FIESTA!

Have you read books or watched movies in which Americans are looking to get away for a while to forget about their troubles, or are looking to simply go have a fantastic vacation? And where do they often go? Mexico! Where do thousands of college kids go for spring break? Mexico! Where do Flavor Flav and Brett Michaels take their final two reality show date contestants? Mexico! Why? Because Mexico is a great place to party. Mexicans love to party, and party they do, often all night long. There is a night club across the street from my apartment. (Luckily, my bedroom is in the back of the building.) It’s not uncommon for me to see young drunken twenty-somethings leaving there at 6:45 am on Friday as I am headed to work. In fact, Friday mornings are by far the best weekday for traffic since so many people are getting up late after partying on Thursday nights.

When you are in a cantina, bar or club, you’ll notice how quickly (at the drop of a sombrero?) Mexicans are ready to jump up and sing along at the top of their lungs with the music. It’s pretty cool. I never experienced, nor could imagine, playing at a bar with my band and having the entire bar singing enthusiastically along to a Radiohead, Rolling Stones, or Pink Floyd. One could argue that, Latin music, traditional and contemporary, lends itself to more sing-a-long situations, but I’ve seen them do it to all kinds of songs, slow, fast, old, new, Latin, gringo. I really believe it’s more about the culture of “fiesta” than the music itself.

Cantinas, practically on every corner of the DF are filled with happy revelers of all ages, though not usually the younger crowd. Still, it doesn’t matter; on any given Friday evening, they are packed, with old and young, rich and lower middle class. (I was going to say rich and “poor,” but they have a level of poor here that you would find difficult to comprehend. And these people are not in Cantinas on Friday nights, but rather, outside selling gum and cigarettes, washing windshields at the stoplight, helping park cars or begging.) Still, the point is, the atmosphere is rich with the sound of music and laughter, the smell of food and beer and the kinetic energy of a crowded dance floor. And it’s especially fun to watch the old people tearing up the rug. In Mexico, it is “party ‘till you drop… dead!”

I was flabbergasted last September when I attended a “Grito” in San Miguel Allende celebrating Mexican Independence from Spain. Unbridled joy. Patriotism. Elation. Revelry. Mayhem. You name it. I’ll admit there were a few moments I was concerned for our safety among the shifting and shouting crowds packed into the relatively small town plaza. It was particularly disconcerting when the gigantic fireworks carousels setup in several towers directly over the massive crowds below ignited. As they began their fiery spinning and whistling at the stroke of midnight, after the mayor’s reenactment of the original “grito” or “cry/shout” for independence, sparks reigned down and toxic (no doubt) smoke choked those nearby. The hordes, complete with both old ladies and infants, pushed and shoved to escape the dangers. Still, remarkably, the singing, shouting and flag waving continued without much interruption. I remember saying to Ale that if Mexicans put half as much energy and enthusiasm into their national problems as they do into their partying they’d be a first world nation within a week.

Christmas is another party season, which officially begins nine days before Christmas Eve. “Posada” literally means “inn” and refers to the shelter Joseph and Mary sought upon arriving in Jerusalem before the birth of Jesus. Traditionally, they include the reenactment of this search for shelter, along with songs, chants and prayers. The kids celebrate this holy occasion by beating the hell out of a piñata. Normally, different neighbors put on one of these parties on each of the nine days leading up to “Noche Buena” or Christmas Eve. However, the contemporary versions I attended here in the DF consisted mostly of eating and drinking lots of alcohol. I’m not proud to say that as much as I love to party, I just could not get to all the Posadas to which I was invited. I was simply worn out. The same sort of no-holds-barred attitude was present at New Year’s Eve last year when I watched the most amazing fireworks display I’d ever seen over Acapulco Bay from a five star restaurant up on the hill. Afterwards we went back to the condo to party until the sun came up. And get this—we then spent New Year’s day recuperating by the pool, in the sun. Nice.

As you can imagine, the Mexican partying spirit is much appreciated by me and my ASF coworkers. Our network of gringo compatriots, along with our Mexican amigos is often holding a party of some sort or another. I’ve been to many such celebrations over the past year, and thrown a few of my own. I’ve hosted several dinner parties and after hours parties here in my apartment. I’m also lucky enough to have a large rooftop patio on top of my apartment building. It would be a shame for me not to put it to use occasionally. So, last fall, my apartment/building mates and I put on a fiesta on the roof. We decorated, bought food and drinks, cranked up the grill, hired a Mariachi band and karaoke DJ, and let the good times roll. We had about 80 people up there in the crisp fall air and a good time was had by all. At least until the end of the night when a scuffle broke out between the DJ and his crew and some revelers who felt the DJ was being a little too friendly with their girlfriends. In the end we were able to resolve the situation without too much difficulty. I’d direct you to Flickr to view the photos of this fine night, but someone stole my camera! Again, probably form the DJ crew. Oh well…

This spring we decided to throw another fiesta grande up on the roof. This time the primary entertainment was a Beatles cover band called Beat Bang. I’d seen them at another rooftop party at a Posada and they were fantastic, so I knew I had to get them up on my roof at some point. They weren’t cheap—6000 pesos, or almost 600 dollars, but they are worth it. Once again, Ale and I, our roommate Scott and our neighbor James pitched in to cover the band, food and drinks. Since the rainy season had started and there was a chance of evening showers, we got some tarps and strung them up over half of the roof. My friend Will helped out during the day with the shopping and decorating and by 6 pm we were ready to go. At the time of the fall party, I had only been at the school a couple of months and still didn’t know a lot of people, so the turnout was moderate. This time, I’d gotten to know many more people, plus word of the fall party had circulated, so we expected even a greater turnout. We were right.

By the time the first set of Beatles tunes ended, the roof was well packed. The bar (our large ironing board, covered with marble slabs from an antique sideboard in the apartment, was jammed with tequila, rum, vodka, mezcal, you name it. Oh, and several bottles of Jack Daniels! (I’d had a rare moment of clarity when I included in the email invitation my proclivity for this spirit.) The garbage can filled with ice and beer was constantly being emptied and refilled. In between the first and second set of the Beat Bang band, my own ad hoc faculty group, randomly named “China’s Loyal Youth,” from a headline in the New York Times, played a couple of tunes we’d thrown together.

After the second Beat Bang set, we passed the hat for them to play a third set, and then the party shifted into another gear. At this point we were pushing 200 people up there partying, Mexican style. Many in attendance were from the local Hash Hound Harriers, the local chapter of a world-wide drinking and running club. (Yes—drinking and running, in that order—they proudly call themselves a “drinking club with a running problem.”) My roommate Scott and neighbor James are both members. The band finished the night with me, my friend Tim and others leading the crowd, by this time fully gathered around the band, concert style, in a 10 minute version of Hey Jude. It was site to behold and one of those moments that I really wished my friends and family from back home could have been here to see.

You may be wondering about how I we got away with live music on a roof with other apartments all around us. Where were the police telling us to turn down the music? That just doesn't happen here. The club I mentioned across the street plays loud music all night, Thursday-Saturday. A private school behind my building hosts occassional private parties that rock my bedroom with their dance music. In Mexico, it seems the idea of a right to peace and quiet is superceded by your god-given right to party!

It was in that spirit that I had hoped to use the band’s equipment to play dance music for an hour or two, but by the time they were done with the extra third set it was already after 2 am and they were looking to pack it up. So, when they pulled the plug and the Ipod music ended around 3, the throngs of partiers, WELL intoxicated at this point, began to make the semi-treacherous journey down the two story spiral staircase out of the building. Afterwards, I spent the evening chatting with the small pockets of stragglers, the last band left at around 5 am, and also worked on getting Scott off the roof and into bed. He was leaving on Monday to move back to England, so he’d taken this last fiesta in Mexico as an opportunity to get other-planetary hammered and annoy the guests in a variety of ways. At one point he was on all fours without a shirt on and rolling around on the dance floor. He also ingratiated himself to the crowd at by grabbing the microphone and screaming, punk-style, the lyrics to the Beatles songs (the lyrics he could remember in his drunken state of mind). I could only shake my head and laugh.

All next week at work people kept thanking me for putting together such a great night. I was glad to have been of service. The clean-up was a bitch the next day, for sure. And the entire affair had cost about 1,200 bucks, but it was well worth it. After all, this is Mexico, and it was time for a fiesta!

Related pictures of this blog can be located at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/miguelito2066/sets/72157605010614714/show/ I suggest you click the info icon in the middle of the first picture, which will bring up the witty photo captions.

Bob Dylan's Sombrero

I saw Bob Dylan from the third row the other night. It actually didn’t suck. In fact, it was a pretty good experience, overall.

As you may know, The American School Foundation is the one of the most expensive private schools in Mexico City. More than double many others. As such, our classrooms and hallways are filled with the who’s who of the rich and famous of Mexico City. The Katie Couric of Mexico, Adele Micha, her son was in my class last semester. I’ve been told that the two young children of the Mexican Michael Bolton, Luis Miguel, attend our elementary school. The Corona family sends their kids there; the Mexican negotiator of NAFTA, his son went there. These are just the few examples I can think of off the top of my head. The front of our school is crowded all day long with chauffeurs, nannies and body guards. For vacations, my students ski in Vail and hunt big game in Africa.

As such, many ASF students have access to advance issue concert tickets. Primo stuff. One such student is a recent graduate named Rennie who remains a friend of Tom, an English teacher whom with I work. Through that channel I was given the opportunity to see Bob Dylan, in the third row of the National Auditorium.

The back story: I am not a Dylan fan. In fact, it is probably more accurate to say I am hostile to him. As with Eric “God” Clapton, I find it extremely annoying that these two guys who are generally pretty good as musical artists go, in my opinion, receive such cult like adulation. And with Dylan, despite a few good tunes and some admittedly hip lyrics, he has made a lot of poorly produced albums rife with annoying unintelligible singing. I’ve tried to figure out what all the hype is about, but I just don’t get it. I’ve seen Dylan twice already. It wasn’t on purpose. I saw him once with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and another time with the Grateful Dead. Both shows were similar, interspersing Dylan’s sets between the other bands’, using the other band as a surrogate back-up group. Both times I found the Dylan sets droll interruptions to otherwise enjoyable concerts. Regardless, this ticket represented generous offer from my good friend Will, and a chance to see a internationally famous musician in a Mexico City venue I had yet to visit. So, I went. Did I mention the seats were in the third row?

After starting the evening with few drinks and a bite to eat at a local Cantina (literally a brightly lit bar/restaurant where food is usually free with a minimum of drinks) at which we watched a gaggle of middle aged women line dance away their Tuesday evening at an apparent birthday party, we took the bus (2 pesos or, less than 20 friggin’ cents) to the auditorium a few miles down the road. It’s a pretty impressive place, holding about 10,000 people. There are bigger venues in town, but not as nice and with lesser sound quality. After a quick stop at the Auditorium bar for a hit of Jack Daniels, we headed into the show and took our seats. (Third row!) Dylan and the band appeared, dressed in suits that looked like the outfits worn by the members of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in the in the movie Swingers, complete with hats. Dylan wore a particularly large rimmed cream colored number. The stage was lit in a sterile white light that changed only in intensity throughout. Dylan started off with a raucous version of Everybody Must Get Stoned that got the crowd, me included, into the show immediately. After a few more songs he shifted to the organ, where he stayed the remainder of the evening, save the encore.

One major difference between my previous experiences with Mr. Zimmerman and this night was the band. These guys were clean and tight, adding a level of sophistication to Dylan missing from much of his music with which I am familiar. The drummer, bassist and lead guitarist were first class. I spent much of my time focusing on them. If I had seen them in a bar I would be raving about them as this really cool jazzy, rockabilly band I’d stumbled upon. Strangely, they played not a bit to the crowd, simply standing (practically) still the entire time, transfixed on Dylan himself. In turn he acknowledged them not at all, singing in his own world with a closed eye look of grimaced constipation. That Dylan is not aging gracefully and of Jewish origin is no secret, but let me say that from 25 feet away, he truly looks like a crotchety Hassidic elder disguised as Bob Dylan. One weird thing I noticed, he looked like he was pulling his hair up the back of his head under his hat, sort of a reverse back to front comb over. Why one can only guess; it is not a good look.

The show was like a concert in Spanish for me. Not because it was in Mexico, but because I spent the evening listening to songs that were lyrically only 25% comprehensible to me. He wasn’t doing the straining moose call he does when trying to rock out too hard. A style he was never very good at, even before he turned sixty three. Instead he sang well within himself and the steady mid-tempo music, keeping the nasally moaning within a reasonable level and allowed the songs to breath and flow. Musically, it sounded very good. Admittedly, I didn’t know most of the songs, and I imagined them to be from recent albums I haven’t heard. But I found myself thinking more than once, “I suppose I wouldn’t mind listening to this at home.” The songs I have heard before, I recognized only faintly, because they had been so radically rearranged to fit this new smooth and fresh style. In fact, they were half-way through the closer, Blowin’ in the Wind, before I even realized what it was!

Other highlights from the show include seeing the famous Lucha Libra fighter, el Hijo del Santo. He sat in the front row, silver glitter mask and all, next to his hot wife. (Or was it his mistress?—after all, he was wearing a mask!) I could see Mr. Santo very clearly, as I was sitting only two seats over and two rows back; me being in the third row and all. All around me sat lots of rich old men and women, several of them nodding off at times. There were also fewer numbers of rich young kids, making use of their primo tickets and wondering, perhaps, what all the fuss was about. Directly behind me sat a young, rich and intoxicated man (who likely did not need to be at a job the next morning—if ever) who shouted out slurred cries for the song, The Hurricane, as well as other random calls such as, “Mr. Dylan, I love your sombrero!” (I too wanted to hear The Hurricane, my favorite Dylan song, and was teased several times at the sight of a violin on stage, only to leave unsatisfied at nights end.) My friend Tom, sitting a few seats away from me, found this spoiled brat more annoying than funny since he was seated directly in front of his verbal ejaculations. One final tid-bit, sitting on the end of his organ amp sat an Oscar statue, presumably the real deal from his Oscar winning song, Things Have Changed, from the movie Wonder Boys.

About an hour into the show, I went to the bathroom for a second time. While I was out there I saw my friend Steve, another co-worker who had traveled to the show with us, and his wife Sally. They were both big Dylan fans who were regrettably watching the show from the nosebleeds. Knowing the show would soon be over, I offered Sally my ticket. She was ecstatic of course, since it was a ticket for the third row. After a few minutes it dawned on me that I had not been asked to show my ticket the first time I returned to my seat. (It is Mexico, after all.) I told Steve to follow me and we managed to walk clear down to the fourteenth row or so before finding two empty seats. It was during this time that Dylan spoke the only words of the evening, simply identifying the band members. A few minutes later, Will came back and let Steve take his seat next to Sally for the last number, something they both appreciated. After they finished the song, the band lined up like they were taking a press photo and then walked off the stage. Finito. No encore. Nada mas.

Afterwards, we headed to a local Cuban bar near my house, Bodeguita del Medio, for a nightcap and reminisced with Tom, Will and Rennie, about the concert. I got home around midnight to Ale who asked, as I crawled into bed, “How was the show?” To which I replied, “It was actually pretty cool, the music was surprisingly good, and after all, I got to see Bob Dylan from the third row!”