In permanent progress as of Nov, 2006

by Guillermo Gómez-Peña
2006-7

Note: The selection of performance texts included here will be changuing throughout the month of November 2006. Responses will be posted at the end of the text.

Artist’s notes:

“In the past year, I’ve been writing, re-writing and testing in front of informal audiences of colleagues a series of spoken word performance texts. Some of these texts I found by digging through forgotten archives of my computer’s memory. I brought them back to life through obsessive re-writings, in dialogue with my colleague, City Lights editor Elaine Katzenberger. Others are transcripts of ad lib texts that spontaneously came to being during my solo performances. A few I wrote this year in direct response to political or pop cultural phenomena, exploring their effects on my views on art, activism, identity, sexuality and language.

What these texts have in common is a tone-a kind of ironic and melancholic tone- and a unique form of vernacular philosophical inquiry that I feel are at the core of performance art and performance literature. Together they function as reflections on our millennial condition, as artists and cultural practitioners living in the US, a country that is undergoing an unprecedented cultural and political crisis.

Some underlying questions are:

Why do we continue doing what we are doing (in my case, writing and making art) against the backdrop of war, censorship, cultural paranoia and spiritual despair? What are the new roles that artists must undertake? Where are the new borders between the accepted and the forbidden? Is art still a pertinent form of inquiry and contestation? Is my audience really with me? Who are ‘we’ and who are ‘they’? Can I collaborate with my audience in the making of the performance? From whence do we draw the energy to continue? What about yo? My own vulnerability; the predicaments of my domestic self? As a performance artist my job is precisely to ask questions, lots of questions, in original ways.

Like most of my performance literature, these hybrid texts suffer from an acute identity crisis. Are they spoken word poetry, performance “monologues,” pop philosophy, art theory, post-colonial thought, or Chicano stand-up comedy? I truly don’t know. It is actually better that I don’t know. Like most of my literature, they are ‘open texts’, works in permanent progress, which means that their publication merely preserves them in one phase of their ongoing development. Together, I see them as both a multi-purpose literary bank and a script in permanent progress; the script of my current life. But they are also documents of sorts for crossing the border into the new century.

I began performing this solo material in early 2006. Every performance utilizes a different combination of texts and performative strategies. There will always be a 15-20 percent margin for improvisation, for specificity to the site, the city and the audience. This particular selection will be changing throughout the month of November, 2006.

“The Mexorcist” literary bank
(The following texts will be changing in the coming weeks)

Intro.

Dear audience:
This text might be both,
my most personal script ever
& my most bizarre & experimental one so far
it’s truly an open text,
both in the sense that it’s only partially scripted & structured
and in the sense that it opens many doors within my psyche
& between my psyche & the social world

some of the questions I will raise tonight
are impossible to answer
they are just meant to be raised and heard
others, clearly demand a response
& I invite you to speak up whenever you feel like
which means that the fate of this performance
is largely detemined by you

So, dear foreign audience:
Welcome to my conceptual set
Welcome to my performance universe
Welcome to my delirious psyche
Welcome to my borderzone
to the cities and jungles of my language
las del ingles y las del español
kick back,
light up your conceptual cigarette…
a prop

I LIGHT UP A MOTA CIGARETTE & INHALE

& breathe in, breathe out,
breathe in, breathe out
rreelllaaaxxxx
now, reach over,
grab the crotch of your neighbor
& massage…yes . . .
this is the basic exercise of Chicano Tantra
Oooommmm…mocos guey!

Great day for humankind

Dear colleagues; apocalypse hipsters
Today is an extremely special day for humankind…
You heard the news que no?
(Long pause)
War is over.
President Bush has finally decided to pull
all military personnel and equipment
out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon has confirmed
that by October 25th, of this year
the US Army will have abandoned
all military positions in the Middle East.

We are all extremely happy, no shit.
I would love to dance with someone.

MUSIC BEGINS: “WAR IS OVER” SLOWED DOWN

Would anyone like to come on stage and dance with me?
War is over my dear contemporaries…
at least for the duration of this performance.

(Someone comes on stage. I dance with him/her for a minute. Music stops)

Public Confession

Standing on the edge of the new millennium
(I take a deep breath)
I open my eyes & look at my life in perspectiva
like the aerial view in the beginning of Fata Morgana
remember that early Herzog movie?

What do I see?

I SCAN THE AUDIENCE WITH BINOCULARS

Most of my family has died
my community is in despair
& my peers are so marginal & frail

Controlled by organized crime,
my original homeland, Mexico,
continues to freefall toward NAFTA hell
as my new country, the US,
is besieged by Jesus freaks & war mongers.
(Pause)
I look at the present
& the president is getting ready to strike yet another country
in search of oil, military might & reconstruction bonds
& the citizenry is sleeping…
& those few who are still awake are scared
we are all going through the Big Smoke…
New York, Kaboul, Baghdad, New Orleans, Beirut
Miami, Paris, Tijuana, your psyche, my heart
Ay, my broken heart…

I PUT DOWN THE BINOCULARS

As if this weren’t enough,
My age weighs on my shoulders like…like..
…a towering Chihuahua.
& my legs are exhausted
from walking non-stop across the continent.
My liver is weak & so is my memory
My blood is thick; my sperm count low
I smoke & drink too much.
I cross the subtle border
Between enlightment & illness
At least once a week
My best hours & sharpest performances
are definitely numbered
just last month,
an art critic refered to me as “a Mexican classic”
auch! It hurt!
(pause)
I am a total mess, but I am on fire…

Dear locos and locas:
all I can offer you tonight is my art
& my most unexpected words,
(I speak in tongues)
the words of a a poet who could have been a criminal
or a shaman …but lost his path
& got lucky,
found love, friendship,
a great apartment with rent control
and an audience that listens.

Dear audience:
the only difference between a madman
and a performance artist
is that a performance artist has an audience.

So thank you for not letting me go mad.

Explaining to a nurse what I do

I SIT IN A WHEELCHAIR

NASAL:
I’ve been hospitalized in Mexico City
for 2 weeks.
(I won’t discuss my illness tonight
for I’ve already done so in another script)
I’m trying to explain what I do to a nurse
I mean, I’m trying to explain to a nurse what I do
But I’m not getting anywhere.
She asks me for the 10th time
“Perdone, what did you say you were?
A per-for-man-que?”

NORMAL:
A contra-dic-tion in terms –I say
a straight transsexual, me captas?
a wrestler without a ring
a rocker without a band
a cyber-pirate without “access”
a theorist without methodology
a shaman without a tribe
a poet who writes his metaphors on his body
7 locos, locked inside an empty room
this one!
it’s my mind, not theirs, not yours…

NASAL:
She looks at me
With a combination of tenderness and fear and says:
“No entiendo nada…del arte…moderno.”

I make a final attempt to explain to her what I do:

NORMAL:
I’m an artist who sells ideas, not objects,
not images, not skills
a per-for-man-ce artist, which means that…
I write letters with my own blood
I wrestle with historical ghosts
I research the possibilities of silence & darkness
I can set my hair on fire just to make a point
& when I am pissed, I tend to speak in tongues
(Angry tongues)
performance is a weird religion, I told you
(Chant)
per ipsum ecu nipsum, eti nipsum
et T-Video Patri Omni-impotenti
per omnia saecula saeculeros,
I te watcho

NASAL:
The nurse changes the page of the script for me
She finally gets it.
“Ahh”-she says
“Es como vivir en un mundo paralelo
Es algo hermoso pero inútil”

Border Interrogation:

House lights please!.

HOUSE & STAGE LIGHTS

Aqui Gómez-Peña again, with another Mexican Brechtian moment. Dear foreign audience. I’d like to ask you some basic questions which are at the core of American identity. I’ve been asked myself each of these questions at least 100 times. No big deal. May I?

I GRAB MEGAPHONE

INQUISITIVE W MEGAPHONE:
How many of you consider yourselves pure blooded “whites”?
What about “people of color”?
And the rest? Que son transparentes?
Any “illegal immigrants” in the audience?
People who once were illegal perhaps…besides me?
(I raise my own hand)
What about people who married an “illegal alien”
to help them get their green card?
(If so) hey that’s transnational solidarity
Any people who have hired undocumented migrants
for domestic or artistic purposes?
Yessss! To do what exactly?
How much did you pay them?
Thanks for your sincerity (miss or mister).
By the way, did you ever suspect them
of any form of criminal behavior?
You know, the gardener or the nanny
Belonging to a dormant cell…or to the Tijuana Cartel
Has anyone here ever reported a “suspicious” foreigner
to your local Homeland Security office? No one?
What an enlightened community
I did, last week
I saw these 2 guys in my building
They looked like they were from Iowa or Texas
I was scared!
But let’s return to the script, and get a bit more personal, ok?
People who have had sex with an “illegal alien” in the last month?
See, that’s political!
What about sex with an alien, I mean abduction?
Can you please describe their genitals in detail? Just kidding’
Now on a different subject matter, intercultural fetishes,
Have any of you ever fantasized about being from another race
or culture?
Which one? Black, Indian? Mexican? French? Arab?
Why?
(Audience answers)
Thanks for your candor.
Now, let’s reverse the gaze,
Would anyone like to ask me a question, any question,
as irreverent or indiscreet as it may be?

(Audience asks/ I answer in nahuatl )

Rehearsing in front of the mirror

(I put on bandanna & clear my throat)

I’m rehearsing my activist speech for tomorrow
Rehearsing in front of the bathroom mirror:
My imaginary political speech #12

(I compose myself in front of an imaginary mirror)

EXALTED “ACTIVIST” VOICE:
“Dear citizens of chaos:
This is a desperate attempt by a dying performance artist
to recapture the power of the spoken word
in the year of virtual despair and victorious whiteness.”
(normal)
No, no…
Sounds like, like Vicente Fernandez meets Malcolm X
in a Taliban AA meeting
Don’t over do it Gómez-Peña
just be yourself
you are already over the top pendejo!
(I slap myself twice, shake it off like a jock and continue)
OK, Take 2
Imaginary political speech #27

Ciudadanos del vertigo:
We know that democracy
simply cannot be defended by force,
much less imported, or forced upon others
we can nurture it organically
through civic education and art,
we can create the conditions for it to flourish
through public dialogue & a responsible media,
but we simply cannot defend it,
one cannot defend democracy
especially through violent means.
War will not make us safe, carnales.
The Patriot Act is a hoax
The mission is not accomplished that way.

The combination of democracy and weapons
is only possible in Hollywood movies
& in the deranged minds of politicians
Everyone outside of our borders seems to know this
Unfortunately most everyone inside is fooled by it”

No, that’s too obvious,
I should be more… locote, dramatico,
perform as if I was
the Third Party Chicano candidate
addressing the Brown House:

(I grab a megaphone. My voice is epiphanic)

“Dear Chicanos and honorary Chicanos,
The historical mission of the U.S. is to put the world at risk
and then to save it from the very risks it created:
to arm other countries
and then to attack them for being armed;
to provide weapons and drugs to the youth of color
and then to imprison them for using them;
to endanger species and then to raise consciousness
and create programs to save them;
to evict the poor
and then punish them for living on the streets;
to turn women and people of color into freaks
& then laugh at us for acting out accordingly.
The historical Mission of the U.S. is very, very peculiar.”

Shit, I see no other way to make my point.
Wait, there might be another way…a joint!

I LIGHT UP A JOINT & SMOKE IT
(Stoner voice)
Imaginary political speech #36
Dear generic American citizenry,
If you vote for me
I can assure you that as the first Mexican president of the USA,
I will fulfill your fears and desires
like…like…like no other politician ever has
& all your stereotypes will come true carnales,

I’ll open all borders, legalize drugs,
create nude university campuses,
make daily sex mandatory,
make Spanglish the official language,
expropriate all TV stations and hand them over to poets,
abolish the police force & the national guard,
ban all weapons, from handguns to missiles,
deport Bush back to Texas
& Gonzalez back to his Episcopalian Inferno
down there, next to Ashcroft
Orale, feels great to imagine…
What else do we pinche have at this point in time?

(Normal)

“Dear audience:
Let me ask you a personal question:
When I speak
Do you feel that I am speaking in your behalf?”

(Pause)

How pretentious
I’m just a Mexican immigrant

Flagrantly stupid acts of transgression

(I clear my throat)

Damas y caballeros,
I’ve got 45 scars accounted for
half of them produced by art
& this is not a metaphor.
My artistic obsession has led me to carry out
some flagrantly stupid acts of transgression
including:
Living inside a cage as a Mexican Frankenstein;
Crucifying myself as a mariachi to protest immigration policy;
Crashing the Met as El Mad Mex;
Being led on a leash by a Spanish dominatrix.
I mean, you want me to be more specific than, say,
drinking Mr. Clean to exorcise my colonial demons
or handing a dagger to an audience member
& offering her my abdomen?
(Pause)
“Here… my colonized body,” I said
“My solar plexus…
your moon-like madness,” I said
and she went for it
inflicting on me my 45th scar.
Right here on my soul
(I show my scar to the audience)
She was only 20, boricua
& did not know the difference between
performance, rock & roll & street life.
Body memories, eclipse, poesia…
Bad phrase, delete…Script change.

Tired of exchanging identities online

COMPUTER VOICE:
“Hello Gómez-Peña, you’ve got mail”
NORMAL:
What am I hearing?
COMPUTER:
“You’ve got a male inside of you,
…or so you think pendejo!”
NORMAL:
Shit! The computer is talking to me about gender.
I think I’m losing it.
(I speak in broken tongues & backwards)
I’m tired of ex/changing identities on the net.
NASAL:
In the past 8 hours
I have spoken 7 made-up languages at least
I have visited 12 countries without leaving my room
I have “interacted” with 38 subcultures from around the globe
I’ve been a man, a woman and a s/he.
I’ve been black, Asian, Mixteco, German,
an alien raptor and a multi-hybrid replicant.
I’ve been 10 years old, 20, 42, 65…
I’ve visited 30 meaningless chat rooms…w/names like
(breath anxiously in between lines)
“Asian Goths who sing mariachi music phonetically”
“Midget sex workers from Indonesia exchange tips
on how to deal with obnoxious Australian machos.”
Weird sites…
“evangelical ministers from Arkansas
team up with black dominatrixes
in their desperate search for heaven on earth.”
“performance artists from Micronesia
organize collective suicide for CNN.”
(Slowing down)
It’s endless…
Our options are endless
& I am temporarily lost
lost within my cyber-labyrinth
As you can see,
I need a break real bad;
NORMAL:
I just want to be myself for a few minutes.
At least for the duration of this performance

Erotic poem

I’d like to read an erotic poem right now.
May I?
(Audience responds)
How explicit should I get?
Let’s vote: I need 20 hands
to read a really explicit erotic poem.
(Audience raises hands/ I count them up to 50)
Good, let’s begin:

I quote from unpublished script number #78
It starts with a performance note to myself:
“Bad French accent, GP. Keep an eye on the producer”
(French accent)
“Dear Death, La Petite Mort,
The last time I opened your legs
I saw eternity for a moment.”
(Pause)
Beautiful haiku-placazo que no?
(I look at the sidelines as if looking for approval from my producer)
Should I go a bit further? Ok…
(French accent)
“You asked me to pee inside of you
& I complied like a loyal Mexican servant.”
No, that’s forbbiden colonial territory…
“& I complied with the fake politeness of a French waiter”
(I look at the sidelines as if looking for approval from my producer)
Suave…should I continue reading?
(audience members scream “yes!”)
or should I turn this text into a live performance?
(People scream yes! I look at the sidelines as if waiting for approval
from my producer)
No way!!!
This is Post-Ashcroft’s America.
I’d be burned alive
and only Bill Maher and Larry Flint would defend me.
But the idea of staging the poem is quite tempting, que no?
Should we?
(If someone says yes)
OK, I need a volunteer
and together, we’ll make history–
local history, but history after all.
(If someone comes on stage)
Should he/she take off his/her clothes?
(audience decides)
OK, let’s obey the audience.
There are a couple of video cameras in the house.
We’ll send the footage to The O’Reilly Factor
The scandal will be bigger than Ward Churchill’s
“NEA-funded anti-American depravity
under the guise of performance art at (name of the museum)”
(I look at the sidelines again)
No, I won’t do it
and not because I’m shy or scared.
Who isn’t scared nowadays
with Homeland Security knocking at our doors?
Looking at our grant applications?
Reading our emails?
No, It’s not that.
It is because I’m…
(I look at the sidelines again)
protecting my… reputation.
My reputation?
(Pause)
…is precisely to scare my producers!
It’s my fuckin job que no?!
My job? Do I have a job?
(I look at the sidelines again)
Are you offering me a full-time job?
What am I saying?
A fully employed artist in contemporary USA
I’m confused
I should go back to the original script
Shit! I’m missing a few pages!
Blackout!
(There is no blackout)
No blackout?
(I put my hands over my eyes)
Well…Mexican blackout!

Mexican Brechtian moment

Where is the pinche teleprompter I asked for?
I told you guys I was unable to memorize a full script.
I told you very clearly that this was not a theater monologue
Hey Pancho, that light over there is too bright
Can we put a blue gel over it
to add some artificial melancholy to my words?
(pause)
Nevermind! Ne-ver-mind?
Hey, my voice sounds quite muffled que no?
Testing, testing, probando
“Estoy muriendome en voz alta
y nadie se da cuenta, probando, probando”
This mike sounds crappy que no?
(Screaming at the imaginary techies)
Don’t you guys have another one
that can actually improve my voice?
make me sound more dignified,
sensual, compassionate, smart–
I mean, isn’t technology supposed to enhance humanity?
(pause)
Nevermind!
This is a Mexican Brechtian moment
sponsored by Bacardi
Salud!
(I grab my bottle of rum and drink from it)
Guáaacala!
Bacardi is to rum
What O’Reily is to journalism
cha-ffi-si-mos!

What I chose not to do tonight

If only I had been more cautious when crossing the border
but, to tell you the truth, I’m glad I wasn’t, ‘cause
we are who we are
because of every mistake we’ve made
& all the locos & locas we’ve met in the process
including the border patrol
We are who we are
because of every caress we’ve given & received
including those of our worst lover
& if you want to get real He-ge-lian
we are who we are
because of every performance we’ve done
& every performance we chose not to do.
Like tonight.
I chose not to do a lot of things.
For example,
I chose not to make you laugh too much
so you wouldn’t mistake me for a stand-up comedian.
I chose not to shock you unnecessarily
so you wouldn’t get a bad impression of performance art.
I chose not to bring my gun or my boxing gloves
so you wouldn’t think that all Mexicans are violent.\I chose not to burn a flag
so the museum wouldn’t get in trouble
And precisely because I chose not to do all these things
(shift of tone and rythym)
I am who I am
doing what I’m doing
echando rollo profeta
chance-thinking as I go, go, Go-Mex.
I’m going,
we are all going
through the Biiiiiiiiiiig Smoke,
el in-ter-cul-tu-ral Poltergeist,
driving along the Apocalypse super-highway
surfing the mindscape of the net
the subconscious of America,
(tongues)

the total collapse of Empire
(tongues)
It’s scary,
but we are all writing this text as I speak.
(long pause/Toro accent)
I spik, you gringo…
No, that’s racist!
I speak, you listen.
No, that’s arrogant

Voice change; special effect #187

(Donald Duck speak)
This is the way English sounded to me when I was a kid
(Indian tongues)
This is the way my voice sounds when I’m on stage
(French tongues)
This is the way my voice sounds when I attempt to be comedic
an eshék absolú
Testing, testing…
(Telemundo announcer)
En el proximo capitulo de El Malparido
un Chicano se enfrenta a los demonios de la lengua
Testing, testing…
This is the way my voice sounds when I’m rehearsing
Testing, testing…the limits of my identity, testing
This is not my real voice, probando, probando…
This is clearly not my real voice, probando…

Mapping the immediate future:

Back to my main subject matter:
Mapping
Mapping the immediate future
so you and I can walk on it
without falling inside the great faults of history.
You & I, verbally walking together,
You & I, an ephemeral community
You & I, a tiny little nation-state
You & I, a one-hour-long utopia
entitled “You & I”
Alone on stage
Fighting together the World Bank,
the WTO & the Bush Cartel,
Fighting Avant-garde desire & the Patriot Act
Tu y yo, juntitos, bien abrazados
Fighting isolation & isolationism

But who are you, really?

The left and the right

As a “politicized” Chicano artist,
I get 2 kinds of criticisms regularly:

Conservatives tell me I have no right to criticize the US
& that if I don’t like it here, I should go back to Mexico.
They assume I am a “foreigner”
& regard my ideas & aesthetics
as “radical” and “un-American”
two highly charged euphemisms
for everything & everyone who disagrees with them
There’s simply no way to talk to these vatos

“Liberals” tend to object my enigmatic contradictions:
Why does my troupe practice nudity & drag
If our ultimate goal is social change?
Why do we perform stylized violence if we are all for peace?
Why do we have so much fun in our work
If we are serious about art-for-change?

Coño! The left is always trying to save me
from my own contradictions
And when I state my case
they pretend to listen because…I’m a Chicano
& its uncool to not pretend to listen to a “person of color”

My job is to remind both sides
that as an artist I am here precisely
to complicate their myriad assumptions.

(I look at my watch)
sorry but it’s getting late
we need to skip 3 pages at least
(I begin to skip pages while saying)
I randomly turn the pages of this accidental script
As a homage to early Fluxus
I suddenly stop…here!

Wrong prepositions

Everytime my Russian poet friend Rimsky is pissed at me
He says, “fuck on; cook sucker!”
& he gets constantly outraged at my performances:
“Tat’s not art; tat’s crapp Yuriguermo.
You pay for that?”
“No, I answer. I get paid for this.”
“‘Tat wouldn’t pass out as art in Russia.”

I love to fuck with his knowledge of prepositions:
“Fuck art, Rimsky, loosen down and chill in, ese.”
“Chill in? Tat’s not well English. It’s Chill off!.”

Rimsky reminds me of my early days as an immigrant.
When prepositions were a mere reflection
of the multiple borders I used to cross everyday
in…desde…over…at…ante…from…para…

You know…If only I’d had a decent command of English
when I got involved with my past lovers.
Pero…mi calentura era incontrolable

If only I had known the difference
between jerk around and jerk off,
between napkin and kidnap,
between prospect & suspect,
between compromise & compromiso
between embarrassed & embarasada.

If only I had known the difference
between desire & redemption
between political correctness & personal computers,
between us & U.S.
between humanity and mankind
We’ve only got one word for both in Spanish:
Humanidad, perdóname por ser tan bi-rollero

If only I had known the difference
between loneliness & solitude…
We’ve only got one word en español
soledad.
Forgive me for being so…pa-ra-dox-i-cal,
soledad on stage, my flaming queen,
forgive me, chuca,
for spilling the beans
of my very spicy beanhood.

NASAL:
“He thinks like Octavio Paz,”
wrote the Boston Globe theater critic,
“but behaves like Geraldo Rivera on acid.”

NORMAL:
But if only I had known the gringo implications of
“Mi casa es su casa,”
meaning, y tu pais también;
or “Hasta la vista babe,”
meaning, die fuckin’ meskin;
or “Vaya con dios vatous locous,”
meaning, deported back to your origins.
The South is always the origin
& crossing the border is the original sin.

Placazo:
Un emigrante mas equals un mexicano menos…
Translation please?
Delete!

Quote from British art critic:
“Gómez-Peña is like a Chicano Ali G
suddenly morphing into Julio Cortazar”

Coño! These art critics have a serious bronca
with cross-cultural comparisions
I mean, hacen gargaras con el culo

Dwelling in unnecessary wounds

Marina Abramovich tells this painful joke:
Question: How many performance artists does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: I have no idea. I left after 3 hours.

Ay, but if only I was a good actor,
the bastard son of Klaus Kinski and Sophia Loren,
or the border twin of Nicholas Cage,
none of this would have ever happened.
If only good performance art equaled bad acting
Misdirected acting or vice versa
as mediocre theater directors tend to believe,
this performance would have never taken place.
Que weird thought!
If only I was a furious rocker
A trendy painter
A cutting edge comedian?
Maybe? Not really.
Performance & comedy don’t mix very well.
The result is a joke that no one understands.

Pero, if only I had had the guts to join the Zapatistas for good
the guts to fight the migra in situ, with my bare hands,
the guts to tell my family I am truly sorry for all the pain
my sudden departure caused them 25 years ago,
when I was young & handsome
& still had no audience whatsoever.
But I was a coward.
I ended up making a 25-year-long performance piece
to justify my original departure, el pecado original.

Pero if only I had never left in the first place,
what would have become of my life?
It would be considerably simpler,.
Perhaps I’d be less loco,
Perhaps less angry, less…Chicano.
awkward phrase, insensitive, delete!

Pero… if only I didn’t have to worry about my audience;
Entertaining you with Aztec glam and high heels and…
(Commenting specifically on my particular costume that night)
Making art to pay my bills,
to avoid prison, deportation and mental hospitals,
to justify intellectually my anti-social tendencies

If only I didn’t have to perform to exercise my freedoms–
For I could do it every day, everywhere–
but that’s the subject matter of an essay, not a performance.
Besides, you did not come here to witness
a radical political mind at work.

Or did you?
Are you sure?
Ok, let’s go…

Still asking the right questions?

Damas y caballeros;
I’m feeling a bit insecure & introspective tonite
I just turned 50
& I wonder if I’m still asking the right questions
or am I merely repeating myself?
(Silence)
Am I going far enough, or should I go further?
North? But the North does not exist,
South? Should I go back to Mexico for good?
Regresar en español a las entrañas de mi madre?
But the Mexican nation-state is collapsing as I speak
so stricto sensu, Mexico en español no longer exists
because every day Mexico & the U.S,
like Fox and Bush, la zorra y el arbusto,
look more & more like one another
& less & less like you and I
which means “you” y “yo”
are no longer foreigners to one another.
Therefore, as orphans of two nation-states
we’ve got no government to defend;
no flag to wave.
We’ve only got one another
which sounds quite romantic,
I mean, politically speaking,
but it is a philosophical nightmare…
I mean, if neither the North nor the South
are viable options anymore,
where should I go? East? EST?
deeper into the universal psyche
& become a Chicano Buddhist?
Or should I cross the digital divide west
& join the art technologist cadre?
Yes? How exactly?
Alter my identity through body enhancement techniques,
Laser surgery, prosthetic implants,
& become the Mexica Orlan?
A glow-in-the-dark transgenic mojado?
Or a post-ethnic cyborg, perhaps?
A Ricky Martin with brains?
That’s a strange thought.
Maybe I should donate my body
to the MIT artificial intelligence department
so they can implant computer nacho chips in my pito
transplant a robotic bleeding heart, bien sentimental
so I can become “El Ranchero Stelark”?
What about a chipotle-squirting techno-jalapeño phallus
to blind the migra when crossing over?
Or an “intelligent” tongue activated by tech-eela?
You know, imaginary technology
for those without access to the real thing
Cause’ when you don’t have access to power
Poetry replaces science
And performance art becomes politics.

See, underneath it all
my dilemma is quite simple:
In the permanent economy of war
Invented by the White House,
Art is not working out fiscally, period
So…I got to get me a “real” job,
a 9 to 5 job.
But the question is, doing what?

I could be an inter-cultural forensic detective
An expert in X-treme identity analysis…
But I hate secrecy

I could teach “Chiconics” in Jail, I mean Yale,
Or at Brown or State Penn, I mean Penn State:
“What’s up esos,
chinguen a sus professors.
Saquen la mota y el chemo.
Forever, Aztlan nation.”

How about posing as a model for a TV ad or a billboard:
My space; your worst nightmare
Chicanos in virtual space; there goes the neighborhood again

Wait–
I could conduct self-realization seminars for lost Hispanics
“Hey vatos: Come to terms with your inner Chihuahua
wake up & bark!”
(I BARK)
or I could lead workshops for neoprimitive Anglos:
“Find your inner Aztec.”
(I speak in pseudo-Nahuatl)
I look the part que no? Kind of…

I could write a best seller for conservative minorities titled…
“Inverted Minstrel: 100 ways to camouflage your ethnicity
to get a better job.”
but Condoleeza is already writing it.

I just don’t know anymore.
It’s tough to find a useful task for a performance artist
In the age of the mainstream bizarre & globalization-gone-wrong,
Amidst “the war of civilizations according to the Texan scriptures.”
In this time and place
what does it mean to be “transgressive”?
What does “radical behavior” mean
when Howard Stern & Jerry Springer
become defenders of free speech
& Angelina Jolie is considered an activist?
What does “radical” mean
after Bin Laden & Chaney
become celebrities of despair
for each other’s constituencies?
What the hell is performance art, pregunto,
when a theological cowboy is running the so-called “free world”
as if he were directing a Spaghetti Western on the wrong set?
And 90,000 civilians die during the shooting of the film?
What the hell is performance
when Conan the Barbarian becomes governor of California
in a reality show called “California”?
When creationism becomes official policy
& our politicians are sincerely waiting for the rapture?
Coño, I ask myself rhetorically,
what else is there to “transgress”?
Who can artists shock, challenge, enlighten?
(Long pause)
What else should I do or say tonight?
Should I improvise?
Should I burn my bra or my green card?
Bear my soul?
Give birth to a new persona on stage?
Masturbate in the name of democracy?
Curse Jehovah or Allah?
You tell me…Bwana
Tonight I am your intellectual surrogate…
Or rather, your house Mexican.

I await further instructions from you

(long pause)

Can we start all over again?
Can we?
May I?
Mearlos?

OK, Tabula Rasa; take 2