Long time
It feels like I have not blogged forever, and I'm not even doing Nanowrimo! I don't know how those guys do it! I found it enticing to try and sign up for it, but I just don't know how I could write that much. Although I find myself writing in my head whenever I drive somewhere. I have done that for as long as I can remember. One of these times, I'll have to put some of it down on paper. Or I was thinking that I could carry a tape recorder and transcribe it later because when I try to remember it, it just does not work.
I've had a busy and great week. I spent two days in dismal Fresno, CA at a multicultural summit. That was great. Not the town, but the conference. They had a huge focus on the Hmong culture as there are many in that region who emigrated at the end of the Vietnam war era. We also heard Victor Villasenor speak as a Keynote and he was great, very passionate. He wrote "Rain of Gold" a very touching and truthful account of the lives of mexican emigrants in the US. Then I had a chance to talk with the big mucky-mucks of changes at the state level who are trying to bring patient's rights to the forefront as spelled out by prop 63 which passed last year. It was great. There are some wonderful folks working on that. There were many mental health consumers in attendance and they bring a lot to the discussion, especially in reminding the presenters to be less linear and more openminded. It is very refreshing. I think the co-worker that came with me really enjoyed it.
I also went to dinner with a woman I met this summer during our European adventure. It was great to see her and catch up. She is a teacher and has a son about the Kid's age. So it was fun. Then the two and a half hour drive home, but good music made it work out.
Last night I went to three shows! First, there was a concert at the theather the Hubby runs. The local jazz singers, who still need a little work, and then this amazing group from LA called M-Pact. They are six acapella singers who are out of this world. It was very hard to sit still to the great music that they were making. One of them made sounds so amazing you would have thought that there was a full drum set on stage, a flute, someone spinning LPs, and all kind of instruments. Another guy went completely Soprano, and then would go way down in Bass range. They were amazing.
After that I went out with some friends as the Spin Doctor was bringing a group to the area. It was some techno funk something that was tolerable. "Push button music" one of the girls we were with dubbed it. Then the club had dancers in skimpy clothes get up on this box with a column in the middle, doing some pole dancing. That is when we took our cue to leave. One of the young women I was with was really offended. So we went to this other pub "the Frog and Peach" (I kid you not, it is the name of the place) who had a great Raggae band and we dance for a good while. I saw lots of folks I know and overall we all had a good time. Unfortunately, my friend the Drummer was severely intoxicated and became very interested in one of the young woman I was with. I think he freaked her out a little as he started to follow her around too much. He is a nice guy and usually he has a retinue of women as he is somewhat of a celebrity in our area as a well-known musician. That was a side of him I had not seen yet and wish I still had not seen. There was also a other guy who was trying to cop a feel to the same girl, but we all took turns to send him on his way. Then some of the singers from the Euro group came in and it was good to see them out here. They are such a nice group. One of them was very surprized to hear that I saw his mom on the previous night. I also had some guy pursuing me and dancing with me that made me think, boy you must be desperate if at 20 something, you need the FIFTY year old chick in the joint! I just did not expect that. I have had other young men dance with me when I go out, but this guy was more persistant and more touchy-feely and it was a little wierd. Of course, I also dance wildly with guys I know, and that is always fun.
Also this week, I received an e-mail from my friend in Czech Republik. I was very happy to see that, as I worried we would lose touch. It was a while since his last e-mail. That was a nice boost to my week as that guy is just very sweet, and I would very much like to count him as a friend. I like having folks throughout the world to I keep in touch with. That sort of brings me back full circle with the begining of this post about multiculturalism. I think that if we all had more friends throughout the world, we would take a lot more time before accepting prejudice and starting wars of any kind. That is one plan of Jacques Cousteau that I wish had seen the light of day. He wanted to start a program where children would be sent to other parts of the world for several years, a massive exchange student program. Wouldn't we learn to love one another then? I don't know why this is such a hard lesson for mankind to learn. My concept of spirituallity is that once we have learn all there is for us to learn in one life, we die. So I guess once humanity learns that one, it will be time for an ice age, or solar wind to start a new specie and get this one off the planet. The dinosaur must have learned all that they could and then became extinct!! ;)
Peace march, San Luis Obispo, March 2002.
posted by P'tit-Loup @ 9:17 PM
6 Comments:
i like the idea of everyone having friends across the globe.
it's a bit like being a vegetarian (bear with me, here) - if you had a pet cow, you wouldn't eat beef would you? It's why we don't et cats and dogs.
So, similarly, if we all had friends who were, Iranian perhaps, or Afghani, or, god forbid, Welsh, we'd maybe all get along a bit better.
I'm sorry that you found fresno "dismal". Did you visit the Tower District? There' some fine culture in the town, but you've got to search a bit for it.
Yeah, I like the friends across the world thing too.
Oddly enough, I was just thinking about how one of the things that's interesting about blogs is the way people use languages differently - even when it's "the same language" - just before I read your post. I was thinking that inside a week I've commented on one blog in spanish, had to translate a limeyspeak remark I made on an American blog and had to check out a bit of mericaspeak for myself to see what it meant, and that got me on to thinking that when I click "next blog" I sometimes try and work out what it's about if it's in another language. I like trying to work out which language it is if it's one I've never seen before too...
I know you speak loads of languages, P'tit Loup, so that would be easier for you. But it's nice to look at the different languages and wonder how much of what people say could only be expressed in that language - the words and phrases that don't quite translate. I'd like a big collection of words from everywhere that don't translate, just to have all the extra things to say and ways to say them. You can see it in blogs when people switch languages in mid-sentence (of course in real world, people do it too). Mix 'em all up and get a great big human thing for communicating with - it's good, I reckon.
red
3 concerts in one night! That's great. And getting hit on by a young'un, too.
I think I was being chatted up at the art opening I went to on Friday, but then he wanted to know what social workers do. I explained, and he seemed not to be able to get away fast enough. Surprising, that, because you'd think that people would have some idea that it's not a terribly sexy job.
English pubs always have great names. There is a whole series of the fox ones. The pub near us is called The Fox and Firkin
That is a great name. I think the Frog and Peach here was named after the Monty Python bit about the bed and breakfast where the wife only cook two very disgusting dishes: a frog and a peach.
That is the one good thing I found in Fresno. A little pub, whose name I forgot, that served wicked beer, stews and sandwiches. A real local hang out too. It was a block from the convention center, on Kern at Van Ness. Sorry GS, I did not have much time to find the cool stuff, and I'm sure like everywhere there is some, I am just uninformed. But Fresno is an odd town, particularly when one drives to it from the 41. It seems like a mushroom in the middle of so much rural land.
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