So I recently went on a much-needed vacation to Cabo San Lucas with a motley assortment of friends. Cabo San Lucas was chosen because it was a friend's birthday, a friend whose father owns a bar, Happy Ending Cantina. 

To be completely forthcoming, Cabo San Lucas has never been high on my list of desired vacation destinations, placing somewhere between Gilbert, Arizona and Hutchinson, Kansas. Admittedly, my ignorance on the subject of Cabo San Lucas was vast... I only knew that Sammy "The Red Rocker" Hagar (Montrose, Van Hagar and now, Chickenfoot) owns a bar there... and that it's frequently referred to simply as "Cabo" by people who I'm guessing neither know what "cabo" means or that there are many other "Cabos."

However, despite my well of cynicism, reservations and the somewhat awkward circumstances, I can honestly say that I had a great vacation. My opinions of Cabo San Lucas might come off as sarcastic and snide but I honestly don't mean in any way to insult or discourage the tourist for whom Cabo San Lucas might be Heaven on Earth. I am merely not the typical "Caboholic." I've also little interest in visiting Acapulco, Cancún or taking a Disney cruise. On the other hand, if you, dear reader, are in the position -- or know anyone who can -- get me a free vacation to Mexico I'm very, very interested in visiting and blogging about Oaxaca, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Guadalajara, Mexico City or Monterrey. I'm pretty sure I'll love any of them. 

I love Western music. Not "Western music" as in "music rooted in European traditions," but rather the "Western" of "Country & Western." Cowboy Music. In many ways, Country and Western is an odd pairing. The two genres seem to be at complete odds. Sure, the performers evince a similar sartorial sensibility, but the subject matter of Western music is about hard-working buckeroos following honor and dogies out under the wide open sky.


Country, which I love too, is quite the opposite. Country celebrates the sedentary life - working and dying in the same small town, farm, or trailer court in which you were born -- and to hell with ethical codes of conduct; get drunk, cheat on your wife, and show up for your crappy job hungover.


Musically speaking, they're only distant cousins - no more closely related than Bluegrass and Jazz, House and Rap, Rock 'n' Roll and the Blues  -- but of those examples, only Country & Western get so invariably lumped together as a single genre that people usually omit the "Western" altogether.

STUMBLING ONTO A SCENE


Three years ago I went to a party in Echo Park at a friend's home near the New Hope Mission Methodist Church. I don't remember what my friends were playing but outside the downstairs neighbors were bumping some amazing dance music. It was a variety of Cumbia, which I've always loved since being exposed to Carmen Rivero y su Conjunto's Cumbia LP as a child. I don't just like traditional Cumbia either; from the creative, unsteady "Cumbia Sobria el Rio" by Celso Piña, Control Machete, and Blanquito Man to the straight up cheese of groups like Los Temerarios, I like it all… and the album covers make me happy too.




Anyway, the DJ kept playing tune after amazing tune and, whilst three generations of friends and family danced, I was transfixed by the music. It was fast and almost completely synthesized. I don't think I had Shazam on my phone but I'd bet all of it would've come up unrecognized anyway. I figured I'd just go into Amoeba the next day and hit up the helpful folks in the World section. I was pointed in the direction of some hip Chicha collections which, though interesting, were not at all what I was looking for.

Last Friday, April 1st, guerrilla street artist Ron English was down in Texas, where he spent the early afternoon posting his art on both sides of the US/Mexican border (McAllen, TX & Reynosa, Mexico) as part of his grand scale and very risky (even by his illegal art standards) April Fool's Day on the Border art project. Since the 1980's Ron English has been risking getting arrested (many times actually getting arrested and jailed) for sniping his large scale, anti-corporate & anti-estabishment faux-advertising street art on roadside billboards, bus stop ad spaces, & various other highly visible public spaces.

Ron claims he is the first street artist to ever do something like this on the wall separating the US/Mexico. The Popaganda artist risked not only getting arrested but also the wrath of the notoriously vigilant US border patrol & Homeland Security forces. And on top of all that, the veteran street artist literally risked his own life by entering the territory of trigger happy Mexican drug thugs.

"Very close to where we were at on the Mexican side doing the billboard [was where] all those people got shot. It was scary," said English, referring to the six latest casualties in Mexico's bloody drug war who got gunned down & killed just the day before he crossed the border for his April Fool's Day on the Border stunt.