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Merry Christmas to you and yours, Primo!
Re: Merry Christmas to All -- Russ Walden Post Reply Top of thread Forum

Posted by: LateForLunch ®

12/25/2021, 12:52:07

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Driving around Christmas Eve at midnight - 'crested a hill - saw fireworks. An unauthorized (illegal) display. Someone had set up a commercial-grade system in a wide riverbed (with mortars lofting the rounds) for a very short (60 second) but generously-varied show. It blossomed in the night sky like a winter bouquet of bright, shimmering, iridescent flowers, red, gold, green, blue...someone knew their stuff!! 

I drove through the clouds of smoke from the mortars shortly after (they had set up close to the street I was on parallel to the river) It has just rained for three days here, so there was zero fire danger. 

It was a "clandestine" operation. No doubt those who did it scrambled to evacuate the mortars (platforms) ASAP to avoid any chivatos* dispatched to the area. 

This was all done on the Latino-side of town, God bless them. 
Things like this are why I always speak up if I hear/read anti-Latino racism. Many (most) Latinos I have known were simply normal people who speak Spanish at home sometimes. The lowlife ratio is about the same as other ethnicities as far as I can tell (mostly controlled by poverty and lack of a working male parent/ drug or alcohol abuse present in the home growing up). 

Christmas is when I post recommendations for great books I've read. One of the best on the renowned decency/character of hard-working Latinos, is Cormack McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses". 

The book is infinitely better than the movie version so skip it and just enjoy the book. The casting directors decided to let Matt Damon ruin the movie. His grotesquely-limited range is the kiss-of-death to any serious character. I can't fathom why he keeps getting work in H-Wood. 

The book is compelling - some teenage cowboys working on a failing ranch in Texas (circa 1950s) near the border decide to save some horses being sold for slaughter. The boys decide to use back-trails they know to herd the horses over the border to people who want to give them homes on a ranchero. Very-realistic plus an antidote for anti-Latino racism if there ever was one. 

Too bad the director(s) let Damon screw-up the movie so horribly with his trademark dull, off-key, lethargic "acting". What a disaster.  

Chivato - Pejorative Spanish term for an immoral / treacherous person ("snitch"). Example: The kids playing in the park after curfew jumped the fence and ran away when they saw a uniformed chivato approaching. 

Example#2 - (from movie Scarface)

Sosa:(explaining, pointing to hovering helicopter with Omar being hung from a rope over the side):  Omar was recognized by one of my men. He was a chivato for the cops back in New York - 'cost my man's brother's their lives.

Tony Montana: (sneering, shaking head in disgust) High nebber lahked dah-guy. High nebber troost 'eem.






Modified by LateForLunch at Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 13:45:45


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