New season, 2K22! Did he play season 3? Yeah, I played it a lot. I got to level 4. I'm back in the city.  I like stat. They have a pop-up shop! I've been waiting so long for a Texas to give Ronnie my hard-earned VC. Time to give him, man. All right, so look, season 4 apparel. Yeah, 25,000 for this mask.  Let's add that to the cart, guys. My bugging are these highly cringy masks. I don't know what it is. I can't rock none of these. I'm about to come out with the ugliest fit of all time, bro. How much VC? 65K? Light words? Please don't do it. Nope. Please don't do it. That's all me, baby. Vortex, I want you to take a look at the masterpiece I'm about to put together once I head back into my wardrobe, all right? This is so bad. Oh my God. Oh my God, this is bad, Vortex.  Bro, I spent 65,000 VC. That's like $20 or something like that. To become one of those, what do they call those people that like animals a lot? Furries? Yeah, you look like a furry. That's what he was like. All right, bro, let's game it up, man. Head back to my penthouse and go to Northside City Night's Heights. You're really humble, out of respect. Yeah, no, I'm one of the boys. I almost committed self-deletion.  So how much are these tigers? Oh, they don't say. Because, you know, last season, 2K had a level 40 reward and then they also let you buy it in different colors and swag, so. Okay, all right, let's play, bro.  Oh, please, please, no. We got to play it. No. Yeah, no. Why is he checking records? Why don't they keep... Nah, you can tell him nice though because I just spent 65,000 VC on his clothes, bro. So you can tell him real try hard when it comes to this. It's really just natural. Great defense, teammate. You did fantastic. This is what I'm talking about, but when I say people need to be banned from the game. Mike Wang, ban him. No, it's not. How are we supposed to play defense two on three, bro? Um, yeah. Hack him up. Mike Wang, Mike Wang, he is awful. Mike Wang, ban him. Ban him. Why is he that bad?  I don't like how I'm playing with Randizis and they're all dog. Okay, but they complain they don't catch the ball. This is why you don't touch the ball, dog. Good shot, Vortex. Dick him down. Cut to the rim. No. Don't shoot that. I shouldn't have passed him, my fault. Bro, what's happening, dog?  I didn't know. You touched it. You got him. Ah, that's it, that's it. Next time, you're getting a third. Yeah, I'm gonna get a third, bro. I'm gonna get a third, bro. I'm gonna get a third. Hello, this video here is sponsored by C-Geek.  I understand what you're going through.  You drive past the stadium you haven't been to in two years. It hurts. Mom, when's the next time we're gonna go to a game? I know, the fees, everything, right? It just racks up. Everything just becomes expensive and inconvenience, not anymore. Because of C-Geek, you can find yourself seated and suited at your favorite NBA game, comedy event, concert. You name it. Because C-Geek makes the whole process super easy. Check this out.  You scroll to the event you went. You clickity-clack. Now you're in there. Every seat that's available aggregated from all over the internet so you don't have to do the hunting. And on top of that, you don't have to do no guesswork either. They tell you, this is a good price. This is not a good price. Green, good price. Red, bad price. Don't do it. So you know you're saving money. You don't have to do all the hunting and searching. It's convenient.  You tell her mom, did you know every ticket is rated from zero to 10? You know if you're getting a good deal. And mom's probably paying world-close attention now. But when you tell her if you use Code-Agent at checkout, you get $20 off your first purchase and that the link is at the top of the description and all it takes is a click? Well, you can thank me later. No, for real. Click top, link in the description. C-Geek is the best app when it comes to booking tickets for any type of event. Click it. Use it and use Code-Agent if you want to save yourself some money. Thank you to C-Geek for helping to sponsor this video. Yo, did you know that she didn't got banned? What do you do?  You're on stream. You're telling people, don't guard the paint, don't guard the paint. Oh, wait, uh-oh, my bad. Oh, wow, that's such an open layup you took there. Yeah, we're really hooping a knife, fellas. Yeah, 100%. Oh, yeah, this is me. How much it is, actually? Oh!    Game, yo. Oh, yeah, good game. Oh, it's stolen! Layups! Yo, you're not dunking? What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All the YouTube told me you needed to dunk, and I'm showing everybody. You don't need to dunk to have a good build. That's y'all. Layup! That is the most unathletic layup package I've ever seen. Nah, this is a good build, though, bro. You just can't dunk. Oh, yeah. Bro, how do you just pass it out of shot? Yo. Oh, you grab it. Layups! Yo, hit me. The ability to click that square button when I wide open is superb. Honestly, like, I'm just proud of you. Thanks, man. Your compliments are underrated. I'm not going to love what it takes. I've yet to get any from you, so I guess I can pressure you. You're not going to get any anytime soon, buddy. All right. I guess your heart got a plea. You have to drop what he said before. He's not doing nothing. What is that? It worked?  Why am I on the ground? Oh, I'm not. He is. Never mind, I'm blind. Green! Maybe, let's go.  I'm dressing all yellow cheetah prints. How could I miss myself?  I'm like, OK. I guess. Hey, what's it called? It's boo.  That's disrespectful. I would stand in there first. Oh, bro. You wasn't going to hit it, though. That's why I said, hey, stop fighting. It's so am I. And so am I, buddy. Let's see who miss first. Not me. Boom! If you're a nice guy.  He missed. Game! Game!  And look, I'm already shitting all right. We all love it up. We all love it up. Level 2, baby. I'm so proud of us, man.  Look at what we've accomplished. Mama, baby. D, I'm perfect, perfect. No way. That is an awful release and an awful shot attempt. Bad shot selection. Watch me take him down. No! Look at us all. I want to shoot it so bad, but I'm not going to. Puffy? Oh my god. Hey, that's amazing. Maybe the layups is not it.  All right, guys, I'm making it work because I do not want to grind another player.  Good shot. Great screen, too. Talk about the screen.   Yeah, 100% we can go on a big hot streak right now. Do we really want to give Ronnie our time? No, I don't think we want to give Ronnie VC end time. Just one. Shoot it. Yup. Why did they give me that catch? Mike Wayne. I love you today, bro.  Thank you. Oh, it's OK. Yeah, Davis, you want to get your possession. Let me get me vortex. Yeah, I got you.  OK, talk to me, Davis. Yeah, that's you right there. Damn.  Oh, no. Good one. One more, one more, one more. OK, one more for Davis. More money, more money, you get more money. You get, god damn, 20 VC. 20? Yeah, promise. Just give me that. Just give me that.  I can't believe we're leading right now. That guy is so stylish. Why can't you believe that? Pin him.  There's no way he's about to take me down.  He gave you back shots. Watch me on the lay. He. Watch me.  I'm here to admit it, bro.  And while I can't shoot threes and play defense. That team takeover. How? Yo, he got team takeover, you bro. OK, all right, tee-up, tee-up, tee-up, tee-up, tee-up. That's your shot. What? Yeah, good boards, good boards. Good board. There you go, green, green. I'm my first mystery of the day, I think. What a pass.  No threes. You can have it. You can have it. Yeah, no, no, we gave him those. We didn't even want those. He's got the green. White. White. You're my favorite. I love you, bro. I can bless him. No threes, no threes, good. I don't care. You can win this. What? She just left his guy. I saw that shoot. Holy s***, we almost won. Throw it up. Lay up. Just don't help. Kill him. What? That pass. That's an awful attempt from him. Green. What? That pass goes to me, you're on me. Yo, that's a crazy pass. Oh, yo, good game. That's a crazy pass. That's a wild pass. That's a wild pass. What's your pass after she? I'm curious. I'm a 25. Minus 25. Level five, baby. Well, word of text, if there's anything we learned, it's don't play a game without a third. Well, I'm not playing 2K, but if y'all want to watch me stream and see what I'm up to, link at the top of the description, man. Appreciate y'all watching as always. Catch you guys in the next one.


Hey everybody this is Giovanni from SpyOptions Trading. Today is the 1st of October. Finally it feels great to actually sit in front of the computer, watch the markets and even trade them. But before I let you watch the trading video, today's trading video, I have an announcement. I am finally pulling the trigger on switching brokers. I've been with eOption.com for several years now. They've been great to me. There was a time in there where I wasn't getting filled where I thought I should be getting filled in, but other than that they've been really, really good. Their commission fees, their commission rates were really good and that's why I stuck with them throughout the years. Last year I was looking at Tastyworks and up until this year 2018 they were charging their commission fees were $1 per contract on the way in and basically no commission fees to sell. But Tastyworks was actually better if you were trading seven contracts or less. This was pre-2018. And if you're trading more than seven contracts that's when eOption was more beneficial for you. For 2018 I didn't realize this until a couple weeks ago that they now, Tastyworks now, caps your commission fees at $10. If you're trading more than 10 contracts they can only charge you $10. So that means it doesn't matter if you're trading 20 contracts or 100 contracts they're only going to charge you $10. Now they still have to charge you $0.18 per contract I believe. I don't know if that's on the in or out but regardless that $0.18 per contract it isn't a fee, a commission fee for them. I think it has something to do with the clearing house or something of that nature. So before you actually switch over if you don't have an account or even if you have an account call your representative call them up and ask them about the commission rates and fees and all the associated fees. I didn't trade SPI and I only traded one contract guys. And I'm looking for something very particular very specific. I've been doing a lot of backtesting. I mentioned all of this in the today's trading video but I'm reiterating it. I've been doing a lot of research a lot of backtesting and I'm trying to find something common, something that is common in all of the good trades and all the signals. Up until very recently I've just been looking at SPI and the strategy does work on SPI obviously but I started opening my eyes up a little bit in Facebook and Apple and a few others but mainly just Facebook, Apple, the Q's and SPI really. But the strategy should work in no matter what you're trading, the underlying stock, the underlying security. So I'm looking for something very particular, very common that will give me the best opportunity to make a winning trade, make my 10% get out. I did notice though that in the particular underlying stock that I traded I made my money but then it crashed down. So I don't know exactly what that means, whether I got lucky or not. Only time will tell guys. So thank you so much. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button, like and share my videos. It'll help me out tremendously and comment down below in the comment section what you thought about the video about the trade, what you made money on, what you lost money on. It'll help me out tremendously as well to help you guys out. Thank you so much everybody. I'll let you watch today's trading video. Good morning everybody. Today is the 1st of October. Just got to my computer, dropped off my son at school and believe it or not, I am really liking Facebook today. I'm doing something a little different. It seems like every day I'm doing something a little different. I'm looking for something very particular in my strategy. I am going to go ahead and buy some Facebook call options. Let's see here. I'm going to be very cautious. Instead of just paper trading it, I'm actually going to trade it with like one contract or two maybe. So we're four days out. We're trading at 165. So let's go ahead and buy the, oh wow, they're really expensive and compared to spy options but 165 call options, 247. Let's go ahead and put in my order. Alrighty. It looks like it got me in at 241. 241 got me in at 241. Facebook call options. Looking right here the 165 calls 241. So 10% I'm looking to sell at 265. 265 that's my target. Let's see where we go from here. It's going in our direction. They move so differently from spy options. Alrighty. It is looking like it's oh right there. Just sold out. Just sold out. Just sold out right there. 265. 265. I already sold out. It actually went up the S went up to 267. Yeah, there you go. Awesome. Wow. That is very interesting. Cool. I only traded it with one contract. Didn't make much. I just wow, 270s. I'm looking for something very specific in my trading strategy here. I have a lot more research. I need more data. I need more time in front of the computer watching my strategy. There's something that I noticed here this morning on Facebook and you guys know you guys as my subscribers you guys know that I don't tend to to pull away from spy. Spy as far as the option excuse me as far as the strategy that I'm trying to use. It hasn't been very effective on SPY and I was doing I've done a lot of research a lot of back testing. My strategy on like Apple and Facebook all the high beta stocks and there seems to be one thing in common and again I'm still doing a lot of research. Let me gain more experience. Let me gain more trades, more successful trades and I'll let you guys know exactly what I'm looking for but thank you so much for watching everybody. I did trade one contract. One contract the 165 call options that expire in four days. I bought them at 241 and sold them at 265. So one contract by itself that's $241. So it's not a whole lot but thank you so much everybody for watching. Hit that like button, subscribe to my channel, hit that bell notification so you get notified the moment that I upload a video. Thank you so much everybody. See you again tomorrow.


of call. Far at the world then. Strange fascinating lands back in us. Did us rebel in their exotic splendor. Come with us as we head for Port of Call. Dawn over the Atlantic. Dawn gilding the indigo waters of the Gulf Stream. Touching the mast head with rosy light. There's the eastern horizon brightened. Dead ahead on our bow, a burning headland is rising majestically out of the glistening sea. Our steamer plows to the bombing Caribbean toward topical Cuba. Our beckoning Port of Call. We are steaming now to the narrow channel of a great porth-lined harbor, the grim moral castle and cabana fortress on the heights to our left. On our starboard bow lies the far-flung panorama of the capital of the pearl of the Antilles, Havana. From the deck we can see the ancient La Punta Fort. The curving sweep of the Malacan. That glorious drive skirting the ocean. While beyond stretches the expanse of flat-top houses, pink in the early sunlight, a lofty modern building in the golden dorm and massive bulk of the capital. Oh, if there are any leaves to be through the customs, everything I have will be much. And to think we're only 90 miles from Florida, I feel as though we'd cross the Atlantic. The place I water she first is Sloppy Joe's. And he came out of her village in Cuban style. Oh, these open cars are all right till one of these tropical rainstorms cut loose. Then watch out. I've been here before. You must like Havana. Hey, everyone does. It gets you somehow. Whickey, you've heard of Danzone Orchestra and Watson Play Highlight. Now that's a game for you. Modern as it is, gay, colorful Havana is truly an exotic city. A city of astonishing contrast. With the old world rubbing elbows with the new. Stroll along O'Reilly or Obispo streets. Narrow, crowded. The shops shaded by bright awnings. A motor along the majestic Prado are out along the Malacan to the fashionable Vedado district. And you will be conscious of a subtle welding of South and North America. An exciting, unforgettable and mixture of Rio de Janeiro and New York with a distinct flavor of Parisian sophistication. It was on Sunday, October 28th, 1492. A few days after he had sighted the first isle of the Antilles, that Christopher Columbus saw another shoreline. Take my grasp of Sebastian. What make you of Yonderland? I see a verdant shore, Excellency. I am certain it is no island. Last Sebastian. We have reached that land which Marco Polo found. It is Cipango, near the realm of the great Kubla Khan. In truth, I believe it is, Don Columbus. A rich land dark with forests. There is land and ice however dazed upon. Here shall we find spices, jades and gold beyond our richest dreams. Your Excellency, take the glass again. Unless my eyes betray me, there are moving figures on the shore. Men, they stretch out their arms to the ship. Some are kneeling in wonder. The sea is calm. Make ready the boats and have them manned. I go ashore to claim this land for our most gracious patrons, their majesties, verdant and Isabella. Christopher Columbus never realized his error. He died content in the belief that he had found the western passage to Asia. He named the country Wana, in honor of Prince Juan the son of Ferdinand. What he had really discovered was an island some 700 miles in length and called by the naked, peaceful and friendly inhabitants, Kuban Khan or Cuba. In the year 1511, Columbus' own son Diego Columbus ruled in Santo Domingo as governor of Hispaniola. To him he called one of his leaders, Diego Velasquez. Don Velasquez, we shall colonize this island of Wana. That duty I assigned to you. You do me great honor, Excellency. It is a venture after my own heart. What have I heard of this Kuban Khan of great harbors of high mountains and the promise of great treasure in the interior? What captains would you choose to accompany you? Don Hernando de Soto, First Excellency. He is a valiant leader and I would have a secretary young Hernando Cortez. That firebrand? Firebrand, he is Don Diego. Bold, adventuresome, hot-blooded. But he has a long head on his shoulders and fears no man. Nor husband, if gossip speaks truth. Stout Cortez has a roving eye. Have him if you will. They'll add itches for conquest in New Spain. So was the Spanish colonization of Cuba begun and its beginning was characteristic of the 400 years of misrule to follow. Four centuries of intolerable tyranny and incredibly brutish cruelty. Outrage, enslavement and torture so unspeakable that the population of about 250,000 had dwindled to 500 within the space of the first 50 years of Spanish occupation. One Indian chieftain, Hattigaway, dared to resist the invasion but his little band of followers were surrounded in Hattigaway taken prisoner. His Excellency Don Diego Valesquez condemned you to death by burning Hattigaway for treason to his majesty, the king of Spain. I am ready to die. Repent you now, Eden, forsake the faults and people, gods of your people and you may yet find bliss everlasting in heaven. Are there many Spaniards in those happy realms you promised me, soldier? Ah, many. The streets of heaven are filled with Spaniards. Then I will have nothing to do with your heaven. I will not go to a place where I may meet one of your accursed race.  Although the Spanish conquistadores were doomed to disafforge but in their fabulous dreams of gold and treasure in Cuba, the settlements flourished and the colony proved a rich one for the mother country. But always the seeds of uprising and rebellion were sprouting to be kept down only by the harshest measures. The Creoles or white Cubans were robbed, tortured and treated with the most contemptuous cruelty by the captain's general. It was in the latter half of the 19th century that Cuban insurgency became a nationalistic issue. Its leaders, the fervent, excitable youth of Havana and Santiago, the young men of old aristocratic families. It is the year 1871 and Carlos Aguera and his sister Carlita are dining at the Cafe Dominica. Look, Carlito, there is Cisneros in the ring. Yes, Cisneros. He's coming this way. I shall not put up with his insults. Please speak of us, Daniel. No, no, Carlos. Do not quarrel with him. You must not risk offending him. Ah, Señorita Aguera, may I see it with you? We are honored, don't Cisneros. You know my brother, Carlos? A student, I am told. Don Carlos. A free political thinker. Such things are best left to older heads. My ancestors were Spanish, but I am a Cuban. There are no Cubans. Only through patriots of Spain or enemies. Ah, but why should we talk of politics when the Señoritas' eyes are like dark stars? You should not waste such charms and beauty in these outlands. Perhaps we shall see you at Madrid or Barcelona. Havana is my home. I remain here always. We shall see. We Spaniards have a way of getting what we said our hearts to. I cannot permit such talk, don't Cisneros. My sister is in my care. Come, Carmita. It's time we were leaving. Why should I not serve as Cavaliero to the Señorita? No, I thank you, Captain Cisneros. But my brother will escort me when it's not it. I look to see you soon, Señorita Carmita. Perhaps then we may speak again of Barcelona. And the next night at the Aguera Home in the old Cerro District of Havana. It will not be long before the youth of Cuba arises. But we must be careful, Carlos. I am ready when you rest on this. I am ready. The plight of the Cubans is intolerable. I have improved my sister here to join our father in exile. Last night Cisneros forced his company upon us again and we were dining at the Cafe Dominica. Because only Carmita's presence and the danger to her that kept me from hurling my wine in his face.  It is for you I fear, my brother, not myself. I saw three officers of the accursed volunteers watching you in the park yesterday, Carlos. Every care Cisneros was one of them. All students are under suspicion of the defacement of the graves of these Spanish soldiers. It is a false charge. That was not the work of our friends. You know it well. Yet eight of them await trial. God knows what indignities they now suffer in the Dungeons of the Morals. See, and little chance they have for fair trial. There can be no justice for Cubans while the volunteers control the city. There is no evidence against the eight. The Capitan general must free them all. But the volunteers are incensed. In my own blood, tonight the Prado is swarming with Spanish. I saw them gargling in the Prado's arms as I come here. Ah, too well. I know these volunteers. Was I not in the theater that night when we sang the Cuban songs? Did I not see them ruthlessly pour their volley into us unarmed? The man at my left was shot through the arm. His blood spattered me. Come. Come here to the bueno, Carlos. Something is happening at the Prado. What is it? What brings you here all out of bed? Why are you so white? Beasts swine. They're executing our friends. What? The eighth team. I cannot remain on the street. The Spaniards of Grunman. Oh, no, no, no. It's a lynch law trial. All enemies of Cuba, all volunteers are travesty of justice. They gathered at the Plaza by thousands. I saw our friends ready for the judges and convicted. I could not remain to see the end. I hasten here. You hear? It is the firing squad. Our friends are the big patriots of Cuba. In heaven. The Quinterala, Grimonte and the others. Peace to their souls. Cuba libre. We cannot forget Cuba libre. Cuba libre. Cuba libre. Cuba libre. Cuba libre. Cuba libre. Cuba libre. Cuba libre. Nor were these martyrs the Cuban liberty forgotten. The torch of freedom lay in their comrade's lighted. Was finally carried on to glorious victory. With the help of another country conceived in liberty. It is two o'clock in the morning, February 16th, 1898, when John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy of the United States, is awakened at his home in Washington. A telegram just arrived for you, sir. Oh, is it really necessary to awaken me at this hour? Well, the message is from the State Department, sir, to be delivered only into your hand. Oh, give it here. Yeah. It's from Cuba. Hmm. Must be from Captain Sixby. Hey, Joe, listen to this. It is from Sixby. Fellowship Maine, blown up in Havana Harbor at 940 to lighten destroyed. Many wounded and doubtless more killed or burned. Public opinion should be suspended until further reports. All officers believe to be saved. Many Spanish officers, including representatives of General Blanco, now with me, express sympathy. Sixby. The Maine? Hmm. The Maine sunk in a Spanish harbor? Blown up? What does this mean? It probably means war. The public is ripe for a war with Spain. They want to liberate the starving Cubans. It's extremely grave. Oh, that'll be the reporters, Mr. Long.  I'm afraid poor Sixby's admonition to withhold judgment won't count for much. Who is it, Gates? The gentleman of the press, sir. Oh. Tell them my secretary will talk to them, and I shall have a statement for the papers later. You see them, John. Yes, sir. Don't commit us or express any opinion. No, sir. I'm his telephone, Mr. McKinley. And get the White House on the line, Gates, in my office. Say it's urgent. I must speak to the President. Oh. Well, come in, gentlemen. Come in. Oh. Well, here we are. You're almost ahead of our news. What about the Maine? Yeah. The Maine war. Please, please, gentlemen, we only got the message ourselves a few minutes ago. We must consider the situation. This is war. The Maine war. Forget the Maine. The Maine war. This is war. The Maine war. The Maine war. President McKinley's Declaration of War against Spain aroused a great wave of extravagant enthusiasm and patriotism throughout the nation. This was a popular war, and the President's call for volunteers, issued on the 23rd of April, 1898, was answered by most of the young men of the Best Families, eager to fight for the cause of the Cubans. The press sent its most brilliant correspondence down to Florida, where they waited impatiently in the heat for hostilities to commence. named this a newspaper war and not without justification for it proved a tremendous stimulant for lagging circulation. On the first of May Admiral Dewey captured or destroyed all the ships the Spanish fleet stationed at Manila. Meanwhile Spain had dispatched another fleet to Cuban waters under the command of Admiral Severa. An American portilla headed by Admiral Sampson set out from Key West pursued by a persistent press boat to find the Spaniards and do battle. After a rather ludicrous game of hide and seek the Spanish ships were finally located bottled up in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba. Here they lurked in exasperating safety their guns protecting the city while the American fleet lay outside unable to get at their adversaries. Finally a bold stroke was decided upon. Admiral Sampson on the night of June the 1st called to his quarters a young naval constructor Lieutenant Richmond P. Hobson. Mr. Hobson I've decided to execute the plan which you and I discussed. You mean submerged the Collier Merrimack in the harbor entrance? I do. The channel is but a hundred yards in width. If we can think the Merrimack broadside at this point on the chart so their ships must stay inside until the entrance is cleared and that won't be until they surrender. And you'll put me in charge of this venture sir? That is for you to choose. I can't conscientiously order any officer to submit to show perilous and undertaking. It's not likely that those who attempt this will ever return. But I ask for it sir. I volunteer for this duty and I don't believe that escape is impossible. I've been studying the whole matter for the past few days and I believe we can bring it off sir. Shall I choose the men who are to accompany me? We must first ask for volunteers. How many should you need? Six or seven sir. My plan is this. We shall run the Merrimack within a hundred yards of the morrow's guns, swing around, drop anchors at stern and bow, open the sea valves and explode our torpedoes. We shall need two men for the engine, boarder rooms, one at each anchor, one at the wheel and one to help with the torpedoes. And after she's sunk, what a view on your men. We shall set free on a raft and cut them run and when the torpedoes are exploded, swim to one or the other. Very good Mr. Hobson. Pass the word for volunteers and signal the other ships. Aye sir. Right away. Hundreds of officers and men at once proffered their services and clamored to make the sacrifice which seemed to spell certain death. Seven were selected by Lieutenant Hobson. On the night of June 2nd, the attempt was made. When the Merrimack was within five hundred yards of the fortress, creeping slowly with all lights extinguished, the alarm was sounded and firing from the heavy shore, batteries commenced to be taken up by the troops. While mines were exploded in the entrance and in the waters and torpedoes discharged at the doomed vessel. It is the morning following and Samson is pacing the deck of his flagship to New York, hoping for news. In the gray dawn, a tug, flying a flag of truth, put out from shore and up close to New York. It held several Spanish officers who were invited to come aboard. Admiral Samson, I am Capitan Bustamenti, Admiral Cervera's chief of staff. We bring you word of your courageous men. They are safe. Thank God for that. Lieutenant Hobson and his men are honored prisoners. The admiral himself took Lieutenant Hobson aboard his launch from the raft, where all eight men concealed themselves throughout the night. They suffered greatly from exposure in the cold water, but they are all well now and being properly cared for. We salute their bravery, but their venture has failed. How? It is no secret, Admiral Samson. The Merrimack's rudder was shot away by a fire. Daring as Lieutenant Hobson was, in the face of our fire, he could not possibly maneuver his ship to a position so that it would effectively block the entrance of Santiago Harbour. I would not have believed your gunnery so accurate. Your country and your navy may well be proud of your men. Admiral Cervera wishes me to inform you that he is willing to exchange them under the rules and courtesies of war. Your admiral is a generous foe as well as a great leader. Please present my thanks and compliments. Just one month to a day after Hobson's exploit, Cervera's selling for from Santiago Harbour in a brave and desperate attempt to save his men a war. As the great ships emerged one by one, guns roaring, the American ships attacked in a brief but terrific battle. The proud ships of Spain went down each a blazing inferno or were beached on the rocky Cuban coast. And all the while the presses of American newspapers ground out their blazing headlines. Cervera's fleet sunk. Thompson, hero of Santiago. Cuba must be freed. Support the starving Cubans. Rough riders reach Cuba. Santiago is falling. Liberty for Cuba. Cuba, Libre. Santiago was attacked from the land by American troops under the command of General Shafter. The Spanish had adressed at San Juan Hill and at daybreak the Americans began their assault on these positions. Two brigades under General Samuel S. Sumner and Colonel Leonard Wood, assisted by Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, were deployed at the base of the hills. Let us join Richard Harding Davis, most famous of newspaper correspondence, who has been invited to participate in the deliberations preparatory to the assault. General Wheeler, there can be but one course to follow. We must charge the hillside immediately and drive them from their entrenchments on the crest. You realize, Colonel Roosevelt, what that means. They're sharpshooters on the heights. They have effective cover while our men must expose themselves almost every yard of the way. Mr. Davis, you've seen more fighting than most of us. You think we can drive these Spaniards out? In my opinion, General Wheeler, Colonel Roosevelt is right. Absolutely. Delay will not help matters. The time to attack is now. Grimes and Captain Capron's batteries hampered by lack of smokeless powder and offering a perfect target to our adversaries cannot hope to shell those positions successfully. This whole war has been characterized by shillie-sharlinging, by delays and mistakes. Action is what we need now. I wish I were in Washington before Congress for a few minutes. I'd tell them something about the way this war has been managed. Shoddy clothes, unfit food, insufficient supplies, a commanding general who's too ill to be at the front yet who insists on issuing orders. Oh, pardon me, gentlemen. That is some general safety for you, sir. The chief is commenced his attack upon El Camay. He expects us to take San Juan Hill. Then there's no reason for further delay. We must charge the hills and drive them from their positions. Colonel Wood's men are already deployed. Mine await my orders. We must not fail lots of troops and safety. If you will let me, I'll lead the way with my rough riders. I shall order them to dismount and go forward on foot. It'll be guerrilla warfare. They're very kind. These Spaniards know best. Every knoll, every bush conceals a mouser. Now our Westerners will never stop until they're victorious. They know open country fighting. They're not afraid of gunfire. Very good, Colonel Roosevelt, and they give your men the order to advance. Delighted. Mr. Davis, I must ask you not to expose yourself needlessly. Your editor would not thank me if we did not return you safe and sound. Thanks for your consideration, General. Don't worry about me. I can look after myself. Juan fell before the rough riders led by Colonel Roosevelt. El Camay fell. Shortly, Santiago capitulated and General Bronco withdrew his troops from Cuba and sailed for Spain. The brief Spanish-American war was over. A newspaper war, indeed, marked by a woeful lack of strategy and taking needless toll of many lives. After four centuries, Cuba was free at last. Modern Cuba is yet deservedly a most popular playground for travelers. The charm of its ancient cities, Santiago, Oriental in color and background, Matanzas and the nearby Yemuri Valley, and wonderful caves of Bellamar. Cienafuegos, Cardenas and others cast an unforgettable spell over the visitor. But it is always Havana, which exercises the most potent charm. It's restaurants. Many of them sidewalks a phase in a continental manner. Invite our leisure for repress clothes. Those harmless, brightly tinted iced syrups of fresh fruits, dear to the heart of all Cubans. Our palates are tempted by new dishes and endless and irresistible variety. Sopa de cuota hora, a chowder of fish, more of crabs, more appetizing than lobster, patinos, fritos or fried plantains, tortillas and pisto manchego. For our entertainment, we can visit the president's palace, the capital, the main monument on the Malacan, El Moro, Alfueza, facing the Plaza de Armas, El Templeite, the cathedral which once contained the venerated bones of Christopher Columbus. By day, there is the great Playa or beach, the race track, a splendid country club, two yacht clubs and many fascinating drives into the surrounding country. Tonight, there are the highlight games played by professionals in the great Fontaine, the casino, a Monte Carlo in miniature, theaters, dance on, then smart night clubs. And now our ship is sailing, and we've been reluctant at year to all this old world glamour, this new world brightness and activity. Farewell, Havana, farewell Cuba. May we visit your bright shores soon again.


Hello everybody, welcome back to another mid-journey version 5 tutorial and this one gonna show you the new feature, the repeat feature. This is available now for the pro plans and I think it's going to be run out to the standard plans very very soon but I'm gonna show you how to use the feature and I'm gonna give you an amazing use case where I love using it. So let me show you here first off, forward slash imagine as we do in the prompt section and then I'm gonna go ahead and type in English Bulldog running using a kinetic photography style. Now to do this it's dash dash repeat and then I'm going to type in the number five and that means what it basically doing is this is batch processing. So instead of you know getting a two by two grid or a one by four grid depending on how you look at it it's going to give me five of those grids and it's going to do it all at once without having to hit the so-called redo button here but the next thing I want to show you and it's really interesting is dash dash chaos 100 that is the maximum amount of chaos and the reason why I do that is because a lot of times I don't know exactly the kind of image I want so if I give mid-journey like very loose parameters and say hey I've got an idea go nuts try some stuff out experiment adding in this dash dash chaos 100 or 50 or whatever it is you feel comfortable with allows you to experiment and go nuts and run it as a batch. Now when I hit enter there you can see here that it says are you sure you want to imagine five prompts of an English bulldog running using a kinetic photography five repeats chaos 100 all you get to do is click yes and now watch what happens it says five out of your five jobs are being processed so I'm not running one job I'm running five jobs very very important when this is done I'm going to come back show you some results and then we'll wrap it up. All right everybody so it's processed my five jobs and look at this we had the chaos of 100 and that's why they're so different so we've got this here we've got four distinctly different shots I mean look at this potato just bouncing through the field side shots forward shots three-quarter shot here we've got this guy in the air jumping having some fun this guy's this girl flipping through the the daisies and then just lovely stuff and this is the power of the repeat function because you can now run so many different prompts all like this guy's just coming right out of nowhere jumping over sand dunes flipping through the autumn in Canada it looks like blurred background just so much fun so there it is remember it's so to do it again just to to um sum it up forward slash imagine dash dash repeat is the function and then you can repeat it as many times as you want I did five if you want to use 10 use 10 put your prompt in there also keep in mind you have to have this also uses fast hours so if you have it on relax mode this won't work so there you go that's the repeat function it's doing mid-journey thanks for watching


Alright, so it's time. So for tonight's event, we have Juli Delgado-Lopera, who is an award-winning Colombian writer based in San Francisco. Woo-hoo, Colombia! They're the author of The New York Times' acclaimed novel, Fiebre Topical, that came out just this past March from the Feminist Press. Juli is also the author of Quiereme from Nomadic Press, and it came out in 2017, and Cuentamelo and Lut in 2017, which is an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories by LGBT Latinx immigrants, which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award. So Juli is going to be in conversation with Miriam Gurba, who is a writer. She's the author of two short story collections and the true crime memoir, Meme, along with Roberto Lobato and David Balls. She's a founding member of Dignidad Literaria. Alright, so Miriam and Juli, take it away. I'm so excited to be doing this with one of my favorite writers and mine right now, so it's such a treat to be doing this with Miriam. And when we were talking about what to do, we were discussing just talking a lot about language and play of language, because that's something that we both do a lot in our work. All of Ceo de Tropical is based on Spanglish, and so we're going to be doing that a lot. Do you want to say anything before I start? I just wanted to say that I'm really, really excited for our conversation and for exploration, and this is the first time that I've done an event that centers Spanglish. You know what I mean? Like a public conversation, so I'm super excited about it. And then you were going to begin by giving us a reading, right? Yeah. Okay, yeah.  Okay, so we're going to be talking about Spanglish a lot. I thought that I was going to start, and it's going to be a very short reading, where if you have read the book, this is a chapter with the grandmother, the grandmother's story, and the grandmother is like 60, the parents are trying to get her a dude to marry her off. She doesn't like any dude, but all the dudes want her basically. And so what we're going to hear right now is the line of dudes that's in the house, like waiting for her to receive them.  It's also originally from the 80s for my trans mother. So you know, many, many layering things are happening simultaneously. So, if you have the book is in page 202, let's do it. Mirena, what you need to know is this. They shut up without any prior warning and sometimes stayed for days. They came from Arjona Barranquilla, Santa Marta, Corusal, from Mocopi, Distracción, San Martín, De Loba, Turbaco, Muchacho, Espérate. They would stop half that most of this as far or two on their faces, sometimes distracting a man's purse, a case of cigars, and if they were lucky, a nobby are still waiting for them in the backseat of the car, stunning themselves and stealing anything they could. There was Firoberto, the shiny shoemaker with an eye tick who salivated every time he talked about glue and shoes. Emanuel Jesús, more curbs than body, a rich serotonin, always interested in knowing if a girl Alba was any good at food massages and shooting shotguns. She wasn't. Eliezer arrived with three hunting dogs, a pierna de pernil and a notice secretly passed to Alba. I'm into you plus your chickens together. There I mentioned Miguel Ángel, the bald dude from Cali, serving the entire time he was there sweating profusely, refusing to leave the house until someone left with him. Álvaro Jesús José, Marianne Alberto, Ulises Carlos Pedro, they knew each other, hated each other, loved each other. They share the tight entrance space to the house while wasting no time and doing business transactions right there. Three horses, five cases of whiskey, two new supermarkets, boom, boom, boom. Some of them knew each other from their wife's 13 adventures and exchanged anecdotes about fathers wanting to give their daughters a way too soon, or some who inquire way too much about their lives. ¿Qué onda van a vivir? ¿Qué, how many times is she going to visit? Could be you have enough maids to care for her hair, her special feet, her special diet, her chocolate, they wanted a wife, period. Alba's mama barely able to keep up with all the coffee, pa'lito de queso, the line of the bathroom, the urine everywhere around the toilet, to the point that she demand that papi hire someone to send to all the men's needs. ¿Me distecar a empleada, o qué? Mama also wanted Alba to marry but found respectable outside the house absorbable. People were saying things right now. At first, mama held her head high, orgullosa, of course, that her oldest daughter could cause such commotion, that men travel for days to see her. ¿Pero que fue? ¿No fue tan cute? I spent time after a few days drunk from all the whiskey and the sun, cursing at the passers-by, cat-calling the vecinas, and even sister Jamila when she entered the Juan's house. ¡Ay, monjita! ¡Pero qué linda! ¡Só la monjita, carajo! But that wasn't the end of it. The worst, people setting up puesticos, salintas marindos, lemonade-sized fish, palenqueras handing out fruit salad for a few coins, street kids blasting music, all of it in front of their house. The city even sent a few volunteers to help the traffic. Mama's house wasn't during those times.  Don't have them good enough for you. Jesucristo is my witness, Nina. Like, you are killing me.  Alba didn't bring her the date, Bapodoo. She let her cup and cup close her door, turned the radio all the way up, and when Maria La Divina from her radio novela started imploding for her life, Alba recited from memory the lines before Maria La Divina was finally killed. But then the weight of the house perched up on her side. Mierda. Todo en esta vida. A big mierda, right?   The damn be lawyer was the last man, the last man in that line. The only one who came back once, two, four times, ten times in order any woman would even think about not wanting him. Homeboy enjoyed a challenge, a little bump in the wedding road. Many women before had just thrown themselves like three bags of potatoes, secretly placing his hands on their crutches, licking fingers, letting him have their culo. Pero, Alba, la nai. The niña stopped stone cold, hugging that radio like a doll, never stopped standing to his touch, or his words, or his German horse.  He saved himself for last precisely because he knew his blue blood was irresistible and Alba's blood was barely above average. But now his patients were thin. He had the health, but it felt like a dream like God had. Yes, he'd be able to brag about conquering the Juan de Muñequita to all the other losers. Yes, that somber aura attracting him, chasing a boner, that hot freaking weird on those Naguas, who bound those Naguas, Esupristo. What else was this to do for a rich boy in the 50s, but business meetings, whiskey, perfectly trim mustaches, impounding Naguas. That's right, cachaco. Nada. Yeah, I can hear you. No, I can't, but I feel you a little bit. Okay, should we dive into conversation? I think so. Let's do it. Okay, so I'm so, I'm so excited that you read an excerpt from Bapuru, because like that was such a, like Bapuru is with such like a pivotal part of my childhood. But Bapuru was also very gendered because my mom was the keeper of the Bapuru, you know what I mean? And she had the women are, so you have it in your medicine cabinet, you have it in the bathroom, but also in the bag, right? Just in case, you need the emergency Bapuru.  Someday I will carry a purse and in my purse I'm going to have Kleenex, Maxipad, and Bapuru. And I was like, that is like my dream, like I knew that that would be when I arrived. I also didn't know it was not called Bapuru. I remember when I first got to the States and in Miami, I went to Walgreens and asked for Bapuru. And I had no, and like the lady was just laughing at me until she finally, she was in Venezuela, a lady, and she finally said, you mean Vick? And I was like, what is Vick? It just did really good marketing. It just did really good marketing in America. We don't thought it was ours at all. So it's so fantastic. And I love, I love our linguistic interventions because I feel like our pronunciation really improves upon the language, right? There's Vicks, Bapuru, and then there's Bapuru. And it's like, what is clearly superior to the other? And it reminds me of one of my favorite improvements is when food for less becomes foo-foo-less. I love it. And it's also not only Bapuru, but it's Sramel Bapuru. There's like, I feel like everybody who has a Latino mom right now can see her pointing, can see the gesturing, you know, and that smell, what that does. I used to, I did a little performance once when at the end I would ask people if they wanted to come up and I would like rub Bapuru in the chest and everybody just came up and was like, just like thinking about their grandmother and their mom. And that was also one of my dreams. And I, and I did it. Now I, you can't touch anybody. Oh my God, me estoy imaginando like I am Bapuru Reiki. Like it is. So, um, so the question that I wanted to, um, to lead with has to do with cheesemen. So, um, so for me, cheesemen is everything. I'm like, like, like a super cheesemosa. And I'm, I wanted to ask how has cheesemen influenced you in terms of your literary content and also your aesthetic? I love that question. Thank you for leading me with that question. Yeah, no questions should be like that. I, um, well, I, you know, I really, what now that I think about why were there most primitive years for me in my writing, it was definitely around my grandmother and my aunt. And I don't know that necessarily when I was living, but I'm able to call it that, but that was basically what it was happening was a lot of just talking among them constantly. And women, at least in my family, they're always carrying secrets. They're always letting like a little bit of something go. And then you're chasing after, and it's like, pero solamente sabe ella. Don't tell these ones, right? So the way that storytelling happened in my family was this secret holding thing, this kind of like powerful piece that you have to put together. Because if you had to see a 31 thing, she'd tell you something. We had to see according to one other thing. She'd tell you something and my grandmother, Alba will say something different. And so you're kind of constantly piecing it together. And I grew up, my mom has five sisters, my grandmother had five sisters.  Like as stereotypical and romantic as, which it probably is though, but everything like that. And that image is, it's very much true. I was a little kid and I am the oldest of the like grandchildren. And so I just grew up with them, just being nosada, and the silence. Okay, so I'm going to tell you the master of silence that my aunts are. They're masterful in silence and they're masterful storytellers. And so yeah, of course, like all the constant talking definitely had a huge impact. But I wouldn't know that until years later in my life. At the time I was just like, I mean, I really loved them, but it was, I didn't understand what they were doing. And they were also really inventive with their language. Like they would make up words and Spanish at the time. And then once we moved to Miami, it was funny because then it became a hierarchy of who knew more English. And then they were like either like, you know, make fun of each other, but they would just make up words. And like one of the, one example, for instance, is like if they wouldn't know something, Joder in Colombian Spanish is like, you're just being really annoying. And so I don't know my, I don't know what I'm saying, what a Jolation. But she didn't know how to say this is in Indian, basically. And she was just, Jolation, Jolation. And I was just like, I would sit in the corner, because I hated everything. And I was a teenager, you know, my family was Christian. And I just sit with my notebook writing stuff that they would say, because when we, we got to Miami, even kids, even more funny, because then they were playing with both languages. You know, so it wasn't only at the dining table, all of them, but like, they played with both languages. And so I think to me, she's made it more of the conversation between women that is constantly happening, the constant murmuring of women, and the, just the masterful, the masterful storytelling that happens around it. It's incredible. I totally agree with you. And that's how, that's how Cheezma has practiced in my family too. And it's often led by the thes, right? Like thes takes center stage and everybody just kind of has to defer to them because they're the master storytellers.  And then one of the things that happens in my family, and I'm curious if it happens in yours, is like the Cheezma isn't even necessarily rooted in the present and the Cheezma isn't even necessarily the domain of the living. We get Cheezma transmitted from the dead. Do you know what I mean? Like ghosts will come tell you things and then speak through like the thes. And so you have Cheezma that's both of this world and then also ghostly. Because they never leave. People die never leave. And so they're still discussing what Susito did, even though Susito is not alone with us, but she is because I'm a focus, you're old somebody money. And he did this to this one, and she's still suffering after 20 years. She's still wearing black. Yes, you know, exactly, exactly. Yeah, it is a lifestyle. It is totally a lifestyle. Um, so I'm gonna switch gears a little bit and then move from Cheezma to Spanglish. And I was super thrilled when I read Fiebre because it's unapologetically Spanglish, right? There's no otherizing. There's no compartmentalization. This is a language unto itself, right? And so what I wanted to ask about your use of Spanglish is regarding the rhythm. Because the rhythm of Spanglish is neither the rhythm of English nor the rhythm of Spanish. It has its own rhythm and we find it and we sort of improvise as we're speaking it. And I wanted to know about how you find, how you establish and how you sustain the rhythm of Spanglish on the page, because it's really different in terms of spoken Spanglish. Is that, is that okay? Yeah, no, I love this so much. Let me turn on the light, sorry. Sorry, things have timers. Okay. I, yeah, I mean, rhythm is huge. I mean, rhythm is everything. And I'm so glad that you pointed it out because basically what I did with the book was if it sounds right, like a lot of the, that's what propelled the book is phonetics, basically, is how things are sounding together. And I, so the process of writing the book, I would have a really long list of words that I like. And so I still do this often where I hear a word and I write it down not because it has any meaning, but because it sounds good. Like I just love how it sounds. And so I would write it down and then I had a list of words always next to me. And when I was going, when I was going to start writing, I would just pull from it and see where that word would take me. I want to say that I listen to a lot of music while writing the book. And I listen to a lot of merengue, especially when I was writing the book and the music is super important for me. I also realized that when I got to Miami, the Cubans in Miami were speaking a very different kind of Spanish. And the Cubans in Miami lay the land of the land basically for me a lot. And then I learned different from the Mexicans in California. The Cubans in Miami bring Caribbean Spanish, which is extremely rhythmical. So my grandmother is from the coast of Colombia, from Cartagena. So she is, she speaks also similar, more similar to Cubans. And that side of my family also speaks a little bit like that. And so then I was watching Cubans turn with that little rhythm, that musicality, stuff in English, you know. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It was the first English sentence that I understood that I heard and I was like, it's coming back literally translated. And they all understand what they're saying. Spanish doesn't make sense, okay? Spanish doesn't make sense. But it's amazing. And so I really started hearing the rhythm in it. And I feel that I, well, one, I love music. Like music has a huge impact in my creative process, basically. And so, and I realized that the people that I love that are the best storytellers have a lot of rhythm in them. They know how to start, they know how to punctuate, they know how to create silence. And so that's the rhythm of storytelling and being able to do that. And I always, I was always like, how do I replicate like that relationship between orality and textuality has always been really like important to me. And like, how do I replicate some of these rhythms that I'm listening to people speak that are amazing storytellers? We all know them. We all have them in our community. People will know how to tell a story. How do you translate that into the page? And so it was just a lot about paying attention.   But there was always a sense of like, continuation with the rhythm, like a sense of like holding language in a different way. And I just feel like it sounds amazing, like I just really love listening to people talk, especially like older women, I feel are like the best storytellers. And they're my favorite demographic of people. No, I'm totally with you. I'm totally with you. And like, I was wondering also, when you're in the process of writing, do you write aloud?  That's part of my editorial process, because I can hear the rhythm in my head, I can hear the music, but I then need to read it aloud to confirm that the music that I'm sort of that I'm writing is translating once it's spoken. Do you do you engage in like any processes like that during the writing process? I do. I do. I do. So not all the time, like when I'm finishing a sentence, like, I feel like, oh, this does, but then if I really love that and it's doing what I want, I just like, I do the little jam.  You know, and again, I go back to really letting you know that what really propelled the book was found, like me, what really, really propelled the book was found. So of course I was subbing myself and reading it. Sometimes I would think like, who's going to read this shit? Like, who's going to read? Like it's just funny to me, you know, and I like it again because it gives me a linguistic legitimacy, you know, like writing this book with those of her means to just like hear how I, how I think and how I talk to other people and just like, mm, that we have as Latinos like seeing it, you know, and it just gave me some linguistic legitimacy, but I was like, nobody's going to read this. But we did and we are. And so, and so moving on to editing. So what was the editorial process like for you? And I'm very curious about this because writing in Spanish, I will often work with editors who solely edit in English. And then I have to do that extra legwork of making sure that the Spanish is appropriately copy edited, because I seldom have, I'm seldom provided with editors who can move fluidly through Spanish text. And then also I frequently have to negotiate and frequently have to advocate for Spanish words not to be italicized and not to be like visually otherized in some way. And so I was wondering if you've had to advocate in similar ways and what the editorial process has been for you? Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's what you're describing basically the default of how the industry deals with Spanish. And I always feel that they just haven't really caught up with what people are doing, because we're not inventing this, you know, we are definitely not inventing the people having been doing this for over a century. And so I, you know, I think it took me a while to even place the book precisely because of that, because I was reaching out to agents and trying to, you know, get it out. And the response was always some kind of like coded, what I call coded xenophobia. You know, just kind of like coded like, oh, I don't know where to place it. I don't know if the audience is gonna like it. This is really risky. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like it's risky. Or just like asking about the Spanish. And so like it was really, it was really sad and disappointing to me that the comments were not around the crafts of the book, or rather just people getting hung up, which is what happened in many writing workshops to me. And then finally, the only reason why I even landed with the feminist class was because when my editor read it, she really loved it. I was like, the Spanglish is non-negotiable. Like she didn't even say anything. But from the beginning, I was like, this is non-negotiable. She's like, that's my favorite part. She just really got it. And the reason also why she got it, and I don't know if she's in here, but if you are, Lauren, I love you. Because she brings translations from Latin America into the US. She speaks a little Spanish, and so she understands it. And I think that the fact that she has so much investment in Latin American literature, she had just a wider sense of what's possible. But I do think that people, the industry really underestimates its audience, which is always assumed as all white audience first. But even then, it underestimates the white audience that it assumes, you know, because people want to read something different. But the fear is what drives, the fear of just trying to experiment with something else. Absolutely. And then, so there was a question that I just tweeted for fun the other day. And then you were like, oh, let's talk about this during the book talk.  And it has to do with energy, right?  And there are people who have mom energy, and then there are people who have thea energy, right? And so I wanted to ask you, how do you distinguish between mom energy versus thea energy? And then, and then do you identify with either of those? Or is there another sort of subset of sort of energies with which you identify? This is the most important question of the night, everybody.  This is important, okay? Mom energy, so like mama energy is like, you're caring for people, you know, when people arrive for the plays, you're like, do you need something?  And then there's the thea, who is like, with a, with a secret that the whole entire thing is ash, but she still holds it, and it's like, so there are kind of a little, but she doesn't do anything. So apparently I am, like she's witnessing, she is smoking, she's witnessing the care of everybody else, and she's commenting on it. And she's commenting on the performance of everybody.  And I'm way more of a thea like that in my family. I feel like the thea, the thea is caring, but she cares for the weirdos. Do you know what I mean? Like she's the weirdo nurturer. She is.  You know, like that's the thea. Mama's not, it's not gonna do that, you know.  That's Latina Mom for you. Thea is just like, you know, she's winking at the young dude. Yeah, my favorite thea story is I'm, one of my theas, we were in Mexico, and she was complaining. She thought she was having a heart attack. She's like, oh my god, I'm having a heart attack. She was lying down. She almost had us call an ambulance, but she realized her pants were too tight. And she felt better, the cardiac arrest went away. So that is thea energy, you know what I mean? I mean, it is. I have another, one of my theas, when we left Colombia, I was asking my mom about everybody where everybody was at the airport. And she was like, to the other minute, she couldn't come. Her heart couldn't take it. She had to be hospitalized. She had to be hospitalized. I mean, it's horrible that we left, but I was like, really? Where she is? The performance of suffering, my god, you know. I love it. I love it. I live for it. I live, I live for it. Um, okay. So, um, let's see. The next question that I have has to do with matriarchy, because Fiebre Center's matriarchy. And again, that's something that I that we rarely see in novels, right? Um, but matriarchy is not presented as like this sort of feminized paradise. Matriarchy is problematic.  And I, and if you could comment or, or tell us about sort of any, uh, literary works that have influenced you in terms of their representation of matriarchy. Okay. Yeah. I mean, matriarchy has a huge influence in me as a writer, as a creative person.   Um, I, we had, I had like one cousin who was a dude and then my dad, you know, that was like in your father, you don't really see it as a man. So it's like, there was no man, you know, in my life, I went to an older Catholic school.  I'm like, why not? I mean, why is this a surprise girl? I've never seen a man in my life. Um, and so, you know, I, I thought I had a very idealized notion of the matriarchy. I, you know, I became a feminist and then like, I was just in love with having grown up around so many women and then becoming an adult, I started seeing all the cracks around stuff that I didn't even notice as a kid, right? All the subjects around it, all the secret stuff, all the way that there's a lot of toxicity. Um, and when I was writing, you know, when I was writing the book, I wanted to just have like fully developed characters like of women.   Um, they're in the back room getting drunk or something. Um, which is also very much an experience in my life where they were just never really present. They were always like a, like an, an aside. And it was always a surprise that they were there. It's like, oh, there's my grandpa. He's been there for 10 hours. You know, and so, like, it, it was, it was, it was interesting to me to be able to look at a matriarchy, not from an idealized, like, you know, feminist way, but just from like, these are like people who are all fucked up, who are all very complex, and they're all coming together with their longies and also under the circumference of matriarchy, which is where create a lot of the circumstances for them as well. And so, yeah, I mean, I, I feel that I, I didn't necessarily seek out to be like, I'm going to explore matriarchy, but then the characters, when they started blowing up and becoming bigger, I was like, oh, this is definitely a story that is just sold between a lot of women. And, you know, the secrets and everything that happens in between.  I feel that because we assume that it's like a resistance to matriarchy, that it has to be romanticized and beautiful, and everything has to be like, okay, because it's all women. And in reality, it's just not. Yeah. And then I'm going to ask a question that a lot of folks have asked me. And so I'm going to pass it on to you as well. And it has to do with being creative in the present. So there is such, I mean, there's such an incredible amount of chaos happening right now globally in the United States here in California. And we're in such a state of crisis that time itself seems to have turned sideways for all of us. And in order to write, so many of us require a sense of stability and solidity. So under under these current circumstances, are you able to be creative? Are you able to write? Are you able to produce? Or is that something that that is on hold for you right now? People are always, I that question comes up over and over. Yeah. I mean, I can see like we are in a really, in a really overwhelming moment, because there's also a lot of hope for me with what's happening with the protest, a lot of hope for me. I will have to say also to that question that I grew up in Colombia in the mind. I'm a person who grew up and during the Civil War basically, in a country that there were car bombs when I was a kid. And I had people close to me that were kidnapped and I was next to a building when he was blown up. And so as hard as it is to talk about because I hate and people reduce Colombia to only that. But I did grow up under in a place that has such an insane amount of chaos because there was war. And of course I'm a very privileged person under the circumstances. So I didn't have the level of like violence that happened in the countryside in Colombia. But I grew up around it. And so I do think that there's a way that chaos just, I mean, I'm going to tell you something. I remember when the whole when the pandemic started happening, the first thing I told myself when the showroom place happened, the first thing I told my partner was like, so I have to bring my passport. The military people going to come for me. Like I was ready to go Colombia style, like the military going to come for you. You have to see your passport. This is like, you know, with my wig to pass as a girl. Yeah. So very much like that was like, that's my brain. And so I am writing right now. I think that and many times has been extremely hard. At the beginning, it was way harder. And I'm starting to feel that by now there's a sense that I'm getting used to a lot of it. And I'm getting used to existing with same structures for better or for worse or whatever that means. I'm not sure what that means. But I'm also starting to connect more with my work because when I do, I see what it deals for me. Right. So the day that I sit down and write, even if it's just one paragraph, I know how I feel in the evening and I know how I feel the next day. I can sense it and I can feel it. And so I'm trying to search more for that feeling and do that more for myself because it is an act of love for me.  But I'm trying really hard to make space for it because I know how I feel. And it's like an amazing feeling.  Is this the sense of like, myself, like I'm here and this is what I do. I process the world by writing and the writer. And if I don't write, then like, I'm not able to engage with the world connect. Yeah, I'm right there with you. Like, I, I, the way that I process the world is through writing and I, and there are times where people will equate that to therapy, but it's not therapeutic. It's, it's a more, it's something much more fundamental. It is the way that I exist in the world. It's how I make sense of it. If you take that away from me, you remove my tool for making sense of the world. And that's not necessarily therapy. That's something almost spiritual. Do you know what I mean? So should we move on to questions now? Because I've noticed some are cats. Yeah. Okay. So why don't we have folks, do we want to have folks just drop their questions back in? Because I was noticing that people were a lot of people are clear of questions if you want to like, post it again. Thank you. Okay. On the subject of family and storytelling. I just dropped those back in for you. Okay, cool. That's the only two of the rest are kind of like, a lot of compliments, but I'm sure some more questions will flow in. All right. Will you want to take that one about family and storytelling and support? I'm just talking about family and storytelling. I'm wondering if Jen and family are supporting their writing. I mean, not monetarily, but with their love. Yeah, like my mom and my sister are like such huge supporters. And my, a lot of my aunts are too, they, you know, like my, most of my family doesn't can read English. And so they're like, and they thought that it was in Spanish because the name is the other topic. And then they're like, Oh, but it's in English. And so, um, yeah, they're huge. Like my, my closest family is my mom and my sister. And they're incredibly supportive. And like, they love that I do this. They don't understand exactly how I raised my mom. The other day, they told me, they told me, my son, she was imagining things. She was like, keep imagining things. It does that feel really well. And I was like, I might have to write this down because how do you come up with that? Oh my God, that's fantastic. And then what happens to Garmin? Um, I don't know.  I don't know if she didn't want to respond anymore. She stopped right there. Um, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. Maybe in like 15 years, it will be a year because part two here is Garmin. Garmin sends a commune or something. And then PTSD related to Columbia, the pandemic, et cetera.  I was in Columbia for two months in November, December, and there were really big national protests there. And our folks knew about it. Really huge to have in Hopkins since the 70s. We had, uh, one night we had curfew and, uh, there was the entire city was militarized and it was extremely, extremely scary. And I had like a panic attack and it was really hard. And so it was one day here where the whole thing felt like that. Like I was waiting for like, you know, the military to come. Um, but other than that, like, I don't know.  Um, and I love my roots and, you know, it's an incredibly ceramic country and it's an incredibly ceramic thing. And at the same time, like, I love the place where I'm from. Um, yeah. There was, uh, have you all thought about using software to translate the copy for other readers online? Do you want to talk about that? Do you want to talk about that? About using software to talk about the copy? I mean, so weird about that. Like how do you translate Spanglish? Do you know what I mean? Because then you're going to flatten it all into one language and it's going to lose its integrity to me. That I mean, it's, it's an odd gesture. Like I've had some of my Spanglish work translated, but what happened is that the translators have then played with inverting the English to Spanish. Do you know what I mean? Like, which then, um, turns it into something new. It turns into a new dialect through that inversion, which I think is, is really fun.  So I am thinking I'm, I'm to have a lot of translation stuff in my head right now, a lot of fear today, but also what I will say is that Spanglish in the US, politically and the community that is around it is very much like working class, Latinos is very much like immigrant class. So there's a lot of class stuff that it's related to using Spanglish here as a political act as well. In Latin America, many times the people who speak English are higher class. And so even doing that inversion, it loses kind of like a street left with like the street slang that it carries, right?  All the things are changing because, you know, not just like, I just said, because that's how they say it in Mexico. Um, so it is also, I think like it just doesn't like literally the group of people that even speak like that. So there's a lot, I mean, I'm thinking a lot about this question. About translation. Yes. And then Bob, I see you've covered Ostertag. Um, the world is changing so fast. Is it a problem for your writing now that you don't know what the world will be like on the worksheet right now? Finally we'll get published or is it not something that you think about? You can go ahead. Where is it? Robert Ostertag, the world is changing so fast. Is it a problem for your writing now that you don't know what the world will be like when the words you write not finally get published? Try not to think about that because like sometimes existence just, there's like an apocalyptic feeling in the air. Like I just have to write in the present because it's what I need to do. So I don't think too hard about what kind of life the work is going to have, especially if it's, if it's like a larger work. If it's something small like an essay, I might consider, okay, how is this essay going to be relevant next week when it's published? Yes, because I'm writing more for the moment. But if I'm working on memoir or something like that, no. Like you were saying, like this is my way of processing my past. And so I'm doing this for me. And if it takes me a year, if it takes me 10 years, ni modo, you know what I mean?  Yeah, I agree with that. My question is what are we doing?  I love every sentence we think here it is typical both English and Spanish. So many analogies and so much for them. Does it just come out like that? No. I mean, I mean, here's the thing is like, I feel like people sometimes think that English doesn't have a lot of craft behind it, but it does. I really feel the writing in slang takes way more work than just not, you know, because you really have to pay attention to how things are crafted, very much pay attention to how the sentence works, sentence structure, like everything. So like, no, I mean, of course, like, I mean, a lot of the magic happens in the moment or what I wouldn't be doing, right?  And again, I always had my list of words on the side, which I encourage all writers to do like stuff that really that you love and you hear just write it down because you don't know. But there was a there was a very long editing process and in it because like I would read and I was like, you know what? And, you know, especially there's a lot of like catch up on the rain and those words were used also to propel the rhythm of the story. And so there were many times where I had to like figure out like if it was the right moment to put it in or not. Yeah. Yeah, there's this false sense that we improvise the whole thing and like something might have been improvised in that moment. But there's an incredible amount of revision that goes into my work as well. And I think that like what you were saying about slang is very true because I mean, I found that the more specificity you have in your work, the more the more you have to pay attention to craft, you have to become a better craftsperson. Yeah. You mentioned music as part of your process. Do you have a go-to album of artists? Oh my god. I don't need to make, I have a fear to playlist you all that I was going to play during the party that I was going to be going on across this country. That did not happen. So I may share, I may share it somewhere. Maybe I'll do something like that. But I, a lot of like old merengue, old cumbias, old porros, old salsa. Salsa is like it. Salsa is so much it for me with this book. It was like, there was a lot, a lot of salsa in it and a lot of merengue in it. Because I also, the other thing that I did, which may or may not help some people in their creative process. And I still do to this day, I dance before writing. So I just like, I, it's a way that I get my body ready to do what we need to do. And so I'm like, okay, here it is. And so I put it on, I put the things on or I don't. And I just go for it here for like a good three or four minutes. And then like, kind of like you're getting ready, your body. And I feel like to the point of Miriam to this being something spiritual, and I don't want to make it all incredibly woo-woo. And like, this is a ritual or something. But it makes me, it makes me feel special. And sometimes it's not, especially when I'm like out of it, if I'm really not feeling if I just read the news or I had a weird day or something, like, definitely dancing gets me into that, like, and your body's in that rhythm mode, you know? Yes. Yeah, I, I, I write with my body too. And like, like, when I write, it's not pretty. Like I tend to rock back and forth when I write. And then if I do get really excited about something I've written, I tend to start clapping and snapping. And like, there's a lot of rocking back and forth and like shaking if I'm super enthusiastic. So writing for me is like an embodied event. It's not here. It's all of this. All of this is writing, you know what I mean? Yeah, I love that. There's another one. Have you ever received negative criticism, pushback, lockage for the use of spanglish in your work?  Do you know what I mean? I do you want, do you want to talk about specific instances? I mean, I, it's, it's, I did a TED talk on it, basically, because it's that I, like, I was a very talkative kid in Colombia and currently talkative and very smart kid. And then I got to the stage and I was in awe that people just make fun of me for saying something. And like, I would watch, I remember once I'm clearly being at the grocery store and my mom, like, her eyes just like water because this dude just talked to her like super calm ascendingly, because she couldn't say a word. And she was just like, I'm so freaking smart. And she is, you know, but it's incredible that like when she uses her like, you know, her, her English and her, and now she speaks more English because now I would be here for 15 years in the States. But it's incredible how your abilities get questioned because you have an accent or because you speak in two languages. Like I, when I got this, I got to public school in Florida also. I went from private older Catholic school in Bota to public school in Florida, which is shocking. Okay, you think we are so world go to Florida, you know, like go to public school in Florida. Okay. Um, yeah, it was horrible. I would stand up and I wrote my essay for English class, all phonetically Spanish. So when I would have to go up and read them, I would just read across and I didn't have to but the anxiety of having to talk in English was horrible. And on top of that, I remember I had to take ESL tests constantly to see if they were replacing me in those classes, but I knew from my friends that they didn't do anything in those classes, they would be like, yeah, come and join us in the quad, we don't do anything. And I was not a kid who didn't want to do anything. I always been a nerd.  And then the literature has been like in my career, it's been like, you know, always, but now I know how to just be like, to now the people who just don't get it and the attention to the folks who are like excited about my work. And that interest into talking to me or giving feedback about my craft and not about their anxiety. Yeah, like I think that like, I mean, I circumvented that kind of criticism because I didn't go through like an MFA program, I don't have an MFA and so I didn't have to endure like the experiences that I hear a lot of people of color, especially BIPOC migrant folks, talk about when they describe using language other than English in their work, like I didn't have to go through that kind of critique. So I'm I tended to get that kind of critique more from editors or from random readers who want to give me unsolicited advice about how to make myself more marketable, but like, look at me, if I wanted to make myself more marketable, I would look like this. But like, but I mean, Spanish, Spanish historically has been a dangerous language for us to speak in the United States. And like, it's been something that like Anglos have used in order to otherize us, to demean us and to degrade us. And I'll give an example, like, my parents made it on my parents made a deliberate choice to socialize us in both English and Spanish, my mother only talked to us in Spanish, my father only talked to us in English. And so as children, we believe that the whole world had access to two languages, we didn't think that we were unusual at all. And so it took us a while to to figure out that not everybody had our gifts. And so we would just speak to adults in whatever language we felt like speaking to them in that moment. And then would be perplexed when we'd speak Spanish to like an Anglo adult, and they wouldn't answer, they just look at us with like amusement or even fear. And as an example, as an example, like how insidious and degrading some responses can be, my little brother took some sort of IQ test as a child, he was maybe like four or five years old, and so it was a verbal test. And the test was administered in English, but my brother insisted on only answering in Spanish. And as a result of that, he was identified as mentally retarded, right? He's not. He went on to like, not be placed in special ed classes, he was placed in like mainstream classes. But there's this association, there's this degradation that people feel like they can engage in because of Spanish. And there's a long history of it in the United States. Yeah, yeah. Let's continue. Have you thought about theater in audiobooks? Yes, audiobook contacted me, I was going to do it, and then this happened. So I, yeah, it's in the work. I, there's a contract and I should go and read it. So, you know, when it happens, I'm apologize about it, but you know, like, I didn't want to go like right now, maybe I'll go because now it feels like people are taking different safety protocols. But at the beginning, it was like, well, if you feel comfortable, and I was like, I don't feel comfortable going into an office. So let's see, there's another one from Erika. I'm almost done with the book and I love it. Maybe this is to the question, but I was curious about how other Colombians and Latinos in Miami have received the book there. You know, it's been really beautiful. I don't know a lot of Colombians in the Bay Area. I have like, probably maybe like six Colombian friends that are close to me here.  So when I've done stuff with people in New York, a lot of Colombians are like, you know, the last time I did something in New York, he was like, we were on the chat just going like, yeah, Colombia, Colombia, Colombia. Because it's like, it's incredible for me, like, the feeling that I get when I have another Colombian person read it and be like, they understand every single thing of this land, right? Because like, there's not only Spanish, but now you have to know that Spanish is different when it's spoken by Mexicans, when it's spoken by Cubans, when it's spoken by Puerto Ricans, when it's spoken by Dominicans. And so we all do Spanish differently. And I've been influenced both by the Miami Spanish, which is against Cuban Spanish, and then the Mexican Spanish in California. So I have this like, mix of things too. So it's been really wonderful to just see the Colombians that have reached out to me that they love it, because it's at the intersection of like, a lot of things that they recognize. And a lot of the sayings in the book are just sayings that you say in Colombia. So Primera La Primaria, Colombiano. Cachaco, which a lot of my Latino friends here didn't know what it means. It's a way of calling somebody from Bogotá, which is a song. So, you know, it's like, there's a lot of little wings to just like Colombian people because we know. So can you talk about how queerness relates to Spanglish for you? Well, the way that queerness relates to Spanglish is I feel like they're both like other forms or other phenomena. You know, and so definitely that's a way that they're related. Also, like my Spanglish of the Miami was one thing, my family was another thing. And then there was the moment that I arrived in San Francisco, I was adopted again by the, you know, Cuban trans women who gave me the same. And then I would spend most of my nights on esta noche watching my best friend back then, Reyna, be a drag queen there.  Because they're on stage and they're drunk and they're campy, you know? So I got also from drag queens mainly and a lot of queer Latinos in San Francisco. This other now queer and way of Korean Spanglish, right? When I was like, yes, papi, mira perra, like all these different ways. And then like, you know, trans women here were expressing things and like, you know, the uses of loca, the uses of just all these are different words. So definitely queerness has had a huge impact in how my Spanglish has evolved.  You know, when you're in it, did you go? Yes. When you're in it, you didn't even think that anything was going to be history, you know? When I was there, I was like, this is just such a shithole. It was such a shithole. It was, you know, but it was also where I learned to dance Mexican cumbia. That's where I learned to dance Mexican cumbia. But it was amazing. I mean, I saw the queens would just do this amazing work of blending in everything. And they were so unfiltered because nobody cared about getting anything right. It was just about place when they like, drag queens have to be entertaining. They want to play with language. They're also being bitches and being mean. And so they want to be, yeah, they're just trying to figure out how to like make language fun. So I learned a lot from being. The queen there was una que se vestía como de campesina, but she looked like Robin Williams and I was just like, I love you. I love you so much. Okay. And then with it being pride month, my question relates to queerness. How did y'all navigate the arduous process of coming to terms with your individual queer identities? What helped you become confident? This is coming from a person who's experiencing identity and sexuality struggles. Can you repeat that again? Good. How did you navigate the arduous process of coming to terms with your individual queer identities? What helped you become confident?  Do you want to take it? I mean, like for me, I mean, a lot of the confidence that I have when it comes to like the way that I express my gender and the way that I express my sexuality has been earned like through both personal but also like collective liberation. I've experienced a lot of trauma. I've experienced like a lot of physical salt in my life, a lot of sexual salt in my life. And that type of trauma can have various effects on a person. And like on some femmes, the effect is to make you fearless. It just kind of conditions the fear out of you because it becomes such a routine, like violence becomes so routine in your life that you almost feel as if you've risen above it. And so for me, I sort of got traumatized into my feminism and traumatized into my confidence, which is not something that I necessarily advise for people, but that's where some of that comes from in my case. Thank you for sharing that. I mean, I would also just say that I also have like really, really traumatic and horrible history around my queerness because I come from an extremely religious family and I don't have a relationship with a lot of my family, putting really close members of my family.  And the queer community has a very long history of creating houses amongst ourselves. And that is still something that it continues to happen, which is that we have chosen families. And that is a lineage that you're part of your queer, you're part of a lineage of people who have been doing this for a really long time, where we come together and we hold each other like family. And it's even better because you're choosing each other.  And so what I would say is like what has saved me are the people who actually see me for who I am. And, you know, that I'm able to like open up and connect with them. And so find your tribe and the people that like really see you and connect with them and support them as well.  And Tatiana de la Tierra was my chosen queer elder because she lived in Long Beach like the last years of her life or lived in Long Beach. And when I met her, I was in awe.  Like, I want to shout about my papaya from the rooftops, you know what I mean? And so I practically apprenticed myself to her. I was like, I will do anything you want.  I will change your kitty litter. I will fix your fridge. Just teach me to be like you.  And she did it. You know what I mean? And then she she kind of gave a piece of herself to me. You know what I mean? That's like what we do.  So we do mine. Yeah. All right. Okay, I think I think I think that's it. I think we have. I think that that's that's some of it. I wanted to just mention something very briefly to everybody, which is that I'm going to be the people who are interested in purchasing the book, or dealing with stuff with the book. I'm going to be doing a postcard project starting in July with the feminist press with the unamazing cartoonist in New York called Katie Freakup. And so here are some of the postcards that you can get by mail. Since I can go signing anybody's, anybody's book, we're going to be doing a postcard thing. If you buy your book after July 13, and from a local bookstore and you send me your receipt, you're going to be able to get one of these and I have a little stamp and I want to write you a note and stuff. So if you're interested at all, you can follow me on Instagram. And then I'll be posting stuff about the project very simply in the next two weeks, just to support also the local bookstores. And yeah, that's my plug. Gracias Juli, medium. This was amazing. I was laughing so loud in the background. I have a lot of Colombian family in Miami and in Florida and I actually was reading the book going to a wedding at a Christian church in Fort Lauderdale area. And it was, yeah, amazing, amazing, amazing. I can't wait to keep reading stuff that you write. And I'm another Colombian in San Francisco area too. Hey, Joanna, amazing. Las chicas del can. And for everybody in the audience, thank you for coming to our wonderful author talk. What's up, Anissa? We'll close with a little music. Oh, you have a lot of information that will come to you by email about a lot of the subjects that we touched in today and resources in our digital library. And see you again in another wonderful event. Bye, everybody. Thank you for the music. Bye, everybody. Las chicas.