Yesterday I returned to my sadly screwed-up homeland from the sadly-screwed up Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. I am now in Albuquerque, New Mexico, staying at the house of a participant in New Mexico Indymedia.

After a week without accessing the internet I have a lot to catch up on (even though we were in a pretty nice business-class hotel in Juarez, which had a computer room, the computer would not connect to the net for some reason). I think I will take it gradually and chronologically, starting with Tucson where I last connected from. The morning of the 30th in Tucson our caravan to Juarez met with some car troubles, as documented by our main driver, Swaneagle. Sadly, we were forced to leave her, her daughter Taina, and Luma, in Tucson. Luckily the breakdown did not happen earlier in the trip. We were done with all of our events, but we still needed to get to Las Cruces so that the next day we could cross into Mexico with the rest of the Caravanistas and Delegates. Jessica rented a car and she, Ramona, Nicole and I drove to Las Cruces across the beautiful desert.

Once there we were immediately plunged into the hectic excitement of the dinner and meeting of all the different caravan legs from all over the U.S. and Canada. We were hosted by local activists Amigas de las Mujeres de Juarez, a Las Cruces group that works to assist the mothers of the murdered women in Juarez. It was an exciting time, a flurry of activity in a small house in suburban Las Cruces as people planned for the next day's border crossing and other events.

I will stop here for now. This is just a first return entry to say "I'm back safely."

I will add that being in Mexico during the election was strange and oddly comforting, like being shielded from the grief and outrage and anger that I would have experienced had I been home (don't worry, I voted early before I left Portland). Now that I am back, the full impact of the horrendous results of November 2 is still hitting me. I'm especially disturbed by the sweeping success of the bigoted anti gay marriage measures across the country, even in Oregon. I am truly ashamed for my nation and people.

I'll blog more as I get time. Today should be pretty relaxed, as I don't have much to do till my screening of Bolivia videos here in Albuquerque tonite (Saturday Nov. 6th 7pm at the Center for Peace and Justice, 202 Harvard SE).

other dates on my tour:
--Monday November 8th 7pm at Warehouse 21, 1614 Paseo de Peralta, in Santa Fe.
--Saturday November 13th in Tempe, AZ at Gentelstrength Coop, 7pm
--Monday november 14th in Tucson at Sexto Sol(?? not sure of the name of the venue)

This might be my last post till I return from Mexico on November 5. Here is our plan: today in Tucson in about an hour we of the Caravan will join local activists here for the annual Dia de los Muertos "pilgramage" - which is a 7-mile walk from a local church to the San Xavier Mission. I'm not sure exactly what it is all about but I believe the walk at least partly is symbolizing the walk of illegal immigrants across the Sonoran Desert coming from Sonora, Mexico to Arizona, USA.

After that we get on the road and head east down Interstate 10 to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where we are meeting some (or all?) of the other Caravans and spending the night. Then Sunday we head to El Paso, meet all the delegates and other activists for a border crossing in Juarez. From that point on we'll be staying in Mexico. My cell phone will stop working and I don't know if I'll have time to get on the Internet. Wireless access points are probably rather uncommon in Juarez.

On November 3 we head 5 hours south into Mexico to Chihuahua City, and then on the 5th we come back to El Paso. Then my next adventure, touring with my Bolivia videos, will begin.

I'm getting lots of good footage and I'm very excited about making a documentary about this Caravan and delegation. I understand that there are other filmmakers on the delegation as well, so maybe we could collaborate somehow.

Anyway, gotta go pack and get ready to go....

The Caravan continues, and has been quite an adventure. It kind of sucks that rain and cold has been following me since I left Portland. Today I woke up in this place that's hosting us in Tucson called Borderlinks and looked out the window to see foggy outside, and cold. And I mean thick, peasoup kind of fog. In Los Angeles and San Diego there were bizarrely heavy and unseasonal rains, and even as we drove across the desert yesterday to Phoenix it rained off and on, alternating with beautiful sunny spells. I heard it was snowing in Flagstaff already.

Is this El Ni Read more>>>

Too many spam comments to deal with while travelling. When you only get an hour on the internet a day, if that, and 30 minutes is spent dealing with spam, that's not acceptable. so for now, no comments. if you need to get in touch, use email, if you know it, or my contact handy form.

Things are so rushed. I wish I had more time to report on what is going on as it happens. I wish I had time to post to multiple indymedia sites as we go. News is developing all the time. well, anyway, here are the Juarez Caravan Routes for you to look at.

We are rushing off to San Diego in about an hour....

I am typing this, offline, sitting in a meeting room at a Catholic retreat center called Casa de Maria, near Santa Barbara. It seems like there should be internet access here, but there is not, at least in this building. So I am typing this now and hopefully later today I will be able to post it. I

Gotta plug my most recent video again. Only about 9 days till the election - this little 3-minute thing is my look at people's fears.

Great article in the New York Times Magazine called Without a Doubt, about Bush's religiousness and how it has effected his administration. Pretty scary stuff.

Today started with a disaster that happened with one simple mistake that could have potentially been tremendously costly. I picked up my iBook rather quickly and forgot it was plugged in, and evidently the shear force was enough to damage the power adapter's plug. So it wouldn't charge the computer. At the time I didn't know whether it was the adapter or the jack on the computer. If it was the adapter it would have been 80 bucks to replace; if it was the jack, there's no telling how much it would have been to repair, and who knows if there would have been time before I have to leave town on Monday. I was freaking out and furious with myself for such a stupid blunder, starting to panic and wondering what I could do.

I decided to go over to Postal Station 40 where some Indymedia folks live that I met the other day. I knew that Ali had a powerbook and by plugging in his adapter I could at least test to see whether my problem was with my adapter or my computer. When I got there I found out the possessive verb was definitely past tense for Ali - his powerbook had been stolen 2 days ago! Someone had snuck in through the adjoining yoga studio somehow and grabbed it. He was bummed big time about it, of course, but, he still had the adapter, and obviously it was of no use to him now, so he gave it to me. I plugged it in and the iBook started charging! I was in luck, doubly so. I felt horrible to be benefiting from Ali's misfortune, and what a bizarre coincidence. But given that both unlucky events had happened, it was some sort of strange good luck on my part. I was saved from a world of hurt by his even bigger world of hurt.

I hung out for awhile there and then I went with Ali and Liam to distribute the new issue of Faultlines around town. Faultlines is the Indybay newspaper which comes out monthly. We dropped off little piles of them at cafes and stores around the Haight and the Mission, and went downtown to bring them to striking hotel workers, because there's a front page article about the strike in this issue. It felt great to show our solidarity by bringing them this media that reports on their situation, and see their faces light up when they saw the story. Some even recognized people in the photo. They've been locked out for 3 weeks now and continue to picket every day.

Now tonight, in about 2 hours, I have my screening of the Bolivia videos at ATA. I feel pretty exhausted after running around delivering papers, and I still need to print out some recent news stories about Bolivia to have on hand at the screening, and do some other preparations, and eat dinner. whew. well, wish me luck....

I've been a fan of Eugene Chadbourne's music for about 15 years now. He recently played in Portland and reminded me that of the 10 or so times I've seen him play he has always been amazing. He had a profound effect on my guitar playing and musical conciousness, and I've always admired the way he was very political while at the same time exploring the outer limits of freely improvised music. His work swings between psychedelic noise-freakouts to hilarious, biting, satiric commentaries on war and politicians. ( a great example of this is his recent song "New New New War War War")

So I was unsurprised but very pleased to see his article in the current issue of Signal to Noise Magazine, which has a cover topic of "The Artist's Role in Waging Peace."

Eugene's written some other great essays with political or social relevance. This one is cool for the perspective he offers as a citizen and artist who is getting on in years, because he looks back on his life and all the presidental candidates who have run in elections and lost or won that he remembers, and who he and his friends and family voted for or against.

Then he says:

I mention all this... to establish the history I have experienced as well as provide a backdrop for stating that I see differences between all these people. I talk to people that don't, though, some of whom are really wondering if they should vote at all. The present compelling arguments to the effect that all politicians, all rulers of all countries, are total motherfuckers. However, as for them convincing me that I should be giving up the act of strolling down to the nearby recreation center and voting for various public offices, from sheriff to president, I'm sorry. Voting is something I would really miss, just like the political side of my music.

[...]

It is a concern, although not really a surprise, when the type of people that read or write for a magazine such as Signal to Noise express skepticism about the process of voting, based on these kinds of issues. Surely there is a difference between John Kerry and George Bush II - surely there is, if we are expected to understand the difference between two guys who both play free jazz on the alto saxophone!

He goes on to talk about Kerry's past as a Vietnam veteran against the war, and says

... the existence of [Vietname Veterans Against the War] was one of the most important developments in turning America against this horrifying war... perhaps Kerry will revisit this important contribution to our society on a grander scale if he gets elected... if not, we are going to need a hell of a lot of musical relief. I'm ready.