Soledad en masa

When my mariachi started performing mariachi masses in 2005, we didn’t have much experience, to say the least. We learned all the mariachi mass songs from Jose, our guitarron player’s father. He studied music at a conservatory in Sinaloa and plays the mass music at Huntington Park’s Saint Matthias Church; sometimes, his son goes in and plays for him.

As he was teaching us the songs, he mentioned Flor y canto, which is a popular book of Spanish hymnals used in most churches in the United States and Latin America. It’s regarded as one of the definitive collections of songs to be played in mass; it’s an invaluable resource at any Spanish-language Catholic mass. It has the songs in order of how they should be played at mass and even has specific masses ordered with songs (such as quinceañeras, weddings, etc.).

At one of our recent performances, I saw a stack of Flor y canto books with no one even pretending to hide them. I considered taking one home, but rather than take such a large book home under my mariachi jacket, I decided to look inside it for a website. Lo and behold, it did have a website, and when I checked it today, I found that Flor y canto is available for only five bucks. I think I’m going to order it for my own use. I really hope to learn the songs in the book.

Here’s a video of one of the songs in the book. It’s called “Pescador de hombres” and it is played as church goers line up to receive the host. It’s a very catchy tune and can get stuck in my head for days on end:

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The book cover for the Second Edition of Flor y canto is taken from the OCP website.

After finishing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World on Tuesday, I haven’t read much since and have been looking for something to read. I have a lot of books that I have not read, but I just can’t make up my mind. Should I read Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Nella Larsen’s Passing, or Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye? Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men?

Occupied America or The Plum Plum Pickers? Things Fall Apart or 1984? Rules for Radicals or Pedagogy of the Oppressed? Can’t Stop Won’t Stop or City of Quartz? The Jungle or On the Road? For Whom the Bell Tolls or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? El laberinto de la soledad or La muerte de Artemio Cruz?

I think I might end up reading those two handbooks Harvard mailed me and explain how I choose courses.

Let’s get this out in the open: I’ve always been interested by the drug trade in the Americas. When I was younger, I would watch the news, more interested in the drug trade deaths than in sports. To me, the way the different drug cartels ruthlessly sought power and influence over the U.S.-Mexico border was more exciting than some election. I watched the narcomovies, movies that deal with the drug trade explicitly, and listened (still do) to narcocorridos. Growing up in Los Ángeles, there was no way to not listen to Chalino Sánchez or Saúl Viera on the radio.

With that said, there is one narcocorrido that has stuck in my head and that is “El gato Félix” by Los Tigres Del Norte, from their album Corridos Prohibidos. This corrido tells the story of Héctor Félix Miranda, a journalist in Tijuana who specialized in covering the drug trade and was assassinated in 1988 for aggressively covering the drug trade. When I first heard this corrido (I was about seven or eight), I asked my dad about Héctor Félix Miranda and all he could tell me him was “Fue periodista en Tijuana y lo mataron antes que nacieras”. (“He was a journalist in Tijuana and was killed before you were born.”)

As the years went by, I made some research into El Gato Félix until I found out which newspaper he worked for (the weekly Zeta) and who was the editor of ZETA and Felix Miranda’s friend, Jesús Blancornelas, who died in November of last year. In the summer of 2006, when I was looking around at the nearest bookstore, I found a copy of his book El cártel and I immediately bought it. I never got around to reading it until June of this year, when I found myself with a lot of free time.

El cártel focuses on the saga of the Arellano-Félix in Tijuana through the eyes of Jesús Blancornelas. When reading it, one has to realize that this is not written by some scholar or outside observer; rather, it’s written by an insider who saw all this himself, lost friends to and fellow journalists to hte drug trade and even suffered an assassination attempt in 1997, in which his bodyguard was killed and Blancornelas was injured. It’s a fascinating read; at over 300 pages, it’s not terribly long and does not focus exclusively on the Arellano-Félix, but the drug trade in connection with the Arellano-Félix. It’s one of the best books I have read this year and I suggest everyone to read this book.

As for me, it was Félix Miranda’s and Blancornelas’ tireless work against drug trafficking that got me interested in journalism and a future as a journalist.

Finally, I leave you with this video of José Alfredo Jiménez singing one of his many famous songs, “Un mundo raro.”

It’s another Saturday night where I am home, resting from another mariachi performance. I’ve been doing this very same routine for the past four years since Mariachi Espuela de Plata started in May 2003.

We started as twelve members; five violin players (Juan, Angie A., Angie P., Vanessa, and Gladys), three trumpet players (JJ, Eddie, and Cuauhtemoc [Temo]), a guitarrón player (Edgar), two vihuela players (Thomas and Cristina) and a guitar player (me). A lot has changed since then; our musical and performance skills have grown exponentially, and we’ve matured from a bunch of pubescent, immature fourteen- and thirteen-year-olds into a collection of intelligent, mature high school graduates (except for our current guitarrón player).

We went from twelve to eight members; Vanessa was the first person to leave because she moved to Palmdale in August 2004. Temo left our mariachi sometime in late 2004/early 2005 because he wanted to pursue a career as a banda/norteño singer; so far, it’s gone good for him. He completed high school and his career has grown a bit; he recorded a CD and has performed a few times throughout the area. We kicked out Edgar, our former guitarrón player, at my house in February 2005 because he had plans to leave our mariachi and we felt it was better if we replaced him as soon as possible as with whom we wanted.

Angie P. was kicked out in April 2005 because she was a horrible violin player who had not improved one bit since the beginning of the mariachi two years. It was very hard to kick her out because not enough people could make up their mind on kicking her out; Eddie, JJ and I were set on kicking her out, while Gladys, Cristina, and Thomas were set on keeping her. The final two votes came down to Juan and Angie A. (her best friend at that time), both violin players. After some debate, Juan finally voted to kick her out, leaving the deciding vote on Angie A.’s lap. After about another hour of debate and asking her to make up her mind, Angie A. made up her mind and decided to kick Angie P. out. Angie P. stormed out of Angie A.’s house and ended her friendship with Angie A. To this day, I don’t think they speak to each other. In retaliation for Angie P.’s firing, Gladys left our mariachi that day.

That day, our mariachi went to seven members. No guitarrón player and without Gladys’ strong singing voice. I hated our mariachi then because we sounded weak without her voice and a guitarrón player. José, our current guitarrón player, joined our mariachi at the beginning of May 2005 and quickly adapted to our style. We were eight strong, but I felt our sound was incomplete without Gladys’ voice. Thankfully, Gladys rejoined our mariachi last year and completed our sound. Cristina was kicked out in October 2006 because she put her job over mariachi; she was no longer reliable and had to go.

Today, we were eight strong at the marriage mass and reception. It was our last performance as eight members. People are leaving to college and others are going to get jobs and settle down. In my opinion, Mariachi Espuela de Plata will no longer be what it once was. Though we are a good mariachi, a pretty good one and have some more performances throughout this month, we are pretty much done.

I’m sad, to say the least. I will really miss my fellow mariachi members, especially JJ, José, Gladys, Juan and Thomas. I always got along with them more and they really are my closest friends. I love each and every one of them and I want to keep in touch with them. I know it’s going to be hard, but I know that mariachi music will always join us together.

When I look back on high school, my mind will think back on mariachi; it was my main extracurricular activity, hobby and source of happiness. Mariachi kept me grounded and happy; while others went out to the cinema or amusement parks, I had mariachi performances. It was some of the most exciting times I spent in all of high school.

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The title of this blog entry comes from Cuco Sánchez’ song “La cama de piedra“.

First off, I’d like to welcome all those who are reading this blog and thank those who followed me here from Blogger. Posts are not on a regular basis, but stick through and you won’t be disappointed.

Sincerely,

Diego R.