Walter Goyburu is considered one of the local masters of Peruvian criolle music but from his respected neighborhood of Callao, Lima. Do not mistake this music to what they call creole music from New Orleans.

Goyburu’s version of the classic valz song Cenizas, originally by Emilio Visosa, was recently featured in the all star album La Gran Reunion, Los Guardianes de la Musica Criolla (’the great reunion, the guardians of creolle music’) which features 19 respected criolle music artists.  This album has been coined the Buena Vista Social Club of Peruvian criolle music, may be so.

Understanding Spanish would help the appreciation factor because the lyrics are stunningly beautiful, but its beautiful rhythm and melodies will captivate any music lover until the end of a song. If you feel this, I was even able to find the lyrics for you:

Ábreme y no me cierres

la puerta de oro,            (bis)

del cofre de la ventana

que hay en tu pecho,

sabiendo que eres

el único tesoro,

que engalana mi vida

trecho a trecho.

Dame luz de tu amor

y no me engañes,

escucha la canción

del que agoniza;

mátame con el fuego

de tu mirada,

hazme polvo

y vuélveme cenizas.  (bis)

Brown says: “Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired.” What a spineless answer. Even more disturbing is that our children are watching this closely and they are absorbing it in different ways.  Chris brown must go to jail, he has to be made an example to any kids or ex fans he might have had. We can not let our children think in any way that this is OK.

Meanwhile accross the world, a story came out yesterday about Ameneh Bahrami, an Iranian woman who was an ‘acid attack’ victim of a crazy man who threw sulfuric acid on her face because she would not marry him.  She is now disfigured, blind in one eye and going blind eventually.  In Iran, victims of attacks usually recieve “blood money” in exchange for bodily damages.  She is however asking the supreme Court of Tehran to punish him with 20 drops of sulfuric acid into his eyes.  She says: “I don’t want to blind him for revenge… I’m doing this to prevent it from happening to someone else.”  The type of hate it took for someone to throw ACID in any persons face, let alone a woman who would not marry them, is evil.  Eye for an eye seems like the proper thing do within the constructs of their societies laws.

This is an opportunity to see justice served against acts of hate against women and let that echo around the world.  We can not accept this type of barbaric activity in any modern societies, it is too hateful.  May Rihanna and Ameneh  Bahrami get the justice they deserve.  Love the women in your life.

Following Shaq on twitter now for less than 24 hours has made me laugh very hard.  I realize after reading his tweets that he has always been a genuine person.  The guy on TV who is kind of goofy in nature, loves to eat, and balls hard on the court, is just that in real life.  This again is another testament to the transparent nature and power of the Twitter communication medium.  Here are some of my favorite Shaq tweets so far:

Thank you Shaq.. You made my day.. I look forward to your tweets… Maybe you will follow back.

@miguel23

With only 30 days left until the deadline of a contest that Current TV was running called, Seeds of Tolerance, I embarked on this project. The prize was 100,000 dollars – I was in for the ride of my life.

I picked this topic because I myself am an immigrant to the good ole U.S.A. and I felt it was my duty to explore this topic closely. I am so happy that I did.

I quit my job (I got it back when I returned), borrowed the equipment, secured the funding, and flew off to New Orleans with only two contacts upon arrival, a friends friend who lent me his floor to sleep on and Christian Roselund who ran Indymedia in the area and whom I met through email correspondence.

Blood, Sweat and Tears is the best way that I can explain these 30 days. Sourcing, shooting, directing, and editing. I was a one man show. I went up to scared immigrant strangers on the street, this is how I met all the subjects in my movie. My time in New Orleans was very short so every minute on the field was worth gold. I met heroes and downtrodden people. Then entire experience felt somewhat apocalyptic. Certain people will always stick out in my mind.

9 hours of footage later, I had to teach myself how to edit video. This took about 2 hours thanks to my audio editing skills. I’m not kidding. I am a natural at this. I boiled all the content down to 11 minutes to meet the contest requirements. I can easily make a 40 minute movie with the footage.

I did not win the $100,000 but out of approximately 380 entries, 8 movies were picked, 6 finalists, and 2 for television. This movie was picked for television – I got paid. Not much money, but the reward today is bigger than anything I could have possibly imagined back then.

Tomorrow, I will be giving a speech after the screening of my movie at Unity High School in Oakland, California. This website has all the details: http://www.unityhigh.org/gulfcoasttrip08

The aim of the fundraiser is to send a group of students to New Orleans and make 2 documentaries about this topic. You are all of course welcome to help out.

This is a much deeper story because it involves everything from the Detroit techno music label Underground Resistance and an old school Dj friend from back in the Ann Arbor days. However, you will have to ask me in person about this if you really want to find out more.

Here is a link to the edited TV version

Credits and thank you’s:
Eddie & Johnny & Larry for letting me crash in your places, and Kieran Walsh for hooking that up.
Alex Outhred for funding
Gregory Kellet and Ian Kellet for the Camera and the tips – good juju!
Elsa Wenzel for support and research help
“CESAR” for putting up with me in his editing suite.
Christian Roselund, Ed Holub, Eva San Martin, Luz Molina, Jorge Lopez, Damion, Claire Didier, Lamar LeBlanc, Albert at Common Ground, and the immigrants themselves who put themselves at risk to help me make this film.

Thanks to Cornelius Harris for passing it on and thanks to Daniel Zarazua for inspiring the youth to take further action.

Thank you ALL!!!

Mig