Big Joe,
Maybe you have to become the Martin Luther King of the Mutt People and lead them from the Valley of Nowhere. Or somebody else from the Valley who has climbed to a higher plane and can see the woods from the trees needs to do it. Martin was middle class, educated, and lived in a nice clean house, but he had heart for Rosa and his various brothers and sisters.
Truth is, nobody cares more about blacks and hispanics more than black and hispanic leaders, except maybe an occassional JFK or FDR. Did you ever think of stepping from the computer and stumping for education among the Mutt People and the society at large? Kind of like putting a firecracker up their assses. If you can talk like you can write, you could be big. Seriously.
I know it's easy for me to ask. But then the Italians, in spite of the Mafia, have gotten their shit together somehow. Maybe it was just coming from Europe with a cultural heritage in the steamer trunk, being craftsmen, artisans. Although there were and are still many lummoxes among us, chuchos, donkeys, who hauled, broke concrete, or kicked ass for a living.
Even my wino paternal grandpa could sing you Puccini backwards, even when he was loaded. My mother's father was a shoemaker and worked for I. Miller Shoe Company and got his ass canned for trying to unionize the place. So he went back to his little shoe store on the Lower East Side, then went broke, then the family took care, and Social Security kicked in, what there was of it for him.
I think there is probably a Mutt Culture too, besides killing hogs and drowning kittens. Anybody singing about that besides you? If not, you are a voice from the wilderness. Now you need a Jesse and an Abernathy, a Stokely and a J. Farmer, saying set my people free. Don't count just on the white middle or upper classes. They're busy trying to get Kerry or Dean elected. You may have a stronger bond with poor blacks, Latinos, Asians, Middle Easterners, than you suspect.
Anyhow, keep singing Caruso, whatever you do. The music, though dissonant, has its own kind of truth and beauty that stirs all of us.
Ciao,
Jerry
