Ranting on Everything. in Musings

If you want the jist of it TL;DR

I started talking about a boy. I talked about my success which I devalue, then about making art with an addictiong, then going to college, my professor and mentor that helped me create my first full novel, then to her book and finally to roleplaying of rape—and the question of is it rape if No means Yes.—I don’t know how any of them connect.

“When I kissed you and then I pulled off, I went to the bar and I felt the bottom of my lip go numb as fuck— I knew you were on some shit then, but you don’t look like the regular coke head type” he said passing me the beer he got me.

I don’t really know how the conversation got there. However, I know that I didn’t deny or admit to anything. I laughed it off and said “I don’t know what you’re implying”

Alex is still in the back burner. Luiz is still a loser skater boy who doesn’t want to pursue any of his talents. Shane is still the super overbearing protector type of man he is with me—I’ve always focused on all of the negative aspects of my life, but I’ve never really acknowledged the good things in my life.

I am a partner and investor in a super successful hair salon in New York City. I married the man of my dreams, and although I divorced him, I have a very good lawyer and a more than generous alimony and Alex just has been stoic to any of my demands, probably fearful that I would expose him as a physically abusive partner. Even if I just turned 31, guys are still drawn to me and assume I’m at least 6-8 years younger than I am— I mean, I can afford a little botox, a little collagen, and small, preservative surgeries to maintain the youth I’m slowly losing—as vain and superficial as that sounds, I have to admit, I am obsessed with beauty… Even as internships through college, I stuck interning for magazines that were focused on attaining, preserving, and achieving absolute beauty.

I know it sounds superficial… but everyone has their calling. Some people study marketing and work for non-profit organizations, some people are editors or interned and continue to write about poverty or are published in the New Yorker… and yes, I am qualified to write about culture, society and the veil of progression in the United States— yet, I continue to be and write within vanity, beauty and superficiality

I know I do this. I know that I’m fucking vain and superficial as fucking shit. However, the difference between me and all of the other superficial bitches in beauty is that I understand there is a reason…I might look and act stupid, but I am very aware of my stupidity.

I’m searching for beauty… and not the golden ratio type of beauty… I’m searching for beauty that is everlasting… Mathematics or science don’t make sense to the type of beauty I yearn and search for.

I think that the most beautiful people, I am attracted to them physically man or woman because they fit the golden ratio, but I am more attracted to them when their personality and being is sporadic, asymmetrical and a mess.

Like a Pollock painting. It’s a fucking mess, it’s an expression of a human being. As much as you think you know someone, do you really think you know them?

You know them as the canvas they paint for you, and yeah it looks erratic, you can draw your own conclusions on there existence, but you will never know them truly.

I was at the Met and saw a few Pollock paintings, knowing what I know of him and the artistic movement before him, which was surrealism one of my most favorite movements, Pollock was fucking crazy. However, surrealism is fucking insane too, and I can dissect Pollock and understand he was an alcoholic, and dissect Frida, Dali, Magritte or Duchamp in there surrealism, but I will never understand the pain, anger, frustration, disillusionment that inspired there art.

What’s strange about Pollock out of all of the expressionist artists or artist of his time like Lichtenstein or Warhol is that his art doesn’t look like anything but splatters of paint, however, the splatters are symmetrical…unlike Warhol and Lichtenstein he created things out of his own crazy pathetic severe alcoholism.

A person unaware of Pollock and his history, would look at any of his paintings at the Met as that of a child. They look like me twirling in a room with a can of paint and splattering it on a canvas, but I have no reason for it and if I do that I won’t create symmetry as he has in in work.

Yet, although I know he was a miserable alcoholic and we can speculate, or psychoanalyze him until the next century, we will never, ever know the exact definition, reason or internal motive of his art the way that we understand Lichtenstein and Warhol; whom created art as a political statement during his time.

He was fucking weird and drunk… and if you look at his art, the colors he uses only suggest he was miserable and his only escape was alcohol and art.

Unlike the artistic movement–surrealism—before him, you couldn’t tell he was severely, utterly unhappy if you just shrugged him off. You can tell that Frida Kahlo was fucking miserable because she would put it on canvas—she was miserable from her accident, her cheating husband, she had the most heartbreaking, unlucky life and waited for death as her freedom, or you could tell that Magritte questioned language and purposefully inquired social class systems and created a discussion on how language and social class is connected “ceci n’est pas une pipe ” painting… which means ‘this is not a pipe’ and it’s a picture of a pipe, but why a pipe? and why isn’t it a pipe? if you look at them separately there is nothing interesting about a pipe, and there is nothing interesting about the text saying “this is not a pipe” however, put together makes the viewer question why is it a pipe? what about it makes it a pipe? and who, where and when did I learn that it is a pipe? Then again why do the letters p-i-p-e signify to me that this is a pipe and furthermore, how is it that I can read that it says it’s not a pipe? and then it become crazier and deeper how is it right now that you can read me and listen to my entire rant of my life and what a pipe is? How did we acquire language, or the ability to read symbols on paper (at the time) and reverberates through the present? Where and how were these symbols called letters created that can signify to the reader or viewer an exact meaning creating a unified understanding?

however, we carry these signifiers in our life. why are you a mother? what makes you a mother? how does that make you a mother?

Or I’m a hairstylist, and I lie to my clients about my upbringing… but why? well, because I understand that someone who’s rich doesn’t want an ex-project Puerto Rican who lived on food stamps touching them, why? the same reason I see a homeless person, I feel sorry for them, but I wouldn’t want them to touch me, why? because I’m indoctrinated to believe homeless is dirty and if a homeless person touches me, I am dirty. It’s something I fight against with, but it’s a societal norm that I’ve been taught…

The same way that there’s that ‘anti-racism’ campaign, a black baby and a white baby play with each other and hang out, unknowingly that they are different in our society—they are taught by society that he is black and he is white and there’s a difference between them both.

We are taught through symbols, language and signifiers of social norms to understand hierarchical differences. You’re white, I’m black. I’m a man, your a woman. You’re gay, I’m straight. I’m rich, you’re poor....Magritte questions language, symbols and signifiers in just one silly painting with a pipe and a text… How is it a pipe? Why is it a pipe? and through it he questions how humanity. Why are you black and I’m white? Why is it that when my black friends go to Rome with me, they are looked at differently? How and why is it that I could pass as a white man in Italy, but my Afro-Puerto Rican friend isn’t considered or looked at as a Spaniard when he speaks better Spanish than I do? Spanish—a white European language, but I’m considered white and he’s considered less than me..

Why on a census do I have the options of race and ethnicity? So I check off Puerto Rican and then I have to identify as ‘black’, ‘white’ or ‘native’ and when I check it off I feel like they are talking about what my skin color is… and I check ‘white’ I am Puerto Rican, Ecuadorian born in New York, my skin isn’t black and it’s not the color of the natives of my parent’s family either, so I’m white… It’s like the newest and most conniving way that is equal to the paper brown bag test… I am not darker than a paper brown bag, I am not the same color as it either. I am lighter than a paper brown bag, but at the same time I don’t consider myself white and I’m native to Manhattan, but there isn’t a uniform type of ethnicity here because it’s a melting pot.

I remember having the census application and filling it out (because I’m a good-American) and asking my Puerto Rican studies professor what we consider ourselves to the census…

and she laughed and said “Andres-ito, I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me this, cause I checked Puerto Rican for race, and black for ethnicity—” she said putting her arm around my shoulder “I wish I had an answer for you honey, however, as I see it for the census, you’re Puerto Rican and you should check off white” she said pushing the elevator button.

I felt so humiliated by her saying that, there’s no way I want to gentrify my identity and I quickly retorted to her “I’m not white!”

and she laughed and sighed, “I’m not black” she walked in the elevator and I walked in with her and I felt so irritated at her and angry, as we descended from the 16th floor, she said “I’ve been busting my ass teaching you and the class how in between Puerto Ricans are” she said as she held my hand “You are the next generation, I fought and I continue to fight and I teach you because you’re the future—I get that you are upset that you just consider yourself a New Yorker, or a Nuyorican, but reality is outside of New York City, we go somewhere in the mid-west, or south, people look at you differently cause 1) you’re a man 2) you look ambiguous, you’re skin is white, you’re eyes look Asian, your lips are full like a black person, but to them you’re white. I am a Nuyorican just like you, but everyone I meet thinks I’m black”

After that whole entire conversation, I continued to argue with her, and she continued to be patient with me “Listen Andres, I am fluent in Spanish, my undergrad degree is in Spanish Language and Literature, my master’s in English/American Literature and a PHD in Latin American and Caribbean Studies honey, you don’t need to explain to me the racial controversies be lucky you’re in the 21st century” she said grabbing my hand as she pulled me with her to the school cafeteria. “I think you are one of the most brilliant, socially astute conscious and controversial students I’ve ever had in my 28 years of teaching” she said as she grabbed a bottle of water on her way in to the cafe. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but I literally find your research papers and put it in the back of my pile because it’s full of deliberate passion and your writing drains me” she said as she grabbed a pre-packaged sandwich from the refrigerator, “it’s not in a bad way, I just give research papers so that I know that my students are learning something from me, they are absorbing my knowledge and reading the text, but with you, I always have a problem reading you” she said pulling out cash from her back pocket.

“Wait....Professor Llanos, I’m sorry that you feel that way, I do absorb everything you say to me” I said feeling my voice quivering. “OH! Honey!” she said paying for her lunch “I know you absorb it, but you question it, deconstruct it, analyze it and your last paper deconstruction feminine identity in the Puerto Rican woman—I had to give it to another professor to read and approve your grade because I felt like I had to step out of my own ways, I could hear my voice in your paper, but it was so simple and intelligent that I just felt like I gave you an A+ out of my own pride” she said laughing.

“Professor Llanos, I really don’t mean to upset or offend you, I clearly listen to—“ “No! No! No! Andy!” She said dropping her sandwich on the tray and gripping my forearm “Offend me! Make me eat my words! There’s nothing better than seeing one of your students actively learning from you!” she said laughing

“honey what is it you want to do with your degree? I know you’re a Literature major, but what do you want?” she said pulling down her glasses to look me in the face.

“I’m actually a creative writing major and a Caribbean studies minor—or trying to be” I said smirking.

“Ha!” she said dropping her sandwich again. “I should’ve known!” she said as she sipped her drink. “Well, honey, when you get a chance… I want to read your writing beyond research” she said standing up. “email it, drop it off in my office…what do you write?” she asked…

“Mostly novellas, novels, short stories, fiction” I said shyly. “That’s what I write too” she smiled. “When you drop off your work, I will give you a copy of my work, it’s published already, but I’d love to hear your input on it” she said throwing out her tray. “Bye gorgeous!” she said grabbing my biceps and squeezing them “Don’t forget! I will fail you if I don’t have your work in my email or office by next Thursday!” she said giggling as she walked away.

When I graduated college, Professor Llanos was my biggest inspiration and one of the strongest recommendations for my Master’s program.

I read her 325 page novel on a generation of Afro-Puerto Ricans and found myself immersed in her writing. She writes the way, that I hear in my mind, my mother telling stories. However, in her writing the way she speaks about the brutality and rape of her characters is scary because she glosses over it like an everyday occurrence and almost twists it to make the reader feel aroused by the brutality.... if that makes sense…

I mean I don’t wish rape on anyone and I would never be turned on by it. However, as the catcher in all of my relationships, I fantasize about rape, domination situations----but it’s consensual. Her as a female writer is aware of this trope and capitalizes on that unified, deep, deep, dark human condition. No one would ever out loud say rape is okay, and I don’t think that anything without consent is okay—BUT— there is that deep, dark piece of me that I repressed that thinks “fuck! if he’s hot and forces me to have sex with him, roughly, un-romantically, I am okay with it” then again if it is wanted and NO really means YES, then it is not rape.

Whatever. I started talking about a boy. I talked about my success which I devalue, then art, then college, then my professor and mentor that helped me create my first full novel, then to her book and finally to roleplaying of rape—I don’t know how any of them connect.

xox
Andy