Townes Van Zandt doc at the Modern

Though it's about to released, dvd-format, on the 14th or so of March, you might appreciate seeing it on the nice screen, at the clean serene Modern Art museo acqui en Fort Worth. BE HERE TO LOVE ME: A FILM ABOUT TOWNES VAN ZANDT opens tonight at 6pm. I'll be going to the 8pm screening, cuz that's when Van Zandt son, John, intros the film and plays some of his (recently-deceased) father's songs. You may not know it, but Townes was raised, kinda money-well-off, in the Westside. I've been learning more of his life and his music (though "Pancho and Lefty" was popularized by Willie, "If I Needed You" was given starpower by Emmylou and is one of my Townes favorites) from friends who knew and played alongside this Fort Worth legend (what i mean is that Townes is a legend; what i don't mean--cuz fw is just stupid this way--is that Townes is famous in Fort Worth...) My friend, Lee Daniel, lent a hand with cinematography on the film, along with sculptor-artist Miguel, who lives in Arlington.

March 3–5, 2006 - Friday 6 & 8 pm; Saturday 5 pm; Sunday 2 & 4 pm - at the Modern Art Museum of FW.

(John Townes Van Zandt will introduce the Friday 8pm film and play some of his father's music for moviegoers.)

"A dignified and wistful look at the unusual life, difficult career, and lasting influence of singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt." (Eddie Cockrell, Variety.) This poignant documentary follows the life of Fort Worth native son Townes Van Zandt, the ultimate songwriter's songwriter who had a profound effect on a generation of musicians. Read more about the film right here.

Claudia's theatrical baby opens onstage tonight!

My sweet and multi-talented compa, Claudia Acosta, is gearing up for her big debut tonight. Her original work, "Recuerdos de mi mama: la epoca de oro", is a project she's been dreaming of for over a year. So, tonight, Friday the 3rd, will mark the culmination of a major artistic achievement. Be glad for this creative drama-mama as she births her first full-length stage play. (Oh, and check out one of the spotlight operators: my niece, Breanna Her-Era.) The show plays for 3 consecutive weekends; I'll be in the audience tomorrow--cuz a big reception follows after the performance. Here are the detalles:

RECUERDOS DE MI MAMA: la epoca de oro - an original stageplay written and directed by Claudia Acosta.
Inspired by Mexico’s Golden Age of Cinema (La Epoca de Oro), when Resortes and Cantinflas were budding comedy kings; Maria Felix enraptured her audiences with her sultry looks, and when rumberas were the hottest ticket in town. A simple love story from a mother’s memory celebrates the generation who lived for mambo.
BILINGUAL - Rated PG 13
Individual tickets are $10 general audience, and $5 students and seniors
Inspirado por el Cine Mexicano de La Época de Oro cuando Resortes y Cantinflas se establecían como los Reyes de la comedia, Maria Felix deslumbraba su público con su belleza despampanante, y las rumberas daban la presentación más caliente de la ciudad. Esta historia celebra las memorias de una generación que vivía para el mambo.
BILINGUE – Rated PG 13
Los Boletos tienen un costo de 10 dolares en admision general y 5 dolares para estudiantes y ancianos.

Call Now For Ticket Info: (817)624-8333

February 20-25th - week of spoken word, poetics education, and performance

Another week in the life of Tammy the producer/poet/performer: just wrapped up a great event at the RMT (Rose Marine Theater)--"Carnival de Palabras" with capoeira, spoken word, body painting, and visual art. It was a great night and lots of fun, even though the weather and road conditions threatened to keep people from coming out. But we had an audience, lots of folks even drove from Dallas, not to mention our featured performers who drove in Saturday morning from Austin!

Tomorrow, I'm off to Dallas to teach three workshops as part of the Highland Park High School Literary Festival. They're bringing in some pretty established writers, and I'm impressed with how they've organized this festival. For the next two days--that's tomorrow, Wednesday, February 22nd and Thursday, February 23rd, EVERY student in the school will have an opportunity to choose from over 20 different workshops. Should be fun. More info on the Festival here.

Oh, then there's my featured reading at the University Drive (in FW) Barnes & Noble bookstore. I think it starts around 7pm--Saturday, February 25th. Will (hopefully) be touting my new publication, NORTH TEXAS NERUDA LOVE, an anthology of tribute writings in honor of Pablo Neruda. The book should have been out last month, but Mercury was retrograde, and the printer's schedule must be haywired. Last I've heard the book is "at the bindery..."

Lucha Corpi, Chicana lit elder, in FW today!

Lucha Corpi, born in Mexico, emigated with her husband to the Bay Area in 1965, and five years later divorced him. From there on out, Lucha created a world for herself that involved sociopolitical transformation, literary expression, and academic achievements. By 1970, she--armed with a Master's in Comparative Lit from San Francisco State University--assumed the position of Coordinator for the Chicano Studies Library at the University of California at Berkeley. Wow. Overcoming a language barrier, as well as social stigmas that kept Mexican women out of the public realm, Lucha truly reinvented herself in the United States. An inspiring example, certainly, for women everywhere.

Today, Wednesday, February 8th, she will offer a reading of her poetry at the Rose Marine Theater (1440 N. Main Street in N. FW), from 4pm to 5pm. Call 817-624-8333 for more info.

And tomorrow, Thursday, February 9th, Lucha will present a talk on-campus at TCU, in the Kelly Alumni Center. That begins at 7pm. Free and open to everyone. Refreshments will be served.

Lucha Corpi has received several awards for her work, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Prize in Fiction, and the Multicultural Publishers Exchange Book Award of Excellence in Adult Fiction. Her popular mystery novel series introduced the first Chicana detective, Gloria Damasco, as a recurring character.

For more background on Lucha Corpi, check out this great interview.

Capoeira da rua website

Please check out this website for more information on the group which will be traveling up from Austin to perform capoeira and spoken word on Saturday, February 18th, at the Rose Marine Theater, here in the 817.

Sound Culture presents _ Capoeira & Spoken Word & Art _ Save the Date!! February 18th.

[Guess I should tell you that Sound Culture is my production name, for events and some media things I create.]

SOUND CULTURE presents
February 18th - that's a Saturday
7:30pm in the evening

ROSE MARINE THEATER
1440 N. Main
(5 minutes north of downtown FW)
for only 5 bucks

Featuring Spoken Word and Capoeira stylings
of

CAPOEIRA DA RUA FEATURING MEMBERS OF XENOGIA:

Da'Shade Moonbeam
Enrique Cabrera
Da'mon

(They have just performed as part of Fronterafest--the renowned Austin theater festival--and were selected as 'Best of Week" in January 2006. They've also been doing sets of their "Martial Poetry" in and around Austin, where they are currently based.)

ALSO:

Visual art show with Brazilian painter Solange Mariel in the Rose Marine Theater Gallery.

Solange's show "CAMINHADA" (Journey) will be her first solo show in Fort Worth.

WITH:

parade of Carnival headdresses
samba sounds
history of capoeira documentary film
eats & drinks
art workshop with Solange Mariel & Sandra Beamon

AND:

a chance to join a capoeira roda (pronounced "ho-rrah") onstage!

fmi: Tammy Gomez at 817.924.9188 or sound_culture@hotmail.com
____________________________________

You have to check out Capoeira da rua and Xenogia's DaShade Moonbeam. Not only is he a high-ranking and -scoring slam poet at the National level, but he is a most amazing capoeirista. And I guess I too have a soft spot for any guy who's worked for Planned Parenthood. Yeah, i said it, Planned Parenthood. Now, that's sexy.

Where have i been? Guys, i've been birthing a book!!

Yes, it's taken forever and a few minutes, but the whole shebang (cover art, the guts--manuscript--, and our money) is at the printer's. We're only like 6 months behind deadline, that's all. The book, oh yeah, you don't know the title, is NORTH TEXAS NERUDA LOVE. It's an anthology of essays, testimonies, poems--all original work, ya'll--by Metroplex writers. This book is gonna be great, I mean, it is great, but once you see it I hope you'll be as excited as I am about it. Anyway, that's why I have been so (mostly) underground for the past three months or so. I've deprioritized my own work, performing, mopping my floors, painting the house, etc. Now that the thing is outta my hands--it's at the printer's and he says maybe the book'll be bound and boxed by Friday, Feb.10th--I feel like I finally have my life back. So what do I do? I go to the bookstore and buy an industry mag on print design...i guess i'm jonesing for my next publishing project.

Well, the Jan-Feb 06 issue of PRINT magazine is actually pretty cool and its cover story is on the re-emergence of photography--as both an art form and career--in Afghanistan since the "fall" of the Taliban in 2001.

I hope that you'll be reading more from me, more often this year. We shall see....

Stencil artists - cut it out, send it in!

Call for participation: deadline February 1, 2006

Cut& Paint: A Stencil Template Zine #2

Once again, Josh MacPhee (author/artist of Stencil Pirates, Nicolas Lampert and Colin Matthes are putting together a zine of stencil templates. This time around they plan on scaling back the size of the zine a little (legal size folded, so 7" x 8.5"), but to make up for the shrinking size they hope to include a set of die-cut stencil templates with the zine. That's right, pre-cut stencils ready to use!

Like issue #1, most of the zine will be filled with some of the best and most exciting stencil templates out there (black and white stencil images that can be cut out and used), so they're looking for your best stencil template ideas. This time around they're also open to multi-color pieces, so if you are interested, send a clean black-and-white print of each layer, as well as a composite image. In addition, they would like to expand the rest of the zine, too. This means more in the how-to section, so send along any new tips you've got. They want photos of stencils from your area, particularly from places they usually don't hear from. They'll also be including some writing on stencils as well, so if you have any articles you've been working on that deal with stenciling, public space, politics, etc., feel free to submit them.

The specs, once again:
*All designs should be 7x8 inches.
*Templates should be clean sprays of stencils on clean white paper. Flat black paint is preferable. They'll be photocopying these templates, so keep the lines and edges as crisp as possible. In order to get a really clean print, you can spray little bit of spray-tack (like light spraymount) on the back of the stencil so it lays flat on the paper.
*No racist, sexist, homophobic designs. Also, they're really looking for smart and creative takes on what's going on in the world, not copied portraits of movie stars or Japanese robots. Keep it original.
* Stencils don't have to be hit-you-over-the-head political (i.e. Fuck Bush, although that's fine too), but they should be interesting to more than just you and your friends! The goal is to have stencil templates that other people will want to use.
*Feel free to submit more than one template design.
*Tell them if you want your template credited to a name, and if so, what name (and contact information if you want, i.e. website, email, address, etc.).
The best designs will be used for the die-cuts, so send in great stuff and they might make 1000 pre-cut copies of your stencil! They hope to keep the price at $5 or below, and distribute Cut & Paint #2 much further and wider than #1.

Edward Roop, Paonia coal miner: another Avedon portrait person

You are a writer, you are a writer. With just a little table and a pad of paper, you could show (me) the writer you are, though it is already telltale, what with your upper pockets jammed with fountain pen and a pair of eyeglasses. I see it too in your blues eyes, the soft glow of thinking man's eyes. I know you have a song on your mind. Are those wires from your stereo headphones, black tentacles leading from nowhere, jutting out of your pocket today? Is there a song in your eyes, in your mind, to write down? In your face, I see the expression of Sam from Iron and Wine--the Florida soft-singing writer. Are you a similar poet? When you are cleaned up, your sooty arm matching the white of your belly...when you are rooted out of the mine, gentled as the nipple you inadvertently fondle...is there some time to pen your black-day-into-white-night songs of your life, cooing them to life as your wife counts the money, irons your workpants, brings stew to your bowl? I hope it is so. I hope it is so, that you pen and write and remember your albeit song, sooty canary bird of flesh.

Oil worker Roberto = self-portrait Van Gogh

Roberto Lopez, Lyons, Texas -- you are Vincent Van Gogh, starry starry night in your faraway eyes. in your faraway eyes. Poseidon wave hair has curled your head and possibly your unlucky life (as oil field worker).

From the Amon Carter exhibit of Avedon's "In the American West" collection: "When the show opened in the fall of 1985, it generated passionate debate about how we define the West and the nature of photographic portraiture. By focusing on working class citizens and people at the edge of society, Avedon had audaciously extended the cachet of celebrity and elegance usually reserved for the wealthy and well-known. By drawing vivid attention to life's hardships, he had challenged public preoccupations with heroic success."

The show closes this Sunday, January 8th. Don't miss/highly recommended.

Desahogate # 2 - Call for Submissions

¡Atención!
Writers, Poets, Musicians, y Artists
We at In Tlilli, In Tlapalli Press recently completed the anthology Desahogate #1: Growing Up Xicana/o, which had over 40 contributors from throughout Tejas documenting our varying experiences growing up as Xicanas and Xicanos. We are seeking contributions for Desahogate #2, which will be themed “Amor y Pazion.”

Is your passion fighting for La Raza or other social/political causes that are personally or culturally significant? Do you love the sight of your family gathered around the table to enjoy a meal that reflects the amor and hard work you put into it?

Is your passion creating arte y música, dancing, playing sports or
customizing cars? Or do you have another interest that no one knows about and which you are ready to share with the world?

Last but not least, do you have a unique love story about a family member or a significant other?

We are a diverse Raza and would like this collection of stories from our community to reflect those amores y paziones that give meaning to our lives.

This is another step we are taking towards strengthening, and collecting stories from, nuestra comunidad. Desahogate #2 will again allow us to tell our own stories in our own estilo.

All are welcome to contribute, including youth, elders, unpublished and published writers. We accept essays, short stories, entrevistas, poemas, and comics, as well as photographs and other forms of arte. We are asking that submissions be completed as a Word-formatted document or another Microsoft-compatible word processing program, if possible. But we will accept handwritten or typed submissions, if needed. If you would prefer, we will also audio record your submission, with advance notice.

No sexist, homophobic, or racist submissions, por favor!

If you are able, please send a $5.00 donation for a copy of Desahogate #1: Growing Up Xicana/o. These funds will allow us to raise additional funds to publish our second issue.

**Donations not necessary to submit stories/poems.**

Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2006.

Please send your submission along with your name and return address:

In Tlilli, In Tlapalli Press
c/o Xicana Xicano Education Project or
xicanaxicanoeducationproject@yahoo.com
PO Box 37105
San Antonio, TX 78237

october 31, 2004 - dream of fleeing flood

[the following is taken from my dream journal----october 31, 2004----dream recollection, along with the notes i gathered in my mad struggle to find out whether what i dreamt was a premonition or a re-cognition]

key term i woke with this morning/dream interrupted by viciously-loud cat fight: clover stand clover stand cloverstand

the dream:
with family/extended family, packing the valuables in plastic bags and rushing to catch a boat off our island, only to realize that all boats were booked. somehow we end up on mainland, but find that this place too is threatened by impending flood and high tidal sweeps of ocean. i am in a small slender boat with only 2 of our larger group, and we are rushing to higher land. but know that we will encounter the storm and be tossed about, maybe to our finish. somehow, i end up in what seems to be called hong kong and i am surrounded by chaos and frantic asians rushing to safety. i see people on high rooftops and see that most of the buildings in this coastal city are only 1 or 2 story. i see a bell tower and wonder why no one has taken refuge there. then the phrase or word cloverstand comes to mind. is that where i was from, was that the original geographic location of this spree of fleeing? another word, a place name, flickered into mind, but only briefly and i lucidly thought, remember the easier term, remember cloverstand, it's like understand. the other word was like: mantamount, something mount. mountenmille or something compicated like that.

google results:

Clover Island 1948 flood in Kennewick

Australians tried to plant clover in Concord(?)

Agog He is all agog, in nervous anxiety; on the qui vive, like a horse in clover. (French, à gogo, or vivre à gogo, to live in clover.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GLOBAL CLIMATE ORIGINALLY COMPILED FOR GEOS 596R - SPRING 1991
EDITED AND EXTENDED BY OWEN K. DAVIS   1991-1993 (cite O.K. Davis, unpublished)
Age: 1575-1654 AD
Reference: Stine, 1990
Comments: Clover Ranch High Stand of Mono Lake


*** actuality, which i found out about, upon opening yahoo news @ 10pm:

High Tides Put Venice Sites Under Water

Sun Oct 31, 2:20 PM ET

VENICE, Italy - Unusually high tides sent sea water sweeping through Venice on Sunday, covering 80 percent of the city by afternoon. St. Mark's Square and other famous locations were inundated, forcing tourists and residents alike to don rubber boots and use elevated walkways.

St. Mark's Square, the heart of the city and one of its lowest points, was covered by at least 16 inches of water. A canoeist was spotted in the square.

City officials put out raised wooden walkways, but in some places the water rose above them, the ANSA news agency said.

Leonardo Cossutta, of the city office that monitors tides, said Venice's waterborne public transportation was suspended for about an hour and some shops reported water damage.

Venice is prone to periodic flooding. The government has approved a plan to install mobile barriers on the Adriatic seabed near the entrance to the Venetian lagoon to protect the city when threatened by high tides.

dream fragment - december 8, 2004

[this is excerpted from my dream journal, posting from december 8, 2004 - morning around 7:30am]

onboard ship w/ cut hand, open wound, encroaching storm
pain mounting. feeling pressure to do something. why i
waited, i don’t know. i now have the gauze, the salve or oil
for what’s the word DRESSING my hand. the injury is in my
palm. in the palm of my hand.

back to the ship, seeing the sense of panic in my partner’s face, he the normally very cool and collected shipmate.
now, now is the time we must go, it’s coming, it has arrived.

what?

the hurricane, the gale winds, the storming sweeps of water that could collect
us in its ferociioius arms and carry us off to its depths.

December 22nd, 2004 - dream remembrances

[dream journal entry: December 22nd, 2004]

flood impending. things melting. making waters rise throughout
central u.s. etc. even
i was in several-story house with 2 boys (sons?) or brothers.
put on shorts, i said. clean clohtes. sweaters too. to oldest:
help me shut the windows,, as i grabbed all the little musical
instruments. we are the ones who celebrate with spirit in the
city, so we will be on the top floor or the roof of the house
and we will not show a dejected, failed spirit. the village counts
on us for this.

dream memory : february 1st, 2005

[dream - February 1st a.m. right about 9:30am or 10am - 2005]

who made it home?

one woman with fruits and sea products
paddles assuredly, but slowly in a narrow
rough-finished dugout watercraft.

(somehow i know that she has been away, maybe displaced, for some time, and has survived a long absence maybe not of her choosing. it has been a long haul, but she is serene with relief, knowing that she is almost back to her home place. a world of ocean and sea life that is comfortable to her.)

dirty h2o is home. a pocket of dingy, well-populated
turf in the cove. again, it feels asian/eastern.


seaside vacationing hoteling:

sleeping in ocean
(comfortable sea-steeped lodging)

a beautiful series of sculptures in the water
at shallow’s edge, i guess, for how could they
be rooted in the seabed, miles and miles below
the water’s surface?

one particular sculpture that fascinated me was
high and curvilinear, tall as a tree, with beveled
shelving abutments. it stood lone, provocative
and mononumental. it seemed utilitarian or had
the potential to be.

a friend, “my friend flirt” (?), gave me a brief tour.

i saw a stubby white tourist couple sink into
adjacent sleep pockets, seemingly fashioned of
material resembling whale blubber or thick black
rubbery vinyl. little wombs in the warmth of the beach-
fronting waters.

Family together - "Christmas Story"

Last night, I had my immediate family (mom the matriarch, sis, bro, and niece) over for a home-cooked meal. I barely arrived home from the grocery store before they showed up, but fortunately I'd already prepped a few things earlier in the day. I swear they musta made a pact to go easy on me and "if you can't say anything nice, well...." because I noticed they were so so patient and cool with everything. It's as if they (particularly mom and sis) left their critical mode batteries at home, and this was very relieving. I confined them to the front room--it was the least cluttered of the house--and strictly forbade them from following me into the kitchen. It was fun playing chef for 90 minutes, emerging from the cocina with bowls and plates of steaming victuals (potato soup, bratwurst, sauteed spinach, french bread, and more) as they munched and chatted among themselves. Once I sat down to join them, for a cup of Mexican hot chocolate and a cup of soup, they seemed content and relaxed by the meal. It was the right time to read them something, which was "Christmas Story" by John Henry Faulk an Austinite who tried to have a career in radio broadcasting in spite of rampant McCarthyism. I just heard Faulk's reading of this story on NPR the other day, and it officially put me in the holiday way. The story, which you too can hear Faulk read, helps me imagine the Depression-era christmases my own father musta had, back in west Texas in the early 1940s. By the end of my own living room reading of the story for my family last night, we were all teary-eyed and full of w.f's (warm fuzzies).

Side note: During the 1980s, Faulk traveled the nation urging students to be ever-vigilant of their constitutional rights and to take advantage of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Center for American History at UT-Austin sponsors the John Henry Faulk Conference on the First Amendment, and the Texas Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Handbook is dedicated to the memory of Faulk.

MY FORT WORTH: Kino Monda Cinema presents---tonight!

[John Singleton's got me on his e-mailing list, so I get the announcements about the weekly film screenings at TCU for his Kino Monda series. John's one of those people I hardly ever see, but whom I imagine is probably one of the tribe--folks you ultimately would count as cool and close. Somebody said that about me once, after watching me dance and carry on at a radio station fundraiser in Austin: "Tammy, when the end of the world is near, and everybody's reaching out for someone, I wanna be dancing with your tribe." That's kinda how I feel about John. Hmmmm, maybe I'll cut out from work tonight and go see this flick--free food is always a nice enticement too.]


free thought **free food **free cinema

wholewideworld.tcu.edu

 
tonight's film: "Love Actually" (dir., Richard Curtis/UK/2003)

6:30 pm, Wednesday, December 21st
Sid Richardson Lecture Hall 4

Love Actually!     If you’re already in the holiday spirit, this film is like a steroid shot of Christmas cheer. For some (me), anyway…this movie threads functional and dysfunctional romance, hope, loss, reemerged hope, lost again, found again.  Spoofs on icons like rock stars and presidents, improbable loves and probable pre-disasters, all set around the Christmas holiday.  If I were psycho-analyzing a planet, I’d suggest "Love Actually" is the same message delivered to earth that was delivered by Jimmy Stewart in "It’s a Wonderful Life", only it is translated into a language we speak now.   Moral purists might prefer the Nutcracker. - J.Singleton

Remembering the Blue Flamingo days

I was just reminded of the Blue Flamingo, the former Austin hole-in-the-wall punk-noise-rawk club that the AusChron referred to as being "in all likelihood the stankiest, most low-down joint to ever qualify for a TABC liquor license." I loved that place. When you got bored at Emo's (and that's saying alot, as you could easily count on free admission performances by the likes of El Vez, Stereolab, and Blonde Redhead at the Emo's mainstage--even on weeknights), it was fun to cruise over to the Blue to get your earholes flossed, i mean good. Miss Laura, the obese Black transvestite proprietess, staunchly defended your right to party hard in s/his space--all eight by ten feet of it. It was always sweaty and screeching, blow-your-eardrums-out loud. One night I stumbled by myself into the Blue only to find the sweatiest, funkiest punk outfit calling themselves the Cleofus Trujillo Trio. I loved them. That was the mid-1990s. And guess what? The Blue Flamingo may have gone the way of all awesome rock clubs--blues and overdues done 'em in. But--the Cleofus Trujillo Trio has re-emerged as Snowbyrd. Still based in San Anto, Snowbyrd is amping up and playing out in Austin and beyond. Matter of fact, they are scheduled for a set at Room 710 on Friday, December 23rd, in Austex with none other than (and I thought they had died too--lo and behold, rock-and-roll resurrection is for real!)the legendary Hickoids. Highly highly recommended.

I'm going to jail today!

A Special HOLIDAY CELEBRATION
FOR THE CHILDREN OF WOMEN INMATES

AT DAWSON STATE JAIL in downtown Dallas
ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16 FROM 4-8:00PM

The women are minimum-security prisoners who participate in a creative new pilot project of Hope Literacy. Hope Literacy programs at Dawson, Hutchins and Gatesville Prisons train inmates to serve as tutors for their fellow inmates. These women are participants in the literacy program who have also been selected to participate in a program in which the inmates live together in a dorm unit -- which they have named Unity City -- and practice the principles of self-government.

Their children, from toddlers to young teenagers, are being given a unique opportunity to spend quality time with their mothers during a holiday celebration in the Dawson gym. Invitations have been sent to about 75 children.

I'm going to be reading the Tex-Mex version (!) of 'Twas the Night Before X-mas, and helping kids create a mural for their moms to take back to their unit and display during the holidays. I sat around late last night, imagining what it will be like to be in such close proximity with mothers who only rarely get to visit with and have physical contact with their own flesh and blood. I found myself already bracing for the inevitable tears and hearttugs that I will probably witness. I cannot take a camcorder in with me to document the experience to share with others, but I will most certainly bring back my own impressions. It's been a few years since I've had to visit a prison in painful circumstances. But then again, visiting a prison can never be like going off to play a round of Putt-Putt, can it?

Hopefully, I can offer some moments of cheer and entertainment pleasure for these separated family members trying to experience an evening of closeness and sharing. Wish me luck luck luck.

Here's more about the Hope Literacy project.

MY FORT WORTH: the Chicano Luncheon - a Cowtown tradition since 1965

The CHICANO LUNCHEON is an amazing and unique (cuz i don't know of any other city in the US that does this) opportunity and concept.  Folks (you the public) show up for an EXACTLY ONE HOUR IN DURATION noontime meal and networking gathering.  Once you step through the portal of that salon (Spanish pronunciation of this word, with the connotation that it is a "hall" or "community space"), other attendees smilingly offer you their: flyers, business cards, brochures, event promo info, etc.

It's very convivial!  Once we are formally greeted by the wonderful RENNY ROSAS (long-time Chicano activist in the FW community), we are invited to line up for the food (yummy $5 enchilada plate). You sit, where you like, and then the introductions begin.  EVERYone in the salon is invited to introduce themselves and tell who/what they're with.  After that, we continue eating as the PROGRAM begins.  It is TAPED FOR LATER BROADCAST ON FW CABLE TV (multiple-broadcast, i should say).

During the PROGRAM, various folks announce their community events at the podium.  Then, the keynote speaker(s) are intro-ed and they speak for no more than 15 minutes.  Short and sweet.

So---today, in 12 hours (eek, i need to go to bed!) THURSDAY, DECEMBER FIRST, I am slated to present for 10 minutes.  As spoken word artist, and as member of Peaceful Vocations. Hope you can join me there!

The specifics:

The Chicano Luncheon.
Thursday Dec. 1, 2005.
12:noon to 1:p.m.
La Trinidad United Methodist Church.
1300 Gould Av. @ Northside Dr.
Fort Worth TX 76106
Program:
- Tammy Gomez - Spoken word artist
- Brenda Gonzales - Free income tax service
- Steve Lerma - Tarrant County

This will be the last Chicano Luncheon for 2005.
Jan. 5, 2006 begins the 14th season at La Trinidad United Methodist Church.
 
The Chicano Luncheon, keeping our tradition alive since 1965.
Renny Rosas
817.924.8181 ofc
chicanoluncheon@gmail.com