Hollywood Babel On: Summer Winding Down? No, It’s Just Getting Hotter…

It is the best of times; it is the worst of times.  It is Rome before the Fall.  It is the last cabaret in Berlin.  The Emperor sips tea while the opposition join forces at the gate.  Still the violins play on while the Titanic sinks.  Nothing stops the music.  Nothing silences the singing.  Nothing can suppress the art that decorates our lives and simultaneously gives it meaning.  That’s the key to our survival.  That’s our tiny window in the upper corner of a stifling prison cell, a little patch of blue and a little ray of hope in the darkest and direst of situations.  In other words—and I quote—“loosen your butt screws” and dance a little.  The Fall will come later.  For now it’s still summer.

Hollywood Babel On: Diaspora Blues

Days like today are what you live for if you’re a fan of world music and/or a reluctant Angeleno, hoping to justify your existence, or at least the higher rents of LA, vis a vis the Golden Triangle (that’s northern Thailand I’m talking about, not the greater Beaumont area).  How often, on some random Thursday, do you get your choice of the Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars, Bombino, or the Garifuna Collective?  And this isn’t even the weekend ferchrissakes!  And they’re all for free, unless you count parking fees.  That may apply most seriously to the Sierra Leone guys, who’re playing out at the Skirball, difficult of access by public trans.  Only problem there is the security check, reminiscent of the El Al counter in Munich.  Better eat those brownies first, just to be safe.  If you don’t know, they’re war refugees from Sierra Leone—Britain’s equivalent of Liberia—who chose to make the best of a bad situation, and who, over the last decade, have produced some of the world’s best music.

HOLLY WOOD BABEL: Peruano, Africano, Colombiano, Angeleno… Novalima, guey

Did you know that Peru had Africans?  If you’ve heard (of) Susana Baca, then you did; or should, anyway.  They’ve been there since the early days of Spanish colonialism, though never in huge numbers, apparently.  Still it doesn’t exactly fit the image of an Andean nation with an Amerindian culture defined by its high degree of advancement and largely unassimilated entrance into the modern age.  That’s the point, that the races in Peru never really mixed, natives confined to the Cordillera, and whites content to stay along the coasts where they—and their African slaves—landed.

HOLLYWOOD BABEL: Speaking in Tongues—Ethiopian, Arabic, Castellano, Anglo

If you saw the movie “La Bamba” many years ago, and hopefully paid attention to the Los Lobos soundtrack, then you know there’s a folk version of that song that predates the pop-rock version that Richie Valens made famous, and in many ways is superior to it.  Did you know that it goes on forever?  My favorite verse is the one that begins: “Para subir al cielo…”, reminding me of the Spanish title of the Bunuel film “Mexican Bus Ride,” se necesita,  una grande escalera…” and so on into infinity.  I think at some point Jarocho son masters just make up their own verses and let the Homies decide what sticks.  And now Las Cafeteras does their own East Los Angelized version that just happens to rock, not suck.  Got politics? 

The best part of living in LA (‘Hollywood’ for short) for me is that it is at the crossroads of so many immigrant cultures.  With the possible exception of Nueva York, I doubt that any other American city even comes close.  Miami?  Naah.  Chicago?  No way.  Even my favorite city San Francisco really only specializes in a few Asians in geographical symmetry and a few Hispanics in cultural sympathy.

Summer Heats Up in LA

How’s this global warming working out for you?  If it gets any hotter, I might have to go buy some beachfront property in Point Barrow, and charge tolls from oil tankers looking for a northwest passage straight over the North Pole.  I know some people like it like this, and most others would prefer to ignore global climate change rather than give up their petroleum-guzzling toys.  It’s an exciting time to be alive; I’ll give it that.  Fortunately, there is plenty of outdoor entertainment in the summer, though the cocktail waitresses can’t be too happy about that, can they?