Smokler

Ah, pinche Los Angeles.

I have been looking at the beautiful mountains and languid boulevards of LA ever since re-reading Tiny Ladies. The title made me think of another tiny lady in shiny pants, quite unlike those mentioned in the book: Jenny Rivera, the so called Reina de Los Angeles, the Queen of LA. I first heard about her from the show ‘Cucuy de la Manana’, a Spanish morning program that almost everybody on the other side of town listened to, until a guy name Piolin came in and split the radio market). Jenny has a voice that is something like a Spanish Ethel Merman. It’s brassy, bold, and every bit deserving of the title “Reina”. Her voice is laid over corridas, those Mexican western songs lilting out of every kitchen in every restaurant in LA. But her music is also cross bred with everything else you hear on the radio in LA, hip hop, regeatton and even Indy rock.

You see, until you could play iPods in cars recently (and in some, like mine, you still can’t), you had two choices: either find something to listen to in your car as you drove, or spend all you’re anytime minutes and call everybody you knew. After running out of things to talk about with the people in my phone book, I started listen to explore the radio. Everyone who moves out here goes through a phase of trying books on tape, or some other do-gooder audio. I listened to a 15 part lecture on Mark Twain, which I lost, had to pay back to the Beverly Hills Public Library. Beth listened to My Life, the autobiography of Bill Clinton read by none other than, Bill Clinton.

I still listen to Rabbi tapes, and other Jewish lectures. But on the whole I make mix tapes, go hot and cold on the too-cool program ‘morning becomes eclectic’ and try to make sense of the indy station 88.9. When I’m going from one to the other, the radio spits out some corrida from some Mexican station.

The interesting thing about corridas, and Ranchera music in general, is that the instruments for it, and all the sounds are actually from the French occupation of Mexico. That’s why there are Mexican guys playing accordions and the tuba instead of a Spanish guitar. But who is to say how another people comes up with their national symbols?

I personally can’t stand the music most days. It’s saccharin tunes about leaving and coming back, leaving again and then being upset you came back in the first play. But occasionally, like today, when I drove down Eagle Rock Blvd, just past downtown, on a clear day, in the bright sun, in my crumby little Honda, as the only white guy for miles, I felt like I could use a little corrida. I sang along and bobbed my head to the Tuba, and smiled thinking there was a Queen of LA and nobody on my side of town new it.

Here were some tunes I was listening to:

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 7:20 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.