Procrastination

One week later, my e-mail is down to 205, a net reduction of 25. 

The part about the mail backlog was really just context for why I was looking at those particular passages. As I wrote about it, and about making peace with the levels and means of connection, it felt like there was more there, and more that was relevant.

One source accounts for most of the backlog,the Indian Country Today newsletter. The oldest message is from July 6th, 2021, and there are generally two to three messages a week. 

It was easy to procrastinate reading them. I am usually rushed. That particular oldest message comes from a time when I was applying for jobs, getting hired, training... I mean, it makes sense if that's where I started losing track.

It's not all them; I recently went through all of my old Southern Poverty Law Center updates. The reason I did not finish them at the time I got them was because they usually linked to new reports or studies with more reading, and I wanted to give those adequate time. I now tend to think that just skimming would have been fine, and better than reading so much later.

In the things that I am working with now Marie Kondo has been a great help, but we are not completely aligned on saving things for later. She says that in general if you don't read something when you get it, then you are not going to, or possibly that if it is for a later time, it will reappear. 

I think that is true for a lot of people, but with my stubborn wish to know and understand everything, I will make myself get to things, and often I will enjoy it then.

Being able to let things go is a part of this process, and I will spend more time on that. 

This post is more about my tendency to dread things, and then delay them.

Catching up on these letters has been good. I have learned a lot. I am working backwards, so sometimes it is interesting seeing the earlier context, sometimes I don't need it, and sometimes it is more frustrating.

For example, I just read an article about protests on the refusal to search two landfills. This was from February, and I was still reading about the landfill issue in August. As far as I know, there is still no search. That is only one part of the overall Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women issue.

As that backlog was growing (it did briefly top 500), I did keep thinking that maybe there wasn't even a point in going back; that I should just commit to moving forward. I couldn't feel right about that.

I did start making a point of reading the new updates on the day they came in. That may have helped take away some of the apprehension about getting to the old ones. It was possible to keep up; it could be possible to catch up.

I had made a few attempts here and there, but they didn't stick.

As Native American Heritage Month was approaching, I started reading one message per day in October, then two per day in November, working backwards one month at a time. If in the process I encounter another old e-mail that I know is part of a trend (like SPLC), I go through those.

It isn't trying to do too much, and it is doing something.

Procrastination can have some ridiculous hangups behind it, that are not easily overcome. Once you start getting past it, though, it can be very gratifying, and make other obstacles appear smaller.

Looking forward to the pockets of permaculture and guitar messages!

Transgender Awareness Reading: The memoirs

I tried thinking of the best path to say the most important things to say. I am not sure this one is perfect, but for this post I am going to go over the memoirs in the order of least-liked to most, always keeping in mind that tastes vary.

Fairest by Meredith Talusan

One thing that I would like to read more about, and I don't really see it discussed much, is how much gender conditioning affects people. For example, does someone assigned female at birth still -- even after transitioning -- feel that compulsion to apologize and play nice that is hounded into women. 

While the influences are strongly cultural, Talusan was born in the Philippines as an oldest (for several years only) son, and was also albino, causing her to look white. There was a lot of doting on and spoiling by the grandmother. While there were definite sources of pain beyond gender identity, there is an extent to which Talusan is often really selfish and inconsiderate, and not a great child or friend. There are things I really sympathize with, and things that are not her fault, but this is ultimately why I didn't really enjoy the time spent in her book. Still interesting.

This was the only one I really didn't like, and the next two were pretty equal, where I am not sure about the rank.

Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard (now going by Suzy Izzard)

If you enjoy Izzard's humor, with a lot of tangents and circling back, you should enjoy this book. I didn't mind that part so much, except it seems to require more repetition. 

A bigger factor for me was the certainty of rightness, which kept getting repeated, especially for Izzard's certainty that there is no God. I mean, I disagree, but over and over and over again. I appreciate that she still believes in kindness, and there are some amazing goals achieved, but at the same time it just gets a little tiresome.

She tells a story about a class where they had to impersonate each other, with the imitation of her being something like "blah blah blah theater, blah blah blah design" so perhaps she is at peace with it.

Because this book was written before Izzard clarified her name and pronouns, I also can't help wondering what difference that time has made, and if there might be some more relaxation, and less need to demonstrate authority. Perhaps we'll see.

Pageboy by Elliot Page 

The thing that made this book hard for me -- and this is not a reason not to read it -- is that there was so much exploitation and victimization of a young actor. That includes sexual exploitation, but there is some racism and dangerous stunts on the set of the Flatliners remake that were very frustrating. I read Maureen Ryan's Burn It Down earlier this year, so I shouldn't even be surprised at the Flatliners stuff, but the amount of creepy adults preying on minors and very young adults... it was just hard, and the knowledge that it can be and has been worse does not make it better.

Love That Story: Observations From A Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness

This one is kind of not really a memoir, but a collection of stories after a memoir. Actually, I am not sure the other book is a full memoir, but being on reality shows may also make someone feel like there is more known, and less that needs to be explained. 

Regardless, the things Van Ness does write about are laid out with honestly and emotion, and it does make me want to read the first book. Lots of enthusiasm and tangents, often with gymnastics references, so Van Ness might be kind of tiring too, like Izzard, but differently.

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

This is again one where I want to read the other book, but this book does cover the journey; I am just interested in what else she has to say.

I think compared to the others mentioned so far, Mock may have a greater analysis and understanding of her entire process.

Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography by Christine Jorgensen

I think I like Christine's personality most, but there are two other things that I believe make her story very valuable. 

One is that with her transition happening so early, there is a lot about the processes various doctors went through to try and make sure that it was reasonable to do the hormone supplements and then the surgery and that all of this could be good for her. It was interesting to see how much more energy she had after starting estrogen. I am not sure whether there was a hormonal imbalance for her as she was born that it corrected, or it as the relief in being able to become herself, but this was good for her. 

The other factor is that often in the other cases there is some tragedy or abuse or disconnect or something where transphobes are likely to point at that as an explanation for their being trans. That's not how it works, but those factors aren't present in Christine's life. She had a very happy childhood and a supportive family, but she was also always a girl.

Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox

This one is separate from the normal ranking because it is a graphic novel, though in many ways it can function as a memoir. The focus really is on the gender disconnect, and then on being able to connect. This may be one of the better ones for showing the value of the blockers, because puberty is rough.

More next Friday.

Connected

It's been a little over a year.

I have a tendency to hold on to e-mail messages for a long time, even if I have replied. Maybe I need to write more, or act on it, or it would just be something good to remember. Even though I have a perfectly good "saved" folder, I am more likely to see it in my inbox.

That does seem to be less true when the amount of e-mail goes past 500.

It is down to 230 now.

The current layer included some messages that related to the fear of Twitter going away. 

I am set up to get an e-mail notification when I get a direct message. There really weren't that many messages from that, but I remember it was part of a bigger trend where I thanked people for ways they influenced me, promised to read their books, told them how much I appreciated them...

Mostly it was tweets, but there were a few direct messages and some replies.

Twitter is still here. Sure, they pretend it is called "X" and the button for "retweet" now says "repost", but the site is still twitter.com. Maybe that will be the next change.

There have been many changes, and none of them have been for the better. There are definitely more racists, and the ad insertions are a lot more intrusive. I don't send direct messages anymore because to receive them I have to receive direct messages from any blue check; that seemed like a bad idea since blue checks are the kind of people who think giving an egomaniacal emerald heir money makes them friends. I probably could still send messages to people who follow me, but if I can't see their replies, what's the point?

I don't think the algorithm is working in my favor at all, so I don't know that people really see my tweets. A lot of people that I liked are gone anyway.

Also, a lot of people have become a lot worse. That was something that was happening all along, where I would think someone was pretty cool and insightful, and then would slowly become disillusioned. That's happened with more people, but I don't blame that on Twitter so much as just the world (and dominator culture).

I had decided sometime ago that I don't have it in me to start on a new social media site, and I am sticking to that. The way I came to the Twitter I liked was so much a path that could not have been predicted but worked out so well... it couldn't be recreated. That wouldn't matter if I were optimistic about something else being created that would be worth the effort, but I don't feel drawn toward any of that.

I do sometimes think of increasing my participation on one of the other sites that I am on: posting on Tumblr again, doing more on Facebook, or maybe even installing Instagram on my phone so I could actually post. 

For now, that remains a "no". At the same time, as I sort through old e-mails and files and things, who knows where that winnowing will lead?

It is meaningful to me that a year later, I have heard from people I have met through Twitter, but been contacted via e-mail and Facebook. As important as a platform can be for connecting, no platform is the only means of connecting.

There are much more valuable aspects of Twitter for new and organization and activism that have been damaged.

However, I am still stubbornly sticking it out. At this point I am hoping someone will seize the platform from that guy, and maybe it can be good again.

Transgender Awareness reading

It is Transgender Awareness Week. 

Apparently someone asked for suggested books in their comments and posted the responses, then was criticized for transmisogyny due to what was missing from the list. Apparently the small account didn't get diverse enough replies.

On one level, you probably have someone being ridiculous, but possibly that hypersensitivity is based on historical exclusion; that's why I am not linking to any of it. I could not find the initial list, so that poster may have meant well and then been hounded into deleting. I feel bad about that.

However, I was going to post about the books I read today, and how I got there, and now it is posting my own list and in a timely manner! 

It started with a school board candidate telling lies:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/05/do-they-know-or-care-that-they-are-lying.html

My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis, Suzanne DeSimone

Love That Story: Observations From A Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness

I posted about those books that I had been meaning to read, but the transphobic attitudes of the authors was putting me off.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/10/terf-month.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/whatever-joanne.html 

Well, here were two books that could act as counterweights, but only two, and one was a children's book and the author of the other was non-binary, not technically transgender... what else?

I first thought of Laverne Cox and Janet Mock. That led me to a few books.

Laverne Cox (Little People, Big Dreams, 86) by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara and Olivia Daisy Coles

Laverne Cox (Transgender Pioneers) by Erin Staley

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

I saw that Elliot Page's book was out, and then wondered about Suzy Izzard, and there was a book! 

Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard

Pageboy by Elliot Page

There was another book, Brazen, that I didn't love, but it reminded me of Christine Jorgensen, and that she had written an autobiography. Score!

Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography by Christine Jorgensen

The other books that I read were kind of found by accident, but those are accidents that happen because you are looking up the books that you know exist, and other books related in some way or another appear. 

(With Fairest I was literally looking up something cooking related, but they had the same last name. Less probable, but it still worked.)

I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel, Jazz Jennings, Shelagh McNicholas

Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox

Fairest by Meredith Talusan

So there are eleven books I have read, at a variety of reading levels and I think with a decent amount of representation. I'm sure there is room for criticism, but it is a start; everyone has to start somewhere.

Also, a book I am reading now, Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures, is on topic, but technically I am reading it for Native American Heritage Month.  

It is also very much an anthropology book, with the first few chapters about terminology and research methods, so it's not going to be to everyone's taste. I enjoy the memoirs more, but other types of books round things out.

Allow me also to mention some other books.

Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television, 1930s to the Present by Steven Capsuto

I made sure to finish reading this one before I wrote about Barney Miller, because I learned about it through a video on one of the episodes, but it does not look like I really wrote about it then. 

It was an interesting read, though mainly about cisgender gay issues. It did mention though, as we got to television stories about AIDS, about how the dramas portrayed the choice as between family acceptance or dying alone, ignoring the community support that existed. That made me want to read another book:

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

Again, that is primarily cisgender-related, though there are some transgender people who pop up.

Non-fiction books tend to open up new doors anyway. In addition, I saw that both Jonathan Van Ness and Janet Mock had other books. In the case of Van Ness, I think the other book would have fit in better, but hey, my reading started with a lying school board candidate, and that was the book that he mentioned. I don't regret reading Love That Story, but I think I need to read more.

So, at some point next year, I know I will be reading... 

Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness
Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock

as well as...

When We Rise by Cleve Jones
In the Form of a Questions: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life by Amy Schneider

I also know I will want to read more about Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. I don't know what those books will be yet, but I am confident I will find something, because sometimes it doesn't even take that much effort to have more books come.

I will write more about these books, but for now, if you want to do more reading, I hope these options help.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/12/read-loveless-and-gender-queer.html

Grace notes

I've had two nice things happen recently.

For starters, I got to order Chipotle.

One of the things that I am not proud of -- back when I was caring for our mother full-time -- is that sometimes the thought of having to come up with what to make for dinner and then do it one more time would bring me to tears.

A big part of that is an executive function overload, which is why planning meals out several days in advance can help. Sometimes, though, you just need a break.

Working again and starting to catch up, I had started periodically ordering in, about once a month. I would order multiple things to make the delivery fee less outrageous and so I would have leftovers, but it allowed me to try different things and get that break.

Once the garnishment started, I couldn't justify it. Even if the money were there so it were technically possible, there were always more important things. 

I just really wanted Chipotle. Especially the chips and salsa. I haven't ordered in since August, before this all started.

It was embarrassing how much I wanted it. It's not like I am not ever eating or getting things that I like or going out. It was one specific thing that I was not getting, but also it was representing that I can't just do whatever I want, and I used to have more freedom in that way.

When Julie paid her rent, she gave me an extra $40 so I could do that. 

I still wasn't going to order, because there are so many places to put that money. I did anyway, because she wanted that for me, and it was good.  

I think I can go another three months now.

In addition, I have recently had two people reach out to me.

I have been reaching out more myself, but these were both from when I was kind of adopting depressed teenage girls. That is such a bad way of describing it, but there's not an efficient explanation that is not overly complicated.

Back in 2013 somehow I was finding hurting young women through Twitter, and just trying to be encouraging and supportive, and help. That's been enough time for most of them to be adults and have jobs, maybe have finished school, and most of them are long past those crises. The two who reached out aren't even on Twitter anymore.

They still remembered me and thought of me. 

Sometimes you are just in someone's life for a while, and that can be perfectly fine. 

Sometimes it is good to hear back.

Whatever, Joanne

The other "TERF" part of TERF month is that I needed to finish the Harry Potter series.

Well, "needed" is a strong word. 

I don't really remember the dates, but I think I read the first five between 2002 and 2008, based on which movies I saw and that I had already read them by the time I got onto Goodreads. I periodically picked up a $1 used copy at Powell's, at least for the first three. The last two were more expensive, but still definitely used.

I planned on getting to the last two, but they weren't a priority. Then Rowling started approaching her current form, and I had less interest.

Still, I like completion. I figured I would probably do it. She kept shooting off her mouth, and there are so many other things to read!

I read Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century at the end of 2017. It mentioned potentially reading the last book of the series for inspiration. Okay, maybe I would get to it, but I would just check them out from the library. Still not enough motivation.

Then my sister gave me the last two books. She was trying to be nice, but they have been annoying me in my room for at least a couple of years now.

Okay, I was just going to put all of the TERF work together and get it over with. It was still hard to bring myself to do it, because they are so long, and I was just not looking forward to it.

Having it done is a relief.

I get why Snyder recommended it. With the underground radio and papers and the things that people need to do to resist, including choices about when safety is more important, or less... it is relevant and I believe that was especially a recommendation for younger people.

Some of my irritation with the moodiness, impatience, and lack of rationality about these teenagers is certainly related to me being an older person. Grow up and quit sulking!

I remember once in a movie review for the 1996 Emma, a bit about how it can be hard to have a character be annoying where you get that they are annoying, but that it does not take you out of the movie with your own annoyance.

I think Rowling is not a great writer with that, being overly repetitive to convey how hard it is for everyone. There are ways to change it each time to show growth and development, and there is also sometimes trusting the readers that they will get that it is hard. Theoretically there is also still listening to editors even though you are super successful and famous, because you can also get too full of yourself.

I think both Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows could be 200 pages shorter and be better for it.

It's not that they are terrible, either. Some of the passages are thrilling and there is some great imagination. 

However, knowing how Rowling has not only being ardently transphobic but pretty ableist and not being able to unsee the fatphobia once becoming aware of it...  I don't like her.

For this particular literary opinion, there will be people who agree and people who are aghast, and that's fine. Similarly, I had really expected to like A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I kind of hated it. The reason that I kind of hated it was that I felt this contempt for humanity in it. 

Sure, there are legitimate reasons for that contempt, but I can't give into it. I tend not to admire works filled with it.

It was not a surprise to find that here. The scene early on where Dudley is saying goodbye to Harry and starting to feel things and Harry is such a jerk about it is a good example. You are supposed to agree with Harry, because this is Dudley, but it's like there is this latent cruelty. Of course the author is someone who is going to target the marginalized and feel righteous.

Next week I will get into the transphile books. One of the authors mentioned waiting at the bookstore at midnight when a new book was going to be launched. What a letdown! I'm sorry for those who have been let down. I'm just kind of "Meh."

(I can't be passionate about everything. Probably.)

However, I must make clear that the reason this is a separate post from the other TERF works is because there is a vast difference between the quality of the work and the quality of the feminism. Rowling is not a radical feminist and I don't think much of a feminist in general and certainly not one to have much to teach about equality. (Which is perhaps not surprising for someone who wrote a whole "chosen one" narrative.)

I have my disappointments with Alice Walker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Caroline Criado Pérez, but they are in a whole different league.

Of course Joanne has more money. That is no guarantee of quality, as has been demonstrated again and again.

Buffy

This may be more of a rant than I prefer.

Friday I briefly mentioned gatekeeping in reference to choosing what songs to feature for a heritage month. 

In fact, there have been issues with groups that could easily have common interests being divided for feelings of superiority or fear or resentment or something that doesn't help.

Going back further, I wrote back in January about attacks on the authenticity of various Native Americans, and that I'd heard they were coming for Buffy Sainte-Marie next:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/01/native-american-identity-for-white.html 

They did it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/02/buffy-sainte-marie-documentary-controversy-indigenous-canada 

There are a few things that make this more of a rant than a cogent explanation of the problems.

The first is probably my disgust with how many people are just automatically accepting it.

Recently I wrote about how the internet -- including many Canadians -- rode to the defense of Martin Short when someone called him annoying. 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/10/all-coming-back.html

I thought this would be the same, because so many people love Buffy. 

So many people turned against her so quickly.

Sometimes personal jealousy appears to have been a factor, like people who lost awards to her, because obviously it should have been theirs. 

Other times I don't know the motive, though I hope they notice that they are being joined by terrible people also crowing about "hoaxes" relating to boarding schools and missing women.

Here is one of the other things that make me angrier. One poster pointed out that they started the attacks on Sacheen Littlefeather close to the start of Native American Heritage month too. I had not thought of that at the time. 

Yeah, that doesn't seem like an accident.

Of course, as far as Jacqueline Keeler is concerned (she was not acting alone this time), you don't have to wait for any specific month; her attacks on Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone were back in April.

https://twitter.com/mariahgladstone/status/1658887551212716034 

I can't help but think it might be more beneficial to look into someone like Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt, who holds current political power and is not necessarily using it well.

https://apnews.com/oklahoma-governors-tribal-fight-raises-ancestry-questions-61f53c6a2094c89f90b1a4190f08a7db

People definitely have questions about Lakota Man, who seems like he might be trying to be the Native Shaun King.

But no, these attacks have been on a dead woman, a retired woman, and a young actress at an exciting time in her career.

Certainly, there may be times when there are questions. Buffy Sainte-Marie may have been lied to about her heritage, but I do not believe she lied. 

https://twitter.com/BuffySteMarie/status/1717609253199127019 

The irritating things is that so many times they have said that it is not whom you claim, but who claims you, and that DNA is not the point, but now there are all the calls for DNA tests. In fact Buffy has been claimed by the Piapot and has deep ties to them, so shouldn't that settle it?

Why be consistent when you can be spiteful instead?

Reading about this, I discovered a new term: paper genocide. It refers to the destruction of documents and records to erase history and culture. 

There are issues with tracking down who was stolen and who was adopted and why those words may both belong to the same person. 

There is a lot of good that could be done in trying to restore family connections that were lost over time, in both Canada and the United States.

There could be a lot of healing to be done, but I can't see that Keeler has any interest than that. 

Instead she attacks women of color -- even though she is one -- and she goes to estranged relatives and lies to them. Even that she questions the abuse of survivor, taking the perpetrator's word for it, without doing anything to mitigate or help or care...

I don't expect anything good from her.

I was surprised and disgusted that so many people accepted it, but working with the CBC --even with a sleazier side of it -- seemed to help. 

At least they got their highest ratings ever.

La Raza Heritage Month Daily Songs

I interrupt my writing on TERF month and the counter-programming because I finished something musically and I want to write about it now.

You may recall that I have struggled with what to call the time period running from September 15th through October 15th. As I was reading the books for that month, they focused on the issues with the names too. I can't promise it will stick, but this month I am using La Raza.

What does that mean? Well, really, they are Indigenous people living in areas of the Americas originally colonized by Spain (and Portugal?). The distinction is language, but of course racially there is a lot of mixing, and there are many different cultures there, not all of which relates to United States history.

I was thinking about those different cultures within the US specifically, and got this idea to do different regions.

Even then it's messy. I don't think "Chicano" has ever been specified as located in California, but primarily US residents of Mexican heritage. I focused on Californians because if you keep heading East from the Pacific, you find Tejanos.

Without it necessarily being fair, I left out Linda Ronstadt because she was born in Arizona. 

I started late, but gave eight days each (for a month of 32 days) to those two, plus Cuban-Americans (focusing on Miami) and Nuyoricans. 

I debated whether that should be Nuyoricans or just Puerto Ricans, from wherever, but I liked the fairly strict definition and it was my favorite music. (Due to the country influence, the Tejano was my least favorite.)

The confusion about whom to include -- and the potential exclusion -- spreads. Oscar Isaac is a Latino musician from Miami. I reviewed Blinking Underdogs in 2016, but he's Guatemalan, right? Maternally yes, but his father is Cuban, perhaps making his presence in Miami make more sense, but people from all over end up all over.

Other musicians that I did not use included B'Real, Irene Cara, and Rudy Sarzo. You could argue against using Rage Against the Machine, because really that was only for Zach de la Rocha. 

This is not the ultimate list, but the list I used this time.

As I get into the books in a few weeks, we may return to the problems of gatekeeping. For now, I think my answer is rotation. Zoom in on specifics and differences, then zoom back out on commonalities, and remember there is always more.

There were a few breaks due to travel, and then a few days filled in with songs relating to a concert I saw (Billy Idol), a book I read (Up, Up and Away by Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo), and a show I was watching (Daria). Then, since we were close to Halloween, two songs about relationships with a dangerous edge.

Chicanx
9/23 “Born in East LA” by Cheech Marin
9/24 “Testify” by Rage Against the Machine
9/25 “Donna” by Ritchie Valens
9/26 “Risk It” by Alice Bag
9/27 “Don't Push Me Around” by The Zeros
9/28 “Tu Historia” by Julieta Venegas
9/29 “En Realidad” by Angela Aguilar
9/30 “Blue Sofa” by The Plugz

Tejanx
10/1 “Lemon Tree” by Trini Lopez
10/2 “Volver, Volver” by Piñata Protest
10/3 “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” by Selena
10/4 “I Can't Stop Loving You” by Freddy Fender
10/5 “Estas Tocando Fuego” by La Mafia
10/6 “Wolves” by Selena Gomez
10/7 “Dance With Me” by Los Lonely Boys
10/8 “Quedate” by Emilio Navaira

Cuban-American
10/9 “Get On Your Feet” by Gloria Estefan
10/10 “Feel This Moment” by Pitbull feat Christina Aguilera
10/11 “Voices In My Head” by Al Jourgensen
10/12 “Cuban Pete” by Desi Arnaz
10/13 “Just Another Day” by Jon Secada
10/14 “My Old Friend” by Beato Band
10/15 “Un Nuevo Amanecer” by Angela Alvarez
10/16 “Yo Viviré” by Celia Cruz

Nuyorican
10/17 “Oye Como Va” by Tito Puente
10/18 “El Watusi” by Ray Barretto
10/19 “Mr. Trumpet Man” by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz
10/20 “Pa La Ocho Tambo” by Charlie and Eddie Palmieri
10/21 “Bang Bang” by Joe Cuba
10/22 “Idilio” by Willie Colón
10/23 “Pa Que Se Lo Gozen” by Tego Calderon
10/24 “Believe In Me” by Circa '95

10/26 “Save Me Now” by Billy Idol
10/27 “Up, Up and Away” by The 5th Dimension

10/29 “You're Standing On My Neck” by Splendora
10/30 “Maneater” by Hall & Oates
10/31 “Shoorah! Shoorah!” by Betty Wright