Of Islands, Oceans, and Che

Long Island looks like a cat, doesn't it? Like a wild, untamed mountain cat sitting on a surfboard patiently next to Manhattan. I live on Long Island but it's called Brooklyn here. With some sort of hurricane remnant (believe it was Ivan) threatening, I set sail from the Avis rent a car place down the block from a shrink's office of yesteryear, shooting out the Midtown Tunnel into a bank of clouds that stretched from Newark to Montauk. The early afternoon traffic was light--probably great expectations of major downpours keeping people from the lark I was engaging in, a reading for Living in Spanglish in the town of Sag Harbour. (It has a "u," correct?) It's a bit staggering, or humbling to contemplate the vast distances from New Yawk out to the Eastern reaches of Long Island. You look on a map and it's clear that the Hamptons are about as far east as New London, Conneticut is. (It felt more like Providence.)

But for traveling types like me, the road beckons sweetly with its promise of transformation, and its engagement with time itself, somehow delaying its passage, simple Einsteinian truths that never go away. I had settled into such a groove that I missed the exit 62 suggested by my host Esperanza, who waited patiently to intercept me somewhere near the construction in Sag Harbour. Okay, let's see what it looks like this way: Sag Harbor. Hmmm, it looks more feasible in a get off the LIRR at Bridgehampton way. Okay, Sag Harbor. So there I was, pulled over in a kind of ditch waiting and a black Ford explorer shoots by, allegedly acting as my guide. Sag Harbor is actually on the north shore of the South Fork (if that makes any sense), in fact, facing the bay between the forks. So where the fork was I? Esperanza knew, and made it easy for me.

First stop was Reggie Woolery and his guerrilla online radio station RadioFreeHamptons, where he engaged me in one of those rare interviews that actually allowed me to reveal something about my work and where I was, uh, coming from. He said he knew Tracie Morris, and there was a little bit of home coming out of that. Since Sag Harbor (Harbour?) is like one of those quaint little towns that you come into contact with once you leave Brooklyn, almost New England-esque but bearing that unmistakable South Fork stamp, it was a quick, breezy walk to the local Bookhampton branch, where I would hold forth to a throng of 10 or so (maybe 8) and gave one of my better introductions to What I'm Talking About When I Talk About Spanglish. (Actually Esperanza's mom noted that I still haven't shaken that habit of touching different parts of my torso and my face while I speak and I'm really going to have to work on that. It's as if I'm pulling at the energy that emanates from within, like pulling the cord for a lawn mower, or more a propos for the South Fork, an outboard motor for a small seagoing craft.)

Michael had somehow showed up by getting off the train at Bridgehampton as I suggested earlier and we had a homey, if slightly bizarre Japanese dinner at the local bizarre Japanese restaurant. The climax was a ritual called, for lack of a better name, "Sake Bomb." This consisted of glasses of beer and cups of sake placed precariously on chopsticks, and a simulated earthquake that caused the sake to splash into the beer like Enola Gay before us. Which is what Esperanza and I decided the guy-on-the-make masquerading waiter was.

So there's this place called Stephen Talkhouse in East Hampton, and a caravan of three or four of us sped like the Secret Service (about four blocks) to an adjoining parking lot. The whole idea of adjoining parking lots reminded me I was in the suburbs, but of course, I wasn't in the suburbs, I was in the holy water of the Hamptons. So Stephen Talkhouse is this extra-special place where the Vanilla Fudge had played only last week, at $50 a pop. Fortunately Los Amigos (our amigos) Invisibles were only charging $25, but of course unlike fellow Long Islander Bill O'Reilly we cut the line and made ourselves welcome as top-flight guest listers are known to do. (Where was Lizzie Grubman?)

What can you say about Los Amigos? They put on the same rockin'-disco-funk-bugaloo-merengue-salsa show they always do. This time was a little more initimate for me--no VIP section, just me in the front with the rest of the sake-bombed, getting the little wave from Jose Luis and Julio, looking a little surprised to see me. Well I was surprised to see me, too. I thought of making a graceful exit just about the time I passed the Melville exit, and it wasn't because I'm not that big a fan of Moby Dick--it was a reminder of the vast distance between Brooklyn and the Newsday offices. But here, in the weird end-of-the-summer crowd, thinned, no doubt by fear of hurricanes, but swelled by more Latinos than the South Fork ever expected were in their midst, I felt it would be only natural, and dutiful to spend the entire evening in the silly dance of "Ponerte en Cuatro" and "Mujer Policia."

Somehow, guided through Wainscott, named after some sort of Puritan kitchen apparel, no doubt, Michael and I babbled our way back to the LIE and those gas station stops along the way that recall senior year of high school, or the late shift of lucky cab driver who scores an $80 fare to the exurbs. The modern world is so delicious in the way it allows you to go Down East and return in the same evening, with or without a net full of fish. And I thought about Esperanza, and her daily access to the ocean.

Don't Believe the Polls

Sure Kerry is a loser personality-wise, and he makes Al Gore look like a serious pothead. But pay no attention to these friggin' polls. There is an unstoppable swell of newly registered voters in swing states, and there will be such stark horror coming out of Iraq in the next few weeks that the whole neoconservative bubble is going to burst. (If not, seriously, I'm going to Spain.) That's what I was trying to tell Bryan as we took in the Volumen Cero show. Sure, Fernando, the hardest-working man in Latin rock was there, willing the Miami quartet into becoming the next big thing, and Yuzzy, who was more interested in talking about the Cure. What a hyper kid Marthin is, afterwards, regaling me with his adventures. Anyway somehow Bryan and I found ourselves prowling the lame Monday night scene, not stopping in several bars along Houston until we settled on Barmundi, where I have been meeting these charming international barmaids, like Rica (Alemana?) and Tracy, the rebel from Wales who refused to learn Welsh. And I kind of understood because for a while I didn't want to learn Spanish but I think somewhere deep inside she regrets it although puts up a convincing front.

It's that whole thing, that whole tension between nationalism (provincialism) and internationalism (dilletante-ism) that plagues us all, at least those of us who care one way or another what having soul means. Bryan gets it, in his way, but please every time I say something he acts like he wasn't even alive in 1983 or whatever. Hey man when I was 10 years old I wanted to rule the world. Still, his only sin was hanging out with the mundi martinis until it was like eight in the morning and I swear he wasn't hitting on anybody because he like has a girlfriend and that wouldn't be cool. I know this because I used to have a girlfriend and I studiously avoided hitting on women no matter how amazing and sexy they seemed.

The following night I went to the Gloria Estefan show, which was a TOTAL NIGHTMARE. Still, as a professional, judging her objectively from the point of view of a professional pop critic, I filed this review:

http://www.nynewsday.com/entertainment/news/ny-etledew3982136sep24,0,5476502.story

I did sneak in a couple of critical sentences but somehow they were magically removed by the Newsday editors. Of course I don't mind because I should be protected from my sniping self on occasion, especially when my target is a woman. But just between you and me: What a tedious, unappealing woman with absolutely no sense of humor. Okay, I didn't mean that.



I'll conclude with my thoughts about The Motorcycle Diaries. Aside from its unbelievably beautiful cinematography, which will no doubt inspire millions of liberal gringos to visit Valparaiso, the greatest achievement of this film is not to give in to the preachiness that surrounds everything Che and everything Zapatista (and Lula, and the Argentine and Uruguayan and Bolivian worker's resistance movements). It's a beautifully written story, and I can't believe that my man Jose Rivera (Boricua!) wrote it. I've been trying to research the reality of this all day. What I don't understand is that Jose, who was raised in Long Island, (like Robi and Esperanza) and who admitted to me and several others that he's not so agile en Espanol, could have done this. Still, the quality I know from Marisol and Cloud Tectonics is definitely here. Maybe he wrote it in English and someone translated it. That would be something they wouldn't want to admit. But I totally applaud this, because I could see myself doing the same thing. And I'm proud to have spent some time with Jose talking about his art, and I believed he did reveal something about himself to me, and I am so proud that he has reached this height (and I could use his connections in HOLLYWOOD). Pero en serio, this screenplay kicks butt and they really handled it so well. And Gael has also totally grown as an actor. And I'm proud of him, even if he did go out with Natalie Portman.