Doručak na granici

"America."  Everybody in the world knows where is "America."  The fact, however, is that "America" is a continent.  Actually there are two of them, North and South.  Still, everybody in the world knows that "America" is the "United States."  Even that is a wee problem because in North America there are two "United States."   There is Sjedinjene Meksičke Države and there is Sjedinjene Američke Države.  Despite those little technical difficulties no one in the world is confused about which one is "The United States," or just "America." 

It wasn't always so.  When the first Croats showed up in the waters around America, America was still America in the broader sense.  Those early Croats shared the continents with Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Muskogee, the Cherokee, the Comanche and others.  What's more, Croatians, along with others,  helped build a few countries in North America like Texas, California, and even the Kingdom of Hawaii out in the Pacific.

With no independent Homeland back in Europe, these Croats were, for the most part, uninvolved in empire building or "colonialism" in the usual sense of that term, but they were having great adventures.  One of those adventures has to do with what I am eating this very morning. 

The histories all show that Napoleon III withdrew French troops from Mexico but hardly a word is written about the Croatian Hussars who were in Mexico with Carlotta's husband even though everyone loves Carlotta.  When the Emperor was captured and shot, the Mexican officers with Benito Juárez asked him what to do with all these soldiers.  Juárez is reputed to have said something like "We have cut off the head, the body of the snake is harmless."

So now, you are a Croatian soldier in a strange land far away from home.  You have no money in your pocket and no way home.  Besides, why would you want to go home? What is there for you? You have little future except perhaps to be a fisherman or a farm worker on some large estate owned by one of the Austrians who run the place.   

You are hungry.   Your belly is crying out to you.  You've managed to steal two eggs out from under a chicken, one stale tortilla, an onion and a tomato.  Beside yourself, you have three companions to feed.  What do you do?

You crack open the eggs and you put them in the mess kit you were issued by the military. As always, te dvije oči jaja su namigujući on you.  Those two eyes of the eggs are winking at you. What next?  You crumble up the tortilla into the eggs, you cut up the tomato and the onion and you mix everything all together in the pan over the fire.

The war was vicious as all wars are.  There is a shortage of young Mexican men. The smell from your cooking attracts the attention of a young Mexican woman carrying water home from the well. You try to explain your recipe to her.  There is laughing and giggling.  She tastes your meal.  The closest she can come to saying all that about the eyes of the eggs winking is just "migas."  Close enough.  A new dish, a new word, and a new love has been born in the same hour.  You are married and you have children.  Your neighbors love your music.  Eventually the community around you forgets that once you were a stranger.

Two generations later, Mexico cracks down on the Catholic Church.  Your grandchildren don't remember exactly why, but they are Catholic among the Catholics and they find themselves across the border in Texas.  They bring with them their Mariachi tradition also born in Eastern Europe. Your great grandson composes a song for his daughter for her wedding but he has been taught that it is not permitted for him to play and sing in church. But somehow a Croatian - American pastor who knows and understands what he is seeing insists that the father serenade his daughter at the end of the wedding service INSIDE the church.  Perhaps he will not forget that day the rest of his life.

I know his daughter has not forgotten because, you see, I was that pastor.  This happened about a decade ago.  My musician friend is Croatian - American in the wider sense of that term. Mexican culture has mostly but not entirely forgotten there ever was such a thing among them. Homero Prado's family knows, and a few other musician families know.  All the average Anglo - American sees when he looks at my friend is one more "Mexican." As a matter of fact, all the average Mexican - American sees is one more "Mexican."

My musician friend is one of those Croatian - Americans like those which Ambassador Joško Paro spoke of a few nights ago at the Croatian Embassy in Washington D.C.  My musician brother knows some about the Croatian part of his roots and he is interested in knowing more.  He is proud of his ancestry and he treasures that part of the culture he retains.  Is he, or any of his extended family interested much in modern Croatia and other Croatian people?  No, not especially.  He is content here in South Texas where he can live his life as he wishes playing his music on special occasions. His children and grandchildren however just might be tourists in Croatia someday.

My friend is an example of one of those ethnicities about which neither Mexico nor the United States have any awareness.  That's not surprising considering hardly anyone except us old ragged grey-haired historian types know about the Jews and the Arabs who also live in North Mexico and in Southern Texas - people who were exported from Spain and who lived under the thumb of "religious police" for several generations. Throw in the descendants of several Indian nations whose states disappeared long before they migrated into this area, a few modern Croats, some Poles, a handful of Polish Jews, and some "Anglos" and you begin to see that down here at the Rio Grande we are a rich and complex tapestry of "ethnicities" even though the statistics want to lump nearly everyone together as "Hispanic" just because almost all of us speak at least a little on Spanish.  

Being Brownsvillian is complicated.  We are not all the same, yet we share a lot in common.  Being Croatian - American is complicated.  We are not all the same, yet we share a rich heritage.  Being Croatian is complicated.  We are not all the same.  Being South-East European is complicated. Being East European is complicated especially when you hyphenate any of that with "American" and then you discover that the US National Security Administration doesn't even know where East Europe is, much less anything about South East Europe.  What hope do we have that they know anything much about Croatia or Bosnia.  God forbid that they should need to know about the Sandjak or the Vojvodina or anywhere else in our neck of the woods. God help anyone from anywhere else.   This is the start of another story ... its important, so I will write about that a little later.  Do stay tuned for more over the next few days.

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

David Byler a.k.a. Canovals

10. veljače 2014

PLOVI BROD IZ AMERIKE - Džo Maračić-Maki

A few weeks ago when I heard this song again, I was reminded of all the Croatian seamen who go out into the Gulf of Mexico to fish, to shrimp, to dredge for oysters, to work on the oil rigs, and who are on ships carrying cargo back and forth from here to Europe and really to the whole world.

 

Some of them spend months away from home, others are gone for years.  Some never get to go home.   Some never go on board a ship.   Some stand barefoot in the sand looking out across the sea towards Home with hot tears running softly down their cheeks.   For some, the last voyage Home is the Last Voyage forever.  But we all wish the same things.  We wish freedom and prosperity for the Home and somehow, sometime, we wish for that boat sailing from America towards the beaches of Home. 

 

I asked Džo Maki if I could dedicate his song on this video to all the Croatian seamen especially in the region of the Gulf of Mexico.  He agreed.   I met Džo Maki last April at the Croatian - American Ball in Houston.  He is a very personable and fine gentleman, very talented and very gracious.  I am honored to count him among my friends.

On 8 July down here we shall have the "Blessing of the Fleet."  Perhaps you will see some of that on video right here.  Perhaps you will see the Croatian flag flying too! 

I wrote my own little "poem" as a dedication to Maki's song -

from Florida to Tampico
 there are hundreds and hundreds
 even thousands
 Croatian seaman go to their boats
 in the hours of the morning
 which other people name as night

some are away from shore for hours
 others are upon the sea for weeks
 some remain upon the shore

everyone dreams that one day
 he will be upon a boat from America
 which will find the coast of his beloved Homeland

for some this happens every year
 for many this never happens
until they are a box of ashes returning

everyone lives as near the shore as possible
 even when we are old
 we look across the sea to the east
 some dampness in our eyes
perhaps someday
someday there will be plovi brod iz Amerike
carry us to the coast of our Homeland

with Džo Maračić-Maki's permission
 the tiny Croatian community in Brownsville Texas
dedicates Maki's wonderful song
and this small video
 to all those Croatian men
 who are each day upon the Gulf of Mexico
 or who stand upon its shores
 and who all dream one dream together ...
There is one woman in our lives
who is above all others
she wears a blue skirt
and a red blouse
she wears a white sash
tied together with a red and white checkered buckle
she is our favorite lady
her name is Hrvatska
we wish to see her again before we die.

I hope you understand about the woman with the blue skirt.  These days, its the only skirt in her wardrobe.  With the help of God, it will always be the only skirt in her wardrobe.   Any other woman who has ever come into my life has had to understand that I would lay down my life for my lady in the blue skirt and red blouse.   She has always been and always will be my true mother, my true sister, and my true love all in one.   That last statement might be incomprehensible to anyone who is not Croatian in their heart, none-the-less, it is true. 

Join me in listening to this song
as we stand in the sand
looking out across the waves
waiting for that boat
which will finally sail from America
to our Home

PLOVI BROD IZ AMERIKE - Džo Maračić-Maki

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac

28  Lipanj 2013

 

Radio, Television, and YouTube

I have informally extended a project about Croatian internet radio in which I was invited to participate by Nenad Bach and which we talked about on the last post. There is a lot of information floating around which suggests that many people are moving away from traditional radio / television to the internet. Google's whole business model is based on the notion that this move has already been underway and is substantial.

 

Over the years, I've had a few modest experiences with broadcasting on radio/television in Southern Illinois, Central Tennessee and in South Texas.  In each case the population within the reception area amounted to about three million and the stations presumed from their studies that the audience might be around 300,000.  The fact is that for any particular broadcast we didn't know how many listened.  We knew that some people tuned in because they wrote letters.

It is difficult to compare "traditional" transmissions to internet transmissions where we can have hard data. On YouTube for example - we know how many times a video was clicked and we know in the aggregate how many minutes people stayed on that video.  The algorithm which YouTube currently uses to "rank" a particular video takes into account "engagement" which includes "comments","like / dislike", and now its important to somehow keep the viewer on the video all the way through.

 

On YouTube we do not actually know where someone is located.  We know only where they say they are located so I did not take location into account.  My specifications were simple:  channels which broadcast a fair amount of music by Croatian performers were included.  In this group were channels operated by what appear to be Croatians in the same five continents where we found internet radio, as well as Slovenia and Serbia.  A few I know to be operating from France, Germany, and Sweden.

 

A few channels have dropped out in the last few years.  A few more have been hit with DCMA complaints and have been dropped from YouTube.  If memory serves, those may have amounted to as many as forty million views between them.  I did not take into consideration channels with under a hundred thousand views. 

 

Among the remaining top seventy Croatian/Croatian friendly channels the views amount to about 300,000,000 since 2006.  I've informally kept up with the top 20 or so channels for several years and I'm aware that the vast majority of those views have come in the last twenty-four to thirty months. 

 

This sounds impressive until you realize one Korean fellow made one video with one song which has gone over a billion views.  If you discount that one as a fluke it still sounds impressive until you look around just a little.  As a "group" we've accomplished a lot but we have a long long way to go.

 

There was a time when all one needed was a killer song to get a lot of views.  That's still important, but now it works best with a video which keeps the viewer "engaged" throughout the song.  It is no longer sufficient just to have a lot of music on a channel and it is no longer sufficient to have a wonderful piece of music and a killer video although all that is important. Now it requires that the broadcaster continually "engage" the audience and it requires that we find ways to find and engage our potential audience.  It also requires that we engage the performers and that we engage the companies which distribute the music.

 

Can I tell you how to do any of this?  No I can't.  I am still learning, but there is plenty of help.  Lisa Irby  has information on YouTube for us.   You will have to follow your nose among her extensive information and you will have to adapt it to suit your style but her information is solid and a good place to start. Lisa  also has a blog with a world of information on it for us.  This isn't about promoting Lisa, this is about learning how to promote us and our performers.  YouTube  provides us some help also. 

 

We have to out perform radio.  We have to out perform Television.  We may have to use FaceBook, Twitter, blogging of some sort, or whatever is available to us.  Oh yes, we might even have to somehow use some radio and television along the way. We have to use every legitimate means at our disposal to accomplish this task. 

 

We are broadcasters. We are DJ's at the party. We have a product to sell.  That product is the music of our beloved Homeland and her singers where ever they are in the world.  Its our job to sell this product and not the job of the performers and it is not the job of the Record Houses.  The performers task is to compose and perform.  The record companies job is to make the records and count the sales. We are the sales people.

 

We are closer to the people, we are closer to the market than anyone else could ever hope to be at this time.  If we want to keep our jobs and continue to have access to the product, then we must succeed at our task.  We must  engage as many Croatians in Croatia and in the diaspora as we can.  We must engage other people as well. The Japanese already know "U boj, U boj," so we have a good start on this project. 

 

Along the way we must discover and help our performers know how to make a little money on the work we do to promote their efforts.  The record houses must see an upswing in sales.  We must put the music out there so people of  all kinds want to hear it and want to buy it.  That's the task.

 

Yes, we are competitors but we also have a common goal - our Homeland, our culture.   We can either play around with this or we can get after it and have a great time doing it. Are you ready?

 

Za Dom, Spremni!!

 

 

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac

14 svibanj 2013

Music from Home

Sixty-five years ago our music from Home was at home in our house.  Sometimes on a Friday night, Mama and Tata would take out their harmonike from the closet and they would play and sing to us.  Sometimes they teach me to sing along with them. Tata made puppets from wood and plaster and mother made clothes for them.  They presented little shows for people as a hobby. To dramatize the shows, Tata would play music the way he liked to play it.

 

I remember when the leather broke on Tata's harmonika how he cried.  Tata did not cry very often.  Mama had already tried to fix hers with artificial leather. Leatherette they called it - it was a good covering for chairs but not for use in Harmonike so it had not worked very well. They cried together  because sister needed money for piano lessons and so at that time we did not have the money to buy the material to repair any harmonike.

 

Now there was no music anymore that could go around places with the puppets and soon they went away in the closet forever.  Mama and Tata are gone now but I still have two or three of their puppets.

 

Sister wanted now to go to college so Mama and Tata had to sell her piano for the money for college.  Some years later when Tata had more money and he bought piano for mother, sister became angry and she would not sing anymore with us.  Too bad for her, we sang anyway when she was not around.

 

In High School I played clarinet.  Sometimes then we had a clarinet / piano duo playing while Mama and Tata would sing.  We had a little record player which would play big records.  We owned a few good records and when people came  from Home many times they would bring new records.  We would share records with other families we knew and they would share with us.  Mama controlled the record player.  When it was time to listen to music she would say to me what she wanted to hear and I was the "disk jockey."

 

In those years I bought a little radio.  Mama and Tata were afraid at first about what kind of music I would play on this radio.  When they discovered  that I tuned into KFRD Rosenburg and KULP in El Campo they were pleased.   These stations had early morning shows which were for all kinds of Slavic people.  One of the Disk Jockeys at KFRD was Croatian man so we heard good music now in the morning. 

 

I went away a long time to college, to the military, to work.  When I came back, KFRD is gone from the air. But KULP is there still in the morning with a Polka Show but for many years I was too far away to get even their broadcast. Lots of years went by when I was busy just trying to make a living.  I missed the old ways and the old music but there wasn't much time to do anything about that except just miss it in my heart - until I was at the end of the earth down here in Brownsville where the only radio or TV is Spanish or
English.

 

Then I had a terminally ill wife on my hands who dearly wanted to hear the old music.  Somehow it was comfort to her - and to me. We had a few cassette tapes and then we bought a few CDs from Home but with all the medical  expense we did not have money to buy very many. 

 

I set out to discover what to do.  On the internet I found Dennis Svatek. He is not Croatian but he plays a lot of good music and he makes it freely available to download and listen to it. 

 

Then I discoved Radio Narodna on the internet.  On Easter after Carole died, they played on croatian a song same as in Lutheran Hymnal "Jesus Christ is Risen Today."  I shall not forget that Easter.  I stayed awake all night for Easter Vigil and was rewarded at the top of every hour with the recording of those wonderful women singing that song.  Someday I will find that recording -
I want it.

 

Along the way, I discovered many other internet radio stations with croatian language broadcasts.  Most of these stations are based in Croatia but many  are or were based also in North America. 

 

I discovered YouTube and the world of croatian music to be found there. The ladies at Croatia Gifts in Ohio once asked me how I choose the music I buy and I answered that I go to YouTube and listen to a singer first. If I like the sound, then, when I have the money, I buy the CD so I can hear the music in my car when I am away from my house. Eventually I learned a  little about making videos and I am now a "broadcaster" on YouTube. I am grateful that almost all of the Croatian performers are friendly about the promotion of their material I try to give them there. 

 

If the performers can figure out how to do it, they could even run
advertising on my videos with their music and make a little extra money for themselves.  Right now the Germans are trying to claim their material and make this money but I keep chasing them away.

 

The learning curve on YouTube is interesting.  I've had an account on YouTube since 1999 but it was a couple of years before I understood the potential there.  Now I'm getting over 3,000 views each day and that number is growing rapidly.  I've been learning and experimenting with various things and I expect that number to be over 10,000 views a day by the end of next year.  So, in fact, I am broadcasting to a fairly large and growing community.

 

Recently, Nenad Bach asked me to work on a project with him. What an honor to be asked to do this!! The project was to discover all the Croatian language radio stations in the world outside of Croatia.

 

I discovered there are some broadcasts I knew nothing about before.  There is even a broadcast from China on croatian language.  There are internet broadcasts from Australia and New Zealand, and from Argentina.  In fact, there are broadcasts from every continent except Africa and Antarctica.

 

I discovered some changes in North America which surprised me, although I should not have been surprised at all.  These changes reflect the lives of  Croatian Americans and the changing realities of an interconnected world. Radio Stations like my old KFRD are gone now from the air because we all grew up and went away somewhere else.  I remember broadcasts in the southern Wisconsin area.  There was a "Radio Club" there, organized to raise the money to see to it that Croatians had at least a little sound from Home.

In Ohio there are still broadcasts but they are mostly one hour  "packages" from Home.  One is carried by a mostly Afro-American station which views us as a "minority," which of course we are, I suppose.  I would guess that over the next five  years most of these one hour a week broadcasts will disappear.

 

I found nothing at all in Seattle where there is a sizable Croatian community.  There is a station from Vancouver however, and one in Toronto and Ottawa.  Down in California where there is a large Croatian population, there are no longer any broadcasts. St Anthony's Croatian Catholic Church used to broadcast their mass on a Sunday, but no longer.  I spoke to a priest from  there and he was not interested in the idea even that I could help him either broadcast or rebroadcast the service for free on YouTube.

 

On the Gulf Coast region of the USA there are no stations that I can find broadcasting either on the air or on the internet in Croatian even though Croatians can be found strung out all along the coast line in various  communities.

 

When I put out an appeal on both YouTube and FaceBook to help me locate Croatian Radio Stations around the world, Marijan sent me a list of Croatian radio stations accessible in Germany - all are based in Croatia.  Ana wrote "David every Monday at 14:00 your time on Radio 105 songs on request and calls live from around the world for the Croats at Radio 105! [Selnica]"

 

Does the diminishing presence of North American croatian radio indicate a lack of demand for croatian language material?  As Croatians are assimilated into an english speaking world do we want less material on croatian?  I think that these would be incorrect conclusions. The demand may be higher than ever before. The fact is that now we are connected around the world via Facebook, YouTube and other media.  The radio stations, and some TV broadcasts, from the Homeland and various locations are only a few clicks away on the internet and the streams are usually reliable. At this very moment I'm connected to Vox Croatica down in Argentina, FaceBook, and YouTube simultaneously and my cellphone is right beside me so I can talk or text anyone anywhere.  I don't need a broadcaster located in my backyard anymore.

 

That leaves open the questions surrounding the unique needs concerning Croats in the diaspora.  I don't have an answer except that as always we shall make good advantage of all the tools which come available and keep on scrambling like we always have. There are new tools just now available on YouTube and G+.  Other technology will come along.  Mama and Tata's harmonike went away years ago, but we have what we have and we shall find how to make our way somehow.

 

If you don't mind, keep your ears and your eyes open for croatian language broadcasts of any kind outside of Croatia,  and let me know what you hear and see. Also, let me know what you would like to hear and see.  There are a lot of us Croats out here in the world away from Home.  What do we want available to us?  Talk to me.  

 

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac

 

9 svibanj 2013