your American context. You’ve got to see our context
and realize the good things that come from our manner our culture and
our Puerto Rican soul.

I must admit the first time he startled me with that in the car, I
felt really bad about all the curses I was mentally issuing to my
fellow drivers. He shamed me, and I hope he keeps my blood pressure
down.

It was really in that moment that I began to feel what I had already
thought. Total chaos is never productive, but neither is total order.
Americans err on the side of order sanitizing life to a point that it’s
as tasteless as a Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast. Puerto Ricans run the
dangerous gauntlet of disorder to the point of overwhelming positive
productivity. However, with the right mix, chaos brings unexpected
delights, serendipitous relationships that you might not have chosen
consciously, parts of yourself that you might not have known. I might
never have met Puerto Rican Jim, even though he lived inside me from
birth. With order as well comes an ability to deal with those pieces,
make sense of them, put them in their context and not be swept away by
them.

I guess, it was a bit rocky there for a bit, but I am continually
reminded of how beautiful lack of control actually is. It’s shaping me
in ways I would never have suspected. It’s hard, but believe me, vale
la pena (it is worth the effort).

Let the games begin. The season of the sagardotegi (sah-gar-doe-TEG-ee) has begun and this year we had the pleasure of making our first trip to the sagardotegi (cider house in Basque) with some of my friends from Ibermatica. It is really sweet that they still remember me and invite me out with them. The excuse to celebrate was the new job of Antxon (AHN choan) Alonso Lopez a programmer and abused grunt at Ibermatica. He’s free now and seems to be having a ball. He’s finally thrown off the yoke of the Ibermatica feudal system and struck out on his own. It’s a small Internet service provider start up and with Antxon on the job things are off on the right foot.

It’s funny but it feels kinda like I haven’t left the Bay Area (of San Francisco). Here I am 9000 miles from Multimedia Gulch and I’m talking about Internet startups… The Internet is everywhere folks.

Antxon: Perl programmer turned crazy cider drinking fiend.

So the sagardotegi is a wonderful time. In the sagardotegi is where grown drunk men will grab the back of your neck (affectionately) and sing to you. Hehe, it happened to me. I could only stand there thinking, “I’ve got to put this on the web page. The sagardotegi, a place where strange drunk men will grab your neck and sing to you.” Incidently they like to grab your ears too. There’s something about ears here. I haven’t quite figured it out yet

A cider house is pretty much just that, some guy’s apple farm, a house. They grow the apples, press them in this huge basement, and then invite people in as if it was a restaurant, except with 10 huge 5000 gallon barrels of great fermented cider. The funny part is that they almost literally throw food at you. You pay $25, for all you can eat, all you can drink, all the mess you can make… akin to some barbaric middle ages movie where there’s a roasted pig, mountains of food, and drink. Hombre, what a time.

The Cider, crowding for a bit of that sweet nectar.

The cider runs from taps in the kegs, shooting out from about eye level. The custom is to put your glass as close to the floor as possible, one: to let the cider breath, and two: to show how studly and awesome you are. I tried both, and I don’t notice a difference, so it’s probably just to show how cool you are. The floors are covered with cider as of course it spills, and the people are covered with it because, some of them are not as dexterous as others, and of course you can’t tell who is who, because “are you a mess because you’re a dork, or are you a mess because your buddy is a dork?” Ah, but those are questions better left to the philosophers.

Que mas?

So we ate some succulent barbecued veal (funny thing about veal, here veal is a pampered cow, fed the best stuff, babied like a pet, rather than tied up the way it is portrayed in the US. Also, a veal cow is a mature cow, a couch potato (patata here) cow, kinda like it ate nothing but Cheetos and drank beer it’s whole life (watch out UG they’re coming for you)). So, we had some of that and some bacalao in green sauce, as we stuffed out faces with this awesome french bread (actually it’s Spanish, but it’s just water yeast, and salt so it’s what we would call french bread).

We are looking to go a few more times this year.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to think that with all the talk about nature and natural things that homosexuality is indeed natural.

If we are so sure that homosexuality is unnatural, maybe we may never suppose that it is. Maybe there is truth in studying the nature of ourselves and our species by using this assumption: homosexuality is essential to humanity.

The Catholic Church has said that it’s unnatural, that it violates the natural order of things, that same sex relationships are contrary to how nature works. This assertion has long been assumed even by gays and lesbians themselves. Take this conversation for example:

“Well it’s wrong because it doesn’t lead to procreation, that it doesn’t lead to the natural coupling of a man and woman. We were made for each other weren’t we? A man and a woman? I mean we weren’t paired up with the same sex to procreate.”

“I can see that point, but then why did God give us free will. We are not beasts. It should be okay for people with free will to do what they want, to be happy to fall in love.”

And as always, there is a mild concession that homosexuality is indeed unnatural, that it doesn’t lead to a normal natural existence the way nature intended, but that since we are free, we should be able to decided how we want to live our lives. Gays and lesbians would say that the issue of whether it’s natural or not is irrelevant, but of course never combating that assumption at its root.

I have another thought. What if homosexuality IS natural, and not just natural in that it is biological, but natural because it is essential to our species survival.

Many devote religious people agree that homosexuality violates God’s natural order, that it is contrary to our existence and seeks to defame His will. But what if we couldn’t exist as a species without homosexuality? What if homosexuality is natural and good and IS part of God’s plan?

So many assertions start from the platform of the natural way is the procreative way. That everything we do starts from the need to recreate ourselves and continue humanity. Our culture values marriage. It values children. We educate them, we care for them. They take our desires and dreams and carry them onto the next generation in the hopes that we will continue to improve, grow, and succeed. Has no one thought that this paradigm may not have a natural conclusion, no limiting factors, nothing to stop its growth?

We see evidence of self limitation in the wild. Fish know when to stop breeding in fish tanks. Animals have all sorts of mechanisms for limiting their procreation. Some animals change sex, self fertilize, or are engaged in predatory behavior in order to manage the ecology and their species survival. When the population of a species gets too great and the food supply cannot support them, they start to die of starvation and sickness. Nature kills them, and the balance is returned to normal.

What if you were a species that had unlimited domain over the earth and its resources? What if you could counteract disease, destroy all natural enemies, and turn infertile soil into rich yields of food? You take care of your sick, you preserve your wounded, you fight for your old. What happens if you just keep growing and growing and growing?

Who can save us from ourselves?

As THE top level predator, smartest, fastest, most ruthless, there must be something to limit us to keep our population is check. What if homosexuality is indeed part of that equation. What if there was a natural tendency for more people to be born attracted to the same sex for reasons of species survival?

Many people believe that we control our population with violence, that when we get too close to each other, we fight and kill and war. People think violence is natural, individually immoral but collectively moral for species survival, and the propagation of the strong. If you think about it, what could be more civilized than homosexuality? Population control that comes not in the form of violence, sickness, and starvation, but through none procreative unions. Homosexuality could be everything that God wants for us. Maybe it’s His plan for our survival, maybe it’s only through His love that gays and lesbians exist. But aren’t we so typically ignorant that we assume we know better and choose to ignore, hate, and destroy… than to believe it is natural.

Yet, still we persecute and torment our brothers and sisters out of some primal need, a gut reaction to their behavior that we cannot reconcile to our own. Maybe the issue of same sex orientation is naturally repugnant to individuals who seek to procreate. It defies individuals’ needs to pursue their biological urges, to recreate themselves and continue the species. Possibly though, homosexuality can be beneficial and warranted on the species level and individually contrary to the tendencies of heterosexuals in their need to reproduce.

And finally, how could we believe we are so single-mindedly programmed in our existence. Surely there is more to life and death than having children. Are we capable of imagining that there is something else that plays into the complexity of our existence?

Are we capable of at least considering that just possibly Homosexuality will help us survive.

Nature does not reward species that are single-minded, static, stagnant, unyielding and unchanging. Nature rewards change, adaptation, diversity, multi-track species development. Nature almost never puts all of its eggs in one basket and when it does they usually fall on the path of extinction.