Kip Austin Hinton

[this is about the students of my friend, Roy Garza .] - The Southland's hidden Third World slums In the Coachella Valley, hundreds of trailer parks house desperately poor Latino workers amid burning trash, mud, contaminated water. By David Kelly, Times Staff Writer March 26, 2007 - THERMAL, CALIF. — Like most of their neighbors in the sprawling, ramshackle Oasis Mobile Home Park, the Aguilars have no heat, no hot water. On cold nights, the family of eight stays warm by bundling up in layers of sweaters and sleeps packed together in two tiny rooms. - Bathing is a luxury that requires using valuable propane to boil gallons of water. So the farmworker clan spends a lot of time dirty. - Jose Aguilar, a wiry 9-year-old, has found a way around the bath problem. He just waits until dinner. "My mom makes frijoles," he said, "then I take a bath in that water." Jose and his family live in a world few ever see, a vast poverty born in hundreds of trailer parks strung like ...

driving to Palisades Park yesterday (saw Apples in Stereo , Page France & Headlights the night before). birds scuttled in formation along the shiny crashing waves. - Amalia and i translated this Ramon Ayala song. while she focused on meaning, i worked on rhyme. together, it is ready for the studio. so mr. Ayala, if you're jonesin' for a Third Coast top ten hit, we offer our translation services for a reasonable fee. it is unanimous, Ayala's music is the best for when we dance together. - she kept wanting to translate "rama" as "ram." i agree with her, everyone should start using "ram" in English, instead of "branch." let's say this new vocabulary is a combination tribute to Ramon Ayala and Ramiro Ayala . (no relation. that tree blocking the door - it should've been mesquite, but i think it's a live oak .) - probably title this " the mesquite tree ." - the branch of the mesquite tree where you were waiting...

at spaceland. we met up with Nicolas, Yesenia, Roy, and Ollin of course. Scott Randy Ralo Vincent. st patrick's day, which in this case was a celebration of the San Patricio Battalion . a group of conscripted irish immigrants who were part of Zachary Taylor's invading army. during the U.S.-Mexico War in the 1840s. seeing themselves as unwilling participants in an unjustified war, they defected to the mexican army, focusing on catholicism and shared victimhood (as the irish were not "white" yet). they are still folk heroes in mexico. Ollin, that night, released an entire album dedicated to the San Patricios. they played those songs and plenty of pogues, too. - there was much guinness and tequila and vodka consumed. among a dozen people who danced with reckless abandon for 2 hours straight. dripping sweat and bumping into each other. we waltzed and conjuntoed, and did uncategorizable dances, too. nicolas probably melted his accordeon keys. - Roy stayed at our place, i ...

again with the movies. is it really possible to derive life lessons from them? who cares, i do it anyway. - update: we've just returned from 300 . it is stunning and meaningless. you get more feeling for the spartans' life and times from a wikipedia entry . there are zero jokes in the movie (by "joke" i mean it makes somebody in the theater laugh). imagine a gorgeous video game, except you can't get the controller to move the characters around. everything in it is beautiful. you want beautiful beheadings, beautiful jabba the huts with sword-hands, beautiful sweaty leather speedos? then this is the fim for you. mi pobre novia, once she got over the shimmering 6-pack abs , she had a hard time ignoring the lack of plot. that's saying a lot, when you take into account the deafening soundtrack. i put inof velvet goldmine back home, just to cleanse the palate, really. ella me dijo que pareci' y aun parezco a maxwell demon . i'd never make a 300 casting call...

ten dollars to make all your drinks come true someone's gotta win, hope it’s me, not you buy your loteria lo lo lo lo loteria lo lo lo lo loteria as i said, Amalia and i sold most of the loteria tickets ($1400 worth). she’s a marketing genius. She wrote this jingle. but i at least wrote part of this verse, and we sang and laughed out way through it. harmony. i hit most of the notes. some photos from NALIP: these photos: us selling loteria, Edward James Olmos reaming Latino execs, Adam and Freddie Rodriguez, Joe Hernandez-Kowlski taking a photo of us, Eduardo & Beva, Haldun w/Amalia. (as you might figure out, i was like the only white boy there). gotta go, pick up Frances from the Getty. Nicolas arrives tomorrow...

after picking up Amalia's photos, i was driving down to newport beach. and in too much of a hurry. i rear-ended a 2005 BMW. it was all my fault. my first car wreck since 1994. the guy wasn't pissed, just surprised. named Mario Lopez, but he was not Zack's best friend on Saved by the Bell. anyway, i screwed up my car's hood, bent it so it wouldn't open. my radiator was hissing. so i pound of the hood to flatten it out. it actually opened, and i got my radiator to stop leaking. but the hood won't close completely now. and my front license plate is at a 10 degree angle. - gotta respect my little car. i smash up some fancy convertible, and it still runs fine. so i kept driving and made it. my girlfriend was able to get her headshots to some people, and performed great at the "cold reading showcase." very proud of her. - we both volunteered almost 8 hours saturday. so tiring. but the gala ball was badass. i dressed up fancy, and looked pretty good. but Ama...

just finished administering the ucla Test of Oral Proficiency. this is the test international grad students have to pass if they want to TA here. it's a weird and conflictive authority to have. there's a very smart electrical engineer from taiwan who won't have a teaching job because we didn't like her final phonemes or rhetorical organization. - now, running to Hollywood, to pick up Amalia's headshots. it's gonna be hard to make it there, then down to the conference in time (way off in Newport Beach). i swear i'll try to make it there. my film class group wants me to go help them edit this afternoon. whatever, i'll see them tuesday. same goes for my "minority education" class group, they'll get my powerpoint slides on immigration, pero mas despues. - at the NALIP conference. we saw Illegal Tender last night. produced by John Singleton and directed by Franc Reyes ( Empire ). it was good and violent as hell. in the talk afterwards, the filmm...

Amalia and i volunteered at the nalip office early, then tried to get costumes for the historical ball - but all we ended up getting was a $40 parking ticket (at least she thinks i look good in a three-corner hat). back home, i designed a new cover for Amalia's DVDs. she needs a bunch for the conference next week. this is it, with a paul gregory photo. she's happy with it. she looks hot. mira: lightscribe discs, which burn pictures directly onto the disc. badass. they're expensive, $1.50 each. but they come out more professional and stuff. so we'll probably use these instead of printed labels. the price drops under $1 each if i buy a bunch . eventually to Edgar's house - turns out he lives just 2 blocks away. martinis with a bunch of people. then we all went to a private $10 party (w/ Garth Trinidad , LA's "Chocolate City" dj). called juju. also in our neighborhood. paintings and posters from the Black Arts Movement . if you passed by on la brea, you...

Philip Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? [presentation I gave, in Douglas Kellner's "Cultural Studies" seminar, feb 27] Blade Runner movie (windows media) Philip Dick book Philip Dick's name is funny. That's not what this presentation is about. As a fan of Blade Runner , what is obvious about Dick’s novel is the content missing from the film. The book alternates between deadly serious and comic. Central to the book is the concept referenced in the title, of not only fake humans, but fake animals. Voiceover The original, director’s cut of Blade Runner did not have a voiceover. Ridley Scott was opposed to it, as was Harrison Ford (who attempted to sabotage the voiceover with a cheesy film noir voice). They wanted the sense of confusion, alienation. Yet the studio insisted on something more, to guide the audience. The book, with an omniscient narrator, feels more like the studio version. One difference is the book’s protagonist thinks about silly things. I...