Aire

To keep myself entertained (and hopefully you, too), I'm starting to post videos/performances/recordings of songs I like from my recent Top 10 albums list, along with other music that has had an impact on me over the years.

Some of it will be marvelous (to me), some of it will be execrable (to you), and some of it will be a bit of both. But, hey, that pretty much sums up my tastes, and at the ripe old age of 58, I'm tired of apologizing for what I like.

Second up: Yuri, "Cuando baja la marea" (rough translation: "When the tide goes out").

This was a song I heard over and over again on my first trip to Mexico in 1987 or so. Somehow in the days before Shazam and the worldwide web, I tracked it down and was able to find a copy of the album (OK, cassette, most likely!) and bring it home with me, along with a tape by Alejandra Guzman (who, like Yuri, has stood the test of time in Mexican popular music) and another group, Viva Voz, who are now lost to the ages (or at least to me).

It's a very straightforward ballad (this video features a different, more rhythmic interpretation than the original), but it is booming, emotional, passionate, and melodic, which is pretty much what you want in a pop song. I still get a "frisson" hearing it 30+ years later.

On that same trip to Mexico, I also went to a gay bar and saw an amazing drag show (and I don't really even like drag) during which one of the performers dressed like Yuri (correction: was Yuri, captured Yuri's essence as it were) and performed (in stilettos no less) another Yuri hit from the era, "Hombres al borde de un ataque de celos" (rough translation: "Men on the verge of a jealousy breakdown"). Another Yuri classic but in a different, very poppy way, with a song and video that launched a thousand drag queens.

I don't know a huge amount about Yuri, but from what I do know, she kind of has this great life story, one that cemented her status as a romantic female diva/gay male and straight female icon of a sort: Child star, successful singer, early marriage and divorce, drug addiction, sex addiction, religious conversion (but still stayed loyal to her gay fans), Christian singer, return to secular music, another marriage and adoption, continued personal and professional success. At least that's what I recall reading several years ago.

Who knows? I may have it completely wrong, but why change my possibly imaginary narrative at this point?

The rich also make bad TV

Verónica Castro by deissertv via
Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported

Tonight, in a desperate search for something, anything that would hold my interest longer than a nanosecond, I stumbled across the Mexican TV series, The House of Flowers (La Casa de las Flores) on Netflix.

Ay, Dios mío. This show will not be that thing--but I will watch a few episodes to be sure.

This is one of at least three Netflix programs made in Mexico. (There are also a couple being made in Argentina.) Believe you me, I'm glad to see some TV programs from Mexico, Argentina, and other Latin American countries, especially ones that move beyond the Cinderella storyline. You know what I mean: María meets Juan Pablo, María loses Juan Pablo, María wins Juan Pablo.

But, chavos y chavas, this just seems like bad, dumb, and dubbed (¡Que barbaridad!) Almodóvar.

A case in point--Bienvenidos al big ridiculous plot hole! The de la Mora family consists of fabulously wealthy florists. The only son Julián is screwing/in love (?) with both Lucía and Diego, but he can't come out of the closet. Meanwhile, Julián's dad Ernesto has been having a 20-year affair with Roberta, who owns a drag cabaret--and my money's on the eventual reveal that Roberta will turn out to be Roberto--that features some of the dodgiest quality female impersonators I've seen in the Mexican context (and I've seen my share). The family loves gay Diego (he's their gorgeous accountant and confidante), everyone despises Lucía, and Paulina's ex-husband is transgender. Julian is "artistic" (a design student) and does his mother's hair from time to time. AND HIS MOTHER IS PLAYED BY VERÓNICA CASTRO.

This last point makes more sense if you've been watching Mexican TV off and on since 1989, as I have. All hail the woman who starred in a telenovela called Los ricos también lloran (The Rich Also Cry, which seems like the quintessential telenovela title) and prominently featured the half-gay duo Erasure as guests on one of her mid-´90s talk shows, likely way before many did.

If you can't come out under those circumstances, Julián, then perhaps it was never meant to be.

So far the show has had its moments, such as any scene with Paulina (played by the fabulous Cecilia Suárez), a quick shot of Julián's bare butt (played by the bare butt of Dario Yazbek Bernal), interactions with the housekeeper Delia (played by Norma Angélica), the set design, the cinematography, the fact that it's always sunny in México City, and, claro, Verónica Castro.

But sometimes its plot points are puzzling--for example, why does Roberta commit suicide (not a spoiler--it happens early in the first episode)? Is there a reason why she would leave behind her daughter, son, and lover? She doesn't seem particularly unhappy or depressed, at least so far. Rather, the suicide just seems like a cheap trick upon which to begin and build the story.

And I'm not comforted by the fact that La Vero leaves at the end of season 1--and they're already filming season 3. That's a long haul of over-the-topness without la reina del over-the-topness.

Nevertheless, I will persevere, perhaps alternating between La Casa and Ingobernable, a political thriller starring alleged El Chapo amiga, Kate del Castillo.

It's this or Days of Our Lives and 7de Laan, and, híjole, I just don't have it in me at the moment for straight (so to speak) plot and limited self-aware humor. 

* * *

Update, 15 March 2019

So I watched episodes 3 and 4 last night and thought better of the show. I don't get why Julián is such a mess, but that's likely the American in me. On to episode 5, 6, 7, ....

El baile y el salón

Today´s rock en español treat--Mexican music group Café Tacuba (or "Tacvba," if you insist) performing their 1990s hit, "El baile y el salón"--"The Dance and the Salon."

I don´t know if this would be considered a typical Café Tacuba song in that, from what I recall, none of their songs are "typical," i.e., their sound is highly varied. I remember some punk/metal-sounding numbers, some ballads, some "cod reggae" (or am I mistakenly channeling Juanes?), some pop, and then something like this, a jazzy, breezy little pop tune that sounds joyous and practically effortless.

I was fortunate enough to see Café Tacuba in concert in San Antonio in the late ´90s--in a nightclub of all places in the far northwestern suburbs. You could do that in San Antonio because Latin pop and rock, while listened to, were secondary, maybe even tertiary, in popularity to Tejano music, Norteño music, and other variations on what might best be described as Mexican and Mexican-American folk and country. Heck, I suspect even salsa, cumbia, and other Caribbean and Latin music styles were more popular in San Antonio than Latin pop and rock en español.

And while at the time I considered that something of a sad testimony to San Antonio´s lack of verve and cultural focus, in retrospect, I think I was just mistaken and misinterpreting the reality in which I lived. Despite being a self-touted "gateway to Mexico"--despite one, in fact, being part of Mexico--I always thought the city looked inward, not outward. But it was and is a majority Mexican-American city, a full 150 miles (250 kilometers maybe?) from the Mexican border and 300 miles or so from the nearest major Mexican metropolis, Monterrey. Thus there was no reason San Antonio should carry out my fantasy of living in Latin America. It was always fine as is, as a Latino city. It´s just that I wasn´t as interested in that aspect of the culture. While I did my best to appreciate it, the culture didn´t belong to me.

In life, I´ve struggled with the idea of appreciating a place for what it is rather than what I want it to be, which may explain why I´ve tended to move around a lot and moved to another country at the ripe old age of 54--and still have the urge to move again one or two more times before all is said and done. Maybe I don´t know what I want, or maybe I--altogether now--"still haven´t found what I´m looking for."

I suspect it´s the latter, but it begs the question, "Does what I imagine, does what I want, actually exist?" Maybe, maybe not. Maybe what most of us get in life is a momentary taste of what might be--a nibble, a morsel, enough to make you crave more, rather than a wealth, a cornucopia of flavor, and full satiety.

Yet I still want to be satisfied. Maybe that will come through more travel and a sooner-rather-than-later retirement, being able to do what I want when I want, rather than being tied to a schedule and responsibilities. Money is an issue. As is time. Always time.

In the meantime, though, these little memory trips down Latin America way help get me through a cold Canadian reality, allowing me to live in my warm South-of-the-border fantasy, despite what the weather and the culture want me to conform to. And maybe that´s good enough for now and even forever, in case the fantasy never becomes reality.

But I still hold out that, in time, the fantasy will become my day-to-day life. Otherwise, what´s the point of striving? And I´m always ready for more striving, as long as some success comes with the effort.

In the meantime, ándale. Let´s go!

So where were we?

Ah yes, sick with yet another head cold and shacking up with Twitter, that's pretty much what you need to know for the moment, with the promise of more to come this week.

In the meantime, a few images to entertain you, one still, one moving.

I have been in a reliving-my-life-in-Texas-with-regular-forays-into-Mexico mode. Some of this, a lot of it in fact, has been prompted by my recent addiction to Twitter and the "curators" of the world project. First, there was Sweden, then there were, all in a rush, Australia, the USA, Mexico, the city of Leeds in the north of England, and now, scheduled to launch on Monday,  "Basques Abroad."

I've really enjoyed these personal, thoughtful, and often very funny takes on life in different places and cultures. I've even suggested to the head of an international LGBT rights group about helping organize a "gay curators" group to talk about our lives in a more positive way than, say, any former Pennsylvania politician running for presidential office might do.

But again, we'll get to these and other topics about my current state of twitterpation.

The Mexico project has been particularly engaging to me. The first curator, Israel from Monterrey, did a wonderful week showing us around the city and talking about current issues in Mexican politics and culture. And now Penélope from Aguascalientes is showing us her city, showing off the local cuisine and sights, and introducing us to some Mexican cultural motifs, such as noted illustrator and political cartoonist, José Guadalupe Posada.

So it's all coming back to me now: The times I have spent in Monterrey, seeing some of the same sights; enjoying the discussions about food, having dined on some of the same dishes; the cultural and political moments, remembering classes I've taken, books I've read, and conversations I've had.

As Penélope took us on a tour of the Posada Museum this afternoon, I took this photo of some items in my personal collection, a couple of "calaveras" in the style of Posada and Mexico's famed Day of the Dead cultural motif.

The skeletal married couple (who me trying to make a cultural point?) are probably more in keeping with Posada's work, a critique of the upper classes, the Don Catrín and Doña Catrina of the late 1800s and early 1900s, too wealthy and too unworried about the masses, fiddling around while Mexico was about to catch fire and burst into flames of revolution.

Totally irrelevant to today's place and time, of course.

The vendor selling "elotes" or corn, well, that's just fun, and elicits a lovely memory of buying "elotes" along the street in towns on both sides of the border, hot, cooked corn kernels served in a cup with a mix of maybe milk and a light, creamy mayonnaise, and chili powder, and who knows what else. One of the best, most simple, most delicious foods I've ever had the pleasure of eating.

¡Viva México! Ay, Dios, what I wouldn't give for some of your cuisine and culture right this very moment. Why did I ever leave you? Why did you let me?

The moving image, well, hmmm, this is more of what you're used to in this blog, my less serious side. This clip highlights another delicacy of Mexican culture when I was living in its orbit in the mid-'90s to mid-2000s: The Mexican boy band.

Señores y Señoras, may I present to you one of the better ones, Kairo, and their huge mid- to late-'90s hit, "Dile que la amo" ("Tell her that I love her").



Where to begin with this one?

Oh lord, did we really all wear those pale blue jeans with white t-shirts, leather jackets, and black boots? I don't recall that just being a Mexican fashion faux-pas; I think that's pure '90s pitifulness.

But who's looking at the clothes? It's the two barely-singing, oiled-up dancers our eyes are focused on, natch. (Or at least that's where my focus is.) Those boys from Kairo and a zillion other Latin boy bands were almost too perfect in an Isla de Doctor Moreno kind of way. Not that I'm complaining. How I wish I could put in an order for some carne asada like that and have it shipped northward.

Nevertheless, why don't we see more of the lead singer, who is just so darned adorable? OK, I get it, maybe he doesn't have the body of the other two, and when dealing with video for teen girls and pervy, middle-aged men, muscle is the message. So keep the cute one in a leather jacket and tight jeans, while los dos musculeros hit the gym and keep at it with the steroids. Anything but that tucked out t-shirt that makes el monito look only tinier and more elfin.

Not a good look, Televisa, but I still wouldn't kick the little one out of my recámara for eating tostadas and salsa.

¡Ándale!