the crisis of capitalism

... as told by david harvey. and illustrated!! my heart is warmed :)



**

and on more or less the same topic, in nuevo jipjop-flamenco style...

ojos de brujo : el confort no reconforta

no sleeping with the enemy!

the weather's heating up now and so are the fights between the bosses and the workers! it's boycott season again for a string of sf hotels currently involved in labor disputes. you wouldn't want to sleep with the wrong people so make sure to keep up with hotel workers rising for the updated boycott list!

and for some excellent popaganda & agitation please see...

don't get caught in a bad hotel : brass liberation orchestra & sf pride at work (acknowledgments to lady gaga)



i like it so much.

thanks, lmhm & mv, for pointing me in the right (left!) direction.

roqueras ♥ public education

today, march 4th, thousands of students (k-university), parents, teachers, & workers are striking and convening in defense of public education in california and throughout the u.s. students at 9 universities in south africa are striking today as well. we will join them all, in our hearts & in the streets, to fight for what should belong to all of us.



**

a change is gonna come : sam cooke



The story is that Sam Cooke wrote this after he was arrested after challenging a hotel that denied him a room in Louisiana because he was black. From the first cords, this song fills me with a deep longing......longing for justice, for change, for victoria. It reminds me to be patient and calm, since material changes will not happen overnight.

There've been times that I've thought
I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

: la pachuquita

**

me gustan los estudiantes : daniel viglietti (original, violeta parra)



this song, written by violeta parra, came out of the unidad popular movement in chile in which a wave of workers, students, left intellectuals, and professionals swept socialist salvador allende to the presidency in 1970. the protests at uc & elsewhere in california in the past few months have given, i think, a glimpse of some beautiful potential in our movement here. during the fall and winter 09 protests i saw students + janitors+ professors + lab techicians + clerical staff all standing together, united in their demands. and now they are joined by so many other sectors in cities and towns all over. just a beginning, yes, but a good one. long live popular unity!

: diabólica

i am ... a revolutionary

when i leave you can remember i said with the last words on my lips, that i am ... a revolutionary, and you are going to have to keep on saying that.

: fred hampton

fred hampton
30 august 1948 – 4 december 1969

today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of fred hampton. hampton, chairman of the chicago black panther party, was a talented organizer & skilled orator, widely recognized and loved for his ability to inspire in people a sense of their own revolutionary potential. at just 21 years of age he had already called for and achieved a gang truce in chicago by arguing that instead of fighting each other poor people of color should unite and fight their true enemies.

fred hampton was assassinated in a hail of bullets as he slept in his bed, early morning of december 4th 1969. deborah johnson, hampton's partner who was 8 & 1/2 months pregnant at the time, was at his side. the raid on hampton's apartment was a carefully orchestrated operation carried out by the chicago police department & fbi. bpp member mark clark was also killed, and four other members were seriously injured.

chairman fred hampton's revolutionary spirit lives on.

all power to all the people!! long live fred hampton!!!

**



**

power anywhere where there's people : fred hampton (speech)

We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.

...

You know, a lot of people have hang-ups with the Party because the Party talks about a class struggle. We say primarily that the priority of this struggle is class. That Marx and Lenin and Che Guevara and Mao Tse-tung and anybody else that has ever said or knew or practiced anything about revolution always said that a revolution is a class struggle. It was one class - the oppressed, and that other class - the oppressor. And it's got to be a universal fact. Those that don't admit to that are those that don't want to get involved in a revolution, because they know as long as they're dealing with a race thing, they'll never be involved in a revolution.

song for the viejitos

i used to work with (immigrant & working-class) viejitos in sf. and loved it! ancianos + political protest is a great mix actually. but sometimes issues do come up...i got this note from my former co-worker the other day, with subject line i channeled your spirit, regarding a demonstration he helped to organize against the ihss budget cuts.

[diabólica]:

At our rally the other day, it was very big and hectic a rather enthusiastic Russian senior kept rushing up on me (while I was a the podium) wanting to know if he could sing “God Bless America” because “ameerika is best county in world” and he wouldn’t leave me alone. I was getting really irritated and I thought “How would [diabólica] handle this?” so I held up my palm and said very directly and russianly “You are not allowed to sing that song here!” and I didn’t hear anything more from him.

thanks.

aw, thanks to you, james, for the compliment! and may i suggest the following song as an alternate hymn ;) very recognizable, lyrics available in multiple versions & languages...

the internationale : billy bragg



i wanted to post a really cool swing version of this song which plays during the ending credits of michael moore's capitalism : a love story but couldn't find it anywhere. so you can have billy bragg's anti-racist version instead, and catch the other one en el cine!



foto : grandmothers of the plaza de mayo. buenos aires, argentina. aside from the ones i used to work with in san francisco, some of my favorite viejitas militantes in the world.

best drag ever

shit! this is terrible news. grrrrr. heard via lil miss hot mess that charlie horse at the cinch is ending. this makes me very upset, not just because of all the good times, cheap strong drinks, and glamorous company that i won't get to enjoy there. but also because this is another nail in the coffin of a sf neighborhood that was not so very long ago proudly working-class & queer, and is now in the clutches of the devil known as gentrification. here's what lil miss hot mess has to say about it:

Today Anna Conda announced that Charlie Horse is over, effectively immediately. I can’t get all the facts straight but it has to do with the gentrification of the Polk — hell, the gentrification of the whole city — specifically yuppies who want to have their cake and eat it too, and developers who want to sell it to them. Anna thinks that it’s a combination of people complaining about noisy queens and the Polk St. Merchants Association wanting to get rid of the gay bars. The Gangway (nearby on Larkin) already shut down all DJed parties months ago due to complaints. It’s ridiculous!

Like I said, I don’t know the full story, so I don’t want to start the blame game or get too much into the specifics of it. But hello, San Francisco: this is what you get when you invite your city to become a dot-com yuppie playground. This is exactly how neighborhoods gentrify. It’s easy to point fingers at artists and gays as gentrifiers — and not to say that we aren’t part of the system — but the bigger picture is about government colluding with the wealthy using tactics like selective law enforcement and policies that favor development.

**



foto: the lovely anna conda (sf weekly)

i've been meaning to post about anna conda & charlie horse for so long and of course now i'm sorry i didn't sooner. basically it's the best drag ever.

i have a soft spot in my heart for drag performance, especially the working-class kind in tiny over-filled dive bars and especially latin@ drag like the kind at b&b or norma jeans, a very soft spot. but... admittedly, i don't find most of it all that entertaining, and i don't usually last very long until i get bored. we were talking about this one time and ms. anna conda was like, i know! it's like how many times can you listen to whitney houston greatest love of all before you want to kill yourself, you know? true.

but anna conda & co. on friday nights at midnight, now that's some drag!!! their weekly show charlie horse was this magical combination of messy punk rock, bizarre vintage glamour, and biting social critique. the hair was piled high, the girls wore (and sometimes took off) amazing outfits. the music was always good, or self-consciously awful, either way a delight. and the performers worked their asses off, a new show every week! soooo entertaining, so irreverent, sometimes made me hurt from laughing so hard. the other thing i really appreciated about charlie horse & anna conda was that they saw themselves as holding down polk street for the working-class queers against the forces of displacement & assimilation. polk street for the gays! marina girls go home! as she used to like to chant. plus, at this year's september 11th show anna conda punctuated her mistress of ceremonies routine with a rant about colin powell being a war criminal. not really your average drag show banter. oh, i really wish it wasn't over ;(

**

for a little tribute to the beautiful & noisy event that was, here are a few fotos from charlie horse, and song dedications to anna, who is roquera de corazón. thank you so much, ms. anna conda, it was wonderful. here's a little volumen cero & jesus and mary chain especialmente para ti...

eres la queen... eres la queen... eres la queen...

la queen : volumen cero




i come around catching sparks off you...



head on : the jesus & mary chain



**

makes you wanna feel
makes you wanna try
makes you wanna blow
the stars from the sky

see also

ok, so i guess i'm kind of on a roll with all these recommendations. will return to regular programming here soon. but in the meantime there's the arab film festival in sf (& la), october 15th-25th. directed by michel shehadeh, it's really one of the best in the bay area (which has some film festival or other running at almost all times of year). ziad was on the jury for this year's awards. he highly recommends:

ein shams / eye of the sun : ibrahim el batout (egypt)



casanegra : nour-eddine lakhmari (morocco)



i will take him at his word & also throw in...

laila's birthday / eid milad laila : rachid mashrawi (palestine)



salt of this sea / milh hadha al-bahr : annemarie jacir (palestine)



...two very good films that are playing now which i've seen before.
ok ya, ándale pues.

las noticias de hoy ;)

you know (yes, i know you know), lots of "journalism" is such garbage. and local tv news is at the top of that list, right above most (increasingly de-skilled & concentrated / centralized) "local" city newspapers.

it is, however, good for a laugh once in awhile! gotta love youtube for this kind of thing...






oh my gosh did you catch the expression on the co-anchor's face on the second one? hilarious.

**

as for avoiding the vast array of media basura, may i suggest the following for generally high-quality writing (i mean, god, is it really so difficult?), relevant content, & useful analysis...

la jornada

página 12

electronic intifada (& sister intifadas)

the guardian

telesur

al-jazeera (english)


**

and may i also suggest you console yourself about the current state of journalism with a little silvio?

resúmen de noticias : silvio rodriguez



yo he preferido hablar de cosas imposibles
porque de lo posible se sabe demasiado...

ps: gracias to gg & j for informing me of the above excellent clips, jejeje.

walkout!

the sinverguenzas uc regents + sinverguenza arnold schwarzenegger are trying to push through a 32% tuition & fee increase in the university of california for next year. undergraduate tuition & fees would hit more than $10,000 (obscene!), with fewer & more crowded classes and of course cut hours for libraries, etc. the cal state schools have been seeing similar mierda. the regents are pretty hell bent on taking the last bit of "public" out of public higher education in california, gutting even further an already significantly privatized state university system (which used to be entirely subsidized!).

but ok! there's a massive walkout scheduled for today. students as well as professors & lecturers will walk out at all 10 uc schools throughout california. union workers from cue & upte will strike, and will set up picket lines at the entrances starting at 7:15am.



sure, (academia in general and) the uc schools in particular are institutions in the service of captialism & imperialism, actively cultivating the next generation of corporate technocrats and thugs, and housing some main components of the imperial war machine.

they're also where lots of us first came across gramsci or fanon or lenin. where we busted through our first police lines, took our first arrests, learned what proper political agitation is and how to defend ourselves against batons & pepper spray. and have been sites of proud & militant movements for students' rights & educational equity throughout the decades. and though it's currently quite far from where we would want it to be, the battle for public education is essential and the fight it deserves is a valiant one.

**

ok! ¡ya vámanos! here are a couple songs to play while you paint your picket signs and ready your bullhorn:

ain't gonna let nobody turn me round : u.s. civil rights movement activists



corrido de los combates de zacatenco : judith reyes



[wow, i just listened again to this judith reyes song, which comes from a collection of music from the student strike at unam in mexico city in 1968. it actually recalls the date september 24th (!) which was the date of an uprising at a technical school in df. students occupied the school and set up barricades in the neighborhood, even commandeering an oil truck from a nearby refinery from which to throw molotov cocktails at police cars. i think that's an auspicious sign.]

ok, last thing. a bit of agitation from the design students at the university of buenos aires from their fight against budget cuts...



and from anti-war & free speech activist mario savio at uc berkeley in 1964...



no fee increases & no layoffs or furloughs!!!! ¡¡¡no a las recortes!!! ¡¡¡no a la privatización!!!

see you soon at ucb & in the streets.

fasinpat (ex-zanon) workers win their factory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡felicitaciones, fasinpat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
¡que vivan los trabajadores! ¡que viva el poder del pueblo!



foto: expropriation now! banner at 2006 world cup in germany.

fired workers at zanon ceramics in neuquén province (argentina) took over their closed factory in 2001. they have operated it under worker control ever since. they have faced eviction attempts, police, and a repressive conservative provincial government and over & over again the factory has been ardently defended by the workers and the surrounding community. they have inspired solidarity from people all over argentina & the world. finally finally finally the expropriation has gained legal recognition!

this posted at no sweat by marie trigona :

The workers at Argentina's occupied ceramics factory, FASINPAT (Factory Without a Boss), won a major victory this week: the factory now definitively belongs to the people in legal terms. The provincial legislature voted in favor of expropriating the ceramics factory and handing it over to the workers cooperative to manage legally and indefinitely. Since 2001, the workers at Zanon have fought for legal recognition of worker control at Latin America's largest ceramics factory which has created jobs, spearheaded community projects, supported social movements world-wide and shown the world that workers don't need bosses.

"This is incredible, we are happy. The expropriation is an act of justice," said Alejandro Lopez the General Secretary of the Ceramists Union, overwhelmed by the emotion of the victory. "We don't forget the people who supported us in our hardest moments, or the 100,000 people who signed the petition supporting our bill."

Hundreds of workers from the FASINPAT factory waited anxiously until the late hours of the night for the legislature's decision. The expropriation law passed 26 votes in favor and 9 votes against the bill. Thousands of supporters from other workers' organizations, human rights groups and social movements, along with entire families and students, joined the workers as they waited outside the provincial legislature in the capital city of Neuquén. Enduring the Patagonian winter weather, activists played drums and shouted: "here they are the workers of Zanon, workers without a boss."

this trailer for corazón de fábrica (heart of the factory) about fasinpat gives some background:



and this is video of the vote in the legislature & workers' reaction. they also pay respects to their comrades who have died in the struggle. oohh, so beautiful!



and this is a speech on the occasion at the factory by one of the mothers of the plaza de mayo, claiming the victory for the workers and also for all people who fight for justice. ¡zanon es del pueblo!



this is attaque 77 playing at the factory a couple years back:



cuantos ríos de sangre han de correr,
tanta muerte ya, tanto horror, tanta injusticia
cuanto tiempo para reconocer que la historia es,
otra vez y todo de vuelta

how many rivers of blood have run
so much death, horror, injustice
how much time to recognize that history
is coming around again

...
si estaba en el cordobazo hace tiempo atrás,
y estaba en el rosariazo y en Tucumán

if it was present in the days of uprising in córdoba,
& the uprisings in rosario & in tucumán,

espíritu setentista vuelve hoy,
gente que no puede decir:
hey, hey, no te metas
en neuquén resiste zanon
lucha obrera, movilización
los bastones acechan, también voy yo!

the spirit of the 1970s returns today
people that won't say:
hey, hey don't get involved
in neuquén zanon resists
the workers' struggle, mobilization
batons lie in wait, i too will go!

gracias, mariana y liliana por las buenas noticias :)

la tita, epd

para la tita, que en paz descanse

isabel "chavela" tovar romero
5 de noviembre 1927 - 30 de julio 2009

in early july i asked la tita to tell me the story of how her family came to live in tijuana.

before she was born her parents had moved from the interior of mexico to los angeles. in the 1930s, when she was a small child, the u.s. government started a(nother) massive anti-immigrant campaign against mexican immigrants. armed immigration authorities invaded people's homes, raided their neighborhoods, jailed and deported them, displacing 2 million people by the time they were done. my grandmother's entire neighborhood, along with countless others, were emptied. her family heard the migra was coming, that they were snatching people up just a couple barrios over, and they fled in fear. they settled with hundreds of other families in an emergency settlement in tijuana. tita's mother had asthma; she became sick in all that chaos and died that following year.

i recorded our conversation on my cell phone, and i'm so grateful to have her voice still with me now. eventually i'd like to do something with this audio. like learn to make dibujos animados and illustrate or animate it. or maybe i'll make friends with someone at the design school at the uba or unam who can do that for me ;) for now here is about 45 seconds where i'm asking about her father's name. i had never heard of that name before and she was making me laugh...



me: ¿y cómo se llamaba tu papá? and what was your father's name?

tita: eh? what?

me: ¿cómo se llamaba? what was he called?

tita: se-no-vio tovar.

me: ¿cómo? what?

tita: senovio tovar.

me: ¿senovio?...

tita: ¡senovio!

me: ¿qué clase de nombre es ese? what kind of name is that? ¿senovio?

tita: senovio. ¡no "tu novio"! not "your boyfriend" (tu novio)! senovio.

tita: así se llamaba... that's what he was called.. muy nombre, muy raro. what a name, very strange.

me: sí (laughing). sí.

tita: ...que nunca jamas lo había vuelto a oir. that i never ever had heard of again. senovio tovar.

**

la tita carried chiles wrapped in foil in her purse at all times, always ready. at a restaurant she would often eye the plate in front of her suspiciously, take a bite of something and then say, este no pica nada, and reach for the tiny aluminum packet she brought with her for exactly that moment. she was the last surviving, youngest & most mischievous of a band of sisters (& one brother) who lived on both sides of la línea, in san ysidro & tijuana.

i really like these fotos & she did too. all the sisters are here: la chuy, la cuca, la ani, la efi, & there on the right looking cute & tough as ever, my querida grandmother, chavela.

**

y como a ella le encantaaaba la música mexicana... like this!

a ella : el poder del norte



hermoso cariño : vicente fernández



antes de que te vayas : marco antonio solís



por una mujer bonita : pepe aguilar



alma rebelde : grupo límite




¡¡¡¡¡¡tita, te extrañamos y te queremos!!!!!! gracias por todo, todo, todo.

Pinches Capitalistas...US Edition

As the media basks on the meaningless rising numbers on Wall Street and in declaring victory for capitalism, it is still all too clear that the poor continue to get poorer, and the rich continue to accumulate ill gotten funds to pay for offensively extravagant lives.

Pinche California Governor Schwarzenegger has ordered cuts of over $85 billion from services, including health insurance for children, assistance for people with AIDS, and families with foster children. State workers will be forced to furlough 3 working days of each month, a 14% cut in wages. At the same time, Andres Piedrahita, who helped loose over $6.7 billion through Bernard Madoff's $50 Billion global ponzi scheme, just bought a $30 Million boat to cruise in. The malvados are oblivious to the charities they have pilfered or the pensions they have pillaged. He and Schwarzenegger do not lose any comforts or sleep while millions loose pensions, homes, health care, and their very lives.

Abajos with these pinche criminales who get away and prosper from these atrocious crimes where they ruin thousands of people’s lives, yet do not have to face any repercussions!!

Pinches Capitalista!


A la Mierda: Ska-P


5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO: The Coup


White Riot: The Clash

2-4-6-8! smash the church! smash the state!

and speaking of the radical queer political tradition...

join SOUL for an evening of music & manifestos, poetry & performances... enjoy delicious cocktails & music spun by dj rosa la rumorosa! come celebrate the legacy of radical queer resistance!!



7pm : Thursday : July 30th
Galería de la Raza : 2857 24th Street @ Bryant
$5-15 at the door

It's 40 years since the Stonewall riots, time to celebrate the radical politics of the queer liberation movement!! SOUL hosts an evening of words & music featuring Gay Liberation Front veteran Tommi Avicolli Mecca, editor of Smash the Church, Smash the State. Enjoy performances by some of the Bay Area's most rebellious cultural workers, including Annie Danger, Dani Montgomery, Erica Benton, Lil Miss Hot Mess, James Tracy, Maria Poblet, Malaya Arevalo, Merle Woo, Paola Bacchetta, Thisway/Thatway, and Tina Bartolome.

This event will benefit SOUL, the School Of Unity & Liberation. SOUL is proud to build the skills of young women, young people of color, working class, and queer people as the next generation of leaders in the social justice movement.

against white picket fences

it's tiring, the drowning of the queer rights movement in the quest for hetero-normative assimilation, currently known as "marriage equality". ugh. for more on this read what the adorable lil miss hot mess has collected here, in the aptly titled post: marriage vomit.

and hurray for the queers holding down the radical politics! the ones who recall the pre-stonewall riot at compton's cafeteria in the tl, which saw working-class drag queens unleash years of pent up fury on homophobic cops. the ones fighting every day for decent & affordable housing, for immigrant & workers' rights, for universal healthcare. the ones who shut down the ny stock exchange to protest a pharmaceutical industry shamelessly profiteering from human suffering. the ones who continue to call out sf mayor gavin newsom as the defender of the ruling class that he is, who aren't blinded by his blatant political opportunism in the form of bestowing "marriage rights".

as tommi says in the introduction to his excellent anthology on the early years of the queer rights movement:

As long as queer people are homeless, hungry and without jobs or medical coverage, as long as LGBT workers don't receive a living wage, as long as the wealth of this country is in the hands of a few, as long as the means of production are owned by that very same monied class, we queers will never truly have achieved what gay liberation set out to do four decades ago.

: tommi avicolli mecca

thanks to jonathan for sending along this performance by jamaica-born stacyann chin. it's brilliant! the best & most well-spoken articulation i've seen in a long time of what's gone wrong with a movement that started with a riot (take your pick, stonewall or compton's) & is currently racing towards the white picket prison...

stacyann chin at culture project soho :

Are Trustifarians Endangered? We can only hope....

According to this article in the NY Times, "Trustifarians" are being hit by hard times brought on by their families' gambling on the stock market and on bad mortgage securities. "Trustifarians" are also known as "Trust Fund Hipsters", "Hij@s de Papi", "Subsidized Loafers", and other affectionate names.

Oh no! What will that artists-that-has-never-sold-any-art-but-lives-in-a-flat-in-the-mission-previously-rented-by-working-class-tenants do? Or what about the loafer hipsters who like to sit at Ritual Coffee on their computer all day, even though they have internet at home? I mean, who will wait an hour for mediocre food at Boogaloos? Will these Trustafarians be able to get a job and make it through four hours without "twittering" or taking artistic yet aloof pictures for their facebook/myspace profiles?

As a show of solidarity we can give them a gift bag of job applications, coupons, and fashion tips, such as don't wear your faded/yellow "Keep on Truckin'" t-shirt to a job interview and leave the ironic 80's fashion at home.

At this very moment capitalism continues to collapse onto itself, people continue to loose their jobs & homes, and the pinche mayor (gruesome newsom) is hells bent on gutting services for the poor and for the ill. The people of San Francisco are fighting to keep these services which people depend on every day. The least of our concerns is whether or not the offspring of the ruling class will have to move back with their parents or if they will have to confront the reality of 40+ hour weekday.

Welcome to our economic reality, Trustifarians. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

tax the rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i am so sick of the arnold schwarzeneggers of the world (jeje, well gracias a dios there is only actually one in the world but you know what i mean) talking about it's difficult but we are called upon to make some tough decisions because sorry we are out of money and oh, sorry that means we have decided to cut the following (already very restricted & underfunded) entirely from the state budget: free healthcare for children, aid to poor families, subsidized care for viejitos. oh and also we will be drastically cutting funds from public education & state parks.

you pinches ladrones, hijos de ___ ! soooooooooo tired of your mierda. why don't you take a pay cut or force your families to go without healthcare??!! pinches ruling class sinverguenzas de mierda. scandalous.


(dibujito : mafalda)

so, we were talking about the need for the u.s. left to get its act together and articulate a clear policy demand right now, and to start trying to popularize the hell out of it. yes, we know ultimately we are fighting for the burial of this vile capitalist system. but in the meantime we need to exact some concessions from the bosses. especially right now, this is a mess entirely created by them and they should pay. progressive taxation doesn't have quite the ring to it. so we think we should just say what we mean. eric thought of a slogan:

tax the rich!!
you break it ... you buy it!

i like it! ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡que pague el patrón!!!!!!!

**

ellos dicen mierda : la polla records

3x mojado

a few days ago i made a post about a recent film sin nombre. like the famous corrido by los tigres del norte (tres veces mojado / three times a wetback), it tells the story of immigrant workers coming to the u.s. from central america. before they make it to the 3-tiered fence, armed border guards, dogs, barbed wire, and scorching & freezing desert temperatures that welcome them on the u.s. side, central americans have to get through central america and into mexico first. with few other options, most people do this by riding on top of freight trains... more checkpoints, more armed border guards, more detentions, pouring rain...



¡abajo las fronteras! ¡¡que viva la dignidad rebelde!!

panteón es la dosis perfecta

hmmm...so que pasó con el video de pachuquita? well, in the meantime...

la carencia : panteón rococo



la dosis perfecta : panteón rococo





cover, 2005 compilation which includes la carencia



you know, there are some moments where you think, this just would not happen in english. songs are often like that i guess, but i always think that when i see la carencia & la dosis perfecta performed live. at shows those are the 2 most beloved pantéon rococo songs, and everyone shouts the lyrics very fast very loud when they are played. and in english it just would not work. though fairly translate-able, i cannot imagine la carencia, a song about accumulation by dispossession, being quite so melodic & catchy and getting that same amount of love in english. "... y en el mundo globalizadooo, la gente pobre no tienen lugaaaar... y la carencia ¡arriba! y los salarios ¡abajo!" (and in the globalized world, poor people are left without a place ... the deprivation goes up! and the wages go down!). jeje, divertidiiisima! the song, not the accumulation by dispossession.

and then la dosis perfecta, oh man. there are i think two types of songs that panteón does best: songs about working class resistance & songs about tormented love. la carencia is the first and la dosis perfecta the second.

cuando veíamos estrellas y tu eras una de ellas
de esas que abrazan la tierra con su luz
y hoy me llamas y me dices
que empacas tu presencia
que has hecho las maletas
que hoy dices adios

despues de romper el cielo juntos,
esa forma tan tuya de hacer el amor y estallar al llegar
no, no puedo aceptar que hoy te vayas
y me dejes un cuarto de mil batallas
cobrarte yo no quiero, no quiero cobrarme
sólo quiero que tú te quedes aquí, yeh yeh yeh

hoy mi cuerpo necesita de ti saber
que la dosis perfecta esta en tus caderas
en tus besos, tu sonrisa, tu cabello y ese cuerpo que me erizaaaaa
hoy mi alma sabe que estás bien
pero tú dime, tú dime quien
estará para aliviar mi dolor
si ya no estas tú.

this song i will not attempt to translate because 1. it wouldn't be adequate; english is too un-accommodating and 2. even just reading over the words that i copied & pasted there makes me blush. but same as la carencia, i love seeing hundreds (a thousand?) of people shouting these lyrics so urgently at the tops of their lungs. it amuses me because the words are after all a very lovely and poetic contemplation of the intricacies of desire & absence. they go nicely with the shouting though. hurray for el rock en español!

for the friday night may first show, panteón waited until the encore to play both la carencia and la dosis perfecta one after the other. by the time they finally came up all hell broke loose on the dancefloor. well there was this split second of calm, which was almost graceful, and then you blinked and then everything went flying everywhere (cerveza in my hair again)... kind of like between the gang fight scene in west side story and a riot. well worth the price of admission ;)

en negro y blanco

recently i've come across some photo & film documentation from the dictadura years in argentina, before the restoration of democratic elections in 1983...

the following film was released in 1979 by raymundo gleyzer's cine de base (cinema from below). gleyzer was an argentine filmmaker & journalist and leader in the third cinema movement, and had already been disappeared by the time this film was made.

the narration comes from the text of a famous open letter to the dictatorship by rodolfo walsh, a journalist and militant, written on the first anniversary of the 1976 military coup d'etat. the letter is a scathing indictment of the dictatorship, its repression of dissent and pursuit of neo-colonial economic policies. walsh was shot in an ambush and disappeared the day after writing the letter.

the film is called las aaa son las tres armas / the armed forces are the aaa. the aaa, the argentine anti-communist alliance, began operations as a right wing clandestine death squad in 1973. with the escalation of the dirty war the lines between this paramilitary organization and the official armed forces in control of the executive branch of the state were increasingly blurred.

of course all this had the blessing and assistance of the u.s. government. kissenger in 1976, a couple months after the coup: we have followed events in argentina closely. we wish the new government well. we wish it will succeed. we will do what we can to help it succeed... it is a curious time, when political, criminal, and terrorist activities tend to merge without any clear separation. we understand you must establish authority."


las aaa son las tres armas : cine de la base





**

the following are images from en negro y blanco : fotografías del cordobazo al juicio a las juntas, an excellent archive of photos which trace the development of state terrorism in argentina from 1969 to 1985 (in black & white : photographs from the uprising in córdoba to the trials of the military junta)...



foto: gerardo horowitz, 1975. the military occupies tucumán province.



foto: archivo clarín, 1976. prisoners in the month following the coup, under federal juristiction.



foto: archivo clarín, 1979. military police break the floor of a house, looking for a guerrilla hideout.



foto: jorge durán, 1981. raids in the villas miserias (shantytowns) around buenos aires are commonplace.



foto: jorge rilo, 1982. during a violently repressed public demonstration against the dictatorship some demonstrators reach the door of the casa rosada.



foto : adriana lestido, 1982. various generations participate in demonstrations to demand justice for the disappeared.

diablos blancos

jajaja. did you hear lula's recent remarks? from friday's financial times:

Speaking in Brasília at a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, Mr Lula da Silva told reporters: "This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing."

He added: "I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimised more than any other should pay for the crisis."

Mr Brown appeared to distance himself from Mr Lula da Silva's remarks. "I'm not going to attribute blame to any individuals," he said.

eric said lula's probably tired of being the most right of the latin american left so it was time to say something clever & inflammatory. jeje, maybe so. in any case, that's some hugo chavez-quality comedic style. i like it. and anyway, he's right. as the argentinos were singing in their popular demonstrations about the economic crisis when i was there last december... ¡¡¡¡que pague el patrón!!!!



mafalda by quino :)


las casitas del barrio alto : la pozze latina (original victor jara)



¿por qué los ricos? : los prisioneros