La Democracia

Those of you who noticed Bill and Hillary dozing off during GWB's lengthy euology may have mused about what bad luck Ray Charles had to leave this world at this time, and having his version of "God Bless America" played at ballparks in the middle of a false Reagan frenzy. Let me raise my hand as someone who saw what happened when Ronnie took office. Suddenly everyone was homeless. A huge crack enterprise sprouted up on East 11th Street. The homeless were herded into Tompkins Square Park, among other places, and decimated in the wake of a police riot. Unions became a joke. Union Square became a redevelopment zone. Mikey Piñero died. El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua were pulverized. Panama was invaded. Grenada was squashed like a bad reality show. People started talking about "political correctness" and the "divisiveness of multiculturalism." Words were not enough to explain. Things fell apart.


Here's an interesting internecine conflict: The other day I got an e-mail from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, stating the following:

Lots of information and disinformation has been published on the Nielsen People Meters. The National Hispanic Media Coalition is playing a lead role in this unfolding drama. Please view Dr. Ed Rincon's "White Papers' on our website www.nhmc.org and register to receive the latest news on this and other NHMC activities.

We want to clarify the article written by Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News and others who might not be clear on the position on the NHMC. While it is true that Fox is funding a campaign against the Nielsen People Meters, (much has already been published about this) the National Hispanic Media Coalition has a long standing history against Fox dating back to the late 1980s. In New York, some of you might recall, that the NYC Chapter denounced and challenged Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the New York Post. We submitted a formal petition to the FCC that challenged Murdoch's request for a waiver of the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule. Our argument that Murdoch's had misrepresented material facts to the FCC; and our charge of "misconduct" caused a major delay in Murdoch's approval to purchase the NY Post.

Currently, the Coalition is at odds with Fox for its challenge against Fox's merger/puchase of DirectTV before the FCC. Fox mailed a nasty letter questioning any future relationship with the Coalition. The challenge is still pending an appeal process.

Furthermore, members of the National Latino Media Council made it clear to Fox that their "right wing" news coverage and lack of opinion balance were of great concern. The Council also told Fox that its relationship with the Latino community needed to be dealt with immediately.

Nonetheless, on the issue of Nielsen's undercount, the Coalition agreed to join forces with Fox. Some would argue, as Juan does in his article, that our credibility is lost as a result. Others would contend that on this issue it was OK to do so given the resources that were made available for a fight that needed all the instruments it could get to fight a giant, the Nielsen Company...one of the most powerful forces in the broadcasting industry, if not the most.

What is clear is that Nielsen's treatment and undercount of Latinos needs to be attacked, challenged and denounced, by any means necessary. The results of this battle will benefit thousands, if not millions of Latinos for generations to come. It is a historical struggle that has the opportunity of changing the face of the Nielsen Company's modus operandi, business as usual.

While I'm not the kind of guy to let Juan Gonzalez get a pass for that weirdly uneccessary hatchet job on Rosie Perez a few years ago, he's gotta get props for raising a red flag about Murdoch, Inc., and their motivation. Sure, maybe it's just a benign thing about protecting their Afr-Am shows, but, and I know this is an esoteric argument, what good does it do to support Fox's so-called "people-of-color" shows? I guess in the end what I'm asking is, will the revolution be televised or not?

I've said many times in the past that even though for the record I support the idea of significant representation of Latinos on TV, don't we actually benefit by not being absorbed by the banality of TV discourse? Isn't it kind of a nice subversive thing that our children only remotely identify with the Tower of Babel that passes for mainstream entertainment?

Yeah , I know, that's denying a lot of jobs to people like Lisa Vidal. And House of Buggin' was fun while it lasted. I guess the bottom line is shame on the rest of the networks for letting Fox take a leadership role in this.

On Wednesday I showed up at the Virgin building in the Flatiron for a performance by a couple of aspriring teen singers. Sure, I know they couldn't be anything like this guy:


There was a tiny girl, half-Cuban, and half-Argentinian, from Miami suburbs, who had the biggest voice. She writes songs like "Plástico" and "Lágrimas" and she looks like Joan Jett. She reminded me a little of Yuzzy, if you know what I mean. Her mother was in the front row, on the roof of some multinational utopia. J.D. Natasha seemed to know what she was about to do, that is embark on a zany life of popstardom and I felt for her. I'm not sure why--I had encountered Shakira and her Colombian sincerity, but here was a much younger girl, somehow surviving the madness of Florida, with a guarded North American edge.

She looks about half this size in real life:



Still in the weird stale air of the Gemini moon, she demonstrated an unusual force inside her, and it was bizarre to see her play with a spaldeen, hitting it off the concrete of the rooftop party she had nothing to do with. Striking contrast also to Sarah Hudson, cousin of Kate, who sang incredible parodies of adolescence, virtually lap-dancing anyone in her way. "Buy my record and make me famous," she snickered.

It was nice to get back into the night...