social notes from here and there

Sat Mar 20 16:48:28 2004

Mike,
I tried to Google up www.TexasGhetto.com and got a page failure notice. Is this because noooo-one is funding the site or due to some technology glitch? 
FM 

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 --- On Sat 03/20, Michael Eisenstadt < michaele@ando.pair.com > wrote:
From: Michael Eisenstadt [mailto: michaele@ando.pair.com]
To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net, marie@inside-crew.net
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 15:35:35 -0600
Subject: social notes from here and there

I was talking to an old friend, he's both old and we met in 1957. He and Teralita Maverick have the same mantra (he lives in San Antonio too): "If you don't travel, you ain't shit." This is an exact quote, both of them having chanted it together in my hearing. Talking to him last week, I tried to defend my wanting to travel to France. He's been everywhere, currently preferring Ireland and Spain (he is a Tejano from Del Rio). We did agree that knowing the language is required to experience the whole nine yards. From his own experience, he wasn't terribly impressed by the French nor does he speak or understand the language. My argument turned on the French civilization being committed to maintaining a cutting edge in everything that makes up a top civilization. That cannot be said of Ireland or Spain. Nor of Italy. So doing this, no surprise that the French are sometimes obnoxiously smug become they know that if France is not THE center of the world, it is at least priveleged to be one of the centers of the world. Interestingly, part of being hip if one is French is to be very plugged in (branche') into Hollywood movies, TV shows and American music. I was blown away to discover that Homer Simpson episodes were broadcast one day a week on a Paris TV station. And to see a billboard ad for a big Snoop Dog concert. Of course there is a corny aspect to this. There is a Paris radio station which plays all jazz and their main DJ is a black American who knows no French. He just repeats 2 or 3 sentences he has apparently memorized. So the country seems like a more up experience to visit than others. On the other hand, I sometimes get the impression that the French are more morose than Americans, possibly because they don't share goofy American meliorism. Realistic thus gloomy versus feather-headed American optimism and denial of reality. And they write books like crazy, unfortunately most of them are too pretenious to read. On the other hand, Spain going socialist is kinda exciting. They replaced the conniving right wing Bush suckup. Maybe next November we'll be replacing the creep we have now. Organized protests are taking place in major cities. Was anything planned for Austin?