Chicano-Jewish Conversion Classes in Boyle Hts.

The Breed Street Shul in Boyle Hts. has announced that they will soon begin classes for local residents to convert to Judaism. The goal is to tie Latinos to Judaism so that when Latinos have more political power they will continue America's support for Isreal.

Ricardo Montoyiswich a recently converted Chicano Jew said, "This will help re-establish the Jewish presence in Boyle Hts. and hopefully lure Canters back to the heights!" Montoyiswich, who will be teaching several classes at the Shul, said his life has changed for the better since he made the switch. "As an actor I was having a hard time getting work, but out of no where, once I converted, I started getting all these cool gigs."

Some of the classes that will be offered include: "Putting Down Those Whiny Santos," "How To Leave La Virgen and still Love Your Mom," "Circumcising The Chile: Grin and Bare It," "Menorah and Dradle Care for Chicanos (Don't smoke it and it's NOT Pon)," and "How To Trace Your Distant Jewish Roots."

Sleepy Tonatiuh, a next door neighbor to the Shul and proud Aztec dancer said, "This ain't right. They should be teaching people about the people on this land and how this land was stolen, just like the Isreali's stole Palestine." He plans to protest the classes once they open by having his danza group do ceremonies during class time. When asked for a response, Montoyiswich said, "Sounds like that indio needs to see the play "Palestine New Mexico" and learn how Indians are Jewish."

Will there ever be peace in the mid Eastside?

These times....

It's been a crazy year so far.

Major earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and a little one this week in LA.
People are talking about the end of times.
2012 is out on DVD, apparently the end of humans will be available on Netflix

Students are waking up and protesting, yet 2,000 people protesting in suburban streets don't get the media's attention until cops push and are pushed back.
So who knows how many other protests are going on that aren't reported because they were peaceful and didn't push back.

If we listen, we can hear the grumbling
If we stop and smell the air, the hunger is rising
If we open our eyes, the light is dim at the end of the tunnel

On the flip side people are reaching
Seeking out new forms and systems to replace this crumbling joke
These thoughts will be actions, words, intentions, and yes hope, but one based on the real, not the kind funded by the same corporate devils who created it and benefit from it.
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I learned this week to relinquish when I give something away or lose it.
Many times we give something up but we don't relinquish it. We hold on. Psychically, in memories, in hope.
When we relinquish we really let it go.

Wolf explained it like this: Imagine I gave you a sacred object that had been in my family for generations. I wanted you to have it because we had a good moment. Now I see you one day going into the pawn shop with the necklace. You come out with money and no necklace. If I really gave it to you, I shouldn't care what you did with it. I relinquished it. I don't hold it in any way with me. Relinquishing is tough to swallow but that is what giving and losing is.

CSUN Protest

In the end, 6 students were arrested and one 72 yr old professor was pushed by police, and fell on her arm, breaking it.

We had a month build up on campus for this day. Chicana/o Studies had a teach in on Feb. 3 and began telling our students that today, March 4th the whole State was going to protest.

I couldn't have paid anyone to make this happen. During my 11 am class I just finished showing them the 10 minute version of "Storm At Valley State" the 1985 documentary that looks at student activism on our campus 41 years ago. I was explaining how many in that generation protested because they demanded more from their country. They expected more for offering their lives and bodies in wars. They expect America to live up to its promise.s And they loved themselves. They felt they deserved more and asked for it. They loved themselves and were moved by love for a better future, like true revolutionaries always are. Moved to act out of love. I asked my students how many loved themselves? How many of you feel you deserve better than what they are offering and cutting away? I asked them if they were ready to start demanding satisfaction.
And like it was a sign from the Goddess, protesting students kicked open the doors out in the hallway and were yelling "Walkout!!!
I looked back at my students and said "They are calling you. Are you going to act? Or be like a good slave and not piss off the master, not rock the boat?"
"WALK OUT" you could hear the students coming closer to our door.
"They are calling you, what u going to do?"
One of my students put his fist in the air and yelled "Walkout" and boom they all jumped up and out the door.
Like I said, I couldn't have paid for that to be more perfectly timed.

The wait for the big meet up in the quad had various groups walking campus asking other students to 'walkout.'

One scene that was an 'only at CSUN' moment was when a small group of marchers came upon one of the CSUN choir's impromtu performances they hold in the breezeway of Jerome Richfield. I walked over to see if the choir was really doing their singing thing today, a day of protest. I was hoping they would be doing protest songs.

When the marchers came up on them I half expected the marchers were going to get up in the face of the choir and ask them to join the march and stop the singing. It was the "american idol" generation facing its burgeoning activist other half, would they clash? No.

The choir said "We are singing this one for you."

The marchers stopped their chanting and listened for a few minutes then, while the choir kept singing, just turned around kept on recruiting other students to join them with another chant and marched away.

When 2pm finally came around there were about a core of 300-400 students throughout the quad in front of our library. Speeches were made, people inspired. We lined up on Matador Way and it looked like the 3-400 swelled a little more. Teachers and students from local schools came to join the march. By the time the march hit Prairie we had at least 2,000 people.

At Prairie and Reseda we went south to Nordhoff. Cars were stopped and honking in support. People got out of their cars and were taking pictures and video. There were no negative Nellies to be seen or heard.

As we went East on Nordhoff the long line of protesters was split in half by CFA 'march leaders.' These were the adults in charge. As faculty we tend to hang back and support our students, but not take any leadership or guiding roles. We advise before hand and if anything gets crazy, but its the students who are doing this, its theirs. CFA did play a major role in organizing this day of protest on a State level and they obviously did a great job of getting people out. At one point they cut the protest in half by letting half the column proceed down Nordhoff to Zelzah and turning the other half back in to campus at Lindley. I stayed with the front half knowing this was going to be a long walk.

We kept going down Zelzah and stopped briefly at Plummer. Some students tried to sit -down there, but the mass wanted to keep moving. At this point I got my homey Nelson's djembe from him. He said he was tired and I love drums. I carried and banged that sucker all the way around campus back to Reseda and Prairie where we had Thee Sit Down, you see in the news.


As you can see in these videos, all the numbers that the media reported are under counted.

(video is from iphone using an app.)

Happy Birthday Pachucoville!!!!

Yes today three years ago I began this blog and its been one great time.

My first blog is here and the one that followed was about the Super Bowl.

I want to thank my readers for the comments and support and my fellow bloggero/as. You have all made my world richer and more full of chisme.

In reading my Super Bowl post I see how I have changed. For one I became a Colts 'fan.' At the start of the season that year my homeboys who are big sports fans said I had to have a team. They said I couldn't just show up to hang out without adding to the shit talking and in order to shit talk I needed to have a team that I would support no matter what. My home Emi said your team will be the Colts and that was it. So with yesterday's humiliating loss I still write here as a Colt fan.

This year's Super Bowl sucked, not only did I miss the pre show (did they even have one?) but The Who at halftime sucked, the commercials were not funny or creative, and my team lost the game due to divine intervention.

How could the Colts lose? The spiritualist in me thinks it was because EVERYONE wanted the Saints to win for so many non football reasons. They wanted the Saints to win for history's sake, the city's sake, everything but that they were a great team. So with that I hope that our collective hopes and dreams take us to a better future in light of whack leadership and a system that consistently sides with the rich, powerful and few.

So that is my bday wish, that if we can all pull for the Saints to win, lets all pull for all underdogs out there, near us, and far and hope that their day in sun is today or tomorrow but soon for sure.

Happy Birthday Pachucoville!!!!

Sampling is NOT a Crime, its an art.

The title of Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod's documentary airing on PBS stations implies that sampledelia is a crime.
Copyright Criminals asks DJs, producers, label heads, lawyers and music critics, how sampling music and using it to make new music became a crime.

Sampling as we know it today began in the late 80's as early hip hop and house music producers used various samplers to take snippets of records, and combined them to make music which would eventually dominate music charts and dance floors around the world.

The doc does show a little about how musicians are 'influenced' by other musicians to the point of mimicking and how the Beatles (viciously anti sampling) sampled stuff for their White Album.

I've always championed electronic music artists and their sampling ways. I believe the main reasons record labels and artists took such a hard stance against this new form of music making was because of course money and good old discrimination. The majority of early sampledelia artists were black and brown and some were gay. Many had kept gay disco and their clubs open through the musical drought that preceded them where 'the best' at the top of the charts at that time were Bruce Springstein and Fleetwood Mac (sp?). When these new generation producers began making sounds out of other sounds, labels (their lawyers) and artists saw a way to make money and give some innovative, creative artists that were making sound scapes never heard before, a hard time.

I admit that some folks who sample and simply loop a part of a popular song over and over with out changing its pitch, or adding any of the various effects available, are lazy and not very creative. They are just using the sample for its popularity. See: MC Hammer "Can't Touch This" (samples Rick James' "Super Freak") and anything by Puffy who blatantly rips off Bowie and The Police.


The majority of artists that utilize samplers often spend days digging through music for the perfect beat or chromatic scales. They reverse, speed up or slow down, delay, reverb, pan, split, make stereo into mono, and many other tricks to change the sample to make it work in their piece.

Many often employ complicated mathematic algorithms to make sure they are not clashing frequencies and some to intentionally clash frequencies in order to produce never before heard frequencies. A lot of dedication and work goes into a lot of production, but many stuck in the 'musician with a traditional instrument can only make music- mindset, don't see (or hear) the revolution happening in their ears.

Check the website for future air dates. The doc is worth viewing much like Scratch and Maestro are essential in understanding music forms made from the margins.

Feliz Nu Decade

I'm back from a mental and physical break. Skipped December cuz it was just too much to spew here and didn't want to shoot out the energy I was holding at the time.

Now, what are we going to do this new year and decade?
Well I might slow down some on posting cuz I'm writing other stuff I want to make some feria on so I won't give so much free reads, sabes?
I'm also exploring the invisible world more with meditation using various techniques that just keep finding me.
I'm still going to post at LA Eastside.com as well, I know I need to do more there too. That blog is blowing up!!!
One blog that I recently read over there was about a Thai restaurant and it got me thinking about my experience with Thai food.

Growing up the only Asian food I had was Chinese and my folks weren't very experimental at that. It was always the dinner specials with the basics: egg flower soup, fried shrimp, sweet pork, fried rice, some veggies and noodles. Never did I hear of Thai or Vietnamese for that matter.

The first time I thought of even trying Thai was driving through K-Town on Vermont and seeing a line of people for a place with a red awning that said Thai Bar B Que in big bold letters. Later I would learn it was called Ocha. I remember driving by there all the time coming from Hollywood heading home in South Central at the time. One day rolling with mom, we were hungry but didn't know what to eat so I said let's stop there, "they always have a line so it must be good."

We parked right in front and got in line. It was a trip they had so many people working. One person sat you, another brought water, another took your order, others stood in between tables ready for you to ask for anything, the food came out quick and the customers were mostly Raza. WOW. Never seen anything like this. All the people working had headsets and they would rattle off your order or request for more water or tea and boom someone was there with what you asked. Efficient and fast. I learned about their 'caldo de siete mares,' pad thai, and garlic chicken. It was the only place I would go to for minute.

One day while attending CSUN my homie Hugo came to the apt. and was telling Oscar, Ernie, Manny and Me about this amazing soup in this cool restaurant that had Coronas for $2.50. So we piled into Oscar's ride and went to Aruni on Western. It was a lighter siete mares soup than what they had at Ocha, but very good. This place was also packed with Raza who were pounding beers with their soup. Everyone only came for the soup! Later I would try something else on their menu and realized I should stick with the soup there. That was my second Thai restaurant.

My next experience with Thai food came from Michelle D. who brought me some Bar-b-que chicken from Chao Praya (sp?). It was a much nicer Thai restaurant than Ocha and Aruni. They had table cloths! All their servers were super model looking Thai women that spoke in soft tones. Muy cool. I learned about coconut milk soup, and other dishes here. I would sometime just ask the super models what was good that day and trust them. It was that good all around. They were on Yucca near Vine, no longer there, but will always be remembered.

Since then I have gotten bolder and braver and now have a variety of Thai spots for the variety of peeps and tastes I or my peeps need.

My favorites these days are:

Palms in Hollywood for Thai Elvis and basic Thai.

Daisy Mint, thanks to Yanini, this is very special, very tasty, its French fusion brings squashes into dishes like I never knew could be done. They are for those ready for flavor bombs to go off.

Saladang is also muy flavorful and consistent with their quality. Its also in a very modern nice locale with a sweet patio.

Vics is in the Valley (omg) thanks to Fabi for this one too. This is Thai fast food style but very good. Its like the many burger joints in the Eastside but with Thai. They make everything by the order.

Now I also have Korean spots, Japanese houses and Vietnamese joints that I love.

The other day I was driving with my father going to eat in Chinatown and he took a phone call. His friend on the other end asked where are you? and pops said (in spanish) "We are in the barrio Chino for lunch." The friend probably asked "Oh you like THAT food?" and pops answered "Oh yes, I'm international like that."
I love that.


Happy Nu Year and Decade, eat well, treat yourself and yours well...