What If Merv Were Chicano?

Merv García, pen and ink and pencil on graph paper, doodle © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.



Merv Griffin: OK, my little pajaritos, do we have any requests?

Someone in audience: Y volver, volver, volver…

Someone else in audience: …a mis brazos otra vez…

MG: Coños, babies, come on, I’m not Al Hurricane…let me play you una cancioncita about my lovely bunch of coco-nuts…

Someone in audience: Al Hurricane? I thought you were Tony Bennett, oyé!

Someone else in audience: ¿Qué cosa Tony Bennett? ¡Oralé, he’s Engulburk Humperdink!





-Related to posts What If The Southwest Guy Were Chicano? and What If Madge Were Chicana?

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PRACTICE – Letting Go – 15min

I’m letting go, letting go, letting go. I want to let go of the need to control. Let go, let go, let go.

I’m letting go of sorrow. There is a way that it haunts me. Fear. I want to let go of fear. I lived much of my life that way. Fearful to walk in the crowded world. I am afraid I will fail. It doesn’t matter how many good things come along to support me on my path. I’m afraid I will fail. That’s it, QM. It’s not success that haunts you. It is failure.

Thin-skinned and thickheaded. Keep at your craft. Practice. I had dinner with another writer at Saigon restaurant tonight. And from Pudd’nhead Wilson, she told me this paraphrased quote – most people say, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I say, put all your eggs in one basket and carefully watch them. She said she interpreted it to mean put your ass on the line for something and then give it your all. And then I smiled because I knew she was saying something we’d learned from Natalie – to put your ass on the line for something – anything – it doesn’t have to be writing.

“Anything” is whatever thing you have passion for. “Anything” takes courage and guts. “Anything” will not necessarily make you happy. But that “anything”  – give it your all.

And then we talked about stories from the Fair and developing characters in fiction writing and the insanity of credit card companies (not related) and going to see Steve Almond read in October. And I had iced tea (but I longed for sweet tea) that I poured from a stainless steel steeping pot over crackling ice, and fried rice with little bits of green peas and tiny whole shrimp that I ate with chopsticks. And to-die-for spring rolls with little flecked shreds of white daikon ribbons and wondered, have I had enough?

The blog has become a practice. It could not survive without community. What would be the point? I don’t want to write to hear myself talk. I write to be heard. I write to develop my voice. To know who I am.

I want to let go of the frightening way I keep telling myself I can’t do it. And then I feel lazy and start comparing myself to others. Comparing my insides to other people’s outsides. And then there’s a black hole where my heart used to be. But these days I fill it with all that electric energy created from everything I’m letting go of. And the sum total could fill a moon crater. And what is left is just me.

Just me – and that basket of eggs.

-15 minute handwritten writing practice, Thursday night, September 13th, 2007, after pondering Visions

-Fortune cookie from Saigon Vietnamese Restaurant after dinner with my friend: You are inclined to come up with unconventional solutions.

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, September 14th, 2007

-from Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – “I WANT TO LET GO OF …”

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