June 19, 1988-San Antonio Express-News
Letters, we get letters
Today. Father's Day, is a day of responsibility, of attending to the many things that happen in our lives, things such as taking a critical look at how our tax monies are spent - and by whom.
The arts world depends on tax monies, and it is to be hoped that those funds will produce real dividends in helping our youth acquire better transactional and motivational and understandings.
With that in mind - and since this column often looks at public personalities - it is sometimes important to respond to our "arts leaders " when they write in to give me a piece of their minds.
Sometimes the letters are cogent and remonstrative, to say the least, as is the case with a recent missive from Louis LeRoy, ex-director of the defunct Arts Council of San Antonio.
The letter(click this link to view the actual letter)is provocative and exhibits the talents of the nationally recognized and respected administrator.
Treasurer of group
LeRoy also happens to be treasurer of the Association of American Cultures, a Washington D.C.-based loose affiliation of cultural centers, arts programs and state arts agencies.
Their main purpose might very well be to attend meetings where proposal-writing is the main thesis, but then taxpayers will get what they pay for, even when they don't see the value of it.
It's a historic case of caveat emptor, with Juan Public being the reluctant purchaser of non-existext services. Whatever the case, these directors are public entities who merit a bit of the spotlight.
As treasurer of AAC, LeRoy must come in contact with peoples of different cultures, and his stay in San Antonio has given him a richer knowledge of Chicanos and other Hispanics.
His letter reflects a bit more understanding of barrio caló, and he is wont to use it as he speaks out on having been written about in this column. It is a letter that reaches out to an aesthetic; even the envelope is an act of artsiness.
A drawing of a jalapeño dagger punctures what appears to be a sheet of paper, maybe even a newspaper.
Literary merit
It is addressed to Professor Ricardo Sanchez, GED, sans accent on the "a" in Sánchez, with the return address bearing a self-annointed bato loco title of El Chin...but this is a respectable paper, you know; and besides, the suffix he might merit probably should end "ado" instead of "gon," as in "gone on to another cultural venture."
The letter shows literary merit, not as some classical bit of repartee but as another example of contemporary social responses when one controls the purse strings, as LeRoy so ably states.
The jalapeño dagger symbol is repeated inside, but it becomes déclassé by its second rendition.
A very kind and generous self-sketch is drawn beside the words "p.....e mojado" and I really can't understand if he is projecting unto himself, or if he is addressing me as a "f....... wetback."
LeRoy does start out with a classic sobriquet, something out of an ancient racist film, and he does exgibit a bit of panache when he scribbles:
"Say you Stupid Greaser, don't be writing my name in your f....d up column!"(Webmaster's note: See the San Antonio Express-News June 5, 1988 column, the column which caused Mr. LeRoy to write to Dr. Sánchez)
Mr. Leroy then goes on a quasi-scatological tirade, with many emotional and artsy-porn images, to end with the sobering thought of: YOUR FRIEND IN THE ARTS AND CONTROLLER OF LA FEYRIA WHICH YOU DIDN'T GET ANY OF. L. LeRoy.
Poet's term
Not a bad bit of "chican-ese," to use the term coined by poet and bon vivant José Montalvo, except for the obvious non-barrio spelling of feria, which means "greenbacks" in caló, the language of tirilones and batos locos.
What is sad is that such creativity should have been employed in keeping the Arts Council solvent, and this new affinity for ersatz-barriology should have been employed years ago.
It is a bit late for LeRoy to try to speak a la barrio - to walk that walk and talk that talk now makes no sense.
There was a time when barrio artists and bards wanted to work with the Arts Council, but LeRoy would have none of that.
Artists, poets and arts directors are public persons, and our actions are dicussed by the public. We put our names in the hopper; we were not chosen by others, we deliberately jumped onto the stage.
Publicly subsidized directors and cultural program staffers and artists have no right to demand special rights, nor can their actions and words be only for a few to know.
Mr. LeRoy, you are the treasurer of a national entity that gets funding from taxpayers nationwide, with a good bit coming from the Texas Commission on the Arts.
Ironically, the chairperson of the Association of American Cultures is also the executive director of the Texas Commission on the Arts.
In the public eye
You are all in the public eye, as is this coulmn, my books and readings. We are public persons.
What is truly regrettable is not that you write, buy how you present your specious arguments. The gutter is a better place for your diatribes that the mails. It is possible that you lost the program because you weren't able to transact in a more civilized manner.
Whatever the case, Mr. LeRoy, if you write, please exhibit a bit more education than my GED implies, I might just loan you a doctorate, or you could rent one the next time you are in D.C.
As for the cute little jalapeño daggers, they might make excellent wallpaper for another failed quasi-cultural venture. You know the kind, where failed social-program poverty pimps and cultural vultures descend upon our tax monies.
But it is Father's Day, and many a jefito is trying to make ends meet while "cultural leaders" plot better venues for feria harvesting. The artists...well, the real ones, do not control the public trough.
Happy Father's Day, fellow taxpayers.