Amplified Heat – The Pleasurecraft

May 19, 2010

Fiesta Gardens

There is no equivalent of Ellis Island anywhere along the Mexican border, no outstretched torch of Lady Liberty lighting the way for clandestine nighttime border crossings, no bronze plaque beckoning tired, poor, huddled masses and wretched refuse through the golden door. Really, would it have killed Panama to pop for a big copper statue as payback for helping them win independence from Columbia? (Yes, we gave them the military reach-around mainly so we could dig a huge ditch through the middle of their country, but hey, a favor’s a favor, right?) Just think of the warm feeling all those illegals would get (as if riding sardined in the back of a sweltering, windowless semi trailer through the desert wouldn’t do the trick) if they were welcomed by a reasonably svelte, feminine beacon of liberty, even (especially?) if she was wearing a poncho and a huge, touristy sombrero. Well, no such luck for our southern neighbors. Their entry into the land of the free is much too hasty to allow for standing around gazing at statues and waxing philosophical about the blessings of liberty. In Mexico, making a run for the border isn’t just a lighthearted euphemism for the late-night munchies; it’s an adrenaline-fueled gauntlet reminiscent of a jailbreak scene from Cool Hand Luke, except the bloodhounds are replaced by paranoia-crazed minutemen with night-vision goggles, assault rifles, and spine crushing 4-by-4s. Down on America’s tan line, immigration isn’t for the timid. It takes some cojones grandes to cross into the home of the brave. Those few who actually make it are awarded the prize of a shit job that pays below minimum wage, a breathtaking stay in a cheap motel room that’s packed tighter than the cargo hold of La Amistad, and, if things go exceptionally well, a shot at dying in a cloud of cocaine and gunfire like Tony Montana at the end of Scarface. For most immigrants, however, freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose – especially since they probably just spent their life savings paying off a coyote. Yet, as brave, hardworking, and committed as illegal immigrants are to the American dream, as much as they love our country, they still have to leave it. They are, after all, illegal. Of course, that doesn’t mean we have to be dicks about it like Arizona. If Americans start pulling over and checking the papers of everyone who looks like they descended from immigrants just to make sure they’re legal, they won’t have any time left to run their casinos. F that S. Persecution is hardly un-American, but it doesn’t make it right or reasonable. This country was founded on the principle that all men were created equal. It has since spent more than 230 years falling short of that mark, but that doesn’t mean we should just give up. Hopefully, the rest of America is smarter or at least more optimistic than Arizona. Hopefully America understands that its strength is in its diversity, which means we have better food, better music, better parties, and we don’t bleed to death when we nick ourselves shaving. If you want to enjoy a great example of our awesome diversity with relatively little chance of being jacked up by immigration Nazis, check out this Saturday’s Pachanga Latino Music Festival at Fiesta Gardens. From noon to 11pm, four stages will host more than 20 Latino acts including such favorites as Grupo Fantasma, David Garza, Haydn Vitera, Vallejo, Amplified Heat, Roberto Pulido y los Clasicos, Hacienda, and Bomba Estéreo. Enjoy the music … and remember how much uglier it would be in Arizona.

Jan. 8, 2008

If you did them up right, the holidays should have packed a couple of extra pounds of suet on your frame. Don’t freak out and buy an expensive gym membership just yet. Anything could happen. You might swallow a tapeworm. You might go on a hunger strike. Your soccer team’s plane might crash in the Andes. Besides, more and more people are getting right with chubbiness anyway. Take a quick stroll along the drag and you’ll realize that your anachronistic prejudices about body image don’t trouble the youth of today. You won’t see any hint of the roomy, asexual styles of yesteryear. Mostly what you get is clothes that truss the body like sausage casings, split with intermittent herniations of white, doughy flesh. In ill-fitting clothing, nearly anyone can look voluptuous. Take “skinny jeans” for instance. They might make your legs look skinny – especially if you could throw a poncho over your upper torso – say like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, but the average pair of skinny jeans these days has belly fat oozing out of the top like dough from a broken can of biscuits. Perhaps it’s Eurocentric designers taking revenge on Bush-voting red states, but clothing seems to be tailored for people who spend their days in the tailgate mosh pit of Oxfam trucks, not for pudgy middle Americans whose most physically demanding tasks are fingering their remotes and cracking the pull-tops on cans of Red Bull and Rock Star. If people aren’t leaving their houses as much (and they aren’t) there really isn’t much need for them to look presentable, but they could at least look and feel comfortable. It’s really sad to think of a whole nation of teenagers passing out, popping buttons and splitting seams in the comfort and privacy of their own homes just because they don’t have enough self-esteem to buy their clothes in the “husky” section of J.C. Penney. If wishes were horses, they probably wouldn’t try to fit into Greyhound harnesses, would they? Ah, but how to change the demented mindset of a whole generation? Fuck that, you’re probably better off buying an Ab Lounger and training for ultra marathons. Or, you could have your mouth wired shut. Before you do, you might want to check in with Jennifer Marchand, who is the beneficiary of a rock & roll concert this Friday at Ruta Maya. Marchand who runs Bleu French Laundry productions, a promoter of musical events like the Zeppelin hoot night and the Stones Sticky Fingers album hoot, was hit by a car in November and suffered, among other things, a broken jaw, which required her mouth to be wired shut for four weeks. This Friday’s show will help cover some of her medical expenses and get her back in business, so to speak. Acts scheduled to play include: Amplified Heat, Chili Cold Blood, the Alice Rose, the Summer Wardrobe, Ralph White, the Murdocks, Carolyn Wonderland, Tony Scalzo, Jade Day, Paul Minor, and surprise guests. The Ruta Maya should be packed tighter than a pair of skinny jeans, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to squeeze you in.