A new Argentina ... obsession

My current musical obsession: Argentine singer-songwriter Marcela Morelo.





¡Disfrútate!

Ayer, hoy, mañana

"Mañana" by Usted Señalemelo. Still dreaming of you, Argentina.

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!

Día cero

Your daily dose of Rock en español: the video for La Ley performing ¨Día Cero,¨ their huge hit (at least in Latin America) from 1997 or so.

Twenty years later, this remains a favorite of mine. I don't remember when or where I first heard it--perhaps San Antonio's former Latin American top hits station, La Romántica, or maybe one of the Saturdays I used to stay at home to watch "Telehit," Mexico's real answer to MTV, which was rebroadcast on Galavision. I don't even fully understand the lyrics to the song, mainly because I haven't taken the time to. But the mood the song creates, the sound both of the music and the singer's voice, that's what has always captivated me.

But maybe now, twenty years later, it's time to understand the lyrics. There are a few that I get easily through listening: "En ese un camino largo" (on this long road) and the title itself (Day Zero). But others, not so much, and even when I read the lyrics, I'm not sure I fully understand. The limits of my Spanish, alas.

Which has got me thinking: It's time, past time, to work on my Spanish again, to visit Mexico again, and to visit places I've longed to but haven't found the time to or didn't have the money to before--Buenos Aires would be at the time of my list. Cuernavaca. Antigua, Guatemala. Bogotá. Cuzco. Havana.

Now I have the money but often not the time. Nonetheless, this is goal worth working toward in 2018.

¡Buena suerte para mi! May today be Day One of my quest to explore and learn from nuestro mundo.

¡Ay! ¡Un gusano del oído!

I don't know why this song suddenly popped into my head this week, but it's been consistently there since at least Tuesday. Thus it's become my "gusano del oído" ("earworm" translated into Spanish . . . perhaps) du jour, de la semaine, au what-have-you.

This one takes me back . . . to San Antonio, actually, where I used to see this video on Telehit, the best music video channel there ever was, short of (or on par with) MTV US pre-1984. Yes, that good. Telehit is based in Mexico City, so it had at the time I watched it a real "chilango" vibe, exceedingly cool, trendy, and sophisticated, even though it was cranking out tunes and style for teens and tweens in an economically challenged, developing country.

Contrast that with MTV, except for maybe the first couple of years, which you would never know is broadcast from New York City. Its hipness has always been what the suburban kids think is stylin', which to me has always seemed unforgivably white bread, even when they're going all gangsta. It's almost as if MTV is ashamed to set an alternative tone for a horribly square country.

You certainly don't see that on TV in the UK, which so often seems very London in 'tude, for better or for worse. (I keep thinking of my recent date with Keith Lemon on BBC when I was in Scotland recently. Not likely to be the next Dancing with the Stars export, I am quite sure.) But here in the good ol' US of A, all we get is . . . a corporate California interpretation of sophistication, even when it's being channeled from Manhattan.

So, yeah, I am pissed off about being back home. How did you ever guess? My anguished wanderlust is high in the dark clouds of plaintiveness ready to throw myself over the next exquisite precipice of drama. Bring me Edelweiss! Please! (And major special pretzels if you get that reference. You've been reading liner notes!)

So much so that I'm daydreaming of my old life in "exotic" Texas, where it's no doubt 110 degrees in the shade (if you can find any), and they've just lethal injected another poor miscreant. Pretty pitiful when all that looks much more appealing than my so-called life in Pittsburgh.

"¡Gritar! ¿Quién? o ¿Cuál? Da igual, te juro da igual."