9 posts tagged “albuquerque new mexico”

I've been in Cleveland Ohio since Sunday of last week.  I am here for training for my new job as an Assistant Editor with PR Newswire.  My job will keep me in the Albuquerque office of PR Newswire.  I am very excited about this new opportunity.  I will NOT be blogging much about the specifics of my new job in interest of disclosure and out of respect to my new company.  However I will continue to blog about new media, technology, and communications here at Mind of Estevanico.  All of these conceptual areas relate to my new job and I am looking forward to seeing how my new job will expand my knowledge base and human connections.

I will not say much more about the Bush administration on this blog because it looks like fate and time are speaking loudly enough.  Please do read this post from barbwire on the Daily Kos about Bush's recent visit to ABQ.

God knows I love New Mexico and my new "hometown" (yes I can call it that now after living here for a solid year) of Albuquerque.  One of the things I love about living here is the burgeoning film industry that is just overflowing around the state and ABQ in particular.  I had a conversation the other night with a casual acquaintance named Kate who starred as Lady Macbeth in a recent stage production of "Macbeth" at The Vortex in ABQ.  Kate is very excited to have landed a small role in a film that is currently being shot here called "Swing Vote" which is a film financed by Kevin Costner.  Kate told me that she has a scene with two of the film's stars Dennis Hopper and Nathan Lane.  I was so excited for Kate and enthralled by her opportunity for she was truly brilliant in "Macbeth".

This morning I was reading the "New Mexico Business Weekly" online and came across this intriguing announcement.

Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes shooting in my "hometown".  Awesome! I'm trying to meet Eva!

 

A few days ago I was creating a new playlist on iTunes for my iPod Nano which I've been listening to a great deal these days as I sit at Java Joe's in downtown ABQ or Gecko's up in Nob Hill.  One of the tracks that I included on that playlist is called "Consanguinity" taken from a work called "Streams of Consciousness" which is comprised of duets performed by the South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and the legendary jazz drummer Max Roach, originally recorded in 1977. 

I have long wondered how Max Roach had been doing over the years.  Max has long been one of the touchstones of my jazz education.  I guess it first began the first time I heard "Money Jungle" which I consider one of the greatest jazz trio works ever produced.  That work features Roach on drums along with Duke Ellington on piano and Charles Mingus on bass.  However the work by Max Roach that I heard early on in my jazz listening and still resonates oh so profoundly with me to this day is "We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite". I first became aware of this work while working at Papa Jazz, a great record store in my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina.  I worked there prior to moving to Ann Arbor in the early 1990s.  My boss at Papa Jazz, Tim Smith turned me on to "We Insist". The album is deeply inspired by the civil rights movement. My greatest memory of listening to this work was during the time I spent in the Peace Corps in Africa.  I had "We Insist" tracks recorded to a cassette and I recall playing it for several neighbors in my village of Kambo in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo) on my battery operated short wave radio/cassette player  just to see how they would react to this "jazz" from America. I played the tune "All Africa" ... the immediate response from village neighbors was "this sounds like music from our churches".  I smiled, nodded and knew that Max Roach was right on the money.

I knew this day was coming.  I opened the door to my home this morning to retrieve the daily New York Times and as I unfolded the paper I saw Max's picture and didnt' have to read any further.  I knew immediately what the news would be.  R I P  ... Max Roach you were/are my MAIN man!

If you've read this blog from the beginning you would know that I had a pretty tough time living for six years in Boston prior to moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Much of my trouble had to do with racial issues in Boston and its numerous social, cultural, and economic ramifications.  Life in Albuquerque has been much better as the weather here is warm, the cost of living is affordable, and for the large part the social/cultural milieu is extremely friendly, open, and tolerant.  I told an acquaintance of mine just the other day that " ...My life in Albuquerque is the first time that I have not had to daily deal with 'being 'Black' ... most of the racial issues in Albuquerque center around Natives, Latinos, and white folk ...".  I am NOT simple or overly idealistic enough to know that my skin color and cultural heritage are truly insignificant in Albuquerque but I must say that Albuquerque is a fairly fluid city where skin color is of little consequence at least from my perspective.

Nonetheless I was truly disturbed by a recent story I heard on "Latino USA" about strained relations between Blacks and Mexican-Americans in Austin, Texas and then I found this today on the Economist website about equally disturbing news of strained relations between Blacks and Latinos in Durham, NC and Los Angeles.  I hope to examine these issues a bit further in detail in the very near future.

Readers of this blog surely know of my love for public radio.  I have been blessed to live in cities where the public radio is good.  Ann Arbor, MI featured WEMU from neighboring Ypsilanti, MI.  Boston of course featured NPR flagships WGBH and WBUR and here in ABQ I am fond of KUNM and KANW.  This morning while lucid sleeping/dreaming I was listening to KANW and a great program called "Justice Talking" which is according to NPR is an "award-winning radio that engages listeners in timely, refreshingly honest debates on the current legal battles that capture our nation's attention" ... I love this show.  Today's episode was EXTREMELY provocative it was titled "The Cuban Embargo - Should U.S. Policy Change?"  The show covers several topics that are very poignant in light of the future of Cuba given the current health situation of Fidel Castro. Two that struck me as very interesting were host Margot Adler talking with NPR correspondent Tom Gjelten about the Bacardi family (yes the Bacardi of rum fame) and its long and complex history with Cuba and the story of Lillian Holloway  from Philadelphia who is a fifth-year medical student at Doctor Salvador Allende hospital in Havana, Cuba. In September 2000, Fidel Castro announced the implementation of full scholarships for American students of little means to go to medical school in Cuba.  Very interesting.  If you are interested at all in Cuba then you must visit the website and listen to this show.  I was transfixed.  I have long had an interest in Cuba and hope to visit there in the very near future.

I've become a bike commuter which has worked out pretty well living in downtown Albuquerque.  I use my bike, ride the bus, and depend on friends for rides to get around this town.  After living in Boston for six years I became very accustomed to the "T" which for all of its drawbacks and faults is a very efficient and fairly extensive means of transportation to get in and around the Boston metro area.  When I moved to ABQ I had a car which I no longer own.  I've been meaning to do a post on public transportation in Albuquerque but haven't done my homework enough to make any definitive statements.  On the other hand I saw the above quoted titled in my Google alerts for "Albuquerque" this monring and I drilled down to find  this  and found it humorous as well as obnoxious but somewhat true.  Credit goes  to the same source,"The Luigiian" for the above cartoon.

I like to communicate via email.  I consider myself a pretty good writer and find the written word to be an effective means of communicating.  I try to stay in touch with all the friends and colleagues I've made over the years through college in Atlanta, Georgia, my service in the Peace Corps in Africa, my time as a graduate student/bookseller in Ann Arbor, MI, my life as a book publisher in Boston, MA, and now here in my new home of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  The Internet, Email, my blog, and sites like MySpace (I only have an account there and not an actual working page) have all served pretty well in this effort to help me stay in touch with the numerous people I've met through the years. 

Yesterday I emailed my friend Ingrid to find out where she was and what she was up to.  She nudged me to try out the micro-blogging site Twitter.  I joined Twitter and I must say while I am a sucker for most things Web 2.0 and social networking sites via the web, Twitter really really impresses me.  Only time will tell if I actually make use of Twitter but for now it's a pretty cool new tool.  For more info go to twitter.com ... my user name there is james3neal.

When I first began this blog back in July of 2006 there were several inspirations.  Prior to moving to ABQ I was living with my mother in Columbia, SC and I spent a lot of productive time online.  I discovered Georgia Popplewell at this time.  I mentioned Georgia in a previous post here.  She is definitely an inspiration for this blog and provides a good model for the types of things I would like to do eventually with media and the Internet.

In brief, Popplewell can be described as a  media producer, journalist, editor, blogger based in Trinidad. She has been involved with independent television in the Caribbean since 1989.  Her writing includes broad coverage of culture, music, film, literature, and sport.  The best way to check out why I love Georgia so much is to spend some time with Caribbean Free Radio, the first podcast based in the Caribbean that Georgia started in 2005.  Popplewell is also a co-Managing Editor and Podcast Editor at one of my favorite places on the Internet, Global Voices.  Here's a good portal to see all that Georiga Popplewell is up to ... I also go to Georgia for issues related to productivity and information regarding technology here at what she calls the "Digital Caribbean".

Thanks for inspiring me Georgia ... I'll see what I can do to bring my own version of your media expertise to Albuquerque, New Mexico ...