Thursday, October 04, 2007

A THANK YOU LETTER TO ASHEVILLE: The Traveling Bonfires bade goodbye, The Indie struggles on‏

IN BEHALF of all the beautiful bodies and wonderful spirits that comprise the Traveling Bonfires and Loved by the Buffalo Publications (publisher of The Indie, among others), me—and my ever-dedicated comrade and friend Marta Osborne—extends our sincerest and deepest thank-you to one and all for your support and help in the last six (almost) seven years of our life and love in Asheville.
The Traveling Bonfires – mother and parent of the “Bonfires for Peace at Pritchard Park,” and instigator of countless shows and events in pursuit and celebration of global peace and multicultural community in Western North Carolina and elsewhere – travels on to a new community in the West Coast.
It has been really unbearably hard for us to financially sustain our physical existence in this ethereal mountain city. The sad signs started appearing following my son’s near-death experience in Manila almost three months ago – the question that most of us, new immigrants from poorer countries, have to confront like a cat’s blank stare: Pursue the romantic, quixotic madness or solve a practical, food-to-mouth reality.
I am heading to the West Coast (Las Vegas and Los Angeles, where most of my relatives and people are) and focus on stabilizing the financial life of all these what I call, “sublime madnesses,” as well as deal with the “legality” of my immigration situation in America.
Despite the departure of the Traveling Bonfires—and its partner women project, Third World Asheville—The Indie will, hopefully, just have a two or three months break or sabbatical. I will still continue to publish this little stubborn paper in Asheville—in absencia, while I hunt for budget where they usually are—and have a local friend distribute it in our usual outlets in the community. So all ad contracts will be honored and continued possibly by Jan or Feb 2008.
The start of our scheduled long road trip is on Oct 15—so I am still here in Asheville till then, to attend to other personal and organizational matters, and fundraise to beef up travel money, in the next two weeks or so.
My body will leave Asheville but my spirits will stay. The “fire” that we built will hopefully continue to burn – because the spirit never ceases to be. It is so hard leaving after seven years of struggle, in the midst of fear and indifferences, me being probably the oddest madman in Asheville – what my (Filipino and Cherokee/Lakota) people say, “Why in a white community? You will never be accepted there.” But that is wrong—Asheville has taken me in as its own like how my hometown barrio in a small island in the Philippines took me as their own little son and brother and friend and comrade.
In my life—I never saw white, black, yellow, red, or brown in people’s skins, or communism, socialism, buddhism, christianity, islam , or paganism in my spirit—it’s all the same, it’s all one. I only see one human being.
GRACIAS. MARAMING SALAMAT. TOKSA AKE.
--Pasckie Pascua
founder-executive director, TRAVELING BONFIRES
editor-publisher, THE INDIE
homeless for the meantime

Monday, October 01, 2007

UPDATE (09.27.07)LEAVING ASHEVILLE, but not my Swan Song, not my Goodbye

I WILL BE BACK... Okay, I don't want to start this "update" with, "I am leaving Asheville..." because I am just taking a much-needed, very important break. No departures, no goodbyes. I will be back-I need to be back. The 55th issue of The Indie's 5th year and 3 months has just come out, but there is no "This is the last issue..." epilogue. Not the last issue-I am expecting the next Indie to be out by Dec or Jan 2008 (with or without me in Asheville yet).
Me and Marta The Nicer will be embarking on a long road trip to Las Vegas starting October 15. (We may have stopovers in Memphis, Tulsa, Albuquerque, Almarillo, and Phoenix.) Why Las Vegas? My elder brother, Alberto, lives there-as well as most of my relatives. This is the time that I mostly need their support. In the past few weeks following my son Duane's near-fatal hospitalization, I have been deeply reflecting and deliberating a number of personal concerns: My legal immigrant status in America, the physical wisdom of my life's journey, the practicality of my struggles and their relevance in the near future. I feel and believe that I just have to take care of unfinished and stalled "business" in the West Coast - eg immigration papers, financial focus, future plans. I don't know how long will these "obligatory" SOPs will be taken cared of though - the sure thing is, I don't see myself as a Las Vegas resident at all (although I have set up stay in other relatives' and longtime friends' houses, as well, in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco). Meantime, certain state laws and provisions in Nevada, at this point in time-run in consonance with my situation as a foreigner, so I gotta be there... I already have a Nevada-based lawyer that I've started conferring with via the telephone in the past two weeks.
The little break (and the long road journey) will also allow me to ponder and rewrite/reread three of my books that I've stalled finalizing-"Red is the Color of my Night" (poetry), "My Life as Greyhound" (memoir as travelogues and letters), "Waiting for Winter" (novel). I hope to meet up with an agent in LA by mid-December.

APART FROM the personal aspects of this temporary move, I have been thinking a lot lately about the future of The Indie and the "publishing brainstorm" of Loved by the Buffalo Publications. There is no way that I could improve the financial life of these projects in Asheville, unless I have enough capitalization to back them up. It makes me so worried that my struggle/s in the past four years mostly have been focused on basic things-primarily rent and monthly bills. I can't live a life just to pay my basic bills-that's NOT the reason and wisdom why I left my home-country and my people. I need to stoke more Bonfires and improve my indie publishing efforts--I feel that I haven't done much, or I haven't really accomplished enough that serves a mission that I set to pursue in America.
The Indie continues to gasp-each issue's printing budget is such painstaking goal. I wish that we could also print more copies than we usually print, stabilize a marketing force and prop up editorial staffing and distribution. More than anything else, I'd like to fix kinks in my visa so I could fully "function" as a normal human being in America, apart from the fact that I really need to visit the Pbilippines very soon without having to worry about my return trip. Seven years in Asheville has given me the "spiritual stability" to see a more concrete future. This is the time to strengthen that.
Meantime, I am so glad that Marta The Nicer will be going with me. Our friendship is the best thing that ever happened to my personal life in the last four years.

WE WILL BE OUT OF our West Asheville house effective Sept 30. The following two weeks, we will be selling most of our stuff and things to help beef up our travel budget. So we are having an Open House/Moving Sale at 61 Dunwell Avenue from now until Sept 30, and the next two weekends at Smiley's Flea Market in Fletcher. You might want to check out whatever we have here and buy some... Bookshelves, sidetables, new hardbound books / old books, little knick knacks.
Meanwhile, if you are interested to be The Indie's distribution/circulation person while we are gone, let me know. There will be a little honorarium - the job consists of picking up The Indie copies at Iwanna each month, then dropping them off in our usual outlets. I will be sending the final proofs either via electronic transfer or One-day US Mail to Iwanna's production department, and pay them from Nevada. But as I mentioned above, that'd be around Dec or Jan.
I don't intend to throw a sort of "Departure Party," but we can hang out sometime...

--Pasckie
2:47am. Sept 27 2007
Asheville NC