Vicente Fernandez

The whole time I kept thinking "I must blog about this," and really wish I could have, in the surreal moment, to really capture for you the atmosphere, the experience, the culture that is Vicente Fernandez. You see, many of you probably don't even know who he is. I didn't until I came to Mexico and bit by bit was introduced to the music that makes Mexico Mexico. I can't think of anybody in the States comparable - Elvis Presley as a mariachi, maybe? Incomparable in that there is not a soul in all of Mexico who does not know his music and couldn't name at least a single song of his, probably sing it. He is about 70 years old and has had a career that has spanned decades and he continues to be more popular than ever. His appeal erases all boundaries - the old, the young, male, female, the cowboy, the hipster, the socialite, the rich, the poor, all worship him and his bold strident voice, his dashing charm, his vast repertoire of endlessly romantic songs. Every song is about love. Broken hearts, mended hearts, lovers, true love, passion. When my son was one year old, he could already holler "Aaeeeyayay!" when he heard the first notes of a Vicente Fernandez song. When this man dies, all of Mexico will be in tears.

Sooo... my in-laws bought us tickets to go see him live in concert! At the Feria del Caballo (Horse Fair) in Texcoco. The tickets cost a pretty penny, too - I suspect some people save up for a whole year to go see him and blow it all in one night, especially with the obligatory bottle of liquor (at 80 bucks or more!) they sell you in the stands. It poured rain on our way there, and being a horse fair, we had to slog through mud, weaving between garish carnival rides and booths selling garish cowboy hats and boots, through streams of wet drunk couples, toppling all over and into the mud, pissing behind cars and right out in the open. Bottles everywhere. Big big beer bottles - like a gallon maybe? Never seen such a thing in my life.

Anyway, we were running kind of late - it was already about 11 pm - so we headed straight to the palenque. I didn't know what a palenque was until I entered one for the first time, but it's kind of like a theatre in the round crossed with a bull-fighting ring, with laminate roofing over it and institutional neon lights. Except this ring wasn't for bulls, it was for roosters, and that was the opening act. Cockfighting. What a weird weird grim sort of entertainment. Two guys come out to show their roosters, stroking them as if they were pets. Beautiful birds, emerald green and ruby red plumage, looking just like Quetzalcoatl. In some system that remained a mystery to me, the audience members place their bets. The guys strap little hooked blades like spurs onto the roosters, place them in the ring, pound their chests to rile them and let them loose. The rooster trys to kill eachother. One of them wins, one of them dies. That's the grand entertainment, which lasts about 30 seconds. The clean-up crew swiftly dumps the dead one in a bucket and mops up the blood while the winning bets are paid out. Like I said, weird and grim. Meanwhile, though, we've made ourselves as comfortable as we can in our microscopic sardine chairs, bent-up metal folding chairs we paid a hundred bucks each for, and our $80 bottle of brandy with a 200% markup gets delivered to us, dumped from the glass bottle into a plastic sports bottle, so we settle in to mix up our drinks and play bingo, the other grand opening entertainment. I'm laughing my ass off at this point because what kind of combo is that?! Cockfighting and bingo??? Totally normal for Mexico, in the palenque. Oh, and there were raffles as well - hahahaha - you could win a framed horse poster if you won. So I'm drinking my brandy and coke, scanning the crowd, noticing how everybody without fail is ordering alcohol in spite of the outrageous prices, and settling in like sardines with their ice bucket and plastic cups.

Then our neighbors arrive, and I think, oh goodness, this is gonna be a long night. I saw them coming far away, the girl tall and white, dressed in black with this giant black cowboy hat on. The guy is leading her by the hand, looks like a city slicker with a bomber jacket on, greased back curly hair, puffing on a cigar and his eyes bulging and dilated from whatever he just snorted. Tall girl with giant hat sits right in front of me. Asshole doesn't even sit, stands there puffing his cigar like he's straight out of a cartoon or something. He kisses the usher/waitress lady smackdab on the mouth - she's about 50 and wants to hurl, but needs the tip. They're both wide-eyed with drugs, and start pounding tequilas and betting on roosters, winning and screaming, winning and screaming. Their friends show up. The "girl" is about 55, completely facelifted, face-pumped, face-injected, but wrinkly-handed, and her fake eyelashes are falling off because she's too drunk to notice. Her boyfriend is about 30, giant, and flops down into the seat in front of me, somehow vacated by the tall girl, and leans back into my lap, arms flopping all over me. I sort of scoop him back into his seat, switch places with Nikis, whose legs are shorter than mine and whose knees aren't quite as encroached upon by lumbering drunkerjack. I still have to deal with his flailing arms, but I just keep scooping. They're already pouring tequila from their newly ordered sportsbottle into one another's mouths, and just generally acting like jackasses, and the concert has not even begun yet.

I keep drinking, too, and so it all becomes funny. The other neighbors in front arrive, there is a big tizzy about whose seat is whose, people get shifted around a bit, with the help of more body scooping, and more drinks are ordered. My neighbors show up, a nice couple, who also get their sports bottle of tequila and laugh over the four fools in front of us. We're all smashed so close together, that the boyfriend accidentally pets my arm instead of her's, but it's an honest mistake and no harm done. More and more people fill the stands - it's almost midnight - and I study the people of all ages, all types, all classes. People even bring their little children - I see kids as young as two years old. I'm glad Marco is not here, much as he loves Vicente - he's with his tios and tia, playing at home. I'd rather not have him inhaling all that cigarette smoke, getting booze sprayed on him. Nikis spills his drink on all of us trying to say "no thank you" to someone offering him a cigarette - coke and brandy into my purse, all over his coat, and down the ass crack of the drunk tall chick in front of us. She is unfazed. The floppy big guy falls asleep, and his sugarmommy spends 3 hours patting his unconscious head.

Suddenly, and without much forewarning, a group of stunning looking mariachis comes out into the little cockfighting ring, now scrubbed clean of any trace of blood and death. They take their seats around the outer parts of the ring, and ta-da, Vicente emerges from some hidden door to the screams and cheers of thousands. He's sporting his trademark sombrero with elaborate gold embroidery, and his perfect body-hugging suit, black with solid gold buttons in a tight line down the pantlegs. He is wearing a gold pistola in a holster around his waist. He looks like he stepped right out of a movie. With a grand salute of the sombrero to the shouting rowdy crowd, he bursts into song without further ado. And sings without stopping for 3 hours, until 3 a.m. Every couple minutes, he mops sweat from his forehead, and twice takes a bottle from the audience to pour liquor into his mouth with great flair. Other than that, he sings and sings and sings. And the crowd sings with him, knowing every word of every song. Women, young cute things and old housewives, sneak past security to line up in front of the ring hoping for a kiss. Some kisses are modest cheekpecks, some are full-on tongue. Parents send their children down with song requests, and Vicente pours his heart out with a whole song sung directly to a boy with a developmental disability. The crowd drinks more, and really lets loose, waving their hands in the air, grown men in cowboy hats standing and gesticulating as if wringing out the contents of their chests with love and song. A buxom lady stands in her row with fists raised at fellow audience members, singing as if to say, I am love, see my heart, you are damned, you broke my heart, I love you all forever. Men and women both weep with emotion, tears streaming down their faces and glistening in the neon light. Everybody imagines themselves to be Vicente's best friend - they shake his hand like compadres. Everybody becomes Vicente. Everybody who arrived at their seat with a stick up their ass is now drunk on booze and song and passion and Mexico, hugging their neighbors, strangers made friends in the blur of it all, high-fiving, screaming and cheering. The tall chick in front of me is pouring tequila all over everyone, sitting down, sticking her finger up in the air with emphasis on a strong note, bouncing up again, pulling up her jeans and pulling down her shirt every 2 seconds in a compulsive drug-induced sort of way. Singing and singing. Druggie eye-bulging boyfriend bites her in the ass everytime she stands up. Druggie eye-bulging boyfriend suddenly turns around and pours mystery soda into Nikis' cup - Salud! We're all friends and laughing now! If ever there is a lull in the song, thousands begin to whistle and scream "Chente, Chente," because he's our best friend now, not Vicente anymore, but Chente, our busom buddy, our compadre, our kin.

I stop drinking because I know better, and want to remember this, not like the sleeping bumbly dude in front of me. And I think, god, you have not experienced Mexico until you have experienced this. This is Mexico here, and how can you ever explain it to foreigners. This culture of "I will spend all the money I have because there is no yesterday or tomorrow so I can be in the presence of our greatest artist who embodies the most galant romantic passionate macho ideals of our country with the most kickass voice ever heard all while engaging in the national pastime of getting drunk so I can be even more present in the moment with thousands of my closest new friends healing my heart by singing along to the songs that make my heart swoon with love and passion and pride," this culture is so uniquely Mexican and inexplicable, incomprehensible to outsiders, that I am just beginning to wrap my understanding, or my acceptance rather, around it after 5 years of living here - all I can say is, this is Mexico, and thank you for letting me take a peek, have a glimpse, be a part of it and sing along for 3 hours. Thank you for letting me shout "Otra! Otra!" for ages after you've said good-bye and good night!