Well said.

Huevo no es pollo

por Pedro Lemebel

Algo hay que decir, al menos desatar la ira frente a la impudicia de cinco momias del Tribunal Constitucional que se arrogan el derecho de apoderarse del cuerpo de la mujer para decidir sobre sus proyectos fecundatorios. Pareciera que después de tanto andar en el difícil trayecto de la liberación, ciertos proyectos de identidad que creíamos ganados son remitidos a la mazmorra feudal del catolicismo inquisidor. ¿Pero quiénes hablan de la vida y la familia con la boca llena de espermios vinagres? La misma derecha miliquera cómplice del crimen a mansalva.
¿Quién habla de la vida y pone los ojos blancos mirando al Altísimo? El mismo prelado al que se le espumea la boca negando el condón, que es el único salvoconducto en la frontera del sida. ¿Acaso, señor eclesiástico, su celibato pedófilo es más recomendable? Tal complicidad retrógrada entre los magistrados y la curia violenta el derecho que tiene toda mujer a decidir sobre su cuerpo. Si no eres dueña de tu cuerpo, mujer, ¿de qué mierda eres dueña? Mujer pobre, mujer proleta, mujer obrera, cansada de trabajar, lavar, educar, amamantar a la prole que, según estos beatos, te manda Dios. Como si Dios te diera un bono de mantención para la crianza. Como si los críos vinieran con una beca divina. Mira tú, si los ricos Opus pueden darse el lujo de parir a destajo porque les sobran las lucas.
En el fondo, como dice una amiga, este pastel podrido es segregación clasista. Que tengan guaguas como conejas las cuicas UDI, que tienen servidumbre para que les críen a los nenes blanquitos. Porque también, si ellas no quieren, pueden hacerse el aborto de un millón, en el fundo o con el médico de la familia, y después llegar regias al cóctel en La Dehesa.
Pero esa realidad glamorosa no es la suya, señora pobla. Con cueva ha logrado tener tres niños, y aun así, usted y su marido se sacan la chucha para educarlos. Y esa monserga de la vida, del huevito, del feto de días que piensa, canta ópera y recita la Biblia, el feto filósofo que es más que un ser humano.
Quién sabe, quién tiene la seguridad del momento cuando empieza el mambo de la vida. Pura culpa y más culpa que le meten en la cabeza. Como dice mi amiga feminista Raquel Olea, ¿cuando usted se come un huevo, qué se come: un huevo o un pollo. Dirán que esto es facilismo. ¡Manual feminista!, gritará alguna cuica Opus. ¿Y qué? Todas las mujeres populares saben del aborto, del palo de perejil, del alambre y de los riesgos que corren con las aborteras clandestinas.
Además, todas conocen los malos tratos y crueldades a que las someten en las postas públicas cuando llegan con hemorragia. La culpa cultural es la construcción madre, virgen y mártir que ha hecho esta sociedad occidental de la mujer. ¿Qué sabe el hombre de un cuerpo agredido en su género desde que nace? Nació chancleta, decía antes la gente, y las perritas se ahogaban en el río.
Lo mismo pueden decir de mí; qué sé yo de esto, de un territorio corporal tan vasto y mortificado por un designio religioso y parturiento. Y quizá tendrían razón, pero me complicito con la libertad del cuerpo mujer y sus decisiones de supervivencia, de tener o no hijos, de tomar la píldora del día después, después de tener un rico sexo espumeante. ¿Por qué estos rígidos señores condenan a la clase trabajadora a tener sexo sólo procreativo? ¿Y si el polvo era sólo por calentura casual? Si la cachita era sólo para pasar la neura, sólo por deseo. Ustedes, señoronas de misa dominical, ¿conocen la palabra deseo? ¿O sólo se abren de piernas para tener hijos? Pero ese es problema de ustedes, y no tienen que imponer esa moralina al país entero.
Tampoco se crean las damas zorrijuntas que llegar al aborto es una gimnasia recreativa. Si fallaron las pastillas, si no resultó el tarro, si el condón se rompió, la colegiala, la pobladora, tiene que vender lo que no tiene para arriesgarse con un raspaje con gillete mohosa.
Alguna vez le pregunté a mi madre si se había hecho algún aborto. Me dijo que sí con aburrida indiferencia y después hablamos de otra cosa, mientras ella apagaba la tele donde el cura Hasbún vomitaba sentencias y amenazas con cola de lagarto.

And my translation into English

The egg is not the chicken.

by Pedro Lemebel,

Something has to be said, at least to unleash the wrath towards the disrespect of five conservatives of the Supreme Court who appropriate the right to take power over the woman's body in order to decide her fecundity projects. It seems like after getting so far down the path to liberation, certain identity projects that we thought were won are remitted to the feudal dungeon of Inquisition Catholicism. But who talks of life and family with the mouth full of vinegar sperm? The same militarist right accomplice of over-assured crime. Who talks of life and directs their white eyes looking towards Almighty? The same prelates whose mouths foam negating the condom, which is the only safeguard against AIDS. Perhaps, mister ecclesiast, your celibate pedophile, is more recommendable? Such reactionary complicity between justices and the ecclesiasts violates the right that every woman has to make decisions about her body. If you are not the owner of your body, woman, what the hell are you owner of? Poor woman, proletariat woman, working-class woman, tired of working, washing, educating, nursing offspring, who, according to these prudes, God sends you. As if God gave you a voucher for raising children. As if kids came with a divine scholarship. Look, if the rich Opus Dei people have the luxury to give birth to child after child incessantly, because they have more than enough money [to raise them], than, deep down, like a friend of mine says, this rotten cake is class segregation. The Dehesa snobs from the UDI (conservative party) can go ahead and have babies like rabbits, since they have servants to raise their little white babies. Because, if they don’t want to have the baby, they can have a million-peso abortion, on the country estate or with the family doctor, and then arrive looking great, to the cocktail party in the Dehesa. But that glamorous reality is not yours, poor woman. With luck you’ve been able to have three children, and even so, you and your husband work your asses off to educate them. And that tirade of life, of the egg, of the fetus of days that thinks, sings opera and recites the Bible, the fetus philosopher is more than a human being. Who knows, who has the security of the moment when the life mambo begins? It’s just shame and more shame that they stick in your head. As my feminist friend Raquel Olea says, ¿when you eat an egg, what do you eat: the egg or the chicken? This should be an easy one. ¡Feminist manual!, an Opus snob would scream. What does it matter? All the poor women know about abortion, about the parsley stick, about the barbed wire and the risks run with clandestine aborters. Moreover, everyone knows about the bad treatment and cruelty that they are subject to when poor women arrive to the emergency room with a hemorrhage. Culturally, occidental society is to blame for defining woman as the mother-virgin-martyr. What does man know about a body assaulted since it’s born? She’s born a good-for-nothing, people used to say, and the female puppies were drowned in the river. They can say the same about me; what do I know about this, about a corporal territory so vast and mortified by religious and child-bearing intention. And maybe they’re right, but I commit to the female body’s liberty and her survival decisions, of having kids or not, or taking the morning after pill, after having rich, bubbly sex. Why do these rigid gentlemen condemn the working class to only have procreative sex? What if screwing was only for casual horniness? If getting it on was only to remedy desire? You, ladies of Sunday mass, do you know the word desire? Or do you just spread your legs to have children? That’s your problem, and you don’t need to impose that superficial moral over the entire country. You must not believe, prude ladies, that having an abortion is recreational gymnastics. If the birth control pills didn’t work, if they had bad luck, if the condom broke, the school girl, the poor woman, has to sell what she doesn’t have to risk herself with a rusty razor blade scrape. One time I asked my mom if she’d had an abortion. She told me she had with bored indifference and we talked about something else, while she turned off the television where the priest Hasbún vomited the same repetitive sentences and threats.

a few concerts in Chile

Tuesday we went to see Riders on the Storm, aka The Doors minus Jim Morrison. It was an excellent show, in a nice-sized theatre, downtown Santiago. Before the Doors came on, this sucky band called Delta played. I don’t know what the organizers were thinking to schedule them before the Doors. I’ve been to high school band concerts that were better than Delta. And the musical style was totally different. But the Doors rocked. Excellent show, they played all the classics with lots of guitar and piano solos-including a flamenco intro to Spanish Caravan, and random commentary about alcohol, drugs and George Bush. All the musicians were solid, I especially enjoyed Manzarek and Krieger, the keyboardest and guitarest.

We had tickets in the gallery, the highest part of the theatre - but the theatre's not that big so I liked our seats. As Delta was finishing, the people from our section began jumping over the handrail that separated the high gallery from the low gallery. And then at some point the security guard disappeared at one of the stairwells down to the low gallery and tons of people rushed down into the lower section. It was entertaining to watch all this and all the movement left us with lots more room. Then just before the Doors came on, people started jumping from the lower gallery down to the floor to be right by the stage. This was quite the affair as the drop was about 10-12 feet, and it turned into a human waterfall. The original jumpers began to jump and scream from next to the stage "el que no salta es pavo", loosely translated as "he who doesn't jump is a wuss" and so they egged the audience on. I bet 200-300 people jumped. We saw a couple people eat cement, heavy. But mostly, the people already down grabbed the feet of people on their way down and then precariously jumped down or tried to find footholds-and rather quickly because there were security guards. This was definitely entertaining and worked as build-up to the band's entrance to the stage. A good show, well worth it.

Vuko went to the Ozzy Osborne concert at the estadio nacional a couple weeks ago. He absolutely loved the concert and came back raving about it. He got up right next to the stage. I was happy he had gone and even happier that I hadn't. I like Ozzy Osborne, but big concerts here are not my scene.

Two years ago Vuko invited me to see the Beastie Boys here in Santiago in Ciudad Empresarial in this huge pabellón. First Chancho en Piedra came on, and we began slowly making our way through the crowd towards the stage. I very much enjoyed that show, the lead singer came on in a typical Chilean school uniform, for girls. The short plaid skirt really hizo juego con sus piernas re-peludos. He was hilarious and the band was good. The place was packed. Chancho en Piedra left and were as close to the stage as we could get. I felt like a sardine all packed in and I couldn't see anything except the shoulders of the kid in front of me and it was difficult to move. Vuko saw fine because he's like 6'3 while most Chileans are 5'4. We began to wait. I wanted to go to the very back of the pabellón where there was space but Vuko wanted to be as close to the stage as possible. It was hot and stuffy. After waiting for the Beastie Boys to come out forever, I finally convinced Vuko we should go outside for a bit. My back hurt from standing awkwardly, smashed against a bunch of other fans for like an hour. We barely got outside and the Beastie Boys finally made it on stage. One of the Beastie Boys, seemed confused, and was trying to figure out where was the VIP section because to him it just appeared like one big audience. He was surprised to realize the VIP section consisted of the first 20% of the crowd and the VIPs were all packed in sardine-style, just like the non-VIPs, they just were closer to the stage. The group put on a good show, but the sound was a bit messed up. We ended up watching from the back of the pabellón, like 100 meters away. I was too traumatized by the quantity of people that squished together to get close to the group and didn’t want to get any closer. But it was a fun show and the only time I’ve seen the Beastie Boys. But now I shy away from the big concerts in Chile.

A few years back some friends, my cousin and I went to see Kraftwerk in Santiago. It was in the Estadio Victor Jara, a much smaller venue than Espacio Riesco and Kraftwerk is less well known than the Beastie Boys. Good show.

And last year Vuko and I went to see Paul Gilbert, who is an electric guitar virtuoso. I only went because I thought Vuko should see him since he loves the electric guitar. This concert was in the Teletón theatre. Waiting outside, I noticed it was a total sausage fest, the only girls were with their boyfriends (as in my case). I began bracing myself for a testosterone-infused couple of hours, which described my experience of the groups that played before Gilbert. Not at all my style of music. Then Gilbert came out and did a really enjoyable show. He's an incredible guitar player and quite charismatic on stage, and funny. He even improvised a song about the technical problems they were having as the sound people worked to correct them. I was pleasantly surprised by Gilbert (and the band)’s talent and the performance in general. I definitely recommend his shows!