NewsTaco

By Oscar Barajas

I live in Los Angeles, which I find to be a weird city. It is a slow moving competitive city where no one is proud of being number two. This is embodied most of all in downtown. Downtown has gone through a recent facelift, but even with its social rhinoplasty, I do not trust it. I am too soft for downtown and therefore you will rarely catch me there after the sun comes down.

You have to be a special kind of cat to thrive in downtown. My commute always takes me through some of the saddest parts of downtown where the people argue with the bus drivers. Their hot spit backs an argument in which they reserve the right to evade the fare since they are only going a short distance. After all, this is public transportation meaning that it belongs to the public which they are a part of. More times than not it is too early in the morning or too late at night for the driver to argue with them so he waves them on through.

The streets are filled with female vendors who reach out into the sidewalks attracting customers with calls of “You buy… YOU buy… you BUY!!!” which can be heard from one block to the next. The beautiful girls stand outside the store fronts and pull in men, to the chagrin of their girlfriends. I have been ensnared time and time again. I do not know if it is the way they flutter their eyes or the way they squeeze my arm with purpose as they show me the merchandise on the wall. The power of attraction is undeniable as they press against me to see if a shirt fits. The more I say no, the harder they push, as they try shades on me and tell me that I look more handsome with each pair they put on my face. I have a friend I ridiculed because she bought magazine subscriptions from a telemarker whom she felt had a handsome voice. If she could only see me with my belt with the gaudy buckle, or my feet after I take off these socks that dye my feet blue – which is a considerable thing considering the socks are white. In fact, the only thing that I have bought that people (outside the store) have complimented me on is a pair of glasses that in all honesty make me look like Drew Carey’s gothic accountant.

I walked through the fashion district, and the jewelry district knowing full well that although this is my home, this is not my city. I belong over the bridge in East Los Angeles. However, I am not disappointed or distressed, because downtown does not belong to anyone, because it cannot be tamed. No matter how many coats of paint you put on the city, someone will always be around to deface those efforts with their own paint. No matter how many people you have living in high rise lofts; you will always have someone living on the pavement using the sun as a blanket. The power washes and the agents of authority penalizing those who allow their dogs to use the sidewalk as a toilet are merely putting a band-aid on a malignant tumor. This stretch of geography does not belong to anyone. This city is Blade Runner and the Omega Man mixed with Terminator 2 after the bomb dropped and yet like slow learning gluttons we keep coming back for more. Downtown will always coax all of us inside of her with promises of a Hello-Kitty backpack at a competitive price – only to reveal her fangs the second we drop our defenses. Personally, I cannot think of a better way to go.

[Photo by  Los Ojos De Muerte]

By Oscar Barajas

It was the awful year of 1989, and I was getting ready to transition to junior high school. It all weighed heavily on my mind, because the priests and the comadres had scared my mom into believing that I was going to transition into marijuana laced unprotected sex with the devil worshiping cholos of Hollenbeck Junior High School, home of the Junior Rough Riders in East Los Angeles. My mother’s first reaction was to inquire about private Catholic school. My father’s first reaction was to inquire about the price. Ultimately economics won the battle and I became a Junior Rough Rider.

The first thing that I noticed was that I was going to school with men and women. I mean, a lot of those students looked as if puberty had done a number on them. I was still waiting on my first whisker and a lot of my classmates looked as if they had some kind of wolverine gene. I remember being scared. All this time I had been a small fish in a small aquarium and now I felt like a smaller fish in a great lake.

When it came time to pick our elective classes, we were merely given two real choices.  We could decide between music and shop. I had seen the kids taking shop. A lot of them looked like a mix of the gang members from Training Day, but at the same time they could have been 21 Jump Street undercover cops. The only thing that was for certain was that I was pink and soft. There was no way I would have been able to survive. They were all building ashtrays and birdhouses. I can only imagine them beating me up with the remnants of my haiku holder.

So I decided on music – beginning wind instruments to be exact. I remember I wanted to play something cool like a saxophone or a trumpet. However, urban myths got in the way of that decision, because it was foretold by the prophecy that the crack addicts that dwelled at Hollenbeck Park were always looking for young victims to rob. The thought of a drug addict jumping out of a tree to steal a trumpet seemed a very real possiblity then – real enough to make me decide on the flute.

If you were good, you had first choice at the instruments. The gifted individuals picked the newer instruments. A guy like me got to pick the flute that looked like a mature banana. I would rub alcohol on the mouthpiece to try and kill the memory of previous user, but you could always taste the rust. This was still better than trying to make a bong at plastic shop and calling it a flower vase.

The teacher behind the piano was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Mr. Dennis Gurwell, had long hair and the ferocity of a football coach who is two touchdowns ahead playing like he is two touchdowns behind. He would direct every note with a flow that came from his fingertips. However, anytime we went against the fingertips, he would slam the piano with an animated intensity. Sometimes we could make him lose his composure six to seven times in the span of 45 minutes. Frankly, I don’t know how he put up with us. We were a horrible class that needed the musical outlet. The instruments would be locked up and we would be forced to watch a Beethoven or Bach documentary every time Mr. Gurwell was absent. We had the tendency of driving away every substitute teacher. Sometimes they would even bring in the dean of discipline or the choir instructor in order to calm us down.

I will always be grateful to Mr. Gurwell for not kicking me out of his class. After all, I was awful and I had no reason to be there other than to butcher Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” He was one of those few teachers that believed in me despite the lack of any musical talent or ability. I do not know where I would have been without the lessons he bestowed upon me – possibly on top of a tree with a “flower vase”, preying on the next fat kid that walks by with an oboe.

[Photo courtesy hollenbeckms.org]

My friend Richard and I have known each other since middle school, and we have been friends since he was MEChA royalty and I was part of the Ecology Club. We were at that stage of life when we were angry at the United States for its participation in the Mexican-American War. We shared a physics teacher and a common pool of friends. However as time went by, that pool of friends began to shrink until now — where it is just Richard and me.

We meet at least once a month to break bread and share current events. It was during one of these meals that we discovered the inevitable: we were becoming our fathers.

At first the symptom, were slight and could only be seen with the right pair of eyes. We started complaining about the prices. We harked back to the bad old days in 1997, when Everclear ruled the musical charts and Big Macs were 99 cents; the person behind the counter could care less as she asks for the $4. I often kid Richard about being stuck in that 90s pricing mentality; I relish in breaking it to him that you can no longer get a value meal for $3.

Then I noticed the next sign of the progression. I now carry napkins everywhere I go with no better reason than you never know when they will come in handy. I think the next step is to start carrying ketchup and salsa packets in my pockets. You never know when you are going to cross paths with a Burger King Whopper. As far as Richard is concerned, nothing was sadder and yet more comical than watching him attempt to make payment with the automated kiosk set up at a fast food restaurant. He looked so helpless as it continuously asked him to swipe his credit card, yet he looked at the machine as if it was asking him for the square root of his social security number. I remembered my dad looking the same way the first and last time he had to tangle with an ATM machine.

I do not know when it happened, but we went from closing down bars and after parties to trying to race home in order to catch “Modern Family.” However, I know it is getting worse, because there are times where Richard and I argue, even though we might be on the same side. We will both argue over which one of us likes the McRib, not more mind you, but the actual of liking the sandwich. It absolutely blows my mind because it is something I watched my father do when he was still alive. I watched my father argue with his friends about Mario being the superior Almada brother over Fernando — even though no one argued the fact with him.

Growing older has snuck up on me and my friend. We still sit around arguing as I realize our youthful values have been put on an iceberg and set afloat. We are not the same Chicanos we once were. I think it is fair to say that we have gone from Mexican-Americans to American-Mexicans. We have gone from idolizing Che Guevara to wondering if our contemporary political standings are too far to the left, too far to the right or even too far in the middle. However no matter how far we lean, we both know the pool is not getting any bigger.

[Photo By lisaschaefferphoto]

I am a prideful beast and sometimes I allow it to get the better of me. Sometimes I start one-sided rivalries after I feel I have received a raw deal. The latest place to feel my embargo is a Boyle Heights bar called Eastside Luv.

The place was still relatively new and only a couple of people knew about it at first. It was an inviting place with a Latinocentric atmosphere featuring movie posters that were a throwback to a Mexican golden age of cinema. At the risk of sounding cliché, the spot had plenty of sabor. I was impressed that they took the rundown Metropolitan Club — formerly the kind of spot where men paid women to do the kinds of things their wives would not do at home — and given it some much-deserved class. There was a strong nod to Latino culture. It was the only place I knew that had a cheladitas on the menu. They would throw in a saladito in your michelada for that extra “ZAS!”

The Metropolitan was only opened Thursdays through Sundays; Thursdays and Fridays were usually ghost towns. During those first few days, I would go with my friend Victoria. We would go unwind, and order a couple of sangrias while discussing the state of the world – namely how things were and what they could or should be like. It was just us and a couple of tumbleweeds that would roll by.

The date was February 16, 2008. My friend Victoria was celebrating her birthday, and my friend Alex and I were planning to make a cameo appearance. Now, two of the enduring lessons my father bestowed upon me were: never pay for parking if you can avoid it, and never pay a cover charge to go into a bar. Only an idiot pays to pay to drink. I remember Alex and I killed most of the afternoon at the record store. Then plan was to get there before 9 p.m., because if we arrived afterwards, we were subject to a $5 cover charge. We got there at 8:30 p.m. only to be turned away because Alex was wearing a San Francisco Giants sports cap. So we walked back to the car and left the cap there.

When we returned the gentleman at the door informed us that we were now subject to a $10 cover charge, due to an event taking place, a burlesque show. We informed him that he was mistaken because we were not there to see the burlesque show, but rather to celebrate my friend’s birthday. I then showed him my cell phone in an attempt to inform him that it was 8:50 p.m., absolving us from any kind of cover charge. He did not like that.

He told my friend Alex that he could go in, but then he gave me one look and told me that “my attire was fashionably unacceptable.” My fashion faux pas was wearing a t-shirt with Subcomandante Marcos on it. The bottom line was that it did not have a collar on it. This was funny since my t-shirts were fashionably acceptable when they did not have people in attendance. I bet the ironic thing would be that I would have been granted entry in a Ted Bundy shirt — if it came with a collar, of course.

I have not returned since that day. I have a genuine distrust of places that try to merge cultura with profit, because in the end it is profit that comes out on top. As Jim Morrison used to rant, “Money beats soul, every time.” Boyle Heights in Los Angeles is no exception.

[Photo By Cannibal Pepper!]

Alex Alonso, expert in the subject, has been very close to the phenomenon.  From an early age Alonso became familiar with the violence that reigns in the streets of our neighborhoods, but New York in particular.  This is where his special interest in studying the phenomenon of delinquency, which has led him to become one of the foremost experts on gangs in the United States.

“Seeing death so close at such a young age influenced me. Seeing someone you know dying after a shooting changes your life because you appreciate it more, gives it real meaning,” said the young man of Puerto Rican origin.

“On the other hand, I think that being so close to death makes you immune. Certainly my life changed. Today, years later, my main concern is to live for my children. I want to be there for them, I wake up every morning for them so they can help other young people,” said Alonso in his office in Los Angeles, California, where he’s lived for several years.

Despite having lived so closed to violent episodes, Alex admits to never having had that paralyzing fear. He’s dedicated the last 15 years to studying gangs, living with them and getting to know them from within.

His need to discover the truth behind the scourge of gangs has led him to be considered a historian, researcher and even reporter. He recognizes that there are many myths behind gangs which makes him proud to investigate and learn more about them.

“Knowing the reason for the phenomenon of gangs in our streets, what’s behind them, what’s their truth, their reality,” he explains.

On various occasions Alonso has been called to testify in court as an expert on the subject. His knowledge has helped to better understand what goes on through the mind of a young person who has chosen violence and delinquency as their path.

“Mistakes can be made which influence the life of a good young kid through bad judgement. Which is why I like to participate and make a difference,” he says.

This is why Alex Alonso took to the adventure of creating a website (www.streetgangs.com) through which he shares his knowledge with young people and anyone who wants to go deeper into the world of gangs.

A wrong choice

For Alex, lack of attention is what causes young people to become interested in joining criminal gangs, although he assures that only 15% of youth are integrated into them. He admits that, despite having grown up in a harsh environment, it was not difficult to choose an honest life. He is certain that his decision was made because he comes from a strong family and because he never had need or desire to try drugs.

“The problem,” he insists, “has its origin in the family. We can not change from where we are today. The challenge is to help parents who are raising children alone, and perhaps the answer lies in more after-school programs so that kids don’t return home to spend so much time alone. ”

In his opinion, “when you spend time alone, when no one looks after you, no one disciplines you. That’s when you start to think about doing bad things”. Currently, 85% of youth that are in jail come from families where there was only one parent at home, explains Alonso.

Being fortunate enough to have been raised with good values, Alex did not imagine that he would have the opportunity to go to college. His mom finished high school and then dedicated himself to photography while his father enlisted in the military. For those reasons, he never felt the pressure to take his studies to a higher level. But it was life that drove him: “I couldn’t find a job and, well, I said maybe what I should do is study”.

After taking the right steps, he’s now an adviser to young people. “I’m not sure if I’ve changed anyone’s life because when I’ve spoken with gang members I don’t see immediate results,” he recognizes.

Some time later, there are those that ask him what to do to get into college. Changing the life of a person is marvelous, but there’s still a lot left to do, you have to look for alternatives for them, so that they don’t spend time on the street not doing anything”, he insists.

Alonso doesn’t talk to his own children about his work, as he says they are still little. He writes articles for various publications so his kids know him as a writer. But what worries him more than the subject of gangs is talking to his kids about the drug use and sex. He says, “When you come from a well structured family, gangs don’t worry you as much as drugs which can enter into any home”.

He never thought that his interest in gangs would bring him so much satisfaction. Today, aside from being an adviser to politicians and authorities, he still feels that there’s a lot more he could be doing. “I would love to go to a prison, to live day to day with prisoners and gangs members when they’re out of the public eye, to learn more about them and their culture, in their environment”.

For Alonso, the authorities don’t really know what or who the gangs are, what they talk about when they get together, what they do when they’re at home.

“I believe there are very dangerous places. They’ve created maps of zones where I go to talk to or get to know gang members. Nothing has ever happened to me, the only thing is that sometimes gang members think that I’m a cop. But aside from that I’ve never had a problem, I like to do what I do. I go, I speak to them, I get to know them and that’s it”, shares Alonso.

His own heroes

Alonso admires Father Greg Boyle, one of the most important figures in East Los Angeles, considered one of the most dangerous zones in the city. Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, an organization that helps gang members learn skills to reintegrate themselves into society.

“I admire Father Boyle for his human qualities, because he never says no to anyone, because he listens to every youth and he gives attention to all that cross his path. Sometimes that’s the only thing that’s needed,” says Alex with a smile of satisfaction.

I’m sure that if there were more people like him all over Los Angeles there would be at least a 15-20% drop in crime. But he’s just one man making a difference”, he laments.

His other hero is Roberto Clemente, the baseball legend of Puerto Rican descent who died trying to help Nicaraguans after an earthquake. “He is a hero who died helping his people”, he remembers.

“I don’t consider myself a hero, but I hope that my kids and grandkids remember me as a honest and loving man, someone who had passion for his work. I want to teach them to have passion for their work, because part of what I do doesn’t pay, but it’s still rewarding”, he affirms.

“Today I had people call me and they wanted to give me money for what I do, so that I can produce programs for television and movies. For me each days is a new opportunity to learn and discover something”.

[Photo By GlacierTim]

Sometimes the stars that burn the brightest, also burn the fastest. Such was not the case with The Mexicats, a band some friends and I started back in the 1990s. We were more of a meteorite caught inside a black hole. However, where a lot of bands have started from the bottom and crawled their way to the top, this band started from the bottom and decided to burrow in deeper. The middle would have been too arrogant of a goal.

So who were the Mexicats? In its core the Mexicats were five members of a guilty party. Mr. Chavez was the rhythm guitarist of the band. He carried the mystique and charisma. Then there was Mr. Villa on bass. He happened to be the anchor of rhythm. On the maracas, percussion, electric spoons, and anything that was not nailed down was Mr. Balbuena. All you had to do was give him in inanimate object, and he would make it work. Mr. Castro was the most vital part of the band. First off all, he had the most musical expertise, second only to Mr. Villa, but he also had the garage apartment needed to rehearse. Mr. Castro would play guitar, but would also play bass, drums or whatever we needed to fill in that Phil Spector-like “Wall of Sound.”

Then there was me. I was the lyricist, lead yeller and occasional singer. I would plug in the Radio Shack microphone into the amp and let loose tirades on everything from space cholos to JFK Jr. I had all the talent of Jim Morrison’s corpse and twice the sex appeal. Mr. Chavez coined the term “noisicians,” which is exactly what we were. There was magic created inside that musical space. We called it “pfunk,” which is not a nod towards George Clinton and the Parliament-Funkadelic collective. The sound we had on our hands was something between that was not quite punk and at the same time not quite funk. We had something in our hands, which was not ready for the public’s consumption but at the same time was quite an intense experience.

We did not have music songs in the traditional sense. We were above that. We were avant-garde. Most, if not all, of our songs began with Mr. Chavez asking for a consensus regarding the instrumentation. The choices always were “Fast Blues” or “Slow Blues.” Fast Blues would usually inspire a profanity-laced tirade against the Reagans, helmet laws, or Taco Bell. Slow Blues would evoke the sexiest croons filled with profanity laced propositions that would have probably gotten us arrested if ever performed in the confines of society. I’m no Barbra Streisand. I’m even less of a Celine Dion.

We could have been huge. We could have been as big as Dexys Midnight Runners. However we were crippled by a number of setbacks. First off all, apparently you need a certain amount of talent to be a musician. None of us could read music. Secondly, we never thought about recording any of the music. We would rely on memory, which was not the best of plan since we relied on intoxication to light the trail to inspiration and motivation. Finally, Mr. Castro was being pressured by his parents and the neighborhood to pull the plug on the sonic nightmare. He would fake earaches, just to get us to end jam sessions.

We had a revolving door of drummers and other real musicians who donated their time to get us out of the garage and into the glittering mainstream. Their talents were exhibited, and surely wasted, but appreciated nonetheless. Some people believe that one day, the Mexicats will regroup and perform on top of a rooftop somewhere in East Los Angeles – but then again some people believe that Elvis Presley is still alive.

[Photo By Rosemary McKevitt]