Another response to letter written to James 7 years ago...

No, I didn't design or construct those streets. But I did walk them. And how I walked them. And, at the time, that was what was most important, my artist's strut, with the long green coat, open and flowing or fluttering and the music playing in my headphones and the buildings and houses passing by, often veloz (at high velocity--velocidad), weeving between the other pedestrians, especially if I were dropping down 6th avenue towards the Village or lower Manhattan or between cars stopped in traffic, j-walking one of my favorite hobbies... how to cross the city unperturbed by crosswalkes and stoplights... a flow... And, yes, this was part of me, although I didn't design or construct the city. No, the city didn't make me and that's why I'm still me thousands of miles away from New York City in a Mexico without great cities. And maybe the lack of great cities and streets for gliding or floating or strutting translates in boredom. But, it doesn't translate in decrease calidad (quality) of me. Granted, I have greatly reinvented myself in certain ways. In New York City (I believe 40% latino) I didn't have to speak Spanish. In fact, "they" had to learn English. In fact, they didn't want to practice their Spanish with an English-speaker just as I, here in Mexico, don't want to practice "my" English with a Spanish speaker. But, what happened here a long time ago is that Spanish became my first language, meaning that Ross has become Rosendo... has evolved greatly. And maybe I don't need great cities and wonderful streets and communities for hipstrutting for illuminating myself as someone interesting or vital or important. I don't need to paint myself on the canvas of your hypothetical mind.

And here I had turned on the computer because I must return to my research for understanding our diets and the corresponding health consequences, learned that Casey Kasen the voice of Billboard etc, died at the age of 82 and I wonder about the disease that ultimately killed him and how the disease (a form of neuro-muscular) was connected with what he placed in his mouth. And, yes, he achieved the ripe old age of 82. So, what's there to be concerned about? And, while reading about the death of Casey Kasen, I read that a certain German publisher (Frank Schirrmacher) died of a heart attack at the age of 54. But you've gotta see how his neck flows over his well-ironed shirt collar and well-tied tie, causing the appearance that his neck is wider than his head. He was considered one of the great German Intellectuals of his time. But, why wasn't he smart enough to know that his diet would cut his carreer and life so short? There's a point in an intelligent person's lifetime when they realize that they can be a bit healthier and can sacrifice some of the luxuries they ingested all their life so they can enjoy other things equally worthy, such as better health, better appearance, better movement...

Yesterday we passed by a used bookstore and bought some short stories by Alexander Solschenitzen, "Zula" by Toni Morrison and a novel or memoirs by Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes. This morning after preparing and eating Mahi-Mahi with roasted red pepper and habanero butter and while drinking black coffee without a cigarette butt in my mouth (no beautiful blue smoke wafting up towards and infront of my eyes; I haven't smoked a cigarette in exactly 11 years), I returned to "In the First Circle", Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's scathing description of Stalin's Soviet Union, with its incredible hypocracy. It's a very densely written novel (incredibly realist, which makes the reading much slower than had it been fantasy designed for removing us from our own skin...) designed after the first section (Inferno or Hell) Dante's "Divine Comedy" where the First Circle refers to the first circle of hell where the Greek Philosophers find themselves since, having been born before "Christ" they are deemed hethens and can't enter heaven...

No, no, no... No more street strutting in long flowing green coats with long hair imitating the flow of the coat in the wind of my stride, vitality partially constructed upon a fantasy of who I may have dreamed I was becoming at that time; a crazy artist one day to be discovered. As we all know, the title artist (like actor or writer or producer or designer or singer or musician or chef...) justifies or exonerates the crazy within our modern day heroes. As long as one is successful, it doesn't really matter their supposed diagnosis. Well, I've never fit well in cookie-cutter society, meaning that there must be something "wrong" with me... I could play the game. But, if I could cook well and paint well...?

Living in Mexico, it doesn't matter what, who or how I am; I'm a foreigner, a "Gringo"... I am trapped within their fantasies and I know that it has truly nothing to do with me. So, I can be who I am. I can't be their heroe. So, I must be mine.

And, thanks to James, I continue responding... first seven years ago. And now, yesterday and today. And being that I don't get very far within the reading of "Bad Bad Leroy Brown and Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" before writing something divergent and semi-long, I must return to the piece and become inspired repeatedly and see what else comes out on "paper"... Since there is so much more to mention... since this writing truly is about a certain crossroads, transition of the time and now I have 7 years more infront of my eyes and what occured and how I've responded. No, we don't have to go back 37 years to something that Beth created and conveniently blocked from her mind, since her image of herself is more important than the truth and the why and how...

Thanks James.