Facades
Driving through downtown the other day I saw a Spanish colonial facade on a decrepit building. Decrepit only because the 1 foot thick facade could not cover the side walls of this slum that passed for an apartment complex, replete with the typical rotten wood around the broken windows, the bricks falling out due to cracked mortar, the odd shingles falling from the roof to the ground.
But the facade looked fantastic! If you look at the building straight-on, it is just that perfect shade of tan-orange "adobe" brick, with the sloping curves at the top and the relief-inset doorway - makes you think of a Zorro movie. One can almost see Antonio Banderas, in cape and mask, jumping heroically off the roof onto his waiting horse.
I wondered how recently the facade was put up in front of this decrepit building. And I wondered what clientele were they trying to cater? Is this some gringo slumlord trying to attract the type of hispanic who is heavy on cash but short on documentation? Or is the building owned by Mexicans who want to make it feel more like home?
No answers. The facade was silent.
Even when I screamed at it.
Then I had to move on. People were starting to stare at me.
Latin Grammys 2005
I like the Latin Grammys about as much as I like the Miss Black America pageant, meaning I really don't like it for pretty much the same reason.
Exclusion.
As Carl Sandberg said in a video full of interviews that I had once and watched religiously and now can no longer find: "The most horrible word in the English language is 'exclusion.' When you're excluded you're shut out." (but he had this haunting drawl to the words that simply doesn't translate to the written quote . . . if I ever find it and can convert it to a wav file I'll include it here, but until then you'll just have to use your imagination.)
Basically put, the Latin Grammys exclude the ingleshablantes porque los hispanohablantes se sienten excluded from the English-speaking part of America. Full stop. End Transmission. That's it right there.
But then again, on the other side of the coin, this also covers artists who don't have a category in the "regular" Grammy's. Leastways I don't see no Norteño o Cumbia at those English Grammy's. Ni Reggaeton (although I guarantee there will be prob'ly next year!)
SOOO maybe I shouldn't see the "Latin" Grammys as necessarily exclusionary, but more of an inclusion of certain musical styles that are popular only with a certain segment of the New World (which is this entire hemisphere, and a beautifully diverse one it is, too!)
Plus . . . Ana Barbara es bailarina muy muy caliente, no?
VG
