Custom Mambo

1992, 5 min. 13 sec.

"Manejar bajo (to drive low) is for the pride. And despacio (slow) is because we want to be seen”.

Crazy George from the "Viejitos" car club. 

Technology can have applications other than material, practical ones. For the Lowrider community, linguistics and aesthetics play a more important role than transportation. They fix their cars in the most incredible, excessive, baroque way ever imagined. Metal flake illustrated paint jobs, gold plated engines and brakes, velvet upholstery, disco lights, video systems and deafening stereos are some of the features that transform Chevies and other makes into shrines to be admired on the streets. Hydraulic systems are used to make the cars jump and dance and the beds of the trucks spin at more than 70 miles per hour. The car symbolizes the Californian way of life. Lowriders slow the freeways disrupting their efficient, pragmatic purpose, transforming them into a playground and meeting place. 

This early nineties video is the first I did about the subject. It doesn't pretend to coldly document this phenomenon but rather functions in a visually seductive way like the machines themselves using images, video technology and effects of dubious taste. The music composed by Xavier Alvarez is an electroacoustic piece that samples Perez Prado (the king of Mambo). Here again new technologies create rhythms and sounds that deal with the notion of "avant garde" and tradition at the same time. "You lower your car for the pride and if you drive too fast, people won't be able to check it out" says Crazy George from the Viejitos car club. These "rides" constitute an effort to be noticed in a society that doesn't want to see the people that ride them. I hope the video conveys the overwhelming experience of the Dyonisian "beauty" that escapes any notion of rationality and at the same time hints at some of the problems it raises.

Mandorla 11

The new issue of Mandorla is out. In its own words: "First published in Mexico City in 1991, Mandorla emphasizes innovative writing in its original language--most commonly English or Spanish--and high-quality translations of existing material. Visual art and short critical articles complement this work." 

It includes a selection of images from my newest photographic portfolio The Past is not What it Used to be and an excerpt of my text A True Account Concerning Conquests of the New America translated by Roberto Tejada. The full text called Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva America was posted in its original "old" Spanish previously in this blog. Considering that English has changed a lot more than Spanish a translation that could keep the spirit of the original text seemed really complicated and certainly beyond my bard capabilities. Roberto did an awesome job. It reads as if I know how to write. Regular readers of this blog might know the truth. No surprise Octavio Paz had him as a translator.

The photo on the cover of the magazine is called Cenote Sagrado and it was taken with a cheap underwater camera in the Bahamas around 2005. 

I also enjoyed reading the poetry of Heriberto Yépez.

El Tren le Arrancó la Cabeza! (The Train Chopped his Head!)

This is the original article published by Alarma! magazine in 1986 that inspired and it is sang in the opera ¡Únicamente la Verdad! Notice the photograph of Camelia la Texana crying next to the mutilated body of Eleazar Pacheco Moreno on the top left of the page. 

Este el el artículo original publicado por la revista Alarma! en 1986 que inspiró y es cantado en la ópera ¡Únicamente la Verdad! Es de notar la fotografía en la parte superior izquierda de la página en la que aparece Camelia la Texana llorando al lado del cuerpo mutilado de Eleazar Pacheco Moreno.

VAZQUEZ, Juan Pablo: "El Tren le Arrancó la Cabeza," Alarma!, no 1191, February 26 of 1986, Mexico, p. 29.

¡Únicamente la Verdad!

Last week on August 8th and 9th was the world premiere of the opera ¡Únicamente la Verdad! (Only the Truth!) composed by my sister Gabriela Ortiz. I put together the libretto, the video and conceptualized the visuals. 

The opera was presented by the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Indiana University at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. 

More than ten years ago my sister asked me to develop the idea of an opera. Trying to figure out what to do I came across an article of Alarma! magazine from 1986. Alarma! is a sensationalist and morbid Mexican tabloid that claims to show the truth and what others do not dare. This truth consists of explicit images usually of death and mutilated corpses and the stories around them (you can check the link to Alarma! at your own risk and discretion). Any of these stories is a tragedy worthy of an opera but there was something particular and interesting about El Tren le Arrancó la Cabeza! (The Train Chopped his Head!). Eleazar Pacheco Moreno was a 22 year old migrant worker who after being robbed committed suicide in Ciudad Juarez placing his neck on the railroad track to be beheaded. According to Alarma! he was accompanied by his lover Camelia la Texana. They even included a picture of her crying next to the mutilated body. Could she be the original character of Contrabando y Traición (Smuggling and Betrayal) the popular song popularized by Los Tigres del Norte considered to be the first drug smuggling corrido? I started doing research and found interviews with her in La Jornada (an important liberal Mexican newspaper) and TV Azteca (a big Mexican network). However these were from two very different women. The woman interviewed by TV Azteca was Agustina Ramirez and claimed to have stopped smuggling drugs to dedicate her life to the lord. The woman interviewed by La Jornada was called Camelia Maria and claimed to be from Topolobampo, Sinaloa  and never to have smuggled drugs. I also did interview a man from El Paso called Mario Borunda that claimed to have known her and that she was a tall, drug addict, prostitute born in Socorro, Texas. Elijah Wald in his book about Narcocorridos interviewed Ángel Gonzalez who is the composer of Contrabando y Traición. Gonzalez says he invented the story. He knew a Camelia in Los Angeles but she was not from Texas and she did not smuggled drugs. 

All this contradictory information forms the plot of the opera and these are its characters. It has the structure of an experimental documentary where I try to reconstruct the truthful story of a myth or perhaps the mythological story of a truth.

I wanted to develop a system where the singers would sang in front of a green screen to be placed in real time in footage of the original locations of the incidents and interviews. The idea was to deconstruct the creation of a cinematic or televised representation and to contrast it and confront it with the live performance. For this purpose it was crucial the collaboration of former partner in crime in Low Rez Crimez Konstantinos Mavromichalis from Urban Visuals in  Vancouver. He brought the latest VJ technology and practices to this norteño gesamkunstwerk. We had to compromise and learn the theatrical conventions of the genre. 

I would like to thank the musical director Carmen Helena Tellez and Marianne Kielian-Gilbert for their involved support and development of this project with all its passionate discussions, the Stage Director Chía Patiño for putting up with us and for showing us how it gets done, Sound Designers Rodrigo Sigal and Francisco Colasanto, Costume Designer Angela Burkhardt, Managing Producer and Coca Cola Sommelier Mark Brennan Doerries, Technical Director Jacob Lish for his hard work and expertise, Asisstant, Technical Director and Prop Mistress Tina Hanagan, all the singers but in particular Heather Youngquist and Meghan Dewald who were the Camelias, Chris Lysack with his stupendous voice who was the journalist César Güemes from La Jornada, Jonathan Green who gave a lot of presence to Elijah Wald and Jerome Michael S. Síbulo who play the Señor de El Paso and was my favorite character of the opera. 

Also I would like to specially thank Jimmy Mendiola for his help filming the video of the decapitation, Miljohn Ruperto for the special effects, Ricky Delaveaga for his help in the edition and Alejandro Dávila who played a very handsome version of the decapitated Eleazar.

There were interesting comments made by Brian Dickie the General Director of the Chicago Opera Theater and a review by Peter Jacobi from the Herald Times.