CULTURA SEXUAL

(This time in Spanish)


Una afirmación retórica: en el mundo del porno hay mucha silicona y exceso de cabezas huecas. Es lo que uno se imagina, sobre todo después de leer uno de los mejores y más desternillantes ensayos de David Foster Wallace, el que abre su libro ‘Consider the lobster’, donde escribe sobre los oscar del porno y esa industria, que mueve miles de millones de dólares, bastantes más que el cine 'normal'. Pero entre pechos tamaño globo terráqueo y penes de cinco dimensiones también hay personajes como Nina Hartley o como Candida Royalle, que han decidido utilizar su experiencia como porno-stars para ayudar a la gente a mejorar su vida sexual. Dan clases teóricas para mejorar la práctica y hacen videos porno para mujeres en los que en lugar de haber mujeres objeto, hay hombres objeto, -variantes sobre el tema-.

viñeta de Mike Lynch

Ya sé que antes habrá que terminar con la absurda legislación impuesta por el ex presidente Bush (ex!!!!!) de premiar economicamente a los colegios que enseñan abstinencia sexual y dejar de castigar a los que explican para qué sirve un condón. Y también habrá que superar ese trauma tan cristiano de identificar el placer con la culpa. Está claro que la sociedad occidental del 2009 todavía no está preparada pero... no sería estupendo que en los high schools los adolescentes recibieran clases de cultura sexual? Más allá de la ultranecesaria información para evitar embarazos no deseados y enfermedades. Cómo disfrutar y hacer disfrutar entre las sábanas. Es parte esencial de la vida, tanto como las matemáticas, porque la hormona se dispara a los quince años y no se tranquiliza hasta varias décadas después. Puede llegar a hacer estragos y sin embargo, la mitad de la población no tiene ni idea de qué hacer cuando se mete en la cama acompañado, en especial los hombres, para los que el cuerpo de una mujer ha sido, durante demasiados siglos, simplemente un agujero, y esa es la cultura que se ha transmitido generación tras generación.


Afortunadamente en los últimos años se ha creado toda una escuela entre actrices porno semijubiladas que han optado por hacer la transición desde los falsos gemidos y el sexo ficticio en pantalla a los problemas sexuales de la vida real, sumergiéndose en el negocio de los videos y los seminarios 'sex-educativos'. "El sexo en las películas porno no es el sexo que hay que practicar en la vida real. Esta hecho para entretener, es una fantasia, pero a ninguna mujer le produce placer encontrarse en la cama con un hombre que se mueve como una batidora". Esta es una de las frases con las que la gran Nina Hartley arrancaba el martes una clase gratuita sobre sexo oral -versión masculina y femenina- que me hizo preguntarme: ¿por qué nadie nos dio una clase así a mí y a mis amigos a los 16 años? ¿cuánto tardará la sociedad en permitir que una señora como Nina aparezca en una high school y ayude a las nuevas generaciones a ahorrarse unos años de mal sexo enseñándoles los pequeños trucos que contribuirán a que su vida sexual sea verdaderamente rica y divertida?


Según la base de datos imdb, Nina ha participado en 523 PELÍCULAS!!!. Un actor no porno de casi setenta años como Robert de Niro sólo tiene 79 en su curriculum, aunque es cierto que Nina no ha tenido que memorizar guiones como ‘Taxi Driver’... Esta ‘experta’ estará toda la semana en The Pleasure Chest, en Nueva York, uno de esas tiendas de juguetes sexuales cada vez más abundantes. Hoy el programa consiste en la ‘ciencia’ del spanking (azote) y mañana en la de los tríos. Obviamente esos son debilidades que la gente va descubriendo, repudiando o saboreando con la edad, algo realmente personal y para adultos. Pero el martes Nina habló durante dos horas frente a una pizarra sobre sexo oral en lo que podría haber sido perfectamente una clase para adolescentes de instituto. Mucho sentido del humor, anatomía, dibujos y los trucos aprendidos en 30 años de experiencia peliculera y vital. La audiencia era mayoritariamente femenina, lo cual me hizo pensar que el orgullo macho sigue siendo un obstáculo en la mejora de las relaciones heterosexuales a escala planetaria. Sólo diré que los escasos chicos que había eran casi todos gays. Tienen menos prejuicios.

Yo insisto, deberían invitar a Nina a impartir seminarios en los colegios, aunque quizás tendría que empezar por darle clases a los padres de los chavales... La curiosidad y la educación son la única receta para civilizar el mundo. La ignorancia provoca, entre otras cosas, enfermedades, embarazos no deseados y mucha insatisfacción sexual, que a su vez se traduce en compañeros y compañeras de trabajo excesivamente estresados, en jefes demasiado salidos y en taxistas cabreados. Al paso que cambia el mundo, ¿quizás para el siglo XXII? ¿o para el XXV?
(Y no, esto no tiene nada que ver con la serie ‘Sex in the city’, que me lo veo venir).

SUMMERTIME

A glimpse into our frivolous New York City summer life (sorry, this time only in Spanish):

Sábado 24. The Danger. Bajo ese nombre un grupo de artistas organiza una vez al mes fiestas semi-secretas en el corazón de Brooklyn. La última se montó en un barco escondido en un canal en el barrio de Bushwick. Había que recoger la entrada en una fábrica de cerveza abandonada en la que te recibía un portero exquisitamente educado que te indicaba hacia donde ir en medio de la oscuridad. Varias proyecciones e instalaciones -bastante buenas por cierto-, precedían la llegada a una taquilla donde varios seres salidos de una película de los años veinte te daban la bienvenida. Uno de esos magníficos personajes nos dejó entrar gratis, ventajas de salir con la estupenda Celina, a cuyas memorias nocturnas neoyorquinas algún día le dedicaré la sección Barbaridades...

cutre foto made in iphone

Después, una furgoneta te llevaba hasta un muelle oculto entre edificios industriales y allí... un barco enorme y oxidado cargado con unas 500 personas. Dance music en el interior, sudada monumental entre gente entregadísima al baile, una brass band recorriendo los cuatro pisos del barco, un tipo simpático y gordo cocinando sin parar hamburguesas (200, me dijo) de las que saben a carne de verdad, vistas increiblemente inquietantes del Nueva York más tóxico, desconocido e industrial, personajes disfrazados de dioses azules y comedores de fuego, una bandera pirata ondeando bajo la luna... Bonito amanecer...

Martes 28. Parece que Norah Jones tiene una banda de country y va a tocar gratis en el Rockwood Music Hall. Efectivamente. Es ella, guapísima, con esa voz suya tan increíblemente aterciopelada y que desgraciadamente nos llegaron a hacer odiar cuando la fiebre por Norah transformó su primer disco en música de ascensor. Lo malo es que la guitarra eléctrica no es exactamente lo que la hizo célebre, y el bajo tampoco es el instrumento que su bajista debería haber escogido para entregarse a la música. Pero, al margen de que las tres chicas que integran Puss' n Boots (así se hacen llamar) no sean unas virtuosas en sus respectivos instrumentos, la voz de Norah Jones sigue siendo un regalo y además, ole por ella que se atreve a hacer incursiones musicales con amigas anónimas simplemente por el placer de divertirse con ellas:

Sin embargo, lo mejor de la noche no fueron Puss'n Boots si no lo que vino después. Un dúo de bluegrass absolutamente brutal formado por Michael Daves (guitarra) y Chris Thile (mandolina). Prefiero no describirlo. Con su música basta:

Sábado 31. M Ward toca gratis en Central Park. Es el cierre de su gira de presentación del álbum Hold Time. No se puede pedir más. Es importante subrayar que NO llueve (este verano Nueva York se ha vuelto tropical, diluvia a diario así que ver el sol un día entero es noticia!). Será la felicidad de acabar la gira, o será precisamente la nostalgia de acabarla, la cuestión es que M Ward dio un conciertazo cargado de buen rollo, muy poco melancólico, -al contrario de lo que suelen ser sus actuaciones-, con versiones mejoradas de sus propios temas, a cuál mejor... al final del concierto traté de decirle que podemos casarnos cuando él quiera pero no sé si me escuchó...

La noche culmina en el nuevo estudio de Max Sanjulián, arquitecto español con talento para la arquitectura - su Volido Studio y sus proyectos neoyorquinos también serán carne de Barbaridades algún día- y sin duda para montar fiestas como las que ya casi no se ven en Nueva York. Fundamental la música, ese par de dj brutalmente buenos llamados Jordan y Julian, ese loft decadente en un edificio de Chinatown justo encima de un sweatshop -sí, no hay que viajar al tercer mundo, en el corazón del 'imperio' también abundan-, esa cantidad de gente guapísima...

No sé quién es pero quiso posar (foto by Alex Zeka)

Jordan y Julian

Por primera vez en mucho tiempo no todo eran seres insoportables con mechas clónicas y amarillas sobre horribles stilettos y ropa de Zara, tratando de emular en cutre a Sarah Jessica Parker -en eso se ha convertido gran parte de Nueva York-. Eran asiáticas semidesnudas envueltas en ropa muy divertida, o mujeres de porcelana como la rubia que en la fiebre y el calor del baile directamente se desnudó, para gloria de la policía que al intentar (sin éxito) clausurar la fiesta, se dio de bruces contra ella y su sujetador transparente y para gloria del resto de la fiesta, que empezó a disfrutar de más y más carne -hubo efecto sujetador-dominó**-. Corredores de bolsa y diseñadores, artistas y dentistas, gente normal y no tan normal, y hasta la hija de un rey de los emiratos árabes haciendo gamberradas, buen cóctel energético... En cuanto a los chicos, los había realmente guapos pero como suele pasar ultimamente, eran casi todos taaaaaan gays que resultaba más reconfortante mirarlas a ellas. Si los miras a ellos te da por pensar cosas como, 'Dios, el mundo es un páramo, qué será de nosotras, las straight girls???!!!-. Eso sí, como compañeros de baile son insuperables.

Pues eso, es verano y lo que apetece es mirar a la gente y bailar, eso de ponerse intelectual y conversar en las fiestas es para los inviernos... vamos, creo yo...

**hay fotos pero en este blog respetamos el derecho a la libertad de la gente de desnudarse en una fiesta privada sin tener por ello que acabar en internet.

HARLEM'S BACK DOORS

Sorry for disappearing. Life keeps me busy and away from my computer so I can´t find the time to blog as much as I wish but I have a million things I want to write about. They will get here sooner or later. Please be patient!

The death of Michael Jackson propelled me to Harlem, to cover the tributes that happened there. I'm sure everybody is already sick of reading about it. It's been a ten days overdose and I won´t fuel it. I just wanted to share the best thing I found in Harlem this week. It has nothing to do with the king of pop but with a sweet human being still alive who was looking for some attention. He also knew how to sing, but he couldn't care less about MJ. He shared some Nat King Cole's love with me and some friends.



He and this t-shirt that I regret I didn't buy are my memories on the MJ post-mortem week.

SILVERDOCS' GOT SOUL (I)

Soul Power. That´s the title of one of the best musical documentaries I've seen in years. The soul is not only in the title and in the soundtrack, it´s at the heart of a movie made by Jeffrey Levi-Hinte that will make you wish the seventies were still here. I can't forget a marvelous scene in which Celia Cruz takes her shoe in her hand and uses it against the ceiling inside a plain to keep rhythm with musicians such as James Brown, Bill Withers and BB King during the 13 hours trip (that become a 13 hours musical party) that brought the best of African-American musicians to play in Zaire in 1974 just days before the famous boxing fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.



Levi-Hinte worked as an editor in the documentary 'When we were kings', that amazing film about that powerful "rumble in the jungle" fight that got an Oscar award in the nineties. He had seen all the footage and painfully had to leave aside the three days concert because it didn't fit in that movie. Now, thanks to David Sonenberg (who also produced 'When we were kings') Levi-Hinte has been able to bring back to life a soul festival that will make you wish you were born black (Tom Waits said to me once during an interview: "When I saw James Brown for the first time the only thing I wanted from then on it was to be black!" After watching Soul Power, I definitely understand him.

On Friday Levi-Hinte was at a screening of Soul Power at Silverdocs Film Festival in Washington DC. He brought with him Fred Wesley, one of the musicians that played that festival and who confirmed that The Crusaders, The Spinners, Big Black, Celia Cruz and the long list of performers -including many Africans such as Miriam Makeba- played "above their performance level" and that it´s definitely in the movie.

For years there were legal disputes that prevented any body to touch the concert footage. When those were finally over, Levi-Hinte approached Sonenberg with the idea of cutting a movie to be released in DVD. "But when I looked at the footage again after ten years, I realized it was too good to waste it in a quick editing so I ended working on it for three years". The result is worth the wait.

Nobody except the Zaire people (now Congo) who attended the concert had seen it until now. The power of Soul Power is not only in the performances. There's the details about how the concert came to life -the fight was delayed but they couldn't delay the festival- there's the incredible clothing of the times - and the hairdo's, specially Miriam Makeba's African-punk style-. Even better, there were the conversations they had... remember: it´s the time of black power, it´s the time of James Brown' funky tune " I'm black and I'm proud'". All those little moments in the movie are priceless.

Almost none of the musicians had been in Africa before. "There was the excitement of going to find our roots" said Wesley after the screening (where he playes a couple of tunes too!). None of them was aware, though, that Zaire was run at the time by a bloody dictator called Mobutu Seseko who blessed their performance. That part is not in the movie. But you won´t care because the film it's not about politics, it's about music. On July 10th Soul Power will be in the theaters. Whenever is available on DVD I will throw a soul party at home!!!!! Jose Castillo, I will wait for you to dj after the concert!!

SHELL WON, MAYBE CHEVRON WON'T

I wrote already about the trial that should have started in New York last week against Royal Dutch Shell for the killing of seven Nigerian activists, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. It was suddenly suspended and then... magically... settled. Shell didn't want to go to court, it would have been too dangerous for its reputation to have Nigerians revealing dirty details of its activities in the Niger Delta. It was easier to pay 15.5 millions and avoid witnesses to explain openly how oil companies pollute, destroy and kill in almost every country they operate in. After more than a decade struggling, the plaintiffs consider the settlement a real victory: "This shows that corporations cannot act without accountability” said Jennie Greene, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the case on behalf of the plaintiffs. I am not so sure about it. The 15.5 million dollars are peanuts for a company as big as Royal Dutch Shell and it won't make any difference in the polluted and violent landscape in the Niger Delta. Although it's true that it's a symbolic precedent in the fight against corporate impunity, I agree with El malcontento, "it's a scandal that they sign a check and get free of responsibilities" (in Spanish).

picture by Dolores Ochoa, AP

But maybe there is hope. Another similar case is actually in development in Ecuador against Chevron-Texaco. An Ecuatorian lawyer representing 30,000 people is fighting alone against the monster. The battle between the indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon (nearly destroyed by oil drilling) and Chevron started 16 years ago. The lawsuit alleges that Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, unleashed 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater across an estimated 1,700 square miles of rainforest (check ChevronToxico web for details) . Plaintiff's lawyers say Texaco's dumping represent 30 times more than the crude spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska. Hundreds of people have died of cancer and thousands are sick. According to a report by a court-appointed expert, Chevron could face $27 billion in damages. That's not only real money, it would be an unprecedented victory for environmentalists and local communities alike. Unfortunately, Chevron has also the money to make this process as long and as tortuous as possible so the sentence could still take years.

Picture of Bryan Patrick from his award winning series The Devil's excrement for the Sacramento Bee (Ecuador, 2003)

If you are curious about this case you should see the documentary Crude, (playing in New York on June 13 at the Human Rights Watch Festival) by director Joe Berlinger (director of great titles such as Paradise Lost and Metallica: that kind of monster). Crude is quite good although it probably pays too much attention to Trudi Styler, one of the celebrities who has embraced this cause. In the other hand, the involvement of stars in this fight has brought lots of attention to their lawsuit and recently even 60 Minutes did a story on it. I don't know how to feel about celebrity-activism but it seems that lately journalists take an interest in forgotten stories only when there is a famous face behind so, I guess in this case we have to thank Sting???

A new cult movie is born: STINGRAY SAM

Stingray Sam is a name every film lover should know by heart. If the director of this surreal, smart and wonderful movie was named Robert Rodriguez, Stingray Sam would be already a cult movie. Don't worry, cult followers like myself are already working on it. The director's name -and main actor- is Cory McAbee. He might have a budget 100 times smaller than the one of the famous ex-indie director and none of his popularity but even if McAbee could eventually envy his pal budget, he has no need to envy his talent: he's got tons of it. And sooner or later the film world will know it.

Talent means to be able to transform any plot, even the most impossible one, into a very good movie. Get this: (as it says in its website) "A dangerous mission reunites STINGRAY SAM with his long lost accomplice, The Quasar Kid. Follow these two space-convicts as they earn their freedom in exchange for the rescue of a young girl who is being held captive by the genetically designed figurehead of a very wealthy planet".

You could expect everything from a synopsis like that one. Choosing that plot for a Saturday night movie it's a risky bet for a moviegoer. I wouldn't have seen it last weekend at the Rooftop Film Festival in Brooklyn if it weren't because my friend Scott Miller was the DP and I know he always chooses interesting projects. I trusted him but I never thought I would be falling in love with a space-cowboy, laughing out loud for over an hour, and even singing along - yes, and I hate musicals!-. I was amazed and entertained by a film that is uplifting, ironic, sweet, clever and fun in a way movies are not any more. This space-cowboy-musical-action film is a little treasure filmed in black and white (good job, Scott! I heard your work will be featured in the next issue of American Cinematographer!)- and features a series of exquisite collages (by John Borruso) that serves to illustrate part of the plot: planets have turned into prisons, wealthy men get pregnant, greed bankrupts financial investors, Stingray Sam is a lounge singer living in Mars...

It's format it's interesting too: it's done in six chapters that are independent from each other, but whose connection follows the style of serials of the 50's. Small screenings like mobile phones will be perfect recipients for Stingray Sam.

It almost won the Audience Award in the last Imagine International Film Festival of Amsterdam -'Let the right one in' won over it by a few votes only- and it definitely won over the whole audience that was at the Rooftop Film screening with me. Stingray Sam made it to Sundance but people was too busy looking at the official competition movies to pay any attention to it. That kind of thing happens too often at any film festival, though... Any way, if distributors are smart, Stingray Sam will be traveling soon to a theater near you. Or even to your phone! You can catch it on June 8 in New York at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. Here a review. This is the trailer:

HUGO CHAVEZ: 'THE OPRAH OF THE LEFT'

To be fair, I have to confess that the line is not mine. "Hugo Chavez is the Oprah of the left" was the only interesting quote that Lawrence Weschler, a journalist from The New Yorker, said last week during a conversation -it should have been called a monologue- with Eduardo Galeano at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. The encounter was organized to mark the publication of Galeano's new book, Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. Since Hugo Chavez recommended to Barack Obama to read Galeano's classic title 'Las venas abiertas de America Latina' (and gave him the book), the Uruguayan writer has become a best-seller in the USA. The same thing happened after Chavez recommended to the whole world to read Noam Chomsky´s Hegemony of Survival during a speech at the UN in 2006. That book, published three years earlier, climbed best-seller lists at Amazon overnight.

'It's the best way to sell books, to have them featured in the Oprah show', said recently Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon and Schuster. Hugo Chavez is definitely taking Oprah's place when it comes to left-wing writers. So, in part thanks to Chavez, Galeano visited New York and before a full house of his readers, the writer read a few fragments of 'Mirrors...'. Then, he was unsuccessfully 'interrogated' by Weschler. Early on it became quite clear that Weschler questions didn't seem to please Galeano. "If you had to recommend to Chavez or Obama one book, which one would you choose from all the books that you have read?" The answer: "It's very dangerous to read only one book".




It was a real pleasure to listen to Galeano. He was, in fact, the conductor of a conversation that was mainly a sharp, sweet, tough and ironic monologue about all the things he is been always concerned with: inequalities, injustice, Latin America, the underdogs... I would rather give you Galeano himself than trying to reproduce what he said. The video up there is just Galeano reading a timeless piece in Spanish sometime ago .

This one is a link to the New York event I talked about, good sound, bad image (but we are talking about words, right?), in English. Courtesy of Hugo Chavez. Dear Hugo, who's next?