cocolatta

be. now

seen yesterday on n. lamar

contemplating starting up the daily photo again. thoughts? it was a commitment that turned into a habit, monday though friday, almost without fail save for vacations and days that were nonstop travel (i did manage a daily photo from the frankfurt airport once). speaking of, my dear friend denenge is off to japan today for ten days. her first order of business will be to attend a ceremony for artists to burn their brushes from the previous year. yesterday, in the midst of a conversation on quadband phones, we talked about how great an idea this was and how it could serves as both cathartic and catalytic.

first look - coach g's 2nd season

Erika Arriaran shows perfect form at the line. She was shooting due to tech foul on Houston. And that hook'em horns thingy sign at the bottom of the pic.	Texas coaches
Jaguars bench	Coach G yells at the ref. She sat most of the game but the failure of the ref to call Houston for a foul on Ashleigh Fontenette set her off.

On Sunday afternoon, the Univ. of Texas Women's basketball took the floor for their first game this season in a pre-season exhibition against the Houston Jaguars, a semi-pro team. The No. 13 Longhorns came away with a 86-45 lopsided victory. But even with the large spread, the Longhorns didn't look 100 percent ready for prime time. There were some sloppy plays and the time on the floor by the freshman was marred by some poor decision-making probably due to jitters. I was impressed though by Pflugerville's Ashleigh Fontenette. The freshman played with intensity and focus that I hope spreads to the rest of the team.

Texas Head Coach Gail Goestenkors on the team's performance:
"It's good to get it under our belts. We knew there'd be a lot of turnovers, there always are in your first game, and you're trying to put things together. It was really good to see everybody out there and everybody healthy. It was good for the freshmen, they played like freshmen I thought at times but then I also saw some really good things as well. They're all going to help us and it's good to get Erika [Arriaran] back who had been out for a year and a half. This is just the first game of a very long journey. There is a lot to work on and improve on, but overall I'm satisfied with our intensity. Obviously our turnovers are the biggest issue that we have right now. I thought we did a good job on the boards. That was an emphasis for us, but we definitely need to take care of the ball."

Now are the Houston Jaguars the Washington Generals of women's basketball? the team consists of young former college players (some looking to move up to the WNBA) and (mostly involuntary) retired WNBA players. The Jaguars play like the floor is soft beach sand. They were lackluster and showed no spark whatsoever. However, it was nice to see Umeke Webb (N.C. State/Phoenix Mercury) and Chandi Jones (Univ. Houston/Minnesota Lynx) play.

"There was no hustle, zero," said Jaguars coach James Kincaid of this teams's performance. "When Texas is beating us by 41 points, we don't have enough pride to get out there and dive for a loose ball or anything, it's disappointing. We play every day on our tour so our ladies are tired but bottom line is you have to have some pride. I tried to rotate people in and get people fresh and we just couldn't get it done."

I do enjoy seeing players from the semi-pro women's teams and I've been following them for years. Sometimes you get to see WNBA players who don't want to go overseas in the WNBA offseason play (Sheryl Swoopes has played with the Generals) or promising young players who are looking to get more experience under their belt for a WNBA bid. But watching the Generals was just painful at times.

I tried to access the web site for the team (houstonjaguars.net) but it is gone and replaced by one of those ad pages when you don't pay your domain name registration and it gets thrown into a pile of domains for sale by the registrar or if you're lucky, released to not being registered (then the registrar might not charge you an arm and a leg to retrieve your domain from their greedy claws). The domain expired on October 23, 2009 so the team can probably still recover the name before Network Solutions starts releases it back into the wild or charge them an exorbitant fee to regain ownership it.

This weekend will be the World Vision Classic tournament here in Austin and I'm excited to see another one of my favorite teams, Old Dominion take the floor. Oh the days of Old Dominion's Portugues connection (Clarisse Machanguana, Ticha Penicheiro, Mery Andrade) in the late 1990s with that 33-game winning streak. I still remember their championship run like it was yesterday.

And December 14? Texas vs. Tennessee in Austin. I can't wait!

all those black mormons: white gays, racism and proposition 8

i'm really sick of reading racist tirades on the internet blaming blacks for the passage of proposition 8 in california. the vitriol is sickening. i don't have the energy to write a long post about this. besides, there are several other black gay bloggers who have done an excellent job of breaking this ish down. and none of us is excusing anyone for voting for such a homophobic piece-of-sh*t legislation but the hate coming from white gays is appalling especially given the fact that many folks in cali tell me that the no on 8 campaign was piss-poor managed and that 50 percent, yes 50 freakin' percent(!), of registered voters in san francisco did not go to the polls. wtf?

• Rod 2.0, N-Word Hurled at Blacks During Westwood Prop 8 Protest
  

  The recent passage of California's Proposition 8 has exposed some of the latent racism of many within the LGBT community—instigated in part by many in the e-telligentsia such as revisionist Andrew Sullivan and sex advisor turned sociologist Dan Savage. Unfortunately the "blame the blacks" meme is being commonly accepted by some so-called "progressive" gay activists.
  //
  Los Angeles resident and Rod 2.0 reader A. Ronald says he and his boyfriend, who are both black, were carrying NO ON PROP 8 signs and still subjected to racial abuse.

  Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, "Black people did this, I hope you people are happy!" A young lesbian couple with mohawks and Obama buttons joined the shouting and said there were "very disappointed with black people" and "how could we" after the Obama victory. This was stupid for them to single us out because we were carrying those blue NO ON PROP 8 signs! I pointed that out and the one of the older men said it didn't matter because "most black people hated gays" and he was "wrong" to think we had compassion. That was the most insulting thing I had ever heard. I guess he never thought we were gay.

• Pam's House Blend, The N-bomb is dropped on black passersby at Prop 8 protests
  

  The backlash is upon us, and it's going to get uglier unless our organizations step forward and say something. The desire to scapegoat blacks for Prop 8's defeat has exposed the now not-so-latent racism in our movement.

• Shanikka on Daily Kos, Facts Belie the Scapegoating of Black People for Proposition 8

I therefore blew off work that needed to get done and still needs to get done to try and put to rest, once and for all, this virulently racist idea that Black people are to blame for the passage of Proposition 8 here in California.  It is an idea grounded in utter myth, a complete lack of knowledge about anything related to Black people's presence in California, and just plain old scapegoating.

• BlackGayBlogger.com, Asides #51: The Post-Election Edition
  

  As a Black gay man, it hurts me to know that one of the most progressive states in the union is vehemently adamant against same-sex marriages. But getting angry (and in some cases hurling racial slurs) at such a small portion of the electorate is misplaced and highly ignorant. It gets even worse when you have gay blowhards like Dan Savage championing this ire, when anyone with a high school education and a basic understanding of statistics could tell you that the percentage of Black voters in the state of California hardly makes up the majority of the state’s population.

goodbye mama africa

miriam makeba's song "pata pata" is one from my childhood. when i was around eight or nine, one of my aunts took my sisters and brothers and i to see the musical ipi tombi which featured this song. afterwards, we were lucky enough to get the soundtrack on a 33" record which we played every single day for an entire summer. i can clearly see that dusty record player in a corner of my aunt's upstairs den and remember us dancing around to "pata pata" and the other upbeat songs on the album. when i was in college, i had a cassette of miriam makeba songs and it was one of the most played in my collection when i was alone in my room feeling like a stranger in a strange land of new england cold and bland food.

makeba was an ardent human rights activist to the end. she died shortly after performing at a concert against organized crime. she was showing solidarity for italian journalist roberto saviano who received death threats after writing a book about a naples crime syndicate. she lived in exile from 1960 until the early 1990s when finally, apartheid faltered, and she could go home.

Miriam Makeba - Pata Pata

Miriam Makeba (Johannesburg, March 4, 1932 - Castel Volturno, November 10, 2008)

paranoid much?

i saw this van on monday. it says "see websites" but there were no web sites listed on the vehicle. i had to hurry and get the pic because the dude driving it was pulling out of the parking lot at a fast pace.

'nuff said

next?

 

we'll see...poster in downtown austin. and seen last week on 6th st.:

taken with my phone camera