<h2>A dog day afternoon … at the DMV.

By Al Carlos Hernandez </h2>

<b>SAN FRANCISCO (Herald de Paris)</b> - I spent the longest seventy-five minutes of my life at the Department of Motor Vehicles the other day. I viewed it as penance for not using new media and/or paying attention to snail mail directives. One would think that I had learned my lesson by now after the trauma I suffered that time I had to come back six times in one day to register a late model Fleetwood during my Superfly days.  

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The DMV is a place where everybody on both sides of the counter is angry, off the rack, unkempt and ready to rumble. They construct a DMV like a Russian union hall – stark, officious, and brooding in such a way as to punish working people for having used cars and lacking the ability to negotiate a Kafkaesque phone appointment system.

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Thankfully most of our DMV business is handled on-line. I can now renew a car registration during an NBA time out. This time, however, it was different. I had to pick up license plates for my wife’s new car because they never sent them. She was right. You can only have those paper plates on the car so long before the neighbors think you stole it.

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I knew there was going to be a problem when the DMV parking lot was filled with cars sporting homemade tinted windows looking like they needed salvage titles.

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Once inside I was immediately sentenced to a snaking conga line of broke folks babbling in sixteen dialects, several of which I discerned where English. I waited to be issued a number and my fearful religious assumption was the number was going to be 666.

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The procedure is simple: everyone lines up and goes to the information booth. You explain to them how stupid you are. They tell you where to go and wait. Make no mistake, everyone in the house has a problem, some of which include personal hygiene.

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They issue you a number which determines the clerk who specializes in your particular problem. The bigger your problem, the meaner the dateless clerk to which they assign you.

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I felt sorry for the holistic woman clerk, who’d given up on makeup, and whose AA degree had failed her, working the window. Distressed, hating her career counselors, and filled with angst, she curtly got on the phone and reported to someone that there were sixty-five people in our twenty-three person line. Somehow, up through a trap door or something, there appeared this rude woman who looked like the heifer that shot Selena. She was busting the line, slinging orders, handing out forms, and growling that the wait would be at least one solid hour.

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The only people in the building happy to be there where the teenagers, who practiced their smiles for their first time driver’s license photo. I wanted desperately to inform them that they should not smile for the picture. It should be the intention of a driver’s license picture to convey to a potential arresting officer that you always look shot to the curb and somewhat faded. If your bright eyed, bushy tailed driver’s license picture looks dramatically different from your everyday mug, they are going to ask you to step out of the car. Believe that.

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Bought the ticket, took the ride. My number: C81. I looked at the TV monitor. They were on C48. Could have been Si 48 for all I knew. Keeping my posture on the down low, I was standing next to a wall in the back since all the chairs were taken. Behind me was a house shoe wearing, gum cracking woman, babbling to someone on a cell phone and peppering her conversation with inane profanity. It occurred to me that mathematically there is a gum cracking equation. The louder you crack your gum, the greater the popping intervals, the lower the IQ. Based on her proficiency I was amazed she could walk up right. She didn’t consider her cracking an annoyance but rather as an attribute. Like working five hula hoops at once.

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As a man of action, I decided to apply my knowledge of upper division math. I knew I had plenty of time to leave and go to the post office, the house, get something to eat and check email. I returned to the DMV thinking I beat the system and . . . they were on C53.

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This time I stood on the other side of the room away from “Gumbalina” and listened to a cross section of tri-lingual conversations while gazing over a bouquet of faces colored with a general malaise. Slowly, one by one, numbers where called and people scurried to the counters to plead their cases Others quickly filled the booty-warmed plastic chairs. Time dragged on.

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Then it was my turn. C81 at window 10. Now. Naturally, like a dork, I was standing next to window 23, so I had to walk as fast as I could – without running – across the facility before another number was called. If you start running, everyone else will run with you. Don’t ask me how I know that.

At window 10 was an auto registration veteran, who was clearly detached from the sullen madness all around her. She simply worked one procedure at a time and fixed my problem.

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We all could learn a lesson from her.

She will live most of her life without me
Al Carlos Hernandez

Herald De Paris


By process of elimination, it fell on me to babysit our infant granddaughter. The babysitter was ill, everybody had to work, and Papa Al works at home. I viewed this as a daunting yet sacred trust. I can’t remember when I had full time charge of an infant for an entire day and the responsibility wore heavily on me days before the scheduled “blessed event.” I wasn’t sure I could do it but told everybody I could.


I know about her, was at the hospital when she was born, was one of the first to ever hold her, have randomly bonded with her, and even fed her a bottle on occasion. I have loved her since before the beginning, yet I knew she could sense the fear in me. She knew that she could cry randomly and I would promise her a BMW if she would stop.


She arrived all bundled up in a high tech chair, which morphed from a car seat into a traveling basket of sorts. Mariana was bundled in a precious pastel package, a pink Jordan beanie and those caramel colored innocent eyes, rosy red cheeks, and diamond studded Latina adorned earrings.


After stilted and hurried goodbyes, it was just Mariana, me, and our dog Sally. Oh, I forgot to mention I was also doggie sitting their ten month old Maltese puppy named Mugzy.


She sat wide awake in her chair on the sofa in my office and stared me down as I checked my email. She made a few noises and I was ready with her first bottle. Bottles are somehow curved now. They are not glass, like the one my son used to crack me over the head with when I tried to nap back when I had an Afro.
This was the day when the headlines read, “Babies born recently will probably live to be 100 years old.” That’s when it struck me that Mariana will spend the majority of her life without me and I became very sad. In fact I was the one who felt like crying. In lieu of a bottle I drank another mug of hair straightening Peets coffee.


It was amazing to me that she was born into a world where the President is Black and at a time when the country was never more broke. A time when a Latina can sit on the Supreme Court, and you can watch a Mariah Cary concert on your cell phone. We have come a long way baby indeed.


She started to cry and I placed her on my lap to read my Facebook comments. All she wanted to do was to bang her hands on the keyboard and scream, which, ironically, has made me a good living by doing the very same thing.


My comments were so boring it put her to sleep while cradled in my arms. I was about to put her in bed, when Sally and Mugs started barking for no apparent reason. She awoke, quite upset at me for not keeping the dogs quiet. The two white fluffy suspects, quite proud of what they considered to be their security effort, went back to sleep in self congratulatory satisfaction.


Half asleep, half awake, I carried her around the house and the motion calmed her down. I do the same thing on my motorcycle when I go for my wind therapy while enraged about one thing or another. I always forget about what I was mad about after I come back from a ride. I was hoping a few laps around the house would do the same for the little mama, and it did. But then it didn’t.


I clicked on the flat screen and sat beside her as she sipped yet another bottle while I watched HD cartoons. Who writes this stuff anyway? Que Sponge Bob que nada! I have pitched many TV ideas and was told my ideas about “Little Genius Projects Kids” were off the wall yet the Sponge Bob people are driving Bentleys. Again I felt like crying, but she comforted me by going to sleep, making me feel that at least I succeed in doing something right.


The whole day was spent attending to her every need and/or whim. I did not get any work done at all, yet for me it was one of the more productive days in a long time. I realized that life, the celebration of life, and comforting those you love should be the most important priority. Nurturing her gave me the gift of perspective.


In the afternoon, back in the office, I treated her to musical selections which included John Coltrane, Little Joe Y La Famila, Tower of Power, Buena Vista, and Michael Jackson. She loved the Michael Jackson tunes from a time when he became an iconic, almost fairytailed myth.


I promised to be there for her and help set the template of her life. My hope is that she and her kids will someday remember the times spent with her Papa Al – at a time when the world needed heroes.

The Opposite of Bravery is not, Cowardice but Conformity Discover the artist in you...

Al Carlos Hernandez

www.LatinoLA.com
http://www.heralddeparis.com/

Deep down inside, everyone has a hidden artistic talent or a proclivity for the esoteric. Some of us play musical instruments, others act, DJ, cook, decorate, design, master the spoken word, dance, tell wonderful stories, and/or make people laugh.

While exercising my artistic chops I’ve realized that it feels like I am functioning at my highest level of productivity and bliss. When creating something new that can, hopefully, inspire some kind of emotional rejoinder for the good of those around us, it seems the heart, mind, and soul are firing on all cylinders

Art happens.

Mentors have told me that eminent art occurs when the focus of the effort is centered on the quality of the work itself rather than a commercial or narcissistic outcome. A true artist needs to devoid himself of what others think and concentrate on what he has to say through his medium. That being said, most artists seem to be egomaniacs.

Carlos Santana once told me that when he plays his guitar he doesn’t feel his fingers playing the notes. All he feels is the music transferring from his soul and going out through the amps. Consistent with that theme, my suspicion is that he has direct deposit so the fat checks go right to the bank as well.

No doubt the majority of artists, not just the starving ones, have day jobs. Those fortunate enough to create art for a living are considered foolish. Unless they are rich. Then they are considered eccentric. The world wide web has opened a Pandora’s box of new artistic expression to be enjoyed in the comfort of your own home. Consumer driven media, consumer originated art, is generated though an egalitarian electronic platform. This is a place where U-Tube can make you a rock star or a laughing stock over night to tens of millions.

I truly admire those who can play music and write songs. All art aspires to the condition of music. Many of those troubadours will never monetize their sweat labor, make it big, be on TV, or release a CD, but they are authentic and accomplished artists none-the-less. Often times these talented souls have a better ability than the people who find themselves flash-in-the-pan famous.

Most expensive pro-quality music, photography, DJ set ups, and painting paraphernalia are sold to non-professionals. Pros often get endorsement deal hook-ups.

Engaging in art creates an outward expression of what is really going on in the soul. This works well when a hair designer comes up with a new color and cut, giving someone a new and hipper identity. It can work to the detriment when you experience some junk sculpture that reflects an urban blight or the ravages of a future-shock tasered society.

We really have to give it up to the musicians who have full-time day jobs yet take their bands up and down the state playing no-money gigs in dives. They do it just for the joy of entertaining people, laying it all out there in the hope that the music will get them somewhere. Someday they may find that the joy of creating the music was the greatest reward in itself. Some may be embittered and rebuke the effort as a pitiful waste of time. Those are the cats who were in it for the wrong reasons.

As a writer, I am glad that I don’t have to take my show on the road playing in dives across the country to display my chops. The downside is that the feedback, good or bad, is few and far between. If we had a band and took the show on the road, I would know immediately if people laughed or if I completely bombed. Lately, though, because of email and social media, the feedback comes to me quicker than a beer bottle tossed at the stage.

My wife and I have found in our midlife that the expression of the artistic muse vastly improves the quality of life and keeps us vital, inspired, and in the mix. She takes flute, piano, and occasional voice lessons. I have taken up the electric bass, some blues guitar, and have been called upon to paint the house. All talents being equal, I should be a painting soloist on the roller.

We have found that if you want to improve the quality of life, make an effort to let your creative juices flow. Aspiring scribes have given me their work to critique and it is always encouraging when I find the everyday, non-ego-driven folks who have real hidden talent.

My dad was a weekend musician. Being a guitar player defined his soul. He was at his happiest when playing for a house party or rehearsing every afternoon for a pizza parlor gig scheduled two weeks off. Music helped him transcend the mundane 9-to-5 life of a warehouseman. It transported him into a world were he was a special “somebody” with skill. His gravestone has a guitar etched on it. Maybe mine will have a PC.

“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.”
-Robert Anthony

INTERVIEW: Film producer Frank Aragon (Down For Life)

By Al Carlos Hernandez

LOS ANGELES (Herald de Paris)

– Produced by Boyle Heights native Frank Aragon, the Alan Jacobs’ gang drama DOWN FOR LIFE is up for a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival – one of eleven titles added to its category Contemporary World Cinema. The film was shot on location in South-Central Los Angeles and stars local youths in the lead roles. It is based on a true story starring Danny Glover, Snoop Dogg, Kate Del Castillo, Elizabeth Pena and introducing sixteen year old Jessica Romero from the streets of Wilmington, California.


Frank Aragon’s past films include MY FATHER’S LOVE, BOYLE HEIGHTS, HOLLYWOOD FAMILIA and AND SO THEY DIE. All are part of 1211 Entertainment. Aragon’s company has been concentrating on the American-Latino audience for the last ten years. Frank is a Mexican-American (Chicano) whose passion is telling positive Latino stories. In 2001 Aragon was the recipient of the Golden Eagle Award as an outstanding independent filmmaker from Nosotros. This is Aragon’s first major film festival debut.


Frank tells us:
I was born and raised in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles, eventually moving to the San Gabriel Valley so we could live a little better life away from gangs and drugs. I was raised in a single parent household; my mother and father split up when I was six. My mother was always supportive of me, she just didn’t have time to nurture me the way she wanted to. It was always just me and my sister because Mom worked a lot.
Mom always told me that I was a good storyteller. I believed her. If you tell a two year old kid that they’re good at something, they believe it and things start to happen. I wanted more grown-up things early on, like a career in the movie business. When my family found out about my dreams, and knew that I was serious, they encouraged me. They patted me on the back and said, “You can do it mijo!” My friends knew that vision was what was driving me. They fully supported me and are still expecting to have leads in future movies I make.


My sister and I grew up with television, especially FANTASY ISLAND. One film changed my life and that film was ROCKY. I knew then that an underdog could win or, at least, in the effort he was a winner.
I consider myself an actor who is also a producer/director. That is my love, my passion. I’m told I’m a gifted director. After I wrote, produced, directed and starred in my first film MY FATHER’S LOVE, I realized that I have an unshakable confidence which cannot be broken by anyone. My ultimate goal is to someday win an Oscar.


The reason I got into acting was that in the eighth grade I had a crush on my drama teacher. I was student body president and discovered that I loved the drama class so much! Reading plays aloud and then doing them on stage was the best escape for me. I owe Miss Enloe; she started it all.
My first success came from an audition. I took a bus to Hollywood and walked into a dark theater to audition for a play. I was eighteen and they cast me. We took that play to New York City and performed Off-Broadway at Harold Clurman Theatre. I had been auditioning for two years already for things in Hollywood. I even got cast as a dead body in a morgue scene in DEATH WISH IV with Charles Bronson. When I came back from New York at the age of ninteen I got cast in my first film ANGELTOWN with Teresa Saldana. Bob Morones cast me; I used to drop pictures and resumes off at his door at least once every week.


My biggest supporters have always been my daughter and certainly my family, who celebrate every success and encourage me to keep going. The biggest challenge in starting out was being able to keep pursuing my dream and still eat and live like any normal human being, I was a young man with responsibilities. My high school sweetheart and I had a daughter from all of our love for each other. I was only seventeen when she was born so I was a very young dad. My son was born four years later. Destiny and Frankie are my two children.


My first professional gig was the play I did in New York City Off-Broadway, performing next to a theater in which Melissa Gilbert and Phoebe Cates acted. I knew I was a real actor like them. I eventually ran into them at the deli on the corner and invited them to my play. They came and it was encouraging, (I loved Phoebe Cates, but I didn’t get to make out with her.) Working with young professionals on that level, I knew I could make it then.


Originally I started out as an actor but had an accident after returning from Minnesota where I had worked on a film. I asked the director and producer if I could learn to be a PA, a production assistant, as well. They asked me, “Why? You are an actor.” I told them that one day I want to direct and produce so I want to learn everything I can. I wanted to be by the camera at all times.


That film was Severo Perez’s PBS film And The Earth Did Not Swallow Him by Tomás Rivera. I traveled with the film to Minnesota and there I eventually worked in every department. I was a grip, an electrician, in the prop department, the wardrobe department and production assistant. That was my first film school.


When I returned from Minnesota. I worked construction as a property supervisor. Then tragedy struck. I had freak accident and was blinded by a bungee cord that broke, hitting me in my right eye. I lost my vision in that eye and for four years I didn’t act anymore, having to undergo surgery after surgery. Eventually I went to UCLA and studied the technical aspects of filmmaking. Five years later I wrote, produced, and directed MY FATHER’S LOVE. Since then I’ve made it a point to learn it all. I do what I need to survive, to keep going until I get to the prize.


MY FATHER’S LOVE was my first serious effort, having produced, financed, written, directed, and starred in that film. It was a major undertaking and it helped me learn so many things in so many ways. Hollywood really doesn’t care about young or old. It cares about hotness. If you’re hot it doesn’t matter if you are one hundred years old. If you’re thirteen and hot then you’re welcome as well. Hollywood is driven by money and who can bring in the next big payday. In this town, if you are already successful then you are wanted. If you are smart and can deliver in today’s age, you can dictate your terms better than back in the day. Especially when you are not dependent upon them for your successes.
I have to say that there is discrimination against Latinos in the entertainment industry. I’m a Chicano and I’m brown to most Hollywood people I’m just a Mexican and sometimes I am viewed as an immigrant. They judge people based on a perception about us that is false. That being said, most people in the business are also smart, so they cannot deny our worth any longer. They are fighting tooth and nail to try to get their hands on our audiences.

What about your latest project? How did it come about? What events led up to its showing in Canada?

I got a call from producer Scott Alvarez who had seen my work as the location manger on REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES. They knew about me from Effie Brown who knew me from my film MY FATHER’S LOVE. Scott wanted to meet me and talk about a picture.


I read the script and liked it a lot. It wasn’t stereotypical and I thought I could make a difference working on the picture. I met with Scott Alvarez at an office in Studio City. Scott and I talked while Alan Jacobs, who was in an office adjacent to ours, could hear our conversation regarding a certain property. POR VIDA is the story about a young gangster girl from South Central who happens to be Latina. Even though he’d heard the conversation, I still didn’t meet Jacobs.


We talked about the film and he offered me the job of location manager, I told him I’d like to read the script again but I would like to help produce the movie. Based on my body of work I was certainly more than just a location manger. He listened. I went to La Vegas for a weekend and came back. I was offered the job.


When I returned they hired Dwight Williams who is John Singleton’s line producer and executive producer in HUSTLE AND FLOW. I met with Williams but the meeting turned into my being interviewed to be somebody’s assistant, not a location manager or even a producer. I very politely wished them the best of luck with the project and walked away. There comes a point when you have to say, “No, thank you,” because you’ve earned more than they are offering. I still hadn’t met Alan Jacobs either while he was in the adjacent office.


They went out and tried to produce the film without me. They shot for ten days out of a twenty-eight day schedule and then went dark. That means the film shut down due to lack of money, being over produced, spending too much money, you name it.


I knew that this project was an urban story and could be done cheaply if the right people were involved. People who knew the hoods of Los Angeles and knew what they were doing as independent producers, not studio producers. There is a big difference and the difference is money. Independents are accustomed to working without money and studio producers are used to having it. I learned how to work without it. To make a long story short, I got a call from Scott again. He explained everything to me saying that everyone working the film was now gone. No more money means they were no longer around. We set up a meeting at the Four And Twenty in Studio City.


This time the meeting was with Alan Jacobs and Scott Alvarez. They asked me to help them produce the rest of the film, keep a log on the days left, keep continuity, handle cast issues, handle union issues, you name it. Problems, problems. I asked them, “Okay so how much money do I have now to finish this movie?” They said only about ten percent of the original budget. I accepted the challenge and went to work.


We shot an additional nineteen days using weekends, making sure we matched continuity, actors, and new locations. No more line producers, executive producers, unit production mangers, or location managers, These jobs are usually filled by multiple people on films with money. We didn’t have any money so I did them all by myself.


I realized that this is what I’ve been grooming myself for all these years and I was so ready. The film is simply good. It is excellent. We submitted the film to Toronto and they accepted us. It is one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. I am so excited. It is an honor in itself.

How has the film festival invite affected you? What do you hope happens there?

Being selected is my own personal confirmation that I am ready. It has shored up my confidence, giving me new birth and a passion for the next level of projects. I hope I meet some great people who don’t mind working on projects with a young Chicano like myself in the future. People who can see through the color of my skin and be okay with me, hopefully through my successes. I can help enable more talented brown people on the set who need a break too.

What is your next project? How can people support your work?

I wish I could say. It’s big. It is a comedy written by a big name writer and produced by a young Chicano on his way to making a huge name for himself. Me!!!! Oh yeah it has a strong female Latina as the lead who has yet to be cast. Someone’s going to get a big break! Especially if they are a Chicana! People can support me, and the people like me who are trying to break down some Hollywood barriers, by writing letters (emails) to the networks about me and my work. Let them know we are coming and please go see my movies the first week when they come out.


As an artist I want to changes lives. I want to affect people’s lives by the stories I’m telling, stories that make a difference in our society. I want to influence the great change that is already taking shape in our country.
My life is one story that can be anyone’s story. I know I am blessed and I will live up to all the expectations people have for me by doing the best job I can. Making a difference in others people’s lives through the stories I will tell and the films I produce, I will continue to be blessed by the very nature of the work and that process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET-eelzH5_E&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET-eelzH5_E

My Daughter’s Wedding, and I didn’t cry…

Al Carlos Hernandez
www.LatinoLA.com

Yesterday I experienced one of the proudest days of my life, a papa’s dream as it were: walking my daughter down the aisle. It was earlier in the week when I had a revelation of the beauty and perfection of the moment that was yet to come. I was holding my two month old granddaughter, my youngest son’s infant daughter in my arms. My heart went back to the days when I held my infant curly haired mija, way back in the day when I was only in my mid 20’s myself. Enamored with the beauty of life, God’s magnificence in tiny Latina form, my eyes became warm with the tears I did not allow to fall, knowing that the day to give my daughter away was looming.


Like many of you dads of the post modern, reckless, irreconcilable situation, ally-ambivalent America of the 70’s, I “weekend parented” my little ones. She was four and my little guy was three when their mom and I contractually agreed to disagree. I never missed a weekend visit or a child support check. I remember the time I walked out on a recording session in Texas with Little Joe Y La Famila in order to board planes, trains and automobiles to make it to the kids Halloween costume parade in Berkeley. I could only wave from the sidelines as she walked by dressed as a first grade princess, my son a preschool superhero. Well, she is a princess and he is a superhero to me. They are the evolved people I always wanted to be but could never get past. My housing projects bred bravado.


She told everyone the wedding would take place at 12, but it was really 12:30. Smiling on the way over, I thought back to her graduation day from SDSU with her BS in event planning. Was her timing an academic consideration, or a result of her sophisticated refined Latina-ness?


I have always prayed for my children to find the love of their lives, like I did. For me it was the second time around with the woman I call “Mi Vida.” My daughter’s wedding was four years to the day of her meeting the man of her destiny. Just like “Officer and a Gentleman” her man has just completed his BS and is going to be a fighter pilot. I could not have scripted this love affair any better. It took divine penmanship.


The nuptials were staged at a regional park, in a cove surrounded by tall dark brown and green roofed trees perched on a hillside, veiled in fauna, girded by rocks, and matted by moss. One by one they came, as the sun’s spotlight bathed famila in their Sunday best. High tech mini media captured every nuance. Friends and family from the mother’s side (many of whom I haven’t seen in 29 years) appear 29 years older. Still the same inside, while touches of gray kind of suited them in many ways. I was no exception.


I looked up a two story flight of stone stairs from the cobbled plain below. There she was, dressed in white, and more beautiful than I ever imagined, flanked by her best friend maids of honor. I remembered the moment she was born. It was as if another eye opened in my being, never knowing what we Christians call “agape love” of God. I never knew love like that before. It was then, at her birth, when my real life began. Sadly for me today is the day to hand her over to her Prince Charming, and I don’t know what say. I just hug her.


We were poised to walk down the tree lined winding cement ramp, to the place where the ceremony was to be held below. I remembered holding her hand at the mall when we used to go to the Hello Kitty store to buy stickers with the money she made helping her mom with chores.


Her jovial and kindhearted step dad took his rightful place on her left arm, while I was on her right, and we walked her down the ramp. She was a little anxious so I told her something ridiculous that Grandma Rose used to say to insult people. She laughed like she did back then. They played Isn’t she lovely by Stevie Wonder, the song that was at the top of the charts on the day she was born, and I still didn’t cry.


Life came full circle as we were asked by my older brother, her Nino, the presiding Superior Court judge who officiated: “Who gives this woman to be betrothed?” Step dad and I said, “We do,” and we did.


Dreams do come true. God always works things out in perfection. And I didn’t cry.


Until now.

Thinking About a Buzz Cut

I’m told that hair always grows back, but luck has never been that good

By Al Carlos Hernandez – Contributing Editor
Published on LatinoLA: December 10, 2008


I am sure it is urbanely psychological but I’m thinking about getting a buzzed haircut, similar to the soccer star David Beckham (pictured). The problem is I don’t want to look like David Broke-ham. Back in the Bible days, folks used to shave off their hair as a vow, indicating that a major change is taking place in their lives. This was a sign that you were serious about viewing life differently and wanted everybody to know it.


As an artist I often times feel the need to re-invent myself, and have experimented with many looks in the past, and no doubt will do more of it in the future. My options are running out. Been through my retro-cool long hair phase and succeeded in looking like Thomas Jefferson or one of those Homies on a cigar box. I maintain a normal length, woke up late, spiky look, but feel the need to express a new attitude.


At my age you give up the attempt to be good looking; that ship has sailed. And as Prince said in his CD Musicology, “I was fine back in the day.” Well at least that was the belief that my Mama Rose maintained.


In a quarter past midlife, all men can hope for is to look distinguished, intimidating, or rich. Good looking, handsome, cute, Guapo is no longer a real option, unless you are a Novela Patron, and they get Botox. Thanks to my Mama’s Papa’s DNA (Black Puerto Rican) side of the family, I still have a full head of hair, albeit thinning and graying. Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead said, “Oh well a touch of gray, kind of suits you anyway.”


If I were to go under the buzz clippers, most likely a number 2 or 3 setting, my cabeza may look like an outline for a coloring book, a Burberry carpet, or a Velcro wig.


I am not sure if my proposed military-styled makeover is a reaction to the changing economy, secretly hoping to save money on hair products, or if it’s a meager attempt to look like Obama, so that player-hating Democrats will somehow like me again.


All of my sons maintain the buzzed look and they get faded and lined up with regularity. Having hair no doubt dates me. Maybe I have a need to be part of that ritual; maybe I want to look like them in an attempt to recapture my youth. OK, that can’t be it because when I was younger, the longer your hair – the hipper you were. I have some embarrassing pictures featuring me in an Afro, sitting next to Santana who had the good sense to wear a hat. Carlos no doubt regrets his picture taking hat-wearing days because now he has to wear a hat almost 24-7 to conceal a severely poached-egg looking bald head.


Women tell me that they like to experiment with their look every once in a while. My wife is a well known hair therapist and is at the cutting edge, if you pardon the expression, of what is hip. Emilio Castillo of Tower of Power wrote, “Sometimes hipness is what it ain’t.”


I’m told that hair always grows back, but luck has never been that good. I bought AOL at $45, which at the time was “must buy” by now convicted experts who thought they had the stock market on lock.


The problem with doing something drastic is the performance anxiety anticipation of first time people see you: What will their reaction be? Love it, hate it, maybe they won’t notice and you were tripping for nothing.


Once, my wife was too busy to cut my hair, so I went to the local mall and got a regular men’s cut. The problem was I went to an Asian haircutter who took it upon himself to cut my hair exactly like his. When my wife came home that evening I met her in the driveway. She saw my Chino-fied haircut and was laughing so hard she couldn’t get out of the car or up the stairs for a half hour. After her hysteria subsided it took her two hours to correct the Chairman Mao hairdo.


I should have buzzed it all off then, but those were different times – times of hope and plenty. We were not in survival mode then as we are now.


“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.” – Maya Angelou


http://www.latinola.com/story.php?story=7036

Dancing with a Dweeb: A Love Story

My body simply does not multi-task when it comes to physically expressing myself to music

By Al Carlos Hernandez, Contributing Editor
Published on LatinoLA: April 10, 2009

Embarrassingly, I am so inspired by the TV show Dancing with the Stars that I have to tell my own story about tripping the light fantastic.


I am one of the few full-blooded Latino males who cannot dance. It’s not for lack of trying or the lack of resources to hire professional trainers. My problem isn’t genetic and has nothing to do with race. My parents, especially Mom, were great dancers.


We grew up raised on radio, nurtured in a music filled environment as my dad was a weekend musician. My sisters dance. I’m not sure how well, since I’ve never danced with them. Maybe if I had, they would have told me, in no uncertain terms, how much I sucked. This could have saved me years of humiliation.


My brothers, one a Harley biker, the other a successful Porsche-driving attorney, are somehow socially bound not to express themselves in a festive and physical manner in public. That leaves me to distinguish myself as the Dork of the Dance.


In the early years I was successful in doing the slow strut vato loco two-step. It didn’t matter what song was being played. The girls thought I was a brooding, troubled romantic. However when disco came along I had no shame in my game and took to virtually running in place while snapping my fingers in the air. I’ve been told I looked like a commercial for the Cholo Special Olympics.


Then there was the time I was strutting my raggedy stuff down a Soul Train line at a house party in Oakland and almost took a beat down because my moves were so stiff and lame. Luckily, I faked a platform shoe ankle injury and escaped with my permed Afro intact.


When salsa music hit hard, I was a program director for a Spanish radio station in San Francisco. We would co-sponsor the biggest and baddest salsa concerts the West Coast had ever seen. Women would drag me to the dance floor only to try to lose me during the timbale solo because my moves were so spastic and whack. After a lady would dance with me, her girl friends would hit her with their purses after she got back to the table.


Believe it or not I thought I had it going on. I thought that by amending my aerobic disco-jog by kicking my feet off to the side, then flapping my elbows like a rooster getting ready to jump over a barn, it was salsa. It wasn’t salsa. It was sorry. Friends and family, through an intervention, convinced me to limit my club participation to buying people drinks and court-supervised slow dancing.


Ironically, I met my wife, a great dancer, at a salsa club. It was during a radio station sponsored Halloween party. I spent the whole night trying to convince this gorgeous conservative Latina business executive that I was not the convict-looking, pinto vato loco my costume made me out to be. But my headband kept slipping down and blinding me to the point where I felt like smashing a piñata.


I growled at dudes who asked her to dance, scaring them away. I then took courage and asked her to dance myself. The room got quiet as I limited my movements to very subtle rhythmic steps while keeping my arms near my waist, avoiding flight. As confidence grew I began walking around in circles while moving my shoulders to the music. The radio staff was no help. Soon everyone in the club knew that I was trying to dance again. All eyes were on me, waiting to bust a gut at my murdering of this traditional art form.


Mi vida quickly read the situation, discerning the glee that my free-loading entourage was getting at my painful attempt to salsa dance. She took pity on me and led me back to our table. This gorgeous, intelligent woman realized that I endured public scorn by trying to make her happy. We have been together ever since. 25 years married in May.


Enamored, I confessed to her that I was not a dancer and, although I can play some conga and bass guitar, rhythm somehow has no way of getting to my feet. My body simply does not multi-task when it comes to physically expressing myself to music.


We agreed to do all of the slow dances together. Then it would be my job to commandeer the best and usually most effeminate male staff members to dance with her during the up tempo tunes.


It has been years since we have danced in public. The whole experience falls under the “been there, done that” category. If we got to a club nowadays we’d see that what passes for dancing used to be considered a misdemeanor fondling morals charge.


I have learned through trial and error how to accept my social limitations. I am happy to have had such good friends who cared enough to tell me how much I blew at dancing. My inability to dance never cost me any money. It did teach me a certain humility and probably qualified me to run for public office.


About Al Carlos Hernandez, Contributing Editor:
Al Carlos is somehow now really famous in Paris, France
Edited By Susan Aceves


http://www.latinola.com/story.php?story=7370