Leisurefications

Rain gear and geared up for work again and again

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:58:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

My mother who always had a special kind of Caribbean Black stoicism taught me to work through any situation. And although my first impulse was to sit in a coffee shop and stare at a nonexistent moon, I rallied around like a trooper and took the train.
I let it do what it does -- be late, be slow, jostle my body against another's -- while a tourist who did not look urban stared at me. I haven't a clue why my activities and demeanor would be more entertaining than a book. I was typing some poems on my Mac, which has seen better days because it has taken trips to the sidewalk and wood floor of my apartment.

If I were the tourist, I would read a book or magazine and leave the locals alone.
Why read me?
But it is not for me to judge and no harm done. She was a blip on the geologic radar.

Today is a day made for philosophers, poets and wood nymphs. I am here in expectation of wonderful enchantments. I am here across the street from that abandoned structure, which brings Old Havana to mind with its flaked gray paint accentuated by a slip of pink through a window.
I am here trying to make a painting with my eye and words of which I could spare a few.

Today is the kind of day for introspection and wonderment.

Even through my boots, my toes are feeling the cool of the first licks of winter.
Here, on this corner, now inhabited by tourists and bad pastry, I imagine Henry Miller must have strolled hand-in-hand with June and Anais.

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PALO! Steve Roitstein and musical hybridizations

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:35:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

Since I decided to interview musicians, they have appeared magically.
One day, whilst perusing my Twitter timeline, I came upon @Gopalo and went to Youtube to check out what this Gopalo was and discovered PALO!, a Cuban music band new to me. I felt like Columbus, discovering an already established entity, so I sent a tweet.

The newly-discovered entity seemed delighted to be asked to be interviewed.
And so began my cyberfriendship with Steve Roitstein -- who was made for social media; he is intelligent, funny, charming and enjoys dealing with humans.

Steve Roitstein has had a varied career that presented him the opportunity to work with musicians he admired and prepared him for a launch into music as an artist.
He is a classically-trained French horn player; he studied at the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy . And Roitstein also received a Masters Degree in Media Writing and Production from the University of Miami. His training is the perfect polygamous marriage of art, commerce and marketing necessary for artists today.

Embracing Cuban culture

At an audition for El Grupo Alma, he says he got‘Cubanized’ and not only devoted his time to delving into Cuban culture and music, but he began dating a Cuban woman. You have to study your craft. He was Willie Chirino’s musical director for seven years and credits him with being a great mentor and his work with Chirino 'the most significant collaboration to date' -- Roitstein was in his mid-20s at the time. And he is very proud of have worked with some of the greatest talents in the genre: Oscar de León, Ricardo Montaner, Celia Cruz

There came a time at which he felt ready to make the transition from producer to artist

After making everyone else’s music a priority, he felt it was time to do his own thing. Roitstein says he knows how to make things sound good, but Palo! is not commercial music and there are no big offers. His evolution from a behind-the-scenes musician and producer to artist had to do more with self-fulfillment and self-actualization than money.
Roitstein totally changed his life to be a full-time artist, giving up a lucrative sideline in multinational advertising; he worked on campaigns for Coca Cola and General Motors.
And to be able to focus on music and reduce the money hustle, which may be a big distraction to an artist, he accepted a full-time teaching position at Miami Dade College. This has allowed for a stable existence in which Roitstein can focus on his two loves: music and teaching.

Would classical music training have prevented James Brown from performing Talking Loud and Not Saying Nothing?

With a flashback of Plácido Domingo singing the blues, I ask if classical training somehow dampens the ability to improvise or incorporate different elements in a particular genre of music; in other words, does classical music training disable the funk part of your brain. Roitstein states his classical training prepared him well for his journey into Cuban music because mastering one’s instrument of choice translates to every genre.
Music in general is emotional in nature and when playing Jazz and Latin music you forget about technique

Roitstein’s exploration of Afrocuban and American funk music led to his forming Gopalo, in 2003, with fellow artists Leslie Cartaya (vocals), Philbert Armenteros (vocals, percussion), Ed Calle (sax) and Raymer Olalde (vocals, percussion).

About the band's name

PALO! has many meanings throughout the Spanish-speaking world. In Puerto Rico, we say "Se dio un palo"(he had an alcoholic beverage) "Le calleron a palo"(they beat the hell out of him) and the others I won't share.
But the name of the band has a much simpler explication, having to do with linguistic limitations and not culture. On the way to a gig, a Cuban man asked
¿Usted toca con el grupo, no? ¿Cómo tú te llamas?
Steve.
¿Estick?
No, Steven.
Sí, Estick.

Palo became Steve Roitstein’s nickname among Cuban musicians and friends.

Will there be a collaboration with his brother David Roitstein?

His brother, the pianist, David Roitstein along with bassist Charlie Haden, created the CalArts Jazz Program and he is Chair of the department. There is the possibility of a collaboration, but not on dueling pianos. When I ask if he and his brother would perform together, Roitstein says he does not consider himself a piano virtuoso and claims he’d be embarrassed to play with his brother.

Are . . . you?

Inevitably, as a good writer and tangential journalist, I must ask the question.
“Are you Latino?”
You can never make assumptions about Latinos because we may be descended from Spanish-speaking countries, but race, religion and cultures are varied.
“No, I’m not Latino. I’m a Jewish non-Latino who fell in love with Cuban music as a child, while watching I Love Lucy.”
He was mesmerized by the band on the show, and his interest was piqued as he made friends with Cuban musicians while attending the University of Miami. There were no barriers to his being accepted by Latinos because Roitstein studied Spanish, knew the music business inside and out and, most of all, he was respectful and appreciative for every opportunity to work with Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians.

An artist must handle his or her business

"Representing yourself at clubs and festivals outside of Miami can be difficult because we're well-established in South Florida, says Roitstein, "but in other cities, people haven't heard of us, so it's a cold call."
Roitstein enjoys social media because he has the opportunity to meet strangers and find out about their interests while promoting his music.

On the Artist side of life

PALO!'s first CD This is Afro-Cuban Funk is available on http://gopalo.com/and on ¡Tunes. PALO! began a residency at Hoy Como Ayer , and they have performed at Transit Lounge, Jazid, Carnaval Miami and SOBS, one of my favorite NYC spots.
PALO! continues to expand its audience.
The most satisfying thing about this journey for Roitstein is the communication on the stage. "People really love the music, it makes them move and the audience shares the joy of creating this music with the band. I wanted to combine AfroAmerican funk and Afro-Cuban music, expressing what I love," he says.

And that is what Steve Roitstein does.

¡Go, PALO!

Watch PALO!http://www.youtube.com/user/palotv
Book PALO!
Steve Roitstein
PALO! Miami's Afro-Cuban Funk Band
305-332-1338 (mobile)
steve at gopalo.com
http://gopalo.com
http://facebook.com/gopalo
http://twitter.com/gopalo
http://youtube.com/gopalo
https://foursquare.com/gopalo
text PALO to 65047 to connect with PALO! via text.

Latinalogue, Puerto Rican Nonfiction Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:30:00 +0000

© 2011 Odilia Rivera Santos

After some walks, writing a couple of hundred poems, beginning to submit work to journals and magazines after a five-year hiatus, hours in the sun, communing with nature and nuture in Harlem and in other parts of town, I settle down and read the long instruction manual on how to publish an ebook through Smashwords. Ok, it is only 71 pages, most of which, I was able to delete from my memory files quickly. Reading an instruction manual has always been and maybe always will be the dull part. Anyway, on June 27, 2011, I began my cottage industry of uploading and hawking carefully hand-embroidered napkins and linens - Céline reference.
My slim volume of nonfiction essays is ready for purchase and I look forward to your feedback and darling letters.
Latinalogue, Puerto Rican Nonfiction Part I by Odilia Rivera Santos

I've got the right to do nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 19:55:00 +0000

©2011 Odilia Rivera Santos

I started this particular blog to slow down my life. At its inception, I was a busy bee, living and working in Harlem. I worked nine to five with adult English as a Second Language students, ran on my lunch break, went to the gym at 6a.m. and then, took on a part-time teaching position at night working with happy immigrants. As you might suspect, my nervous system felt as if someone had put it in a frying pan on full heat to burn to a crisp. A friend of mine told me years ago I needed to let God do some work too. I always believed in a universal spirit energy that binds us all together along with what we deem inanimate objects.
But my friend got me thinking my God might occasionally need a solid form. I wondered how my God should love, look, what kind of accent he/she should have, and I figured gender could be a changeable thing - perhaps, the best approach being to give a gender in accordance with what I viewed as issues handled best by a male or female.
I sometimes dressed God up as Alfie, Michael Caine's verson, and imagined a sermon in a cockney accent, or as Zora Neale Hurston, in her boastful pose from her semi-autobiographical autobiography Dirt Tracks on a Road, and once in a while, I let Miles Davis take the reins but I watched him closely.
It has been said momentum creates momentum and if you want something done, it's best to ask a busy person and all that. But I have a feeling busy-ness implies faithlessness, a belief only I am at work in all of this and not God, in a cool 1960s suit, flowing white robes, Sunday best hat ready for church in 1930s Florida or back to a diaphanous industrial strength thread keeping us secured to one another in times of doubt and in spiritual droughts.

Buy my e-book! Latinalogue, Puerto Rican Nonfiction Part I
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Oh, Facebook take too much time no good (my poor translation from the Cantonese)

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:32:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

March 19, 2011 at 9:08am
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Odilia-Rivera-Santos/194905257200694

Several people have joked about the time I spend on Facebook lately and I guess I felt the need to clarify.
While on fb, I have written over 200 poems, 25 pages of a new novel, fifty or more short essays, a screenplay of which I am especially proud - for a 90 minute film, and about 30 monologues for actresses.
I wrote an 8-page monologue for Frances Lozada to read on Sunday in between status updates.
I do not post everything I write on my blogs.
And I have read a lot -- I read all the articles I post to FB in addition to books. In order to be a good writer, you must be a good reader : p
If you want people to see your work, you must use social media.
Why not hire an intern to handle your social media?
I have met a lot of people, who are handling social media for individuals and organizations, who cannot spell or come up with anything interesting to say. I'm sure there are some who do an outstanding job but I haven't met them yet.
I don't believe you can outsource your personality, education and life experience.
Also, a writer's life is solitary; while I go to lots of plays and music performances, I don't go to mingling events too often.
The immediacy with which you can have interaction with those who appreciate or dislike your work is very useful to me as a writer.
I don't need an editor, but it is important to see if people understand what I am saying or if I have written something in such a way that readers are unclear about my ideas.
How do I make time to manage FB, Twitters, and the other 30 sites?
I never watch TV and avoid pointless conversations.
What do I consider a pointless conversation?
Celebrity gossip, unless it is a situation affecting public policy
Other people's sex habits - do it however you like. I don't care
Who a person thinks I look like
Whose religion is better
Beauty tips
Everyday gossip -- blather about someone's love life, baby daddy, etc - this is different from speaking with someone about how to handle a difficult situation or person.

Buy my e-book! Latinalogue, Puerto Rican Nonfiction Part I

Interview with Guy Routté of W.A.R. Media: Building Relationships toward a Music Empire

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:34:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos
http://twitter.com/#!/bezotes

Guy Routté belongs in the driver’s seat.
He navigates different environments, personalities, trivial and life-changing decisions without forgetting his mission:
to help develop great musical artists. His musical interests are varied; he has managed R& B, Rock, and Hip Hop artists.
At the moment, he is at work in the Hip Hop genre, the most popular art form in the world, dedicating his talents to those in the genre who are thinking artists.
He is an expert in managing relationships and his instincts regarding talent are impressive. As I watch him working with Pharoahe Monch in the recording studio, I see how beautifully myriad threads of his life experience are woven into this important project. Routté and Monch are both perfectionists so the process is not easy. And Monch’s album W.A.R. will be the first project under Routté’s label as a joint venture with Duck Down. He claims to defer to the talent, after many heated discussions, most of the time.
From an early age, Routté was an astute observer, watching his aunt Loretta and the rest of his extended family listen to Al Green, he was impressed with the power of music and how it could elicit different emotional responses and bring people together.
As a kid, he was told he was tone deaf and never studied music formally, yet he has spent the majority of his life as a willing pupil in the music industry. When I express disappointment that someone would discourage his studying music as a child, Routté tells me he will study piano in 2011.
During elementary school, at around the age of twelve, he first heard The Sugar Hill Gang, Force MCs, Grand Master Flash, Treacherous Three, Cosmic Force, The Fly Four, and Dougie Fresh. Routté says this new music really spoke to him and his friends. Force MCs became his mentors, taking him to shows where he began to formulate ideas about where his love of Hip Hop might lead him.
During the summer, he went on tour with Force MCs, whose named had changed to Force MDs, and watched shows in which they opened for New Edition and other high-profile groups of the era.
Listening to Hip Hop, Routté could appreciate the complexity inherent in this improvisational rhythmic art and the acuity of mind needed to engage a demanding audience.
And he was fortunate enough to have gone to Mary Bergtraum High School because Hip Hop was an unofficial part of the curriculum; young teachers encouraged students to incorporate rap in school performances.
He mentions that Run DMC was a great influence because they were the first group to make records and videos without dressing up; they embraced street culture and took it to the masses. During the Reagan era, Black kids were not represented in the media so when Run DMC came along, Routté says that he and his friends felt as if they were looking at themselves on a big screen. The community went from a subculture to a culture.
Routté was always a talented writer; this combined with his experience on tour with The Force MCs motivated him to form a group with his brother Special D, his cousins Lord Shun and Chilly Love, and his long-time friend Jay Bee along with turntablist Mr. 1derful. After several incarnations, the crew became Soul Shocking MCs.
The Soul Shocking MCs performed together for two years; some of its members began breakdancing and formed The Fresh Style Rockers, touring the world.
One of the qualities that has made Routté a great success in getting projects completed and working with incredibly talented artists is his keen eye and ear for talent combined with a willingness to be mentored and mentor others.
He has great respect for talent, and an openness to any change that will improve the quality of his work, which requires a great deal of confidence and humility. As a young kid, he gleaned a lot from his interactions with older males who were already successful performers or determined to pursue a career in Hip Hop and when his family expressed disappointment that he had dropped out of college after two years, he countered the criticism with stories about sitting down to talk with Quincy Jones and other internationally-respected artists and producers.
Routté emphasizes the importance of choosing how one learns best, and for him, the choice was to learn through working in the industry he loved and hoped to improve.
His long involvement with Hip Hop artists, his writing skills and growing confidence made Routté consider aiming for the elusive and much sought-after recording career; Routté and his friend Frost formed a duo called Aftershock. Aftershock was signed by Virgin
But it was not quite the right fit and Routté began questioning his choice of career, thinking he was not as happy as he should be considering he had a recording contract with Virgin, a major hit in the West Coast, and Aftershock had performed at the Cinco de Mayo Festival in front of 500,00 people in Phoenix, Arizona along with Jodeci, Boys to Men and eighteen other acts. He had the respect of his peers and friends but the experience was not fulfilling; he began to reconsider his aspirations and reassess where his true talents might lie.
Routté says that he was not interested in fame or being the focal point and did not consider himself skilled enough as a rapper to be on stage.
It is impressive to hear him speak of reaching for his calling as opposed to working Aftershock as a commodity in the way a typical businessperson would. He turned his back on a sure thing with the accompanying adulation because he had higher aspirations.
Routté was clear that his forte was not rapping or performing, and as a fan of greatness, he vowed to find a place in music in which his greatness would assert itself.
Aftershock was a duo with two people who were not particularly interested in being performers, so after the second album, getting one of their songs in the film Sliver, and playing five dates with Paula Abdul, they disbanded.
When I ask Routté if he ever regrets the decision to leave his performer life behind, he says no without hesitation.
At the age of 23, in the 1990s, his performer career morphed into a management one. After Aftershock was no more, he got his first experience as a business person in the music industry by way of managing Shyheim. After Routté helped Shyheim land a record deal with Virgen, others began asking his opinion about recording. He also managed Goodfellaz, Corey Glover, and The Family Stand. And in the late nineties, Routté managed his old friends Force MDs. In his management career, he met with varying levels of success but most importantly, the relationships remain intact and Routté occasional works and socializes with former clients.
From 2005 to 2007, Routté had a consulting deal with Sony that allowed him the freedom to develop his own business while learning how he did not want to run a business. He was offered a Senior Vice President position at A&R, which he turned down.
Routté and Pharoahe Monch are co-CEOs of W.A.R. Media, which includes a record label under which Pharohe Monch’s next album W.A.R. (We are Renegades) will appear as well as King Reign’s album Nomad. Routté also manages four artists: Pharoahe Monch, Jean Grae, Mela Machinko, and Last American B-Boy. He serves as a consultant for individuals and corporations, coordinating projects from beginning to finish: finding talent, music, DJs, songwriters, videographers.
His favorite part of his work is completing albums because from inception to completion, there are so many pieces of the puzzle that it keeps Routté busy and intellectually-engaged.
He mentions that the music business is changing very rapidly and it is a perfect opportunity for small labels to grow. The brand he is building with W.A.R. is based on seeking greatness, integrity, originality and individualism with real content. Routté states emphatically that his artists are committed and they are writers whose work has real meaning to them and their audience.
Jean Grae represents a great bodacious powerful feminine voice in Hip Hop; he says she is absolutely the most talented person with whom he’s ever worked and someone who needed an advocate in the music industry. Routté is content with taking on the role.
Pharoahe Monch is, according to Routté, the best MC ever and his creative vision is unmatched.
Guy Routté envisions W.A.R. Media as a business geared toward the urban consumer, providing content for television and film, and the plan is to delve into fashion as well. He is a hands-on person who relies on the experiential to guide him through the myriad frustrations of working out deals in, out and around the music business. He is truly a person from whom any neophyte could learn enough to start his or her own record company but he doesn’t have time to spare. His integrity is evidenced by the number of friendships and commitments kept throughout his twenty plus years in the business.
Art business can’t be done in a corporate style and adhering to this idea has made Routté a person with whom everyone works in the hopes of being part of that final product.

For those who have asked about the interviews with Pharoahe Monch and Jean Grae, I was slated to interview both but due to their hectic schedules, this will probably not happen. C'est la vie.

Today is Guy Routté's birthday. Happy birthday, Mr. Routté!
http://www.myspace.com/renegademediainc
http://www.myspace.com/pharoahemonch
http://twitter.com/#!/pharoahemonch
http://www.myspace.com/jeangrae
http://twitter.com/#!/jeangrae
http://www.myspace.com/reignmusic
http://www.myspace.com/melalovesyoutoo

An interview with Rhonda Denét, a singer who is the real deal

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:15:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos
http://twitter.com/#!/bezotes

A couple of years ago, I invited everyone I knew to Crudo, a tiny bar in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to see my friend and secret mentor, Rhonda Denét, sing. Her smooth powerful delicate voice wowed everyone and I felt as proud as if she were my sister -- in a way, she is my sister.
I had joined a singer/songwriter group for support and to overcome my lack of enthusiasm about singing in public, but it was the wrong setting to accomplish these goals. As a whole, the group seemed to be overly competitive and the members acted as if they were auditioning for a coveted role in a musical instead of being people united for the purpose of artistic exchange and encouragement. This negative vibe only made me more uncomfortable about “exposing” myself in public.
However, the spirit of endless optimism that resides in me made me think something good would happen anyways.
I was disengaged and ready to go home, but I sang.
After I sang, the woman to my right said the tone of my voice was beautiful. She seemed comfortable, secure and very relaxed – like one of those people who do less comparing with others and more comparing with their former selves.

This was and is Ms. Denét.

When did you figure out that you wanted to be a singer?
When I was 14.
The idea had been floating around my mind since I found my voice at 9 but it all hit home when I did my first starting role as Evillene in my high school production of "The Wiz".

What kind of work have you done to support yourself while pursuing your singing career?
I have been blessed to support myself by working behind the scenes (on the administrative side) in theater, so I've continued to be surrounded by a creative environment.

How do you feel shifting from your day "work mode" to your singing diva mode?
It used to be a maze run when I worked during the day then have to shift into performance mode, now that I'm a full-time artist and less than part-time administrative employee it's a breeze.

What has been the most exciting thing about performing?
The most exciting thing is that people are inspired by what satisfies my soul and the work I do to keep performing. Fans tell me frequently that they are encouraged to realize their own dreams because I continue to grow in mine and share my story.

What has been the most frustrating thing about performing?
Hmm, I guess the most frustrating thing USED TO BE not having enough resources...time, finances, band members. That has all changed for me recently...now that I've met some fabulous musicians that I grow with, and that I have more time to dedicate to my craft, the financial aspect is coming together much better (or I'm finding ways to do things with alternatives to traditional currency, like bartering).

How do you handle self-promotion? Is this difficult for you to do?
I'm learning with each opportunity that comes my way. I used to so dislike the idea of pushing my projects on other people. I've discovered ways to invite people into the experience of my work by sharing "insider" information and that when it's approached that way it feels better. I believe the whole process of self-promotion is tied into my spiritual journey as well and finding a balance with what's real to me.

Do you still work 'regular' jobs or are you singing fulltime?
I converted to full-time singing in May but I still do administrative work part-time. Part of being an artist is realizing and working multiple income streams...so there are several simmering and a few boiling right now.

What kind of schedule do you keep to maintain your sanity and productivity as an artist?
Ask me in a few months, after 20 years of the 9-5 world, it's definitely an adjustment to my way of thinking -- I'm finding what works for me.

What did you accomplish recently that made you very excited about your artistic career?
I'm really proud of bringing a weekly residence to life. I was offered an opportunity by a Brooklyn restaurant owner and have since developed a new band project and found a new home for my creative growth. Working with these 4 people has given me the support and confidence to fly higher than ever.

What would you like to convey to your audience when you perform?
It's my wish that my audience be enveloped in bliss when they are at a RD Experience. Be connected with good people, good music, a comfortably inviting environment, and a message of joy through the music. When I perform that's what I like to experience...being in the moment and feeling at the height of my soul's joy -- I'm committed to inviting folks into that to share those feelings with me.

Check out Rhonda’s sites and upcoming events!
www.rhondadenet.com
www.myspace.com/rhondadenetmusic
www.myspace.com/therhondadenetproject
www.myspace.com/thesheparddenettrio

Interview with Jabari Gray, Renaissance Man and he's Jamaican too

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 05:15:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

I rarely go to parties, so when my friend Frances Lozada invited me to a networking event, I agreed to go with no intention of going. Lozada insisted via text, email and phone calls, so I showed up.
Because I don't watch TV, I could not say if I was air-kissing a celebrity or a struggling actor moonlighting as a pernil salesman at the local cuchifrito joint in Spanish Harlem.
Then I saw Jabari Gray and he caught my eye because he looked like a movie star in the Gary Cooper/ Denzel Washington kind of way. I would say that he is a hybrid.
He glanced over at me and smiled, which I interpreted as a signal to go interview him, which I did. I thought I might hire him for one of my plays and proceeded to ask if he had an agent and other stupid questions that made it obvious that I had no idea that his career was doing just fine without me. Gray appeared on season 11 of Law and Order Special Victims Unit.
He was kind enough to sit down with me on two occasions to discuss his career aspirations and current projects.
Gray has a very interesting background; he was born in Michigan but is of Jamaican descent and has strong ties to his parents' homeland, having lived there from 1977 to 1980. In 1980, after the violent General Election in Jamaica, Gray's parents decided to relocate the family to the U.S. From 1983 to the present, Mr. Gray has returned to Jamaica over a dozen times thereby preserving a strong connection to his family's roots.
Gray's father was a tenured professor at Vassar, and prior to his departure in 2005 to teach at the University of Wisconsin, the elder Gray was chair of the Political Science Department at Vassar College; his mother, Folami Harris, who held a B.A. from City College, chose to be a stay-at-home mom and bake organic bread to sell to the local health food store. She later returned to college to receive a Master's Degree in Public Health. Ms. Harris was an entrepreneur who spent thirteen years in Lusaka, Zambia and Johannesburg, South Africa before returning to the U.S. in 2009. Jabari Gray enjoyed some of the most culturally-enriching experiences of his life while visiting his mom in Harare, Zimbabwe, Cairo, Egypt, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, U.A.E., Capetown and Durban, South Africa, Milan, Italy and Cape Verde. Gray hastens to add that his mother was also a visionary, freedom fighter and educator. His is a family that values an adventurous spirit and education. The family remains close to this day: his brother and sister live in his neighborhood.
He spent his childhood in a stable peaceful environment in upstate New York where he fantasized about either being a comic book artist or professional skateboarder.
His parents were supportive and offered the following advice: do what you would do for free. Their support and sound advice should have allowed him the freedom to choose any career, but Gray was a bit unfocused at the time. He also mentioned that although he was interested in studying art, he wanted a more practical path, as he was not keen on the idea of being a poor artist.
At the age of eighteen, his parents separated, which was a tremendous emotional blow. Mr. Gray saw other kids going through this experience but admits he never expected his parents to go that route; it was a difficult time made slightly easier by his going away to college.
At college, Gray was concerned about being able to earn a living and changed majors three times. After exploring a major in pre-med and psychology, he decided on majoring in Political Science and Sociology.
While an undergrad, Gray studied music from a sociological perspective, wrote a proposal and received a grant to study music and film Fed Up, a documentary on dancehall music and culture in Jamaica. It was a highly enriching experience, as he felt that for the first time, he had a personal connection to the Jamaican music scene and met musicians who accepted and respected him for his genuine interest in Jamaican dancehall culture and music. In making the documentary, one of his main goals was to create a venue to allow musicians to share their experiences. Gray speaks proudly of this experience, establishing rapport with musicians in Jamaica and how helpful they were in connecting him with different studios, singers, and recording engineers.
For Fed Up, Gray interviewed Merciless, Junior Reed, Paul Elliot, Black Mice, Godfather Fresh, Fire Fox, Durango Kid, and African. He also had the assistance of Brian Meeks, and Carolyn Cooper, professors from the University of the West Indies, as well as his father Obika Gray.

After viewing the documentary, I consider it a valuable record of a culture that is little understood outside of Jamaica. The musicians speak of their experience without being censored or analyzed by a so-called expert. It is a project to which Gray intends to return.
Gray makes a valuable contribution to the history of Jamaican dancehall music by providing a forum for the artist/scholar and Jamaican university scholars to speak on the significance of music and culture in the life of Jamaica.
After receiving his B.A. in Political Science and Sociology, Gray again chose the practical path; he chose to go to law school with the idea that he would use his earnings to finance artistic projects. And he chose entertainment law in order to remain in contact with artists.
Things did not go as planned and Gray ended up practicing insurance law, doing contract attorney document review and defense-side corporate litigation. The tedium of his day job was counterbalanced by recording music and he continued to mature as a performer and writer. He also booked print model and TV commercial work.
In 2008, things changed; after a work slowdown, Gray finally let go of what had seemed practical.
Gray let go of his lawyer life to finally pursue what had seemed impractical. Although he hated law school, he credits the experience with giving him the organizational skills and tenacity needed to pursue a music and acting career.
He has found life outside law a lot more in tune with his original aspirations. He is now a full-time artist. He has appeared in seven episodes in season 11 of Law and Order Special Victims Unit, and has continued to get commercials and modeling work.
Gray just completed his first speaking part in a major motion picture, Man on a Ledge, starring Sam Worthington, which will be released in 2012. Fans can also catch Gray in an independent comedy, NYC XY, in which he has a starring role, due for release in the Spring of 2011.

And we return to the beginning and Jabari Gray's first love: music. Mr. Gray speaks in the sedate tones of a highly-educated professional but slips seamlessly into his homegrown Jamaican dialect in his dancehall music recordings. He incorporates the two worlds of intellectualism and street culture with the same grace and ease with which he saunters across the room. He is a musician at heart with the voice, instincts and musicianship to succeed; his music is danceable, fun and most importantly, as authentic as Jabari Gray himself.

Gray will be an M.C. and host for DJ Rekka at a New Year's party in New Delhi, India. 
http://www.jubionline.com/
http://www.jabarigray.com
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2346900/

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focus on music

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:38:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

Music was a constant in my family.
My mother always loved music and admired artists more than anyone but not with the 'celebrity vulture' mentality. She loved their talent and felt it important to always keep track of who was performing in town.
I see a connection between my mother's love of music and the poverty in which she grew up; listening to music at the beach under the palm trees as the sun set was her carnival, dancing was her travel and being told she was the most beautiful woman in town was her wealth.

My mother from all accounts was a very beautiful, tall Black woman with flawless skin, kinky hair, long muscular legs, large breasts and a tiny waist -- all the requisites for Puerto Rican beauty.
She was very comfortable with her body -- she would yell at me wearing only a pair of panties and bra. I would look at my mother's body and wonder how you could have nine children and still look so new.

Now, to my surprise, my mother is an elderly woman who has suffered several brain hemorrhages due to unaddressed high blood pressure issues, her body has thinned, losing her glorious voluptuousness, and she is no longer tall. Her voice has become a whisper, and when we speak, she reminds me that I am lucky to look like her and she also mentions that I inherited her singing voice.
My mother Ramona had an amazing singing voice, and her speaking voice was also powerful and captivating; when my father was courting her, she would sit high up on a mango tree limb and sing. She would watch him look around, trying to find her because there were so many trees he couldn't discern from where his earthbound mermaid's voice came.

CONCERTS
My mother would always make sure that we had money to go to a concert. As a child, I went to see El Gran Combo, Celia Cruz, Lucecita Benítez, Raphael, Tito Puente and on and on. This was my life before the English language. We listened to boleros from the 1920s to 1950s, Flamenco music, rancheras, salsa of course and romantic ballads that made us laugh. I especially loved to listen to Bomba and Plena; it was spiritual party music, the music of Afrocentric ritual and background to holiday celebrations and making pasteles.
Sometimes, my mother would hear a piece of music and she would clap her hands once as if to grasp a memory drifting by and the stories followed about where she was the first time she heard the song and whether it was B.E. or A.E. (before Ernesto or after Ernesto, my father)

We would stand on line at the Southern Boulevard theater with a lot of other displaced persons, mainly Puerto Rican, and talk about the trials and tribulations we had suffered to get tickets.
I was six when I took a good look at the building and thought how shabby and plain a package it was for an ethereal experience that brought us together and brought to us a respite from the feeling of loss we all felt in this new land.

THE SOUNDTRACK

She still loves to listen to music; the irritation of not being able to communicate anymore diminishes as she listens to music that made her jump and dance as a girl. Her soundtrack remains and continues to take her to carnival as she slips away.

ALTERNATE ENDING WITH MUSIC

I have rewritten my mother's life in the form of a fairytale; she is a benevolent, beautiful, strong, young powerful ruler who resides near the ocean without pain nor worry and she dances Bomba better than anyone you've ever seen.

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Puerto Rican Manners -- my mother's version

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:29:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos
http://twitter.com/bezotes

1. Never ask for something. Wait until someone offers.
2. If someone offers something, say yes, thank you or say no, thank you.
3. If someone comes to your house, always offer a beverage and snack even if it is the plumber.
4. If you say you are having a party, make sure there is a hot meal, snacks, drinks and separate spaces for dancing and for sitting to eat.
5. If you go to someone's house, bring something: a bottle of wine, fruit, juice, music. It is a token of appreciation for having been invited. It is not to feed one individual's materialism. It is to show how grateful you are that a person would allow you into his or her sanctuary

It stems from a belief in reciprocity and energy movement. Without reciprocity, there is stagnancy.

And this is the Santería religion of my mother and she has practiced Santería for 66 years, so I don't argue with her.

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Philosophers and hustlers

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 11:30:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

They are everywhere -- those people who will expend tremendous amounts of energy to get something from you. They tell multi-layered stories, which are supposed to lull you into belief because you imagine no one would be so ridiculous as to make up such a long boring story chock-full of details, but you're wrong.
The fact is hustlers exist, and they lie even when it would be just as easy to tell the truth. Most hustlers can only thrive on the surface because their focus is limited, so once you begin to ask more questions, their stories dissolve because the intellectual depth just isn't there. The hustler who combines street smarts and intellectual prowess is a rare bird -- these are the ones who appear to have received a PhD in their subject area, the 'art experts' who outsmart art experts. The regular hustlers regurgitate information they've siphoned from books, websites and conversations, knowing something sounds good without understanding the content. This is the hustler who flits from one group to another at a party dropping gems and leaving before he/she runs into someone who will challenge him or her in any way.

Hustling is a kind of addiction -- I've watched hustlers go from selling drugs on the street to selling products in a store with the same tenacity and amorality driving a need to conquer and get money in his or her hand.

The hustler lifestyle has its own infrastructure and hang-out spots.
I think of the narcotics hunters community with whom I dealt while working in a hospital. Sometimes, the word community is used not to describe people who help each other become better or more ethical but to describe a group of people with one common goal: to provide a cover story for each other or to provide another sucker lead.
The narcotics hunter community had their own underground railroad to help them find the newly-minted doctor who was careless about drug prescriptions or an experienced one who was playing along.
Imagine the guy whose 'boys' back up his lies to hide infidelities from a girlfriend or wife or the woman who does the same with her 'girls.'

The hustler talks so eloquent and sweet, but never follows through on promises -- they are made in the spur of the moment to zoom in for the kill, seal the deal, etc.
It is the hustler mentality at work; this mentality allows for an amoral stance and that means in the middle of a con, the confidence trickster enters another world in which only he/she and his/her defenders exist; repercussions are forgotten, as if one's actions did not always have tentacles reaching in and outward, possible negative outcomes not alluded to and the reward seen as a finite neat packaged pleasure to concern no one but the beneficiary.

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Rain gear and geared up for work again and again

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:45:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

My mother who always had a special kind of Caribbean Black stoicism taught me to work through any situation. And although my first impulse was to sit in a coffee shop and stare at a nonexistent moon, I rallied around like a trooper and took the train.
I let it do what it does -- be late, be slow, jostle my body against another's -- while a tourist who did not look urban stared at me. I haven't a clue why my activities and demeanor would be more entertaining than a book. I was typing some poems on my Mac, which has seen better days because it has taken trips to the sidewalk and wood floor of my apartment.

If I were the tourist, I would read a book or magazine and leave the locals alone.
Why read me?
But it is not for me to judge and no harm done. She was a blip on the geologic radar.

Today is a day made for philosophers, poets and wood nymphs. I am here in expectation of wonderful enchantments. I am here across the street from that abandoned structure, which brings Old Havana to mind with its flaked gray paint accentuated by a slip of pink through a window.
I am here trying to make a painting with my eye and words of which I could spare a few.

Today is the kind of day for introspection and wonderment.

Even through my boots, my toes are feeling the cool of the first rough licks of winter.
Here, on this corner, now inhabited by tourists and bad pastry, I imagine Henry Miller must have strolled hand-in-hand with June and Anais.

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The long ponder about self-publishing

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 16:07:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

Many of you don't know this, but I am stubborn -- which has its up and down side.
I have considered all the paths to publishment of my novels. After sending them to publishers, agents, etc., I begin to think of self-publishing as a more progressive or empowering option.
I guess publishing houses think of branding first. I will not write a Black Puerto Rican version of Sex and the City. I don't care about those women and the fact is that the focus of the show is just revamped 1950s ideas about getting a man.
It was a show about courtesans, except, unlike courtesans who were educated and prized for their intelligence and ability to engage in discourse on art, philosophy and literature, the women of Sex spoke about bullshit: shoes and how to behave in order to please a man. Very retro.
I did see the show for the first time on a plane headed to Spain in 2005 and realized it was just consumerist porno. I watched it as a sociologist while I folded laundry at home and needed a light distraction from the taint of housewifery.
I won't write a gang girl novel because although I saw plenty of that kind of life growing up in the Boogie Down, I was never of it just simply walking past it.

To self-publish requires me to change perspective.
I know that the urban literature genre is about writing in the dialect used and about subjects considered relevant in urban ghettos. Dante did it and it worked well for him.
Some of us who have been nurtured by our experience in the ghetto have different interests and concerns. I am an urban intellectual who reads voraciously and has no baby daddy drama.
No Tyrones in my life, so I don't need to call him to come git his shit.(Badu reference; clever, no?)

Self-publishing does give one control over creative work and considering the many times artists' work is abused, that is a good thing. I think.
Anyway, I would love to hear about others' experience in the self-publishing world.

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Writing Tips and Tips for Tips for the Artist Life

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 14:38:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

Many of us have been tortured souls and have created great art through and from a source rife with pain.
The problem with setting up these connections, of creation and pain, is that the nervous system will eventually tire out.
We wear out our myelin sheaths with the constant banging against our nervous system walls.
Our bodies have a memory, so when we create from pain, it stands to reason that at the start of a writing, painting or filmmaking project, our bodies might go into that depressive state in which negative emotional chemicals begin to flow.
In the slaughter of animals in order for the meat to be Kosher, the animals cannot see other animals slaughtered because fear unleashes toxic chemicals.

Fear and pain cannot be the source of creativity but we can use creativity to climb out of the darkness of suffering.

The first rule of being an artist is to be satisfied with your work; yes, you, all alone without awards or a friend at a major publishing house and maybe three people who care about what you have to say.
If you are suffering, as so many artists I know seem to be, make an attempt to get to the root of suffering and deal with it head on. Perspective is usually the culprit; it's like looking at a photograph because what is beautiful from one angle can be hideous from another.
And sometimes, people don't suffer from depression but have been taught to think like a depressive -- fearful, overanalyzing each experience and full of apprehension.

Keep your day job because everyone needs to eat and a place to sleep and an occasional dinner out in a restaurant with friends. I knew an artist who quit his day job to devote himself full-time to filmmaking and ended up in an apartment with nothing but a mattress on the floor and no food in the fridge. He did less art work because he was so worried about using up all his savings to pay bills and he couldn't sleep. When he called me to complain and whine, I told him to get a job and he hung up on me. But he got a job.
Sometimes, people say they will not have energy to do their art if they have a day job but if you have no food to eat and can't sleep because of mounting bills, you will have even less energy for work.
The best kind of job for an artist is one that helps him/her cultivate a personality trait he/she would like to have.
For example, if you are losing your sense of play and joy and becoming humorless, working with children on art projects would help. When we become closed off to some aspect of life, emotion or segment of the population, our creativity suffers.

Do your art everyday. I have spoken to artists who say they need a new computer to write or a writing workshop, painters need a studio, etc., but that's bullshit. Boethius wrote The Consolation of Philosophy in prison awaiting execution. If you want to do it, you will do it. If you resist doing your art, maybe you are a masochist or not really an artist.
If you are a writer, take pictures. If you are a visual artist, write. If you are a spoken word artist, be quiet and make a sculpture. Variety inspires us.

Learn from others but don't compare yourself to anyone. You can learn a lot from other artists but instead of trying to imitate or compare yourself with them, think about the essence of that individual's creation. I love Nabokov and Kurt Weill and realize that it is their independence of spirit and belief in their work that thrills me. They turned their art into a world, so that moving from one country to another was not fraught with suffering.
Wherever they traveled, they were home.
Home in Art, which is where I live.

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Why be normal? MTA's new motto

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 00:28:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

The announcement might have been broadcast from the moon, so we stand idly.
Helpless commuters who paid a fare with the promise that they would get us there -- the new motto should be Why be Normal?
It is rush hour but there's no rush. They mess with our ability to get with the program and be on automatic, which is safe. Being on automatic is what really gets us there.

Instead, we wait all dressed up, stood up by our collective prom date.
The freshness of our clothes and vigor for the workday diminishing by the minute.

RUSH! DON'T THINK!

When dedication to the here and now is not natural, it loses momentum easily and you begin to dream: an early movie, loosening the tie or ties, slipping off the medium-size comfort heels that you only wear for work and on with the sloppy boots with a torn sole.
Although we can't return to subsistence farming, we can skip the commute through discarded lives and a stench to rival that of any third world slum.

Scamper up and out into the day with a sigh and relieved to not be at the mercy of whoever manipulates your ability to follow through with your workday, whoever wakes you from the somnambulist state that would get you there, so now, you are left dreaming for real.

On the upside outside, the early morning shimmers against a brand new luxury hotel and reflects an orange light -- a light that reminds you of that winter years ago when we strolled through Central Park, behaving like tourists in the land of the working.

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The League of Women Folders

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:20:00 +0000

I am not sure what it is about the laundromat but I really cannot stand to be in one. The twirling clothes, jingle of change and the League of Women Folders all make me highly uncomfortable.
The League speaks passionately about other people who seem to have nothing but crazy-ass stuff happening in their lives constantly and then, I begin to notice that they blend real and telenovela characters in their conversation.
One woman turns to me to say, "He's gay and that's between him and God, right?"
I say, "Yes. Ok."
Really, I just want to do my laundry and leave - unperturbed and head empty.
A Zen Master of laundry.
These ladies talk incessantly about the one who just left the laundromat as if she were banished forever from their tribe and when she returns, they open up and give her her space back. Together, they complain about husbands, Americans, children, the weather, politicians who have extramarital affairs and the Census.
I mean, damn! Why did they come to my house so many times!
They have so much laundry that it warrants its own gigantic industrial-size hefty bag.
I wonder if The League is authentically tired of the homemaker life or if it is pure gab, a way to pass the time.
There is something in their ennui that is too close to home to bear; I think of women in my family who chose family over education and regret not having had a worklife.
The League doesn't even attempt to engage me this time; we exchanged faint smiles and as I left, I am sure one of them said, "Did you see that one? She just threw everything in a bag! Why would her husband put up with that?!"
But that is just my vivid imagination at work.

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Working with Humans: Daredevils

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:35:00 +0000

While working in Harlem, I met many women who were survivors of domestic violence, and who had been or were homeless. In my mind, they were quickly and easily divided into two groups: the anxiety-ridden and the daredevils.
The daredevils saw all life experience as an obstacle course in which the body, mind, spirit and sanity got a workout; they were warriors because these women welcomed the challenge with never a doubt that they would somehow get out. And they were daredevils for their impulse to self-sabotage -- to completely trample possibilities as if stasis and sanity were the enemy.
Theirs were lives filled with so much tragedy and mishaps over which they had no control that I begin to think self-sabotage was a way to control disaster.
They expected something or someone to ruin their plans and felt empowered by doing the damage themselves instead of waiting for an abusive lover or family member to step in.
But the daredevils had a strong survival instinct and if you could make them believe that getting an education was an element of survival, they would fall into line.
These women were not familiar with stability; it was that distant relative that visited infrequently and didn't remember what grade you were in. You know the one.
The daredevils knew how to fight but if there was no fight to be fought, they were lost.

One of my favorite daredevils was a woman named Female.
I saw the name on the roster and called her over to make corrections.

They forgot to put your name on the roster.
No, that's right. My name is Female.
Female?
My mother was delivering me in the hospital, my father died and there was a big mess, so she left the hospital with the bracelet that said Female _______________. The lady in the hospital said she could go back and change the name, but nobody did.

I was awe-struck that no one in the family would consider returning to the records office in the hospital to give her a name but I noticed that the name was also a source for a great story that encompassed all that her family and childhood was.

In Puerto Rico, they said the name in three parts like a Spanish word: Fe ma le.
Nobody knew what it meant.

Do you want to change your name?
No. I like it.

I cannot say anything else about Female.
I can say that she was clear about how to get in and out of trouble and that was part of the problem.

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Twister

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:49:00 +0000

repose and reflection do not seem to be in the emotion lexicon of an adrenaline junkie. I use the word lexicon because emotions are a language -- one that we do not necessarily learn at home.
I know what it's like to live an adrenaline-full existence with flushed cheeks, bad language and heart palpitations. I dipped into the adrenaline jar through my one and only addiction: overworking.
Sometimes, home becomes unwelcoming and unhomelike and you seek a reprieve from its spiritual vanquishment.
Your reasoning during highly adrenalized times is devoid of reason.
Adrenaline is a terrible driver that ignores the speed limit; it is the perpetual teenager whose only aim is to be astray and lead others there.
While a low-level adrenaline junkie may never commit a crime, (s)he might break the energy bank -- thereby leaving the adrenal glands shriveled and near death.
The low-level adrenaline junkie discovers at a young age that (s)he has a propensity for triumph in the face of adversity.
This is a wonderful boost to that which should be small and powerful, the ego.
I have known many in my life who only feel alive inside the ring, facing down the next disaster.
The fight consumes all other life forms like a California wildfire like no other.
Back to repose and reflection.
I am definitely a reposer and a reflector. I have already enjoyed all the dumb nonsense any one human should have to endure.

Those in it are in it up to their eyeballs; no, they are in it past their eyeballs cause they can't see anymore.
Freneticism takes over and you imagine if freneticism were a religion, the pastor would have a big snake around his neck and he'd call each bite of the snake a revelation.
The congregation would be strewn on the ground and appear as if they were playing Twister except there wouldn't be any Twister mats.
It all goes to say that this is me riffing on how we avoid those things too overpowering to handle in the moment with overdoing; adrenaline is a natural painkiller and working too much allowed me to postpone mourning the murders of my nephew and cousin. I did social work to avoid the social suicides and literal suicides of those I loved.
I hope this isn't too many images for you at one time.
Anyway, now, go get some rest.

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Daily obsessions

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:54:00 +0000

I have been interested in politics since I was a child because my parents read all the papers and always talked about politicians. They would stand on line for ten hours to vote for dog catcher. I do take a break here and there from politics in my mind, but to others, i never really take a break. it is difficult not to politicize everything, seeing how one thing affects another and how we are all swimming in a sea of political effluvia.

However, for your sake and mine, I will write off the top of my head about things already mentioned in an oblique or head-on kind of way. I have my obsessions and one of them is to hear people say a kind word to one another here and there - - to end the moronic competitions into which we inadvertently enter and say how we admire, appreciate or love one another.
Eulogize the living instead of the dead at a wake where half the people will not understand what you're talking about or know the person you knew.

And the writer moves to the topic of love.
I went to an artist weekend in the woods at a painter's house where everyone brought food and prepared it. People slept on mattresses in different rooms, played their instruments in the living room and took showers outside under the moonlight. Some people brought tents and slept on the lawn. For me, the pleasantness wore off quickly because there were a lot of people in the space and I am not a fan of being around a lot of people for a long period of time. Everyone was curious about me and some people actually followed me from room to room and one woman entered the bathroom, which had a broken lock, while I was showering because she wanted to see me naked. The attention was a little too aggressive for me.
As I put vegetables on the table to make beans, I noticed a woman, sitting at the table, riveted. I assumed she had never cooked before and wanted to learn. As a girl growing up in a very traditional Puerto Rican family, I learned to cook, sew, and crochet as if my life depended on it, but in the United States, I saw that girls did not receive the same instruction.
The girls in the U.S. learned how to order take out.
I finally looked up at the woman and smiled because it felt awkward to cut vegetables in silence for an audience. The woman smiled and said, "I'm sorry for staring; it's just that you're so beautiful."
I thanked her for the compliment and then, a French photographer with a fancy camera starting taking pictures of me. He told me the way I greeted people was 'lovely.'
My boyfriend's friend said, "Don't tell her those things. It's not good to pay too many compliments."
His idea was that the way you hold on to a woman was to never show or say how you feel, to let her believe that the relationship continued, not because she was in any way great or unique , but out of habit.
I, on the other hand, believe in public and private displays of affection and admiration; without a caress or a kind word, I will assume the other person doesn't care.
If there are games to be played, let them go on without me. I will say you're beautiful and dashing and I love you without hesitation and upon not hearing my thoughts reciprocated, I will walk away without hesitation, assuming that with me, you were just passing the time, shooting the breeze, standing on the porch to watch cars whizz by.

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writing, reading and music

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 12:11:00 +0000

i am returning to my first love or should i say to the love that fuels or serves as the foundation for all other loves? i will begin taking classes in music composition in the spring because it is a language that i learned quickly, but like all languages, without practice, all is lost. everything in my life is music and it is what i value most. i was a musician for a long time and will return to this practice happily and will definitely have my music up on the Internets by 2011. i realize that it is a process i need to control in order to find it productive and fulfilling.
the other course of study is Portuguese. And if you know me personally, you know that I am always studying something because it is supremely exciting to learn. my brain demands attention as does my heart, spirit, body.
If all goes according to plan, I will be brushing up on my Portuguese in Bahia in June. I might sign up for a drumming and language class. I rather travel with a goal in mind that to be a tourist zombie-walking her walk through museums.
Stay tuned and thank you for reading.

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Axis of two evils

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 19:33:00 +0000

there was a time at which it mattered and I did yearn for it, but now, I don't care.
Granta and The New Yorker will never published anything I write and it doesn't matter.
I have no ancestors that I know of who were kings, no beautiful pictures because there was no money for cameras or professional one-horse-town photographers; we had only stories to tell and our eyes as a camera.
my grandparents did not save some ceremonial robes sewn with gold thread in a rosewood box for their granddaughter to hold up in show and tell.
we are ordinary in those terms and extraordinary in ways that would not matter in certain circles; those circles full of people drooling on each other over the people with whom they are connected.
we were not connected.
we were quite disconnected i think.
we were just Black Puerto Rican warriors in a small ramshackle town, which we packed up and transported to the mainland.
someone teaches you that poverty is a crime and the solution is that evil over there that attempts to disregard you and siphon out some of your culture just for a thrill and perhaps to experience the euphoria of power over supplicants?
lostness would surely ensue and to submit at this point to another's way
to photograph life's circumlocutions . . . is impossible.

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Train Snapshots

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:40:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

I am on the train headed deep into the Boogie Down.
A man who looks like that fake portrait of Jesus with eyes that follow you is on his knees begging. He has inched his way from one end of the train to the other on his knees.
His blond hair matted in chunks as if someone had mushed in a mixture of rubber cement and mud. And his eyes foggy as if his windshield wiper were broken. I refuse to interact - - my eyes sit on one word of Travels with Herodotus because I have to pay attention.
Fake Portrait of Jesus inches toward me.
Dragging himself on his knees slowly like a horror movie except that the object of his attention is not running.
I keep an eye on his hands, which is what you do with unpredictable characters.
Fake Portrait is now settled in supplication pose slightly to my left, not right in front of me. In fighterly body language logic, this means he does not want a real confrontation.
He simply wants to shame me. But it doesn't work; I recognize his as an arrogant false humility.
I still have my head phones on, listening to Maurice Brown.
Through the trumpet, I hear some remark about my coffee.
I am holding a Starbucks cup and Fake resents this.
Fake wonders out loud why I buy coffee from Starbucks -- why would I spend money on myself that I could give to a crackhead?
I glance at him as if to say something along the lines of please don't make me hit you, and he looks down, stops talking and drags himself out of the car and into the next one where a new audience awaits.

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missionaries among themselves

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:30:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

I am in a remote outpost in a sort of siberia that became unfamiliar as years went by and I vagabonded my way away from here. I am a missionary among my own people, but the only brainwashing is in regard to self-love - slowly making my way through the thicket of horrid lies they've been fed about themselves and their circumstances so they can see worth not lack and potential instead of misery; they see a foreignness in me because i appear to be satisfied and not scrambling, not because we look like strangers.
as i rode the train, idea after idea came to me - please don't view me as a conduit. Ideas flow because I spend time thinking and because every experience has relevance. I am focused even when I appear to be adrift.
When people make stupid remarks about Black people because they don't know I am black, I correct not their words but the fact that they uttered them.
You are allowed to think these things but they are hurtful when unleashed and I suspect that held in, they would damage a soul just for thinking them.
People are sometimes careless with words, creating piles of litter in a mind already nearly full.
When people express surprise that I am Puerto Rican because they say I appear too intelligent, I tell them how glad I am to have received a solid liberal arts education, which prevents me from saying such incredibly ignorant things about any ethnic group.
We grow and change and encompass many things in our lives and that is exciting to me.
I know certain ethnic groups see in themselves leadership and the right to possess all that they want; in my own racial/ethnic self, I see greatness and power, which came to me in life and in dreams.

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and for those who do

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:58:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

I went to see some play shorts on 43rd street and watched the actors like a hawk ready to swoop down. I saw one young man who i am convinced will be famous because he is pretty with a touch of masculinity, which is non-threatening for girls and appealing to most women. he showed potential and had a dimple in his chin.
an older actor appeared on the stage and I thought he might have a wife and children in college and a day job to afford middle-class security. the parallel lives of artists - one for that innate need to perform or produce creative work even if they are never recognized within a lifetime and the need for the traditional definition of a home.
the audience was full of proud family members who were thoroughly engaged in the performances and admiring of the courage that it takes to go on acting.
sometimes, especially for competitive ambitious types or those whose art has a deadline, the daily work of art is akin to pushing a boulder uphill with your nose.
physical, emotional, spiritual burdens and rewards. although i don't have children, i would compare art to a child. there are great sacrifices to be made, scheduling conflicts, feeding times, sleepless nights and an occasional worry that all the work you've put in will not pan out as you'd like. But more on that later.
My experience through the artist life is a pendulum that swings to the euphoria of freedom, and for me, freedom is creating something ten hours per day, and back to the mundane with clocks, pettiness and unsolicited attentions.
for now, i can say that i admire people with the courage to dream and fail and get back up and be excited and laugh at their own efforts and wild schemes. i admire and love more than anything else for people to be courageous and to put on a brave face and continue. When people ask me if I am still writing, it seems like the most bizarre question in the world. They might as well ask if I still floss my teeth or drink water. I have been writing since I was six years old, struggling to learn English. Writing is my anchor to the world and also what sets me free from it. I am both present and absent in a sense because of writing.
Allowing all unnecessary things, people, and places to fall away creates room for relevance and makes me a more productive self-assured artist. Criticism comes and goes and you, the one who may shyly believe in him or herself or have the belief mingled with suffering and fear, continue. To continue is to win; to risk exposure is to be brave and that is a triumph.
And it is important, I think, to take pity on those who criticize but never attempt to throw a huge rock through that glass ceiling.

"We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize"
- Thich Nhat Hanh

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Love doesn't exist but if it did

noreply@blogger.com (Odilia) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 08:05:00 +0000

Odilia Rivera Santos

have to admit i wouldn't mind if you loved me
we take turns to exchange rejection and to waste time
there is safety in love even if you don't believe
stasis causes panic when you want the world to move
faster and faster on your axis
something to be said for holding each other
but you might miss a party downtown
on a slow day, we'd watch people chase and dream
but would that not be watching ourselves?
- or losing out?
you would want to kiss me and touch my hair
as i twist it up to go corporate for work
and you'd probably ask if i always
conceal myself and become invisible or if i always
smell of almonds, roses, and jasmine.
we would run through all the phases of love
sleepless and tired and not forgiving
and it would cool into something worth your, my while
but the noise and chatter beckon
some thing pulls at the sinews of a moment
and the fine threads land at our feet
in the shower and swirl with the bubbles
and water to another place and another
and another.

Buy my e-book! Latinalogue, Puerto Rican Nonfiction Part I