MUSIC and DANCE INSTEAD OF PILLS

September 15, 2013September 15, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS – CUBAN STYLE

SOMETIMES AN INTERVIEW WITH A MUSICIAN GOES DEEPER than a narrative history of recordings, concert calendar and early training. That happened when I met Jorge Gomez; founder, keyboardist and musical director of Tiempo Libre, an all Cuban born Timba band.

We met in a modest hotel room in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he and his six band members were invited to play for the second time at the Lensic Theater. It was steam-bath hot and muggy that Friday afternoon. As I stood in the doorway, Jorge wrapped up a recording session. After introductions’ everyone cleared out except Jorge and Raul Rodriguez, the trumpet player. Raul, propped up against the headboard of an unmade bed, one leg bent at the knee, the other straight out. He reminded me of Miles; cool in his skin and unflappable.

Jorge and I sat at the kitchenette bar, between us his keyboard on the countertop. Eagerness to begin was dilating from his eyes, so I began with my favorite question to all immigrants; how did it feel when you landed in the United States?

“Oh my God! It was my dream; all through childhood in Havana.”

“Do you love America now?”

His arms shot straight up, as he rose from his chair.

“Are you kidding? We love America! How can you not? This is the best country in the world. I’ve been all over: Europe, Asia, Mexico, and Caribbean. You have all the opportunities; you make your own life here, whatever you want.” He shifts his attention to Raul, agreeably excluded.

“You can’t do this in Cuba—right Raul?” Jorge leans forward and I’m struck by the indisputable untainted smile. Jorge continues to dramatize his arrival in Manhattan, with arms and eyes, “I got out because I had friends in New York. They helped me get gigs in the bars, weddings, and then we got into the clubs.” The room is silent except for Jorge’s satin smooth transitions from one question to the next. That alone is reason enough to meet Jorge for conversation.

“We were not allowed to listen to Cuban salsa music, or American music; only classical. I trained at the Conservatory all my childhood. I play all of them; Beethoven, Brahms, all of them.”

“Where did you learn Salsa?”

“From America! Yes. As teenagers we climb to the roof and we to wait till state programmed Cuban music goes off the air at 1:00am. Then we wrap aluminum around the antenna and turn our radio on. We pick up American music; like Gloria Esteban, Michael Jackson, everyone. We listened all night so we’d take the rhythms’ in our heads you know.”

“What’s the difference between Cuban Salsa and Latin Salsa?”

“Everyone claims this is their Salsa; it’s Latin, Marenge, Colombian… it is a blend of many cultures and musical influence. We take from each other. All the instruments I learn come from listening. They teach me everything; and I teach them.”

“Do Americans play Conga different than Cubans?”

“It depends on the person. See if the person is open to learn everything then he push through. For example we have been playing all these places like Michigan, Minnesota, Minneapolis…all those places that are so.” He pauses to express it precisely. Cold he says, laughing out loud.

“And I’ve seen American band playing Cuban salsa so so good, my God, so well. Blue eyes and blond hair.” Jorge breaks to howl out his enthusiasm and surprise, and demonstrate the memory.

“Who do you like to listen to do today?”

“I don’t know the names, but I have a lot of friends, and they call me and say, ‘I have a band, you come and hear me.’ So I go to the club and Wow! This is good music! Everyone is dancing. I love to see them dancing! I want to see them happy. If they want to sit and listen, good, if they want to sing along, good, they want to dance good. Everybody have a different reaction. My job is to transfer the energy to the person; that’s the idea. Not to play the music for me; I want them to be happy.”

“ How do you do that?”

“ Sometimes you are sick, and no matter how many pills you take you are still sick. Right?”

I nod and watch his facial expressions twitch in thought.

“Then let’s say I come and say, Wow! You look so good man, you are looking good, and he claps’ his hands and pantomimes the joy he’s transferring. ‘You wanna a coffee cake and coffee, yea, come with me, (clapping again) you want to sit here? Yea sit here and see the sun.’ Suddenly, you feel good.” He nods his head. “Trust me.”

Jorge is toe tapping in place, his arms positioned in a warm world embrace.

“You forget all about the pills. Trust me, that is the kind of energy I give.”

“I suppose you don’t get sick?”

“Never. For sure. Never. I don’t know what this head pain is… how you say, headache? Like friends say I have so many problems, so many headaches, I can’t go out. I say, ‘What! Come on we go the beach, to the sand. Bring your conga. What are you crazy! Come on!’ So he comes and we play on the beach in Miami.”

Jorge drums on the counter top. “Have a beer, have another.’ And everyone on the beach comes to us. The whole idea is to forget your problems. So my friend says to me, ‘I had the best day of my life.’ Yea! Be happy! This is youth; this is how you stay young. Life is so big.”

I shake my head, “Not in America; we concentrate on sickness and misery.”

“Yea! You don’t have sickness yet, but you are going to get it.” He ruptures into laughter, and takes a sip of beer. My father tell me one time you have to hear your body; your body going to take you in the right direction. Just listen and you are going to feel so good. Sometimes I can’t go to sleep at night. All the songs and ideas in my head and I can’t sleep. I must write it down, and the next morning I feel so good, because I didn’t go to sleep. I drink beer because I am too happy-over happy.”

“Where did you learn this happiness?”

“From all the difficult paths I have in my life. Childhood was very difficult;no food, no water, no electricity, no plumbing. What you going to do? Party, go outside, dance, play basketball, baseball. I get my friends and they say, my problems’ are bigger than yours. Bla bla bla.”

I’m laughing now as Jorge continues to articulate his life philosophy.

“ At the end of the day you are so happy because you see people less fortunate and some more, and you are in the middle, and you want to help those people, you can’t go it alone.”

He chuckles again. His smile is broad as his cheek line. A streak of sunlight crossed the keyboard, and Jorge’s eye and brows are in motion, as much as his legs arms and hands.

“ What you’re going to hear tonight is a lot of crazy crazy energy, good music, a lot of stories. You’re going to see a lot of soul. When Raul plays his trumpet you’re going to turn inside out.”

“What is Timba music?”

“A mixture of jazz, classical, rock, and Cuban music.”

“Sounds like a musical.”

“Yes, Yes! We are in preparing for that.”

Four hours later I was in the Lensic Theater, twelve rows from the stage. Lead singer Xavier Mill, Jorge, Raul, Louis Betran Castillo on flute and sax, Wilvi Rodriguez Guerra on bass, Israel Morales Figueroa on drums and Leandro Gonzales on Congas opened the set, and five minutes into it I was below the stage. Two and half hours later I was still dancing, along with half the audience. That’s entertainment! http://www.tiempolibremusic.com

The three-time Grammy nominated band will perform Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at a Special Event at the Arts Garage in support of AVDA, Inc. Arts Garage in Delray Beach, Florida.

REVISION IS THE RIGHT WAY

July 30, 2013April 4, 2026 ~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

There are more reasons to quit than not to quit: rejection, isolation, uncertainty, bills! The one reason that hovers above all else, is that every thing we do in life needs revision. We are never through evolving into more thoughtful, loving, or wise human beings. Everyday, there is an opportunity to leap into a great attitude. It is the same with manuscripts; they do get better!

LONERS

May 5, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

I’m better as a writer than I am a person. Though my syntax is follies;

with backward sentences and too many metaphors. The writing isn’t usually

selfish or timid. In a crowd I need applause before I feel accepted. One on one

my behavior swings from suspicion to doubt and it takes more than a few pages

to break the boundary. I don’t why I thought it would be different now; I’ve always been a loner.

Now I’m listening to the cry but I ain’t crying!

THE LEGEND LADY OF PALACE AVE

Featured ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

The throw of the dice this week lands on adventures in livingness; one day at a time. People with terminal illness, suffering from a shattered romance, a death of a friend, a natural disaster, always say the same thing; One day at a time.

Walking up Palace Avenue on a day spread with sunlight, and a continuum of power walkers, bikers and runners, passing by in whiffs of urgency, I took my time. I didn’t feel like flexing, just evaporating into the shadows, and the moving clouds. I walked by a little adobe, that once was a dump site for empty bottles, cartons, worn out furniture, and piles of wood. A year later, the yard is almost condominium clean. Just as I was passing the driveway, the little woman whom I’d seen walking up Palace with her bag of groceries, appeared like a gust of history in the driveway of her adobe casita. She wore her heavy blanket like coat and a bandanna on her head. Regardless of weather, she’s bundled up in the same woven Indian coat and long wool skirt. I stood next to her, a foot or so taller, and she unraveled history, without my prompting. She told me about the Martinez family, the Montoyas, and the Abeytas, all families she knew, all with streets named after them. Estelle asked me my name, and then took my hand in her weathered unyielding grip, ‘Oh I had an Aunt named Lucero, and we called her LouLou.’ She didn’t let go of my hand, and then she told me that the families, some names I’ve forgotten, bought homes on Palace in 1988 for $50,000, She shook her finger to demonstrate her point. ‘You know how many houses the Garcias bought? Five! Then they fixed them up and sold them.’

I could have stood there in the gravel driveway listening to Estelle all afternoon. She owns the oral history I love to record; but it is difficult to understand her, she talks with the speed of a southwest wind. We parted and I thought about the times in my life when the smallest of interactions elevates my spirit. In older people, who are not addicted to gadgets and distant intimacy, I’m reminded of how speed socializing has diminished the opportunity for a sidewalk chat.

MY FRIENDS ARE HOME

January 7, 2013 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

My friends are beside me once again. It’s been five years since their faces like postcards of my life, are in my room, lifted out of the box. I can almost see their wisdom, and lessons floating above the birdcage hanging from the ceiling. I had forgotten how much I depend on them, a collapse of friendship because my room wasn’t really mine, I shared it with guests, and then New Year, rang out like a jazz quartet of answers to puzzling life questions. I am not sharing my bedroom anymore. And I am not looking for a job. And I am not going to stop wearing tightjeans, and high heeled boots.

Hello Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Carson McCuller, Nelson Algren, John Gardner, Damon…my books are home.

SACRIFICE

November 8, 2012June 20, 2014 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

Locked up in the imaginary world of writing. It’s not always so accessible, so effortless, and when it is lock yourself in and give it your life.
The fall drapery from the window teases me with specks of sunlight, and leaves dropping like snowflakes. My spirit is drawn outdoors.
to walk, hike, run in its splendor. Sacrifice is how we finish our plays, canvas, book, song, and poem.

Movie recommendations:Bread & Tuplips, Angel Face, Head in the Clouds,Late Marriage, Water for Elephant’s, Sarah’s Key,Pierrot Le Fou, No Where in Africa, The Lives of Others, Gangster, A Love Story, The Counterfeiters, Senso, Croupier, El Grido, The Wide Blue Road, Deja Vu, The Whistle Blower, The Young Adult, John Rabe.

April 24, 2012April 29, 2012 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

The Movie Star (Photo credit: Cowgirl111)

Our nest, is something we build on our own to give us permission to explore, and then question, and we go back to our little nest, and add a bit more certainty because the dinner was great, and the party lasted longer than we thought, and someone smiled at you in a special way, and then you saw a rainbow.

Some things happened last week; that liquefied into a mirage, of an opinion I inhabited. I directed this opinion with outdated information, and second hand narratives by writers in print. I believed what I’d always believed; that actors aren’t like you and me. I was wrong! Some actors are like you and me. They have open hearts, and inquisitive minds, they drink beer, and dress without designer labels, they like to hang out, and not talk about the movie business, they have interests beyond their Imdb star rating, and they answer questions, if you ask them. Unless we infiltrate what we criticize, we’re adding to the hypocrisy of the human condition.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

December 29, 2011December 29, 2011 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

SMILEY’S DICE Adventures in Livingness

Adventures in beginnings, starting over, and rewriting a story you’ve lived many years is the same as re-writing a story. It takes the same blind courage.

About half between forty and fifty years old, you hear people say, “It’s too late to start over,” It’s not true. I hope it never feels like that when I wake up. Just thinking about it makes me run in circles. Behavioral change is essential to living a full life. In the middle of the night I woke up as if it was morning. When I looked out the window, the moon was white as a laundered tablecloth, staring back at me. It said get up and write.

I retreated to my corner of the world, a tiny room bathed a blush pink and gold, and wrote from beneath the goose down comforter. The moon watched. Now that the lights and decorations are placed in the cartons, the wrapping and ribbon tossed away, a landfill of disturbing, distressing, and terrifying global news is dumped on us. I do not understand the external world of political and international power, wealth, and motivation.

I fled that world a long time ago when I learned that men who controlled the paths of others were dangerously self-serving. I recall my father sitting on that green velvet sofa, holding the remote in one hand and watching a news program. He turned it off and said to me, “Luellen, everything that goes on is fixed; you cannot hide your head in the sand and think otherwise.” I nodded my head in understanding, while internally I thought my father was suffering from his usual psychosis. Eventually I crossed over, and forfeited my interest in politics. The forces of evil have shattered that glass of indemnity.

This year is not about vapid resolutions catering to our comfort, it is about survival. It’s about transforming behavior and habits, excesses and denial. Doing it in a group, makes us feel less traumatized. Imagine, all the thousands of people paddling the same current; forcing back the mortgage lender, relinquishing precious possessions, driving a car with a shattered windshield, wearing coats without any down feathers left, and wondering when the pink slip will arrive. Alienation and neurosis are at the root of people’s aggression and discontent. It can lead to unexpected violence, and then to massacre and war. It is a collection neurosis that grows worse every year.

The inner world, where each of us faces a truth no one else knows, is ruptured. All I can think of is bringing a little bit of light to someone you know is in darkness.

THE HURT LOCKER

September 3, 2009December 8, 2011 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

For all of us that claim we honor support and appreciate the troops, take a look at what your supporting. For someone like me, who has never experienced combat, and known very few who did, I bow my head. This film is a book, a documentary, a closeup photograph and everything that it takes to get the point across.

Katherine Bigalow is right-on.

The

THE JAMMERS KICK

July 22, 2009December 8, 2011 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

In the fall of 1993, I was working for a king-sized jerk in his commercial real estate office. Dirksen used every opportunity to remind me that I was not as successful as he was.

I was the only female in an office of twelve better suited men. My Chanel 5 was used sparingly and I dressed in navy-blue two piece suits and low-heeled pumps. With a leather briefcase slung over my shoulder, and a HP calculator that I refused to master, I was a shrimp swimming with the sharks. On hot blue sky days I drove around San Diego searching for new listings, meeting prospects, and showing space. One eye was always drifting; scanning the horizon, museums, artists hang-outs.

I tossed out the two-piece suits, and turned off the world outside. In the next weeks my attention was drawn to music and dance. During the hottest of summer days I was seated cross legged on the worn carpeting of my little bungalow, watching MTV and flipping through magazines.

TO BE CONTINUED