#550

I faced a ghost of my past earlier this week. It forced me to confront parts of me that I thought I had successfully buried. Turns out that wasn’t true. There are many parts of my past that I don’t like talking about because of the emotions they bring out. All the sweet nothings, messages about school and fights are no longer there for me to read at my slightest whim.

Lo dudo que hablemos otra vez.

Writing nothing

Since I began writing online, I’ve had a number of offers by websites for me to write for them. Among them were a website that focused on Mexican music and a college admissions consulting website. I never expected to get these offers, but now I understand that they’re a part of writing online. Nothing came out of the offers I received. The Mexican music website has been “Under construction” ever since I responded to their email and never received a response. It was up and running when I received their email.

I’ve worried about accepting any of these offers. They were unpaid and I wanted to receive some payment for my writing. I fear what can become of my writing once it’s online and I have to deal with repercussions or have it reproduced and distorted by anyone. I want more control over whatever I write. Hmph. I’m in a pickle.

The final concern I’ve had was with others making money off my writing. There were two offers that I rejected for this reason. They were in areas, mostly college admissions, where I feel I have a lot of knowledge and I can make money from that knowledge and I have to protect it to make sure that my services are not cheapened by my advice being out there for anyone to find or someone else to use because I write for their website. I’ve always kicked around the idea of starting a college admissions consulting service, especially in the Gateway Cities of Los Angeles. That’s as much as I can write about that idea.

I know that if I somehow want to make writing a supplemental part of my income, I have to accept whatever I’m offered and blah blah blah… I want to create some sort of professional reputation before I start accepting offers to write at websites. I don’t entirely mind writing at other websites, seeing as how I write over at L.A. Eastside.com.

#541

Someday, I’ll make it a habit it to write here. Until then, this comic will describe me perfectly.

XKCD.

Bad education

When I started writing here, I did not expect this site to become my outlet for what I eventually realized is the subject I can go on and on writing and talking about: music. When I finished high school and began college, I held more of an interest in politics & history, with minor interests in ethnomusicology and urban planning/history. After a month at Harvard, I knew that I would never be deeply interested in politics and history. Those were not subjects that I wanted to dedicate four years and countless energy studying. After that, I became lost. What would I spend four years studying that would make me happy and interest me enough to justify staying up late and writing papers?

As my college experience devolved and my dislike of Harvard intensified, I looked into studying urban planning/history and/or ethnomusicology at Harvard College. I couldn’t find conclusive information online or from pamphlets and Harvard professors & advisers were of almost no help. I knew what I wanted to study; I just couldn’t find the program (or programs) that allowed me to focus on those topics. I declared Sociology as my concentration, but I really had no idea why the hell I chose it. I should have hounded the Music Department or some other department about how their department could accommodate me. I stupidly chose Sociology without probing much how they could accommodate me.

I wasted a year-and-a-half of my education lost and without finding how I would be able to study what I was really interested.

Blogging (I despise this term, but there’s no better way to describe it) helped me discover that my real interest was in music, Mexican music, to be exact. I always doubted that it was my real interest because I have little formal education in music. Almost all of my knowledge comes from playing in mariachis and listening to Mexican music. Urban history is interesting and I like it, but I’m really interested in it in a case-to-case basis and how it intersects with music in L.A. I want to expand and continue with research on the spread of Mexican music in Los Angeles and other urban areas of the United States. All my writing on music has benefited me in other areas, but that’s for the next post.

I apologize for the cussing. It’s not something that’s part of my daily writing. I want to be frank with you, dear reader, and deleting the cussing would be a disservice to how I feel and think about subjects.

Again!

I went months without writing, and here I am restarting this thing. How many times have I said I am taking time off or dropped off the face of Blogtitlán or your RSS reader and then reappeared with a random post, only to disappear again? It’s been really hard for me to write here. I make excuses for myself as to why I am not writing: I don’t want to give up a lot of my privacy, I have other things to do, it’s not something that I am getting paid for and as such, I am not interested. What a fucking joke.

I started this thing because I had a habit of keeping some sort of online journal where I could write whatever I wanted and hope that people responded to what I wrote. I found people who would read this site and might comment every so often. It’s fine, good. I don’t know what this site’s role has become since I started college. At times I used it to document what was happening with me and to let people know about it. That’s too much of an invasion of privacy. My teenage years with an online presence in social networking sites taught me many things, chief among them to not put my life on display for anyone. I didn’t want some stranger in high school to come up to me and tell me “I enjoyed what you wrote about your mariachi gig in Downey this weekend.” Who the fuck are you and why are you telling me this to my face? Once I started college, I saw how many pictures were posted on Sundays or Mondays detailing the weekend’s indiscretions. “Ooh, this will come back to haunt me when I run for office!” I once heard someone say about the pictures. Didn’t help that you were drunk, huh?

Now, what is soledadenmasa’s role? What do I want this site to do for me so I enjoy writing and restart with weekly or daily posts? Should I just shut down the site and quit L.A. Eastside while I’m at it? But what if I get the urge to start posting again? I ask myself these questions each time that I have been on hiatus for a while and have contemplated returning. I am unsure of how I want to answer them. I hope to maintain this site and contribute more regularly at L.A. Eastside because I really want to keep writing. Yes, I’m not getting paid. Maybe I should add a PayPal Donate button to my site, or can I only do that if I am a starving writer/artist who is trying to write a book in a foreign land but have run out of money because I spent my advance on booze and expensive lodging?

I really hope that you, dear reader, visit often or subscribe to my RSS feed so you can read my rants. Writing online has led to offers I didn’t expect. I’ll detail those more in other posts. See you soon, I hope.

#531

I feel as if I’ve spent the past months staring at nothing, hoping something emerges and changes everything. How I’ve been wrong. I’ve been in this position for such a long time that anything else seems alien. Nothing feels natural.

Bone-shaking volume

Photo: Eric Grigorian for The New York Times

This past weekend, the N.Y. Times‘ Travel section revisited Los Angeles, focusing on narcocorridos and venues that play an important part in its spread throughout Los Angeles. It went better this time than the last time they visited L.A.

Narcocorridos, and by extension, any form of Mexican music that is born and nourished in Los Angeles, are not covered much in the United States. Almost every time narcocorridos are mentioned in media, it’s tied with the current Mexican Drug war fiasco and spoken about negatively. I once sat in on a discussion with a well-known Mexican journalist at a university and she all but blamed the whole situation in Mexico & the Americas on narcocorridos. The whole time I sat there, I shook my head, unable to comprehend how someone could explicitly blame corridos for the “drug war” in México.

Coverage of narcocorridos in the U.S. is much different than in México. The United States is much less subjective than México in its coverage of narcocorridos. Mexican journalists have bought the Mexican government’s argument that narcocorridos are to blame for the drug trade and must be banned from radio play. American journalists have gone further into narcocorridos, documenting its rise and popularity among Mexicans in the United States and the constant airplay in radio. It’s a musical form that allows the children of Mexican immigrants to become immensely popular, though the singing is sometimes sub-par.

Mestizo

I have been away from the internet since yesterday. Instead of writing a post two days before Friday, I’ve decided to just post Joe Bataan’s “Mestizo” for your pleasure. It’s Friday, enjoy it a little bit more. There are some who can’t enjoy the day, no matter how bright the sun shines.

La negra

Yesterday, I read an article in the San Antonio Express-News that the Today show asked Mariachi Campanas de America not to play the mariachi’s anthem, “El són de la negra.” Here’s a bit from the article:

That popular folk song, whose title translates to “The Song of the Black Woman,” was the renowned mariachis’ first choice for their performance Wednesday on the “Today” show. But the show’s producers asked Campanas de America not to sing it when “Today” broadcasts from the Arneson River Theater next week.

“It’s the mariachi national anthem,” said Belle Ortiz, manager of Campanas de America. “We always play ‘El Son de La Negra.’ Everybody plays it.”

The reason for rejecting it? “Because they didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings because of the name of the song,” Ortiz said.

A show spokeswoman said this was not a case of political correctness.

“The song ‘El Son de La Negra’ was by no means deemed too controversial for ‘Today,’” publicist Megan Kopf said via e-mail.

“We always consider several song choices for our musical performance segments on the ‘Today’ show. For this particular segment, we decided to go with a song selection that is both appropriate for our wide-ranging ‘Today’ show audience and that also keeps with mariachi tradition.”

This is clearly the Today show worrying too much about offending a group of people over a song that is not offensive at all. I don’t but the Today’s show explanation at all. If I were put in the position Campanas was put in, I would rather lose the work than not be allowed to play this song. “La negra” is an essential part of the mariachi repertoire and is universally recognized. It is synonymous with mariachis and México.

Another aspect of this situation is the actual meaning of “La negra.” The most commonly accepted meaning is that the song is about a woman, “La negra”, the black one. This analysis hinges on the lyrics “Negrita de mis pesares/ojos de papel volando” (“Black one of my sorrows/eyes of paper flying). Those verses don’t make any sense. The proper lyrics (which fell out of fashion, for some reason) are “Negrita de mis pesares/hojas de papel volando” (Black one of my sorrows/Sheets of paper flying).

A few weeks back, this very topic was discussed over at El Mariachi.com. There is no definite interpretation of “La negra” because the song is from the mid-to-late 1800s. The meaning that I prefer is that “la negra” refers to a train. The beginning of the song is that of a train picking up steam and the train is “la negrita de mis pesares,” which brings sorrow to the author because his love has not come on the train. As the train passes, the wind picks up sheets of paper.

Other parts of the songs don’t fit well into this intepretation, but that is probably because of the time that has passed since the song was first written. Everyone interprets the song differently, but interpreting the song as inappropriate because its “kind of saucy” is insincere, considering the airplay that other, more objectifying, songs receive from T.V. shows.

Strait es el rey

I have a lot of respect for musicians who record songs music from a different culture because of a genuine interest and love of the music. While sometimes the effort comes off as hokey, most of the time the final product is very well done and it’s an example of cross-cultural admiration. There are cases where this cross-cultural admiration is not done properly, goes to lawsuits, and the original composer is screwed over. “(I Did It) My Way” is translated from a French song and later was translated to the Spanish, maintaining its message and sounding great, whether it’s Chente with a mariachi or Sinatra with a band.

I can’t remember if the following is true or imagined, but years ago, I heard a Spanish-language version of “That’s Amore.” I think it was José Alfredo Jiménez with a mariachi. I’m still trying to find it, but I have not succeeded. I hope it’s not a figment of my imagination.

Earlier today, I came across a George Strait recording of José Alfredo’s “El Rey”. I love it. I am a fan of country music, especially recordings that don’t sound over-produced or glossy. I’m happy Strait arranged their version closely to the traditional arrangement. In an interview, Strait talks about his adoration for mariachi music:

I admire country music and its musicians because its true artists acknowledge the shared musical roots of the U.S.A. & México. It’s Anzaldúa’s cultural borderlands, the melding of different musical traditions. It’s not something that I have not seen a lot of in California’s musical history. I don’t understand why it was more prevalent in the Southwest and not in California. I have gone on for too long. There will be more on these topics at other times.