tijuana gringo diary.blog 20 summer 22 moon 47 space age 9.July.2004

Citizenship?

-- United States.

What brings you down here?

-- I work in Chula Vista and live in Tijuana.

The truer answer would have been:

-- I brought myself down here to save on living expenses and learn more Spanish.

But that was not the answer the blackshirted patriotAct sworn officer bureaucrat-with-a-gun wanted to hear. So I told him the truth as he wanted to hear it: why was I right there at that moment crossing through into the United States? That was actually The Question he meant. BUT t'was Not the exact question before christmas he asked (what brought you down here). Eh.

What is truth? Pontius Pilate is reported to have asked that question kyrae eleison Xriste eleison 1,968 years ago (or was it 1,970 ago?).

-- Truth? It is what you say it is -- Jesus reportedly answered, more or less. According to Mel Gibson's big easter movie this year, those two representatives of Caesar and God were speaking Latin, so they did not quite say what I have written exactly in English no.

It is, I believe, debatable whether Jesus spoke Latin, but I personally believe he probably did, or at least, Greek; either that or some of the soldiers (especially the centurion whose daughter was sick) spoke Greek or Aramaic.

I am not, however, not necessarily not exactly a believer in the medieval devil, as appears is Mr. Gibson's film, apparently (I am he in the double referent from that "apparently" although I do believe, in some extent, mostly we create hell ourselves and for this require repentance, forgiveness, redemption and salvation). But art, in all cases, is.

And crossing the border IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY THAT YOU TELL THEM THE TRUTH because they are trained to search for signs of lying. All the little tricks that I won't tell you you can find them in many pop-psychology magazines or websites but not me I ain't telling no. But, as regards the truth and truth and Truth and TRUTH, Therefore, the wiggle room enters in the questions they ask and whether they even realize they are asking the right or wrong questions. One never knows, but:

1. Intuition is, and
2. Crossing the border is a constantly repeated



work   o f      p e r f o r m a n c e                     a r t

whether you like my metaphor or 
not

it is.

-- Take it from a retired bureaucrat who has, at least, worked with cops and law enforcement agents and heard them speak freely although they knew I was a writer.... (but remember I never was a sworn officer no, that was more that I dared bite nor chew, and so what I know is limited... albeit "true"...).

In my dreams this morning last night I was summoned to a conference of interstellar political historians, galactic sociologists and planetary ecologists who were analyzing and discussing the progress (or regress) of Earth. They were all dressed in the human bodies of old church ladies, and the meeting had been called together in the social hall of a mainstream church, separated from the sanctuary by a kind of folding screen door. The debate was sweet, polite, but intensely complicated and discursively critical of our societal evolution on this planet. I think, absurdly, that Ken Lay's handcuffing in the news had something to do with stimulating this vision of and in my sleep. After some intense questioning, I became aware that my shirt had disappeared off my body and I asked them if they had hypnotized me for a while. I seem to remember that one lady nodded in confirmation (but memory, and memory of dreams, is notoriously unreliable).

I told them that the future of this world lies with China and that they had made a mistake sending me to the United States, instead of that other, much older civilization. Don't worry, they implied, we also have reporters there. Actually, I said "American" (not United States) - if, again, I can "remember" a dream "accurately" - always a problematical question - how much does one remember and how much does one invent or re-create during the process of re-membering? I think what I said - in the dream - was something like "this American civilization is so much younger" and I knew that I meant the U.S., not the Aztecs or Mayas.

Night before last - i.e. yesterday morning - I went to a monastery where the monks actually had a symphony orchestra playing somewhere - and later on a hike through brambles by the shoreline with a monk, I busted my sandal. And then we saw it - mythical Arthur's Glastonbury - the lost city of Avalon Atlantis, floating in the mists beyond the reeds and waters of western Wessex, a vision all spires and towers like some kind of medieval Manahatta, with rising beige gothic blocks and

Wow.

Don't you hate it when you wake up and cannot go back, Krissie Hynes said at work yesterday when we discussed dreams. Today is her last day. I still feel sick from the damn cold that has left my head and settled in my lungs (no smoking now) and I will not go to the party after work tonight. William almost peed himself when he heard; he don't like her, people say, but then again, office rumor is horrific. Later he did come out and dance with the embroiders, but actually that is nothing out of the ordinary. An amazingly intelligent and creative man, he always seems much more at home with production workers than the other executives and sales types. I silently (HA not here) watch the class systems and personalities mix and match. Some people just won't get it. I Want Another Cup of Coffee in the morning today. Sometimes I write things down simply for the sound of it in my brain. "Want" sounds like "won't" and that is l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e school of writing, friends. The sheer physical concrete of words is valuable, not "just" their meaning. Rhyme, rhythm, meter; ancient, ancient practices in a new revelation. POSTal MODERN modem correoESQUE YU IRE erin go bragh No, I Am Welsh.

Jizzus Krispykreme what a macaronic mamada stupid it's the economy stupid and Bushito (littleBush, his father was Bushote bigBush) is going to win re-election because of the enquiring minds improving Economy I ain't never heard of nothing like ECOMCON seven days in may was one of the most formative books of my youth and left me with faith in the system in spite of why Vietnam propaganda and NixonJohnson corruption etc. I still watch the movie whenever it comes on TV once I God Bless America stand up and salute flash bam stars and streamers do you know who Judas was yes, Burt, Kirk, he was a man the hero worked for and loved click end of film the republic is saved and No Empire Need Apply ANAKIN Luke I am your father etc. All's well in Washingtown I actually believed such lies even once again preGreenspan went to live upon a time and act and write and watch during the Frod administration when I helped old Alice Roosevelt across Massachusetts Avenue to her door and then met the soon to be ex-Mrs. Gingrich when she was new to town at a Salvation Army charity event where Kent A. and I were singing madrigals and ooooo she looked awful pale dying of cancer I found out 20 some years later when her husband the salamander pulled off his palace revolution down the avenue para descarrillar (derail) Hillary health plan yeah no so. Where are they now when the lights go out? Certainly not here in this mess where I only refer poemic prose with pseudopolitic palate that sounds like, looks like, smells like, quacks like, duckshit. Oh, Dorothy. I mean Kansas, not the breakfast club at whatever the hell hotel ASburyHampshireOrALGONQUINnnnssomething wasn't it? Running the gamut from A to B etc. A knot of people are speaking Tagalog (or something) together at the Iris Avenue trolley station while I scribble furiously stream of consciousness completely content that I can edit it all later when I type and em-broider and en-hance. I am going to work with my cold and writing writing writing in my little notebook as I always do these past first weeks on the job, during the little hour and a half bus and tranvia commutertrip. After I win my nobelpulitizer stink I'll sell it on ebay hee haw yeah NOT. I mean the notebook, not the prize, FYI btw.

Thank God it's Friday. Gracias a Dios I am still alive and living in Tijuana and crossing over the frontier every single damn workday and oh yes thank you I slept and dreamt quite well again last night. Didn't cough too much after sucking down two cups of chamomile manzanilla tea yeah see? Sí.

Oh look - here comes the trolley.



                                                 it is this
                                       secret understanding
                               of AM next day versus ground



how to be a good shipping manager




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EVENING AFTER WORK GOING HOME EARLY ENOUGH TO CATCH THE OTAY BUS
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you're doing good at your job
Eddie says to me today I reflect
looking out across the valley from one
side to another as we climb up 905 toward Otay                    

looking from the U.S. toward Mexico
from San Ysidro to Tijuana

look - there's the radio dish tower
above the border patrol hilltop command post
that looks like an elementary school

and here, the last boxes, homes, on the
gulley canyon slopes brushed by eucalyptus

the ubiquitous eucalyptus of California

the new Otay school on top the mesa edge
with its gym roof and lamppost parking lot

a huge airliner briefly twisting around the sky
toward Tijuana airport over there on the other half

the flat edges of Otay mesa settle down
into the long, long stretch toward the jagged peak foot   

this illusion of some kind of semindustrial     
Kansas before the Rocky mountains

after two weeks more of work I
go home with more money in my
pocket than I used to live
on for one entire month

if I can only save some       n o w

look - there's the TJ airport tower                     
and here's the Otay airport tower

                              and the abandoned
                              tractor

Popeye told me yesterday
how they can turn on a dime

the tractors, that is

brake one wheel, gun the other

r o t a t e

                     rotate  rotary  gyre and gimble in the
                     wages wabe wannabe yeah botch bitch batch
kvetch







                arch  of
          an                words
         and                walls
          of                speech


make you read suddenly down then up then down again

if the walls could only talk if the flies on the canvas tent flaps where
my great great great grandparents Williams and their children all came
down the Ohio river on flatboats from Pennsylvania to Saint Louis before
t u r n i n g    back  north      again        toward   Iowa territory.

Not knowing that their grandgrandaughter my mother would marry the
greatgrandson of an unknown other couple far more north from New
England brahmin farmers and Indian scalping WASPS who traveled west
along the Erie Canal eyes askance at all the Dirty Dutch and then by
lake schooner across Erie, Huron, Michigan to far Wisconsin territory

Nor that  the   irreverent child of that union would
find his own princess from Huaxteca here in Tijuana.

So be it genealogos who I from.  Without sex
there would be no genealogy, dear one.

Time to go to bed and sleep.  I be done.


no apo strophe re member           okei bai ok bye

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