Canto CDXXXIX: My Izquierdista Foot

Gentle cabrones:

If this already terrible year has taught me anything, it’s that my left foot is cursed.

Consider:

At the beginning of December, when I was trying to toss into a Dumpster a huge tile slab that still had its Hardiebacker base …the huge slab slipped from my hands and landed right at the base of the middle toe of my left foot.

Ouch.

The pain was so, well, painful, that I got nauseous for a good 30 seconds and thought I would throw up. It was the worst pain I’ve felt since I nearly castrated myself in my early 20s when falling from my bunk bed and onto an exposed screw on the vacuum where the hook for the cord would usually be — no, really.

I didn’t break my foot, thank God. But it was purple for a good week, the pain eventually spread to the bottom of my foot and the side — and I still had to work and live and thus didn’t have time to rest, which prolonged the pain. This injury came on a foot where I think I have arthritis on my big toe — it’s either that, or I have gout (I don’t have gout).

The pain in the top knuckle on my left toe has come and gone over the past couple of years. Have I gone to the podiatrist about it? Of course not — but with my tile slab injury, it just accentuated it.

Then.

As I was starting to get better, I accidentally kicked the base of our bed with the left side of my left foot. OUCH. I’ve long kicked that base because our bedroom is small and my side of the bed is next to the door leading into it and my walking stride is long. Yet I have not done anything to fix these fixable issues — and now my foot had three injuries I had to deal with.

Did I mention I was working and living and not in a position to rest my foot, let alone elevate it or even put ice on it?

But thankfully everything eventually healed save for that trick toe knuckle…and then yesterday happened.

Cold Santa Ana winds hit Southern California. When it’s windy, I only have to do one thing to weatherproof our house, which I did…and then we woke up at 5:30 in the morning to what I thought was an alarm in the neighbor’s house.

Nope, it was our squeaking roof turbine. Eeee. Eeee. Eeee. Eeeeeeeeeee. The one that squeaked the last time we had strong winds, which I obviously didn’t fix good enough.

My honey tried to spray WD-40 on it from inside the attic, but that wasn’t going to work. So I told her I needed to get on the roof to better inspect the turbine, but she told me not to — it was still pitch dark, and the wind was howling.

But I got our super-tall ladder, made my way up, and fixed the issue. When I came down, I felt a stabbing pain on the toe next to my big toe. It was bloodied — a big flap of skin was hanging off of it.

I looked at my huarache — a small, bent nail was right where my newly injured toe stepped on when I had to balance myself on the roof after a gust.

OUCH.

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All of the above was avoidable, by the way.

I could’ve broken that giant tile slab into smaller bits like I did for almost all of that project — but I was in a hurry and so I didn’t.

I could’ve gotten to the root of my chronically sore big toe knuckle long ago — but I’m always busy so I wouldn’t.

I could’ve paid more attention and not kick the base of our bed — but I’m always too distracted by LYFE, so I haven’t.

I should’ve thrown my beat-up backyard huaraches long ago — but I was waiting on my public huaraches (Canto CCCLXXVII) to be more beat-up, so I felt I shouldn’t.

When I speak to students about writing, one of the things people inevitably ask is what to do when one gets writer’s block. I tell them to stop writing and do something — eat. Watch something. Read. Anything else. Pause what you’re doing to get your mind off of it, even just for a beat, and then inspiration will invariably rush in.

The base of this idea is to stop and consider what’s in front of you by getting out of it. We’re always either so hurried or so focused on something that we don’t consider that we might be wrong, that we might be approaching something the wrong way. That the rut we built to tackle something might be the very thing holding us back.

I find that to be true every time I’m stuck on an idea or am not liking what I’ve just written. So why shouldn’t I do the same more in LYFE? So much of what ails is is of our own making — we know what the issue is, and yet we’re afraid to confront it or change.

We all mess up. But if you mess up again even though you know you can do better, you’re just pendejo.

I’m very often one. But I eventually learn.

When I had to throw away more tile slabs to complete the project, I broke them into manageable chunks.

I’m going to the podiatrist soon about that damned big toe.

I shorten my stride around that damn base.

And those beat-up huaraches? I tried to hammer that bent nail back, but then I thought about how much they have bothered me. No more tread. The heel straps long flattened. The ones in the front long frayed. Why was I keeping them?

Into the trash can they go. Public huaraches now backyard huaraches. New huaraches debut the moment I step out of our house today.

Every day, you can do better. You should. But we need to be honest with ourselves always. And just in case I need a reminder, the skin is still flapping on my most recently injured toe…OUCH!!!

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: The photo we took for our inaugural Guti’s Fookin’ Ingrate Book Club holiday book exchange during the holidays! Next on our reading list…wouldn’t you like to know!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything — and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue. ” — Philip Guston

LISTENING: “Just A Friend,” Biz Markie. My best friend Art once had a brilliant idea for a T-shirt: a stick figure in the middle of a vortex, hand raised as he’s screaming “Help! I’m in the Friend Zone! (second-best idea: a nuclear cloud with the title “Nuke the Cholos”). The second-best distillation of a guy in the friend zone is this HILARIOUS one-hit wonder, which makes the desire expressed in “Layla” seem platonic by comparison. That voice, man — pobrecito. Only complaint: ended kinda basic for being so brilliant! Hence included in Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly Radiola of Randomness YouTube songlist, where I’ve included every song I’ve ever featured in a canto — give it a spin!

READING: “Queer Trivia Night”: Captures the beauty of trivia night (Canto ???), sprinkles in references to LGBTQ+ identity, culture, and resistance — and ends with verses that reads straightforward but ties back to the subject at hand and HITS.

Gustavo Events  

Jan. 10 aka TODAY, 5:30 p.m.: I am going to be in conversation with the people behind the incredible coffee table book Movimiento en la Sangre: The Chicano Movement - 1971–1974, Through the Lens of an Activist Chicano Nicholas George Inzunza at the Museum of Photographic Art at the San Diego Museum of Art, 1649 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego. Entry FREE with a purchase of the book, which you can do here.

Jan. 11 aka TOMORROW, 2 p.m.: I’m going to talk about the history of Latino restaurants in Costa Mexico to the Costa Mesa Historical Society, which will have their meeting at the Norma Herzog Community Center, 1845 Park Avenue, Costa Mesa. Event is FREE for Historical Society members, $15 for the rest of us.

Feb. 5, 7 p.m.: I'll be in conversation with El Martillo Press author David A. Romero about his debut novel, The Enemy Sleeps at the venerable Vroman's in Pasadena, 695 E. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena. Lecture, FREE; books, BARATO.

Gustavo in the News

“Letters to the Editor: The Best Decade”: An Alta Journal reader enjoys the articles I still need to share here!

“From the Notebook: Another ICE Killing and Venezuela”: The Latino Newsletter, the great publication with the terrible name but genius SEO swag, plugs a columna of mine.

“The Unique Blend Of Ingredients That Gives Tajin Its Distinct Flavor“: An interview I once gave about Tajín gets replayed.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“Gustavo Arellano: Republicans are endangered species in O.C.”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary is about the subject at hand.

"The Great Jacaranda Debate”: Man, I recorded this Lost LA segment so long ago that my former L.A. Times colleague, Julia Wick, was still pregnant with her first kid — and that was a while ago! But it was a blast recording it, and I’m glad it’s finally out.

“David A. Romero, In Conversation with Gustavo Arellano, Discusses & Signs His Debut Novel The Enemy Sleeps”: A plug for the event I mentioned above.

“Nick Valencia News”: I appear on the program by the great reporter, who kindly shouts me out after I end my segment on el vendido Rubio.

“JANM’s Democracy Center to Present ‘Echoes of History’ Symposium on Jan. 23”: A plug in Rafu Shimpo for an event I’ll be participating in as a moderator.

“Marco Rubio and Venezuela”: I appear on Mike Madrid’s Substack show to talk Venezuela and vendidos!

“The Mark Thompson Show”: I appear on the program of the legendary Southern California television personality — turns out he’s a big fan of mine! And welcome to those of ustedes who signed up to my cantos after his kind plug!

“'It’s Colonizing All Over Again:’ Chefs and Tortilleros React to California’s Fortified Tortilla Mandate”: L.A. Taco shouts out a columna of mine #tortillatournament

“In Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, Marco Rubio is the biggest sellout of all”: My latest L.A. Times columna takes on the Secretary of State — no biggie! KEY QUOTE: “Letting Maduro’s cronies remain in power if they play along with you and Trump, even though they stole an election in 2024, proves you’re as much for the Venezuelan people as, well, Maduro. Vendido.”

“HBO released an explosive Border Patrol documentary. Why is its star angry?”: My next latest L.A. Times columna is a review of the must-see Critical Incident: Death at the Border along with a talk with the reporter at the heart of it. KEY QUOTE: ““Critical Incident” is taut, disturbing, timely and a brisk hour and a half. It deserves as many viewers as possible and a publicity campaign as ubiquitous as what HBO is currently pushing for its hit hockey romance, “Heated Rivalry.””

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