Magdaleno

Today I dream of Micronesia .. I dream of jumping into a warm ocean… sinking down with all scuba gear on my back and with my regulator releasing oxygen into my mouth as I look around with my eyes through my mask. I continue to sink slower now as I adjust the air in my BC (buoyancy compensator) this is a life jacket to which is attached your tank of oxygen, your regulator, your depth and time gauges…soon I am at what you call NUETRAL BOYUANCY which is when you are neither going down or up. You are stable and floating as if you belonged in the ocean. I was Peace Corps Country Director there from 2000 to 2003. And it is then that I learned to scuba dive and enjoy all it had to offer.

Scuba Diving is a great feeling… It is as close as you will come to flying

Think for a minute about this.. 2/3‘s of this world of ours is under water. That means that we have in our life times have only seen part of our world.

While I Micronesia I got to see pristine fish sanctuaries where sea life is protected.. Often you can go to these areas with just a mask and snorkel and see enough wonders of the world that it will make you appreciate the ocean even more than you did the day before. But if you can go down 30-50 feet with scuba gear you will see even more details of this wonderful ocean of ours. You will see fish and plant life that will amaze me. A friend who did many drugs in the 60’s claimed that drugs could not create what he saw and experienced in the ocean. I had to smile… perhaps that’s how we get folks off of drugs and alcohol by giving them a good natural experience.

In Micronesia to many I was known as the Samoan… and I am sure that many are waiting for this Samoan to return.

NOW FOR MY VIEW OF THE NEWS

1. Armed Forces at the Border
2. Changes in the wind for Leno
3. Some brief notes
4. American Night a play in Ashland, California ..Culture Clash
5. Roy Rodgers

DON’T BE SURPRISED.. IF ARMED FORCES CLASH ON THE BORDER IN ARIZONA

There is new wacko patrolling the border … he is Jason J. T. Ready and has declared war on the Narco-Terrorists..And is supposedly keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants. His group is well armed and part of National Socialist Movement. They believe that only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals can be the true Americans. Well that leaves out a lot of us. And he believes that anyone who is non white should leave the USA peacefully or be forced out. I also read that they are wearing military clothing with bullet proof vests. They soon will find out how hot the desert really easy and be down to their under clothes trying to keep cool.

It is possible that J t might face some other armed groups who protest this silly group of racists. And he and his merry band of NAZI’s should know that if the Narco-Trafficantes wanted to target them that the NARNO’s would not only easily wipe the desert with them but might even visit their families. These vigilantes are not prepared for the Narco’s. Seems that the Narco’s in Mexico are now using car bombs and that is not good.

So I would suggest to the local police and HOME LAND SECURITY that they send these folks home before someone gets hurt. The media and police are doing nothing right now .. But what will be their reaction when some 50 well armed Latinos show up to protect the innocent immigrants???… It is at that time that the media, in particular Fox Noise and the police will get worried. Nothing more bothersome than some people of color armed to the teeth.

CHANGES IN THE WIND FOR LENO… BREAKING NOCTICIAS OR NEWS.

I will be leaving the Social Justice Fund in the next couple of months. I will be going into Write-irement.. Which means that I will take time to concentrate on my books that need to be finished. So Oct. 23 will be my last official day. SJF will announce its new ED soon who will take over on August 1^st. And I will stick around to be of assistance to the organization for the next couple of months.

The Fund is onto a new generation direction which I think you will find most innovative and exciting.

In the meantime…

I will be looking for some half time work or short term projects … just think … you can hire this Mexican to do some work with you … Or you can just pay me to sit there and be pretty. Now… I will also be available to come and speak to your group. But first and foremost is to do a lot of writing and finishing up my books.

In September there will be a celebration of my birthday and my jumping off the ledge to finish my writing.. If you want to help with this celebration you can contact Aviva Rose-Avila at aviva.roseavila@gmail.com. You don’t have to live in Seattle to be able to help. We will accept long distance assistance. DON’T BE SHY CONTACT AVIVA.

SOME BRIEF NOTES

1. A HIMALAYAN MARRIAGE CUSTOM FADES

It seems that in some far away regions women could have more than one husband. These were all prearranged. The women would be the final word as to who was the father of any child born. There was never a DNA test. Now this custom of multiple husbands is disappearing..

1. THE WELL IS CAPPED FOR NOW

But will it remain capped and what o what will happened to all the oil floating down in the far reaches of the Gulf of Mexico. How much poison has been released and what will be the damage to our environment and economy?

1. MUSIC IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

I think we should all listen to some music every day. It helps us smooth over the rough spots in our life and can help us to dream again and then we will be ready to do something good for this world of ours. Perhaps the music will get you up and cause you to dance and smile.

1. MY BROTHER MICHEAL FOUND HIS AND LUCINDA’S GROVE

Michael is the last of 12 children .. the baby of the family. He has moved to Seattle to be with the love of his new life and her name is Lucinda. They visited me today and we went for coffee. Lucinda is an Engineer and may soon be working for the State Department. But she is also an artist and brought me a beautiful bowl that she had made.

1. LYNNE STEWART GETS 10 YEAR SENTENCE

Many of us know Lynne and are amazed by all the good legal work that she has done over her 30 year career. Lynne is 70 years and ill and may end up dying in Jail. She originally had a 28 month sentence. The judge was striking down Stewart who has been a clear voice for justice and when giving the harsher sentence lectured about Stewart giving voice to ideas of what are by the Justice Department considered to be radical and not to be tolerated. Stewart was the lawyer for Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Islamic leader who was accused of plotting attacks in Egypt and New York. She was accused of smuggling message from him that gave directions to his supporters.

The 10 year sentence was an attack at all progressive and radical attorneys. I know Lynne and am afraid that she will die in prison. She does should have been given house arrest if anything at all.

1. MET A WOMAN WHO LIVES IN BOULDER

I was sharing a moment at a coffee shop with my friend Candace Inagi who works for the Mayor when I met a new friend. When Candace went to the bathroom, I began talking with the lady seated behind me who turns out lives in Boulder, Colorado and had lived in Nederland where my good friend Scott Harrison has built the most incredible Carousel. I hope she connects with Scott and tells him that she met the man who saved his life in Viet Nam. I never went to Nam but Scott was a Marine and was wounded in Viet Nam … but I always tell folks who will listen that I saved his white butt…LOL

Just so you know I am an introvert so this was out of character for me to start up this conversation with this woman who originally was from England but now lives in boulder.

AMERICAN NIGHT starring Richard Montoya in Ashland, California..

Written by Culture Clash.. and that makes it hot and good..

Play offers offbeat, surreal take on our country’s past
‘American Night’ kicks off OSF’s history cycle of plays with rollicking, insightful satire and occasional pathos

By Bill Varble
for the Mail Tribune

A colored cowboy, a Mexican revolutionary and a Ku Klux Klansman all walk into a saloon …

The premise is put forth by Ben Pettus (Rodney Gardiner), a black cowboy in “American Night: The Ballad of Juan José,” which had its world premiere Saturday afternoon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s New Theatre.

There’s no punch line, but the setup, with its hint of meta-theater, breaks the tension between three real (in the play) men who fit those descriptions.

It is 1918, and the three are facing off outside El Paso, Texas, where Ben’s wife, Viola Pettus (Kimberly Scott), is selflessly treating victims of the influenza epidemic that killed as many as 100 million people.

It is fitting that she do this, as it jibes with the larger vision of the play, which seems to have been inspired by a belief that often in American history, in the middle of great darkness, somebody steps up to do great good.

The credits say Richard Montoya and Culture Clash wrote the thing, but I don’t believe it.

It plays as if written by the Firesign Theatre and directed by the Marx Brothers, starring Monty Python.

“American Night” is a boisterous, rollicking, surreal, post-modern, postracial (warning: some descriptions may contain irony) journey into American history — and by extension the heart of one man’s American Dream.

Viewing is known to cause unrestrained laughter — and maybe a tear.

Juan José’s (René Millán) journey will take him over mountains and deserts, into wars and plagues, from rock festivals to shlock radio shows to internment camps. He will encounter Teddy Roosevelt, Sacajawea, a Shakespeare-quoting soldier, a bear, Malcolm X, NAFTA, Mormons, Harry Bridges, Bob Dylan, a tea bag lady, Fidel Castro and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

There will be social commentary, some of it caustic, all of it comic, most of it very funny indeed.

The seed of “American Night” seems to have been “The Citizen’s Almanac,” a sort of Civics 101 booklet published by the government for immigrants trying to become American citizens. Juan José left Mexico, where he was headed for trouble with drug lords and crooked cops, hoping to bring his wife, Lydia (Stephanie Beatriz), and the couple’s baby later.

In the U.S., using flash cards to cram for his citizenship exam, he falls asleep and dreams the play. The narrative has the fractured, disjointed structure of dreams, with one episode segueing into the next outside the normal constraints of rationality or plot.

Juan José finds himself in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s and wants to stop the killing, but the treaty he’s asked to sign will cede a good chunk of North America to the United States at the expense of Mexico, not incidentally making him into an outlaw. What to do?

“Hath not a Mexican eyes?” cries a Mexican soldier, quoting Shylock.

Rim roll.

Sacajawea is a 15-year-old with an attitude. T.R. never sees an animal he doesn’t shoot at. A Klansman with nowhere else to turn brings his baby to black Viola — and the infant has a tiny, little, pointy Klan hood.

Flash forward a bit and it’s a world in which America is ever more Mexican, and Mexico is ever more American, and Nike sneakers can rain from the skies. All this is painted by Montoya and director Jo Bonney in very broad strokes indeed. Scenic designer Neil Patel’s thrust stage fills the entire playing space, with Shawn Sagady’s projections filling in and/or commenting on much of the action: landscapes, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Manzanar internment camp for Japanese-Americans, the 1969 Woodstock festival, vintage postcards, the inevitable moving train, the Caribbean.

For a world of NAFTA there are giant projections of industrial gears and cogs filling the back of the stage like that famous scene in Chaplin’s “Modern Times.”

Much of the story involves stereotypes, with Culture Clash coming down on the side of the argument that says when we laugh at them they are undercut and lose power.

And laugh we do. Mostly. You can’t tell this story without ugly. There is a sign, of a sort once common, that says “No dogs, negroes, Mexicans.” But in the end the satire is the big-hearted, inclusive, Horation sort.

There is Woody Guthrie claiming this land is his land, and ours, and Harry Bridges organizing workers against the bosses, and a stoner Boy Dylan copping song lyrics to inject into loopy dialogue.

The surreal anarchy of the climax reminded me of “Duck Soup,” but Juan José is no Rufus T. Firefly. Millán plays him, brilliantly, as a straight man with a good heart in the midst of comic chaos, as befits what is essentially a zany but profound civics lesson.

“American Night” lasts but 90 minutes, and tickets should be impossible. Give it stars all the way off the page. And note that it debuted exactly 75 years after the first-ever OSF plays. It is the first of Bill Rauch’s “American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle,” 37 commissioned plays that will tell America’s story. It is a rousing, heartfelt beginning.

Bill Varble writes about arts and entertainment for the Mail Tribune. He can be reached at varble.bill@gmail.com.

Leno, Maru and Josefina will go to see this AMERICAN NIGHT on the 27^th of July.. you should make the drive and see it also. The play is running until October.

ROY RODGER’S STUFFED HORSE TRIGGER AND WONDER DOG BULLET were up for sale… HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN (This was the theme song for Roy and his wife Dale Evans)

Seems that someone paid a lot for these two stuffed animals so that they could put them in a museum some place for others to see. I know that Roy Rodgers was before the time of some of my readers but he was sort of a cowboy folk hero and appreciated by many who watched television in those days.

It would be a riot if someone many years from now were to have me stuffed. This way I could be around for all of the events and marches in the community for centuries to come. You could keep my sun glasses on me and change my clothes on occasion.. Just remember that I loved my blue shirts and also my island shirts. My right arm could be directed towards the crowd with my finger pointing the way into the future.. And if possible you could always play some of my shorter speeches.

But since I plan to live for many more decades we will just have to wait. Right now I am stuffing myself with re fried bean, Spanish rice, and Jalapenos.

My best

leno