La Música de Mi Barrio

Let’s go for a walk through my neighborhood. It’s a lively place and a new sound is always around the corner. Let’s pretend it is June, Father’s Day weekend to be precise. Let’s do that because mi barrio is vibrant in the summer. Let’s do that because this has been the coldest week in Chicago in eleven years and I am currently going through a radiator induced living hell that I really don’t want to talk about. So yes, Yes, it is summer. It is Father’s Day and the trees are green…

…and exploding radiators are a distant memory…

The first thing you’ll notice as we step outside the front door is a two-story carnival slide. Then you will notice the smell of pony offerings, pungent in the summer sun…the wonderful hot summer sun. Then you will see the ponys. Can’t miss them. Might have to step around them. And watch your step please, lest you want to smell pony offerings the rest of the day.

If it is “on the hour” any hour, the first music you will hear is the tintinnabulation* of the bells of St. Michaels just three doors down and formerly the local Italian catholic church but now part of the Missionaries of Charity. In the distance, but not too far off, you’ll hear the sounds of live gypsy music mixed with a Sinatra impersonator or maybe Nancy Sinatra herself (what other Sinatra is there?) or if you’re lucky the Big Ragoo.

Now I know what you’re thinking.

“What the hell happened to your radiators?”

They exploded. End of story.

Now back to my neighborhood festival, Festa Pasta Vino, held annually on Father’s Day weekend.

They exploded because the boiler wasn’t on because we are demo-ing downstairs. We’re living upstairs using furnace heat. Being from Texas (and a real dumbass about northern winters) and it being colder than anything I have ever experienced in my life, I really f*ed up. I left the boiler off for a friggin day because I knocked out the wall where the thermostat usually is and that ruined the radiators in a BIG way.

And the Bears were losers that day too.

Now where was I? Ah yes, sssSummer.

We live on a residential street that butts up to a street called Oakley where are housed: three Italian restaurants, an Italian deli, an ultra-hip Spanish Tapas bar, a private club,** a travel agency and another travel center of sorts, Bacigallupo-Anzilotti-West Town Funeral Home. On our block there’s another Italian restaurant called Il Vicinato which means “the neighborhood.”

The neighborhood, one of the smallest on the Chicago neighborhood map, is called “the Heart of Italy” and it is tucked into another neighborhood called “the Heart of Chicago” and I know what you’re thinking.

“Why the hell is this post titled La Música de Mi Barrio?”

You’d be hard pressed to find a Chicagoan who could point to either “Heart of…” neighborhood on a Chicago map. These days the culture of the community is dominated by the large Mexican communities of Pilsen and Little Village which are much bigger neighborhoods that surround us. So while we will walk through the little Italian festival and enjoy a terrific grilled sausage or a bowl of Pasta Joe and then throw a dart at a balloon to win a pink stuffed playboy bunny, soon we will be far from Italy and closer to the border.

Now my block doesn’t get to have a block party, not in the true northern town sense. We don’t get one because we have Festa Pasta Vino. That’s fine. Once a year we come home from a gig around 3 AM. The band lines up in front of the house to go down the unattended two-story slide. We go down the slide a bazillion times or until we vomit. The other block parties in my neighborhood are not that interesting anyway. They always get dj’s who blast norteño, Jay Z and maybe a little reggaetón, through crappy speakers. The kids don’t play any of the games that I remember playing on the streets in Queens. No potato sack races, no stick ball, no eggs in spoons. They just run around spastically like libertarians. Anyway we’re sure to pass one on our little walk if you really want to see.

The walk itself is easy because mi barrio has the widest sidewalks I have ever seen. The children’s rhyme gets upgraded to “four’s a company, five’s a crowd.” The kids play soccer right on the pavement. But be careful because the sidewalk and the street are 6 feet above the ground and in parts hollow; and in parts not there so don’t fall through.

We might hear a rock band practicing and I’ll assume some hipsters moved to the neighborhood for cheap rent; but then I’ll be surprised to find that it is local Mexican kids. Or maybe we’ll hear some Mexican polka and I’ll assume it’s a bunch of local Mexicans and it turns out it is a bunch of local Mexicans. They’ll be playing in the basement but the doors will be open and inevitably the trumpet player will be standing in the doorway so he doesn’t blast everyone inside the room. And that will be fine by us because it fills the street with music.

Then we’ll pass the Mexican Fine Art Center which recently changed its name to the National Museum of Mexican Art. It is considered the finest Mexican Art Museum in the United States for what that’s worth. It’s the pride of the barrio. I’ve seen Cheech Marin’s art collection here. Not too far away, we’ll pass the radio station funded by the NMoMA, Radio Arte 90.5 which broadcasts to the neighborhood and not much farther. The dj’s are all under 23 and play a pretty good mix of rock en español, punk, and indie with more than a smidgen of Cold Play (they’re kids after all).

Not far from Radio Arte’s street-facing dj booth, we’ll pass Thrill Jockey World Headquarters where we’ll have to imagine all the neat music they’ve put out because you can’t hear any of it from outside. But you can appreciate the renovation they’ve done to the building as well as the hip factor they add to the neighborhood. And just think who they might be talking to on the phone in there…Tom Verlaine, Bobby Conn, Freakwater, Califone, Mouse on Mars, Tortoise, the Sea and Cake, maybe even David Byrne.

Now we’re at my favorite coffee shop, Café Jumping Bean. The place is hopping. Latin bohemians are in each other’s faces in heated debate. Kids are in the corner scribbling in notebooks. A local musician is hanging up a flyer for a Mexican punk rock show. Some of the coolest latin music, that only Carlos Anacondo has heard, is pulsating in the background.

(sigh) That is about as far as I plan to go today because I don’t feel like walking all the way to the outsider artist galleries on Halsted and besides I only saw a bunch of crap last time I did that. I also don’t want to head down to my favorite bar, the Skylark, because even though I could sure use a drink, I’ve got a lot of work to do. Yes, the bartenders are also amazing dj’s playing everything from death metal to latin hip hop to Sonny Rollins on iPods, vinyl, cassette and 8-track. Yes they will surprise you with live music from Opera singers to one-man bands to free jazz (and churchbus on Easter Sunday’s). Yes once David Yow walked in on a Monday night just to have a beer even though I don’t think he lives in Chicago anymore.

Yes but it is really the dead of winter. I must wake up from my dream. My radiators exploded and I have a lot of work to do. So enjoy this little video about mi barrio***…

…and this totally un-lame Bush protest song I wrote and performed with THE LATEST Matthew Thurman Band.

¡Adiós!

¡Hasta La Semana Próxima Mis Amigos!

But oh wait!

I am pleased to announce the winner of the St. John of Gods-Recent NAP contest. And the winner is…

¡eeeeeElectrammmmmmMummy!

The three key commonalities I was looking for were correctly guessed by both contestants John and EM and they are:

1. The song is about John (well not NAP John, but a guy named John)

2. It is sung by Shane (not the NAP antagonist Shane but a guy named Shane)

3. The recent refrain of NAP and the song St. John of God is a variation on theme “make love to yourself, people.”

EM cleverly sited one more similarity in that Ramon spoke of jury duty and St. John tells the jury to “f” themselves.

Here are some other similarities that I would have accepted…

The song’s protagonist gets hauled off in a meat wagon – We at NAP discussed BBQ.

The song is called St. John of Gods – The theme of this blog is seven writers in seven days which plays on days of the week. The days of the week by our current calendar are named after gods and other celestial beings. This is true except of my day which is named after the ghoulish daughter of Morticia and Gomez Addams. So gods being plural and John being one of them is not unlike our blog format.

Speaking of Gods, I distinctly recall somebody “almost” worshipping the ground John walks on. This is a very god-like happening.

The song is performed by Shane Macgowan and the Popes – we here at NAP discussed the current pope heatedly.

The song’s protagonist is a “sailor man” – Ramon introduced us to Sharks and Sailors. Okay that was post-contest, but they had been brought up previously.

Ramon also spoke of a grumpy potential jurist who basically told everybody in the courthouse to “f” themselves just like the grumpy old sailor man.

And finally, St. John of Gods ends in a communal spirit of grumpiness. The song is about a man lost and uncaring but Shane Macgowan is clearly trying to make him everyman especially at the end of the song when the chorus “eff yous all” is sung by a group of rowdy bar flies. Maybe it’s the winter blues, but there was a decidedly grumpy nature to this site collectively in the past week. John didn’t start it. He wasn’t even the first one to use the “f” phrase. Actually that might have been me. Anyway the point is there is a collective nature to the song and to NAP and both have been grumpy (except Doug but it is summer where he is).

Electramummy – your prize is on its way.

*always wanted to use that word.

**think dive bar where they claim to be keeping the “riff raff” out by being private but it’s more like they’re keeping them in.

***if you keep watching, there are videos about other Chi-town ‘hoods: Bronzeville, Rogers Park, Wicker Park…

Identifying Photos in order of appearance…

A car parked outside a mural on 18^th Street.

A Pilsen home in summer.

Neighborhood girls posing near a plastic Roman statue at Festa Pasta Vino.

An uplifting mural on 19^th Street and Ashland, focusing on the Mexican people of Pilsen. In the far left corner are depicted traditional leftist heroes of Mexican Americans. Can you name them all?

A Pilsen manhole cover decorated with Aztec design.

The view from inside Radio Arte, looking out so the dj’s are always reminded of the community they represent. This shot is during a youth community exchange event.

Café Jumping Bean on 18^th is housed in an old photography studio, notice the large angled windows for maximum light.

Pilsen people work hard to dig out their winter parking spots and they’ll do anything to keep them.