Bandas, Arizona, vampiros & René's apellido

Música, tirando chancla, Denver style

As Ramos mentioned yesterday: "I'll see some of you at Part 2 of the Colorado All-Star New Mexico and Tejano Music Festival at Denver's Edelweiss Club, featuring Next In Line of Commerce City, Richard Baca & Sierra Gold from Pueblo, and The Rick Garcia Band."

My wife Carmen and I did see him, and his wife Flo there and the vato wasn't kidding--it was a kick-ass baile. We left at 11:00 before the third band, but my legs were already worn out from trying to keep up with the hot sounds, anyway. Next up will be The King of New Mexico Music, TOBIAS RENE. Tickets available at EDELWEISS CLUB, 6495 Monaco, Commerce City Colo. and RICK'S TAVERN, 6762 Lowell Boulevard, Denver, 303-427-3427

Ramos also mentioned, "I may bump into some of you at the driveway party Saturday night." I'm probably going, but need some help. Anybody know where I can get some permanent marker chalk to christen that new driveway?

Alarcón (& La Bloga) strike deep in the Ariz. heartland

Mari Herreras of the Tucson Weekly ran an interview this week of Francisco X. Alarcón:
"Moved by student protests in Phoenix against SB 1070, Alarcón created a Facebook page called Poets Responding to SB 1070. Many of the poems from the page have been republished on La Bloga at labloga.blogspot.com.

In the interview, Alarcón explains: "Michael Sedano from Los Angeles is an editor of La Bloga, a blog for Latino/Chicano artists, poets and writers. The past eight weeks, we started to select poems, and every Tuesday, five to seven poems are selected and posted on La Bloga. Now we're hitting a critical mass of poets, so we want to do a hard copy. The University of California Press has expressed an interest, but I haven't presented them with a proposal ... but we've come to a decision that this is the next step."

Any billionaire out there want to underwrite free copies for anybody with an Ariz. driver's license--regardless of what kind of shoes they're wearing?

Vampiro comic Issue #2

Saturday, July 17, 7:00pm – Authors Mario Acevedo and Jeanne Stein will be the featured speakers at the monthly meeting of the Denver Area Science Fiction Association. Mario will sign Killing the Cobra #2, his latest comic book featuring Felix Gomez, the vampire P.I. hero of Mario’s novels. Broadway Book Mall, 200 S. Broadway (one block north of Alameda), in Denver; 303-744-BOOK (2665).

René's last name not culturally sacred aquí

Regular La Bloga readers know about René Colato Laínez's book René has two last names/René tiene dos apellidos. One would think that in this age of reputed "border security" and with all the anti-immigrant propaganda, keeping accurate track of the Spanish surnamed would be mandated. Not so.

For instance, at my last public school--when I still had a job--I noticed that this year my new list of students, 23 in all, ALL had their two last names hyphenated. In fact, there is not ONE method to putting names on birth certificates. Sometimes it will read: "René Colato Laínez", without a hyphen, while another kid's may read " René Colato-Laínez", with a hyphen. When I brought this to the attention of the powers-that-be, I was told not to worry about it, that it was no big deal. Given that I knew my own job was already in jeopardy at the time, I took the muy huevón approach and kept my mouth shut. I still regret that, no matter that it didn't help keep my job.

Whatever the thinking of Denver schools' administration, blankedly hyphenating all the Spanish-surnamed not only shows cultural ignorance and insensitivity, it's probably illegal, since hyphenating a name that isn't so on a birth certificate is probably considered a legalistic no-no.

What the practice reveals is the contradiction within not only the school systems, but the country as a whole. Cultural hegemony hyphenates all the Spanish surnames in one school, on the one hand; but on the other hand, political anti-immigrant hysteria demands accurate tracking of the same Spanish-surnamed.

The result will be a lot of Spanish-surnamed lost in the system. I don't mind this. I laugh thinking how one day the system will find out it can't find Colato Laínez because some school system hyphenated his name along with all the others in his school. And who's next? How about, President Barack Hussein–Obama?

Es todo, hoy
RudyG