Category Archives: de rebus texanis

I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life…

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On Friday night, our oldest daughter Georgia marked her 14th birthday. The next night she celebrated with her mom’s pot roast (a favorite), a beautiful cake from our family’s official pastry chef, Fluff Bake Bar, and a sleepover with two of her best friends from school.

She was also surrounded by her Orange and Houston families. They had gathered for another momentous occasion: earlier that day, she had performed with the Region (as in all-region) string orchestra, one of the top accolades a Texan middle schooler can achieve in classical music.

The conductor spoke about how our region, 23, is one of the two most competitive in the state and arguably the most dynamic (thanks to the confluence of three fiercely engaged school districts in its radius).

Georgia was first chair in her section, viola, and performed a beautiful solo in the third piece.

The music was gorgeous, the performance extraordinary, especially when you consider the ages of the musicians.

I couldn’t have been more filled with joy to hear her play.

Maybe it’s just because I’m an unabashedly proud father.

But it’s also because when I see her, a straight-A 14-year-old with a rich network of delightful friends, I see the kid that I couldn’t be when I was her age.

My family simply wasn’t in a place where they could support my cello studies. And the vicissitudes of life had left me precariously adrift among my peers.

A few moments before the concert began, I squeezed Tracie’s hand and told her, I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life. And from the moment she and I decided to get married, every instant has led up to this, I said, this beautiful, graceful child who’s growing into an adult as she explores her creativity and curiosity unyoked from the burden of family trauma.

I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life. Thanks for letting me share it here. Happy holidays.

FIEL co-founder Cesar Espinosa featured in Houston Chronicle. Please consider supporting FIEL by donating or volunteering.

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Please check out this week’s Houston Chronicle feature story on Cesar Espinosa, co-founder of FIEL, an immigrant-led organization that provides legal service and advocates for immigrants in greater Houston.

(Disclosure: I’ve been working for the last six months as a pro bono media consultant for the group.)

I can’t share the entire article here, but here’s a snippet:

    FIEL’s impact is measured not just in legal victories but in human stories. Stories like that of a father deported under one administration, reunited with his family after years of legal struggle. Or the mother who once served Espinosa dinner at a gala, quietly telling him that thanks to FIEL, her son had just graduated from Harvard. He said he still thinks about the young student who approached him after a workshop and said, “Because of you, I finally believe I belong here.” These victories, he said, are what sustain him through the long nights and heavy sacrifices.

Click here to continue reading.

The story of how Cesar, his siblings, and mother faced the challenges of being “undocumented” in this country is as compelling as it is inspiring.

When you read how Cesar and his family began working to help and protect immigrants, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that they are genuine super heroes for our time.

Please consider donating to FIEL or volunteering: FIEL needs people to challenge ICE agents at the asylum court; it needs bodies to show up at protests, rallies, and to populate information fairs. Just following and sharing their media on your own channels helps.

Check donation links and volunteer opportunities on their site.

And stay tuned: FIEL is planning a wonderful event for November 1. I’ll be sharing details here as soon as I have them.

Have a great weekend “on purpose,” as my good friend Annette Purnell likes to say.

Happy Juneteenth everyone! Do something on purpose!

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Above: Juneteenth and Solidarity Day in Washington D.C., June 19, 1968. Screenshot via The New Yorker.

Happy Juneteenth, everyone!

Here in Houston, the day is celebrated large, with a major festival held each year in Emancipation Park, the historic site where the holiday originated more than a century ago.

The above photo of “Solidarity Day” (Washington, D.C., June 19, 1968) comes via The New Yorker. It appears as part of a writer’s personal remembrance.

Can you imagine a sight like that today on the National Mall?

Click here to read more about Juneteenth, how it started in Houston, and how Houstonians made it into a national observance.

How are you celebrating Juneteenth this year? As my good friend Annette Purnell likes to say, do something on purpose!

If you happen to be in Southeast Texas and need something to do, please meet me in Orange for the Southeast Texas Impact Initiative protest of the neo-Confederate memorial there. Click here to learn more.

Happy Juneteenth!

Brown people are being “disappeared” in the U.S. We must stand up and speak out for them and their families and communities!

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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “disappear” first began to be used as a transitive (as opposed to intransitive) verb in the 1960s.

As you can see from the OED, the term was initially used to describe the abduction and vanishing of political opponents in Soviet bloc and Latin America countries in that decade.

Today, the U.S. joins that list of countries whose governments have engaged historically in the practice.

On Saturday, more than 15,000 Houstonians took to the streets to protest the U.S. raids on Brown communities (among other egregious transgressions of American values). Tracie and I were there and it was an amazing and energizing experience (photo above).

But on Friday, I also attended a protest at a privately run ICE prison near Bush airport. There, multiple speakers shared their stories of family members who had been aggressively abducted and locked up despite the fact that they had legal status to be in the country.

In one of the most hideous moves by the U.S. government, I learned, ICE agents are lying in wait outside courtrooms in Houston. As it was described by multiple speakers on Friday night, they collude with the prosecutors who summarily move to dismiss the cases of asylum seekers. And as soon as they walk out of the courtroom, thinking that they are free to go, they are snatched by mask-wearing agents.

It’s entirely illegal: volunteer lawyers who have challenged the agents report that agents back down when they are pressed to show a warrant. One lawyer at the event managed to save 15 persons from deportation by challenging the agents.

In the meantime, these poor people are lost to the vortex of the byzantine immigration system. On Friday, I watched and listened to people weep for their relatives behind the walls of the privately run prison. Literally.

It’s time that we finally call this what it is: the profiling of Brown people and Brown communities by the U.S. government.

It’s anti-American and it runs counter to everything that we were taught to love about our country.

Thanks for being here and thanks for your solidarity and support. Please stand up and speak out!

Rock with me, march with me, pray for LA.

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Our family is still reeling as we watch the awful images from LA.

So many of my friends have been displaced but luckily everyone, at least in my personal LA orbit, seems to be okay. Thank G-d.

It’s terrifying to read some of their accounts of escaping the flames.

We are praying for the city and its communities. We know our LA friends and colleagues are going to need a lot of help in recovering. Right now, many are just looking for a place to sleep tonight. It’s terrible.

For folks in Houston, I did want to let you know that my 80s cover band, Biodynamic Band, featuring Katie White on vocals and melodica, will be playing this Sunday, January 12, at Vinsanto on the westside. We’ll be playing three sets starting at 4 p.m.

And just around the corner… Tracie, the girls, and I will be marching in the historic Orange, Texas, MLK March on Monday, January 20. See flier below.

For those who have never participated, I believe you’ll find it to be an extremely compelling experience.

After the march, Tracie and I will be heading over the neo-Confederate memorial on I-10 for our yearly protest. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to our GoFundMe campaign to raise an MLK billboard across the from the monument. It will remain active throughout January and February (Black History Month).

I recognize that protesting symbols of white supremacy isn’t for everyone. But the march is something that nearly everyone in the community — except for the white supremacists — participates in.

We hope to see you then (Orange is an hour and a half drive from Houston btw).

Thanks for the support and solidarity. Please pray for LA. G-d bless the City of Angels. G-d bless us all.

Orange TX is not to blame for the Neo-Confederate monument there. A puny group of aging cosplay cowardly Neo-Confederates is.

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Thank you to everyone who has donated to our GoFundMe to raise an MLK billboard over the Neo-Confederate monument in Orange, Texas where Tracie grew up, where her family still lives, and where our family has deep roots.

The city of Orange in southeast Texas — located on the Louisiana border along I-10, the first stop in Texas heading west, the last heading east — is not to blame for the Neo-Confederate monument there. A puny group of aging cosplay cowardly Neo-Confederates is.

They are called the Sons of Confederate Veterans and they are notorious for similar campaigns across the country, mostly in the south, most often featuring the “Confederate flag.”

Don’t believe their lies when they tell you they are a benign group supporting the preservation of their “heritage.” In fact, they are an ideologically driven cult that deals in insidious racism, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy theories.

Just browse some of the titles published by the Sons’ Deputy Chief Heritage Promotions James Ronald Kennedy and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

The local yellow-bellied members behind the monument — Granvel Block and Hank Van Slyke — have made it clear to all involved that their conspicuous display of Neo-Confederate pageantry is intended to offend the city’s black community.

After all, they erected their puerile prank on MLK Dr., a main artery of the city.

The city of Orange fought tooth-and-nail to block the monument’s construction. They stymied the Sons by limiting the potential height of their flagpoles (so they are not entirely visible from the Interstate). A group of leading pastors pleaded with Block not to move forward with the site. The city attorney publicly condemned the site, calling it “repugnant.”

You can find an aggregate of mainstream media about the site and its origins at RepurposeMemorial.com. You’ll find detailed reports of the city’s efforts to block Block, the bird-brained architect behind the cheap-looking Greco-Roman atrium he built there. He’s been known as a prankster his whole life.

Nearly half the residents of Orange are black. The overwhelming number of people — black and white — who have reached out to us supporting our campaign have left me confident that we are doing the right thing. Nobody but Block and Van Slyke and their sad bunch of cosplayers want this aberration.

Image via Jimmy Emerson’s Flickr (Creative Commons).

Wim Wenders’ “Paris Texas” restoration had us swooning yesterday at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

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Tracie, the girls, and I had the immense pleasure yesterday of attending a screening of a newly restored version of Wim Wenders’ iconic 1984 full-length movie, Paris Texas. The movie was shown at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, in the same theater where Wenders would view the dailies during shooting.

Read about the film on Wenders’ website here.

It’s hard to explain the outsized role the film has played and continues to play in my life.

I was a junior in high school when it was released and did not see it then.

But by the time I was in grad school at U.C.L.A., it had become required viewing for all aspiring critical theorists on campus. (Yesterday, I learned that the movie had a U.C.L.A. connection by way of production assistant Allison Anders, who also attended U.C.L.A. while I was there although I did not know her.)

One of my professors, a famous Italian philosopher, devoted an entire lecture to the film.

During my grad years when I was living in Hollywood, I shared a water hole — the notorious Coach and Horses on Sunset — with Harry Dean Stanton and would see him there often. A band I played with opened for his band at the Roxbury one time. Man, what a Hollywood night that was!

During those same years, I often saw Ry Cooder, who created the unique score, at a club we used to play and hang out in, Fais Do Do. It was there that I first met his son Joachim, who, years later, thanks to a totally different connection, would make an album with my band Nous Non Plus and tour with us.

And just to make it a truly cosmic connection, Tracie’s long-time hairdresser not only appeared with her band Mydolls in the film. But she and her band also worked as part of the crew. Much of the film was made in Houston and other parts of Southeast Texas where we live.

The film has had such a huge impact on my intellectual arc. The story, the cinematography, the music… It was wonderful to see the gorgeously restored print and hear Mydolls, on hand for the occasion, share their anecdotes and insights into the production.

And this morning as I kissed Tracie before the work day began, it occurred to me: I followed a woman to Texas just like Harry Dean Stanton did. And she led me to Houston…

Check out the film, coming to a Texas town near you soon.

Happy Juneteenth! Browse the Portal to Texas History to see how the holiday has been celebrated over generations in Texas.

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Happy Juneteenth, everyone!

The main street of Houston’s historic Third Ward is known today as Emancipation Avenue. The name is inspired by the Emancipation Proclamation. But it is also owed to the fact that some of the earliest organized celebrations of Juneteenth were held in the Third Ward’s Emancipation Park, a public space created there by local business leaders in the late 19th century. It was intended to give residents a place to honor the date and occasion.

Extreme weather will be keeping most Houston residents indoors today. But our family will be celebrating the national holiday today by reading about its origins and how it was celebrated over the years since its inception.

Juneteenth became a national holiday in 2021 after members of congress from Houston lobbied for its recognition.

This morning, as we browsed the Portal to Texas History, we came across a number of TV news reporting on local gatherings, including one from Fort Worth dated 1989 (we noticed that the balloons in the video read “1987”; it’s possible that the archive date is incorrect). Use the link below to view.

KXAS-TV (Television station : Fort Worth, Tex.). [News Clip: Juneteenth], video, June 19, 1989, 5:00 p.m.; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc903774/m1/?q=juneteenth: accessed June 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.

Until recently, most Americans had no idea that such a celebration was regularly observed by communities across our nation.

Our family was thrilled when President Biden made it a national holiday (we are fortunate enough to live in the city represented in congress by the two congresspeople who proposed the legislation, including our district’s congressperson at the time).

Happy Juneteenth! Check out the Portal to Texas History here. And just enter the search term “Juneteenth.” I bet you’ll enjoy discovering how the holiday was celebrated in the state long before it became a national holiday.

Celebrate MLK Day: join Tracie and our family at the historic MLK March in Orange, Texas, and then stand up to white supremacy at our protest of the Neo-Confederate monument there.

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Happy MLK Day, everyone! Our protest will take place as planned, 2-4 p.m. at the site. The organizers of the march have also confirmed that the events are happening as planned. See you later today! Updated Monday, January 15, 8:40 a.m.

Please join Tracie and our family on MLK Day, January 15, as we take part in historic MLK Day March in Orange, Texas, where Tracie grew up and her family still lives.

The march will be followed by speeches by local leaders.

The march starts at 10 a.m. at Salem UMC Church. Click here for details.

And then, when all is said and done, Tracie and I will head over to the Neo-Confederate memorial (unveiled in 2017) on MLK Dr. at Interstate 10 for our protest of the site.

We will be there from 2-4 p.m. We will have waters and plenty of signs. Click here for location.

(The memorial was built by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the current-day Ku Klux Klan, and has been opposed by the local government and local pastors; the city of Orange has done everything in its power to stymie the Neo-Confederates but the monument stands on private land; for seven years now Tracie and I have been raising money to post an MLK billboard that looks out over the monument on MLK Day; read about our campaign to repurpose the site, now in its seventh year, here.)

Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions: jparzen@gmail.com, 917-405-3426.

Happy MLK Day! We hope to see you on Monday but wherever you are, please take time out to remember, celebrate, and share Dr. King’s teachings and legacy.

Thank you to everyone who donated to our MLK campaign: there is now an MLK billboard looking down over the Neo-Confederate monument in Orange, Texas.

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Tracie and I share our heartfelt thanks with everyone who contributed to our GoFundMe campaign to raise an MLK billboard over the Neo-Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas, where Tracie grew up and her family still lives.

We’ve worked with the billboard company for many years now and they were extra cool this time around: they put the billboard up a week or so ago and it will remain in place until March 5. We paid for eight weeks but they ended up giving us nearly 11 weeks, which is awesome.

It will be in place on MLK Day, Monday, January 15, and it will remain there throughout Black History Month (February).

In 2013 the Sons of Confederate Veterans began fund raising to build a Greek atrium and a series of flag poles to display Confederate battle flags (warning: link contains graphic material).

In 2017, the group — the contemporary incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan — completed construction and began displaying the flags. Despite Herculean efforts by the City of Orange to block them, nothing could be done because the monument stands on private land.

It’s located on MLK Dr., a major thoroughfare where thousands of cars pass every day to get to work, school, and church. The city passed a law limiting the height of new flagpoles in the city. But it can still be seen from Interstate 10.

As we do every year, Tracie and I will be organizing a protest of the site on MLK Day. Please stay tuned for details and please join us if you can.

Our goal is to repurpose the site so that it reflects the community (which is half Black) and community values. We recognize the Quixotic nature of our objective. But sometimes the battles you know you are going to lose are the ones that you need to fight.

It’s a cold stretch of road out there. But today it’s a little bit warmer.

Thanks to everyone who contributed. Please join us on MLK Day as we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King.

Read more about our efforts on our blog RepurposeMemorial.com.