Raven-Symone floors me

Roberto Clemente plays for Baby Eben, 1964

1966 Iron Cross

Hallelujah

Condi Rice

Apparently Condi is remembering some other guy because she sure ain't describing me in this picture.
Condi, Condi, Condi
Condoleeza Rice
When you touch your ankles
Girl, you look so nice

Four Storeys

From the 1500s to the early 1800s Puerto Rico was Afro-Antillean as blacks and mulattos were the "first storey" of the "building" of Puerto Rican culture. Exluding the elite (government, military, church) Puerto Rican whites in those centuries adopted black ways in clothes, food, etc, and most of their descendants were mulattos (and blacks). Like Blacks, whether free or slave, these poor whites had no say in the affairs of the colony.
From the 1800s till recently the mainly white elite of Puerto Rico -products of the "recolonization" of the early and mid 1800s by Spanish and other Europeans*- had plenty to say in the affairs of the island and thus defined Puerto Rico and its culture and in so doing downplayed the African element. One example is Jose de Diego -the early 1900s sugarcane corporate lawyer who became a revolutionary only as a reaction against U.S. disavowal of annexation- was one of those of his class (landowners of the interior, professionals of the coastline) who actually viewed Puerto Rico as a solely white Hispanic island. To this day Puerto Rican "independentistas" and other Anti-Yankees basically worship De Diego, whether or not they know the full story.
Now that the elite no longer serve as an example for the masses culture has been redefined from below, from the Afro-Mestizo majority proletariat and therefore the African element has come to the fore again.

(from Jose Luis Gonzalez. Puerto Rico The Four Storeyed Country.)

*a usually unrecognized cause of the "recolonization" (not named so) was the Spanish fear of a successful slave revolution like that in French Sainte-Domingue (Haiti)

Roots

In Puerto Rico and Cuba we talk about the Yorubas, of Nigeria, as ancestors, originators of Afro-Rican and Afro-Cuban music, Bomba and Plena in Puerto Rico, especially the less Spanish-influenced Bomba.
In fact, I had an epiphany a few years ago here in Washington, DC. I rode a cab with a Nigerian driver who was playing his native music and to me it sounded just like Bomba though not sung in Afro-Rican Spanish, of course, ith a lot of heavy fast drumming and chants and group responses, and so I asked him about it and he told me it was Yoruba music.
I have a cassette of Bomba on one side and Afro-Cuban music on the other side. What really gets me is that while the Afro-Rican music features African names and words and the singing is in Afro-Rican Spanish the Afro-Cuban music is all sung in Yoruba or some other Bantu African language. Go to www.cdnow.com and check out cd's of musica jibara and Plena and Bomba and there'll be very brief audio bits. Better yet, check out Bomba and Plena here at the pages of Yerbabuena, Comborican, Pleneros de la 21.
African elements permeate all Puerto Rican music, including the more Spanish (white) jibaro music, mountain music (seis, ai-le-lo-lai) our country music if you will. Six string guitars, small four string guitars (cuatros), maracas, gourds. And in one of those typical seemingly ambivalent racial things in Puerto Rico the term "musica tipica", typical or folkloric music, is more often applied to this more Spanish kind of music. And the white Jibaro remains a national cultural symbol of the people of Puerto Rico.
"Fulano" is the most widely used Afro-Rican Spanish word and it's not limited to Puerto Rico. Fulano means "some somebody". Some folks add "de tal" ("of whoever"), fulano de tal, providing more of a linguistic mixture.

Anti-Christian

Your beliefs most closely resemble those of Satanism! Before you scream**, do a bit of research on it. To be a Satanist, you don't actually have to believe in Satan. SATANISM GENERALLY FOCUSES UPON THE SPIRITUAL ADVANCEMENT OF THE SELF, RATHER THAN UPON SUBMISSION TO A DEITY OR A SET OF MORAL CODES. Do some research if you immediately think of the satanic cult stereotype. Your beliefs may also resemble those of earth-based religions such as paganism.
Satanism 96%
Paganism 83%
Buddhism 79%
atheism 79%
agnosticism 75%
Islam 58%
Hinduism 42%
Judaism 38%
Christianity 8%
Five years ago I would've been scared shitless to be associated with Satanism! But really, what I am is an Anti-Christian. As an anti-Christian I have little truck with Christian figures such as Old Nick himself whom Christianity gives too much credit. I WAS ONCE A DEFENDER OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH AND A HARSH CRITIC OF PROTESTANTS, I WAS ONCE A CATECHIST AND MEMBER OF THE LEGION OF MARY, I USE TO HAVE A CRUCIFIX IN ANY ROOM I SLEPT IN!

Whitening Appearance

A preference for white and/or European appearance is applicable to Latin America, including Puerto Rico. A female receptionist in a high profile office has to have "good appearance" and that's according to Latin European standards which means that Italian Alyssa Milano would be favored over Anglo Lindsay Lohan but both girls would be favored over black Raven-Symone. Of course, it also means that a girl looking like Jennifer Lopez - and I'm only talking facially- would most definitely get the job, white or half white or whatever, what matters is that she's Puerto Rican. However, such an ad as Fair and Lovely in India would not be on Puerto Rican tv.
Mon cheri ami du Congo who was very well versed on cosmetics had no problem using a skin product, foundation and whatever, that very slightly lightened her brown chocolate face, it definitely didn't whiten her face and that's not what she was after but her purpose was to lighten a bit and hide the very few facial blemishes she had. I could look in my memory notes and find the name of this product. I think JC Penny's sells it. There were several foundations, each one for a different tone of black skin, a product made for black women. She joked that I didn't need to use the product.

Race is a social construct?

I dig what you cats (Warlord & Dubs at myspace playing the race card group) are putting down. "The biology part doesn't apply to humans but it's used like that colloquially and it's a social construct based on physical appearance". Digging it. "That social construct then is strong and it's something I go by or against". Vince Lombardi ... I don't understand how some white folks can't see that there are dark white folks. My grandfather, of old Yankee stock and an English father, was rather dark but there was no doubt as to his race.
Yes, how arbitrary the idea of race, but it's the social construct of race that is arbitrary. I read a book about how folks became white in this racist country. My Yankee ancestors used to be the only people called white, then they were joined by the Germans (the Pennsylvania Dutch and so on, Deutsch - German) and other Nordics, then the French. And it took a long time for the Irish and Slavics to attain white status, and then it was the Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese, and for some, definitely not all, the Middle Easterners and Caucasian North Africans and the Hispanics who are definitely not black nor Indian nor mixed, ok white Hispanics.
AS A PUERTO RICAN, WHITE STATUS ALSO APPLIES TO THOSE OF US WHO HAVE BLACK ANCESTRY, "LA MANCHA DE PLATANO" (THE PLANTAIN STAIN!) BUT FAVOR OUR WHITE ANCESTRY IN HAIR TEXTURE AND SKIN COLOR AND FACIAL APPEARANCE. So yes, it's arbitrary. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCT IS ARBITRARY. I'm white to Puerto Ricans, I'm mixed Hispanic or just mixed to some Americans, I'm half black to some black folks. But I've never been labeled or called black.
Walter White of the NAACP was a white man, I don't know why anyone would say he wasn't. HOWEVER, BY SOCIAL CONSTRUCT BASED ON HIS NEIGHBOR'S KNOWLEDGE OF HIS BLACK GREAT GREAT GRANDPARENTS AND THE FACT THAT SOME CLOSE RELATIVES WERE ON THE BLACK SIDE and other reasons he was a "NEGRO" a "COLORED", DEFINITELY A MULATO, something he discovered when white folks attacked his family at home when he was 13. But I still say Walter White was white and he himself knew that PHENOTYPICALLY AND BY APPEARANCE he was white. And he could've passed as white, passed as what he actually was, had he left his state or better yet left the U.S. In France they couldn't believe or understand or rationalize how a white man could call himself black. In fact, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS THE ONLY COUNTRY WHERE A WHITE PERSON CAN BE BLACK AND NOT WHITE.

SOCIAL CONSTRUCT: THE ONE DROP OF BLACK BLOOD MAKES YOU BLACK RULE! But if nobody knows that motherfucking dumb dumb George Bush (for example) has black blood, it doesn't apply, or if George Bush is Mr So and So, it sure as hell doesn't apply even if it was known. DOES IT APPLY NOW TO CAROL CHANNING WHO CONFESSED THAT HER FATHER WAS OF BLACK ANCESTRY? Apparently that was the case with President Warren Harding and FBI director J Edgar Hoover. What's up with that? All the white folks you see today, do you see any black traces in them, eyes or nose or lips, or no trace at all. How many white folks today do you think are descendants of very white looking mixed race people, "mulatos, quadroons, octoroons", how many of them have an ancestor who was brought here as a slave from West Africa? But they are white and they say they're white and we all agree. If you find out for sure about their African ancestry does that actually change their race, do you now call them black? IF SO, THAT'S RACE AS SOCIAL CONSTRUCT.
The one drop rule was a way of getting rid of the children of masters and slave women, and of assuring that there would always be plenty of blacks and thus plenty of slaves - AND FOR VERY DIFFERENT REASONS, OF COURSE, BLACKS AGREE WITH THE ONE DROP RULE. Also, certain poor dark white immigrants were kidnapped and reclassified as "Negro" and sold into slavery. Once reclassified as black and slaves they would have to partner up with blacks unlsess they escaped to where they weren't known as blacks. Since almost every single black here is mixed with white, how many black folks are the descendants of whites who were reclassified as blacks?
SOCIAL CONSTRUCT.

Papa Eben et Mama Mado

I know something about the women of Congo Kinshasa as I was privileged to be in a relationship with a Congo lady, Mama Mado. She taught me about many aspects of the Congo, central and west Africa in general, conflicts within Africa, conflicts within Africans in Europe (she had white in-laws and mixed nephews and nieces in Belgium, France and Germany) and she taught me love /loving.
Even before I met her I had a problem with people talking about Africa (Bantu Africa at least) as if it were one country or region. "I went to London and then I went to Africa". So I'd ask, "Which one of the more than 40 countries did you go to?" I'm not anything near an expert on any African subject or matter. No way. But I'm proud that I have some knowledge of Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria (Yorubas are credited as the source of Afro-Puerto Rican heritage), Cameroun, Equatorial Guinea (Spain's only black African colony), Congo Kinshasa (rdc), Congo Brazzaville, Gabon, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, etc.
And damn,I love those African women's clothes...of course, one reason is that they remind me of Mama Mado, especially the casual wraparound "skirt", le petite pwa? She wore that a lot when we were home alone.
Mama, as a mature lady is called in le Republique Democratique du Congo (correct?, she said I spoke Eben French). She used her French name in Kinshasa. She could only her Lingala names in Lubumbashi. Her full name went like this "French first name or personal name - Lingala family name (I think it's the mother's name) - Lingala personal name". She called somebody Papa Prisca because he was father of Prisca.
She'd be scolding me right now saying, "Keep up!" And I'd say, "Oui, oui, Mama."

Spanish?

This cat said I claimed Spain like so many Hispanics do. But I specifically said that I have no idea about my actual European Spanish ancestry and therefore I don't claim Spain. So I don't claim Spain. Moreover, I hate to be called Spanish because I'm not from Spain and neither are either of my parents nor any of my grandparents.
If we're called Spanish because we speak Spanish then how come the blacks of Haiti and Ghana are not called French or English since they speak French or English? In fact, Haitians and Africans are called either Francophone or Anglophone (besides what they actually are, Senegalese, Malian, Nigerian, Congolese, Gambian, Zimbabwean, etc). WHY ARE WE NOT CALLED HISPANOPHONE plain and simple and nothing else (except for what we actually are, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Mexican, Colombian, Venezuelan, etc). How come Anglo-Saxon-Celtic Yankees of New England who are racially the same as the English/the British and speak English (such as my dad) are not called English?
It seems to me that my fellow Americans want to reserve the terms English and French FOR WHITES ONLY while they feel they have to DE-WHITEN the term Spanish by applying to all of us "nonwhites" (I include myself using the Race Card Group and the white American definition of whiteness) regardless of our actual connection to Spain.

Holden and me

I've been reading and studying The Catcher In The Rye since 1978 when I was 14. I've been liking and disliking and even hating Holden for the past 10 years. At 42 I can't identify with a 16-year-old. But I do, in a different way, because I even more strongly believe that the world is wrong and fails to live up to my standards and I think that not as a teenager would but as an older adult.
So many years of reading and studying The Catcher In The Rye and it took a study guide for me to see that the actual physical setting of the novel is this institution Holden mentions in the first chapter where he's been on account of the madman stuff and all that happened the previous Christmas time.

Afro-Rican

It's ironic that in Puerto Rico and Cuba where blackness is no big deal, unlike here, that people, my people, have a better idea than black Americans do of where their African ancestors are from. It may not be exactly correct and it may be not the full story but we talk about the Yorubas of Nigeria as our African ancestors and that "we" includes Puerto Ricans and Cubans who have black blood but neither call themselves black nor are classified as black. Granted, black Americans did influence Puerto Ricans and Cubans to know more about and care more for our African ancestry, the African component of our culture. In fact, author Jose Luis Gonzalez posits that the basic component of the Puerto Rican and by extension the Cuban is black, African, that it's only the upper classes who are basically white, that Puerto Rico is an Afro-Mestizo island, that the dominating whites have distorted the history and culture to showcase the Spanish and European component (since the early 1800s). Nevertheless, the knowledge of the Yoruba goes way back. And the casualness with which most Puerto Ricans and Cubans, especially Puerto Ricans, treat race is peculiar when compared to folks here in the U.S., especially blacks.
A black Puerto Rican is first Puerto Rican and then, maybe, black or in between. And yet there's plenty of knowledge of African ancestry.A black American is first black and then American. And yet there's less knowledge of African ancestry.
Just as there's black American English there's black Puerto Rican Spanish. Writing examples ain't gonna do no good because most of y'all can't read Spanish.

Bleep

I usually BLEEP the girls that BLEEP my BLEEP. So when I have a girl who is only BLEEP my BLEEP she has to work harder to make me BLEEP because I'm used to BLEEP when BLEEP.
I've never been with a girl and only ate BLEEP. Very seldom have I been with a girl and I just ate BLEEP and then BLEEP. The real special time is when the girl and I just hang around naked without sex for a good awhile, then she sits on my lap and we touch each other, then I suck her titties while she gives me a BLEEP and then a BLEEP, then I finger BLEEP, then I kiss and lick and eat BLEEP then I rub my BLEEP on her BLEEP while mounting her, then I suck her titties while BLEEP slow and easy, then I speed up and really go at it concentrating on both of us BLEEP. If my BLEEP is still hard after BLEEP I leave it inside her. If my BLEEP is soft I pull it out and rub it all over her BLEEP and then we just simply BLEEP again.

Columbus, Puerto Rico

Granted, Colombo/Colom/Colon started a process that unfortunately included a concerted attack on the native Tainos and the enslavement of Yoruba Africans. But Tainos and Yorubas define Puerto Rican as much as Colon's people, Spaniards and other Europeans, and we're a better people for it. If the case were that Tainos and Yorubas had nothing to do with our definition than we could rightfully call Colon "el so-cabron, hijo de la gran puta".
We speak European languages, Spanish and English. However, our Spanish is not the Spanish of Spain, it's not European. It's Taino-Afro Rican Spanish and that applies even to the "whitest" Puerto Ricans, "los blanquitos" (very little non-white ancestry or none at all). Our English is not the English of England, it's the English of the United States and it has strong African/black influences.
Again, if Puerto Rico were nothing but European Spanish and there was nothing at all originating from the oppressed Tainos and Yorubas than we should all condemn Cristobal Colon. But that's not the case. Gracias a Dios, Ay Bendito, Cosa Mas Grande La Vida.

Let's twist

Flowers vs weeds

In psychedelic rock/ acid rock/ trippy music I prefer the American regional bands' hard-edge bad trip lyrics and hard-edge snotty music, the fact that they basically psychedelized what they were already doing. "Voices Green and Purple" (The Bees) and "Bad Trip" (The Darelycks) and "The Spider and The Fly" (The Monocles) are great examples of this. The Rolling Stones' version of psychedelia is both American and British in that in some Satanic Majesties Request tunes The Stones retain their bluesy snotty edge. "She's A Rainbow" is one of the more British psychedelic tunes they do. Stuff like "Walking Thru the Park" (The Pretty Things, once one of the punkiest British groups) and "Madman Running In The Forest" (the Zoot Money group, once one of the jazziest and swingingest British groups) bore me, they're too quaint and fey and just love and flowers and childlike smiles. Rock'n'roll is hate, weeds and frustrated horny sneers."All You Need Is Love" and "Hello Goodbye" are pure shit. Damn, do I hate those songs!
Some of us Devotees of the Big Beat of 1965-1966 (mid 60s) adhere to the Shut Down which is something really groovy voids, cancels out, anything really lousy. Dig it. Them did "Gloria", the greatest lust song of the lust song era, the mid 60s, and the singer was George Ivan "Van" Morrison. Fast forward a few years later and keep on going and Van Morrison is better known for some real shitty music and a totally anti-rock package, a totally anti-Gloria scene. However, he already did "Gloria" plus "Baby Please Don't Go", "Little Girl", etc and made them what they are. So "Gloria" shuts down anything shitty Van Morrison has done since 1967. We can then pay him proper homage.

Read a book naked

Read a book naked today!
In fact, do everything naked today alone or with a friend or a special friend or your favorite Aunt or Uncle or the right geezer next door. Now, I don't dig Christina Aguilera but I dig how she and her husband spend Sundays doing everything non-sexual naked. And that's exactly what I dig the most, doing everything non-sexual naked with a special partner, no arousal, no hang-ups, daily living nude. Cooking, eating, doing laundry, reading, sitting around talking, letting it all hang out. Nudism, that's where it's at. And then when it comes to sex, then we get aroused and have a swinging good time.

Imanocounted

And it came to pass, nay, the time was and was time, that the hoarse faced horse wee giant at 3 feet and 70 inches of Nowhere named and surnamed and called because that was his or her name Sporadica Springicola woke up from being awake in the middle of the night at 8 am on the tenth Sunday of the 50 daze of April and said to himself, herself and everbody else's self as recorded in the Census of 1799 and a half which was taken and partaken and mistaken in 1400 and three quarters that he or he, Alocignirps Acidarops looking through the mirrors of somebody's mind decided and derided and decried it that he Sproaraidcadeciaadsporac who looked just like him was going to COUNT ALL THE WINDOWS THAT NEVER EXISTED.And so it happened.
Happened it so and. EXISTED NEVER THAT WINDOWS THE ALL COUNT to going was him like just looked who Spearsbritneybaldheadandrumpledpussysproardaiddcccaidosposringicola, she or he that it decried and derided and decided mind somebody's of mirrors the through looking Tuneinturnondropoutgroovyfaroutwow,he or he that quarters three and 1400 in mistaken and partaken and taken was which half a and 1799 of Census the in recorded as self else's everybody and herself, himself to said and April of daze 50 the of Sunday tenth the on a.m. 8 at night the of middle the the in awake being from up woke Summetimelivingeasyfishjumpingcottonhighyourmilfissucking name her or his was that because called and surnamed and named Nowhere of inches 70 and feet 3 at giant wee horse faced hoarse the that, time was and was time the, nay, pass to came it and.

Laughin' Stones

I DIG THIS PIC THE MOST!

Monroe and me

On the occasion of Presidents Day I salute James Monroe.
His Monroe Doctrine posited that no European power -actually meaning Spain, definitely not meaning England- had any right to interfere with the New World territories that were not colonies of a European power and furthermore posited that the United States of America had a major say in these New World territories.
(If the English had defeated the ruling class "rebels" (bullshit!) of the 13 colonies in the late 1700s the Monroe Doctrine and further American arrogance -such this Iraqi war- would not have occurred and we Americans would be a better people.)
The Monroe Doctrine led to the Spanish American War of 1898, the war by which the U.S. lied to the Cubans about fighting for their freedom and in which the U.S. took Puerto Rico simply as an afterthought. So thanks to the Monroe Doctrine and the American aggression against Spain a Massachusetts descendant of Old Yankees dating back to the mid 1600s in Massachusetts and of an Englishman of the late 1800s got to meet Puerto Rican workers on his dad's farm in the 1950s and then settled in Puerto Rico and had some Puerto Rican children (con la mancha de platano) in the 1960s. So thanks to James Monroe I'm a Yankee Puerto Rican and a Puerto Rican Yankee.
Thanks, President Monroe, so cabron.

Gringo Boricua

I'm Puerto Rican and I'm obviously of mixed race and I identify myself as a Puerto Rican of mixed ancestry. However, I also identify with the 50% of my ancestry that's English-Welsh /Anglo-Saxon-Celtic New England Massachusetts (Yankee) American. (I'm a real Lewis). Since I was separated from my mother, who was obviously not white, and that side of the family I don't know how much of the other 50% is Spanish (which is white, I don't mean Hispanic here, I mean from Spain) or other European or Indian or African which I know is there.
What bothers me is how some blacks want to apply the rule of "one drop of black blood makes you black" to Puerto Ricans when the great majority of us Puerto Ricans do not deny our black heritage and when we, along with almost everybody else in the Western Hemisphere, recognize the different results of different kinds of race-mixing.
So it also bothers me that the Puerto Ricans of New York City who are more black (including ones who are very white looking) and more American get very upset over the very idea that there are white Puerto Ricans or even just "off-white" Puerto Ricans. They have accepted the one-drop rule.
Most of us Puerto Ricans reject the one-drop rule whether it's "one drop of black blood makes you black" or "one drop of white blood makes you white". The black one drop rule a white American idea that black American have made their own. The white one drop rule is a Latin American idea (mostly Portuguese Brazil, some Spanish, some French).

Sex Lessons

T.H.
When she asked for money to buy tampons she said, "You fuck the pussy, you take care of the pussy".
M.S.
She always had me enter her pussy in the missionary position and never from the back on account of her small size and my dick being a little crooked.
M.A.
She got very upset the one time I came too quick and immediately pulled out. She said it was like treating her like a "public woman", that it wasn't making love to one's own woman (she wanted to "feel the sperm") and she sarcastically asked me, "Do you I need to teach you how to make love to a woman?" She also told me that if I did come too quick again I should stay in or if I did have to pull out then we'd do something to get me hard again such as rub it on her or she would kiss it, "kiss Louie".

1964

It was 43 years ago today that a lot of my fellow Americans first saw The Beatles play. Some had seen them earlier but it's the Ed Sullivan Show that counts, 9 February 1964. Watching the show somebody could have thought Paul was the lead singer, that it was more like Paul & The Beatles. Watching the show cats and chicks making it with the big beat could have dug Ringo's drumming, good timing and right on. Watching the show some of these cats could have felt The Beatles were too pop and not rocking enough, especially by the first three numbers. Watching the show folks could have dug the combo's professionalism. And watching the show I'm sure most folks thought their hair was not so much long but rather funny looking, "twentysomethings" with kiddie haircuts sort of like Moe of The Three Stooges and TV kids Beaver and Opie.
Now, I most definitely dig The Beatles the most, as they were from Hamburg to Revolver. But I wonder ... What did cats like Ben E King, Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys), Jim "Roger" McGuinn(The Byrds) and Bob Dylan really think of The Beatles at that precise time or in those days? Never mind looking back and adhering to some kind of pop music establishment agenda by which everybody has to say how they immediately recognised, while watching the show or seeing A Hard Day's Night, that The Beatles were unique and were going to change the scene and all that, never mind all that. What about back then? Is it possible that they were either uninterested or bored or disgusted? How come nobody says something like that about their reaction to The Beatles in '64?