The King of Soul and the Palace

Hola mi Gente,
I’m off for another interview today. If you have a free couch… LOL

It’s been several years since James Brown passed away. I wrote this back then...

* * *

The Pitkin Theater

James Brown and the Pitkin Theater

At a crucial point in the award-winning film, Mr. Holland’s Opus, the teacher of the title is fighting to save the high school arts program from budget cuts. The exchange goes something like this:

Vice Principal Wolters: I care about these kids just as much as you do. And if I'm forced to choose between Mozart and reading and writing and long division, I choose long division. 

Glenn Holland: Well, I guess you can cut the arts as much as you want, Gene. Sooner or later, these kids aren’t going to have anything to read or write about.

It is a telling moment in a movie that’s principally about the essence of education. The fact of the matter is that art is indispensable to education. Numerous studies have shown that children who are immersed in arts programs tend to do better in reading, writing, and mathematics, for example. The word educate comes from the Latin root word educare, which means to draw from. The implication being that education is not about filling children’s minds, but drawing out the potential that already exists. It is unfortunate that today we eat our young and then blame them for our own collective narcissism and shortsightedness.

I won’t get into that today, but I mention the arts because it has been such an integral part of my life. Art, or Beauty, or Truth, or whatever you want to call it, literally saved my ass. When I was at the lowest point in my life what saved me was art. What saved me was the knowledge that in this fucked up world, full of petty motherfuckers racing mindlessly to catch/ buy/ sell/ the latest trend/ soundbite/ flavor of the month, there is Beauty.

Even in despair, I could still find sustenance in the intricate beauty of a Faulkner paragraph. I could quench my spiritual thirst with Neruda’s passion; I could listen to John Coltrane’s fearlessness and peer wide-eyed along with him into the void. Knowing and experiencing the beauty of a Monet assured me that there was sanity in this world and that it was worth living. And there were many times I needed reminding of the preciousness of life. Therefore, it is with great sadness that I mark the passing of great artists -- those who sustained me, when I felt I couldn’t do it myself. I feel a profound sense of gratitude for the archetype of The Artist, because they serve to remind us that there’s more to this momentary passage of time on this ball of mud we call Earth. The Artist, sometimes at great personal cost, follows her vision and sometimes points us to what matters most, though we oftentimes don’t pay heed.

And so it was with James Brown. I remember growing up listening and dancing to the sounds of James Brown. As a young teen, I danced the Camel Walk to James Brown. And who can forget his anthem to black pride when he sang, “Say it loud! I’m black and I’m proud!” At the time, it was a radical notion for people of color to be proud of their skin color, the texture of their hair, and their culture. We take it for granted now, but there was a hard war fought in order for us to assume that we should be proud.

I was born of Puerto Rican parents and raised in the slums of New York City, rubbing elbows with African-American neighbors who also lived in those ghettos. I remember it was 1967 when we moved to East New York Ave in Brooklyn, right behind the Pitkin Theater. The Pitkin was multi-tiered theatre with Greek statuary adorning the side walls and proscenium area. It had a Robert Morton 3 Manual, 14 Rank theatre organ as well. In those days, movie houses were built to resemble opulent palaces: velvet seats, gilded trimmings, lush carpeting in huge auditoriums facing a great stage where a huge silver screen hung. There was even a balcony and the older kids would go up there to make out.

At the time, we were one of the only Puerto Rican families living on that block embedded in a predominantly African-American community. In the beginning, I had to fight my way to and from school almost every day. Eventually, I would befriend most of my neighbors and the first girl I ever kissed was this beautiful black girl called Gail. Actually, she would kiss me when we stood on line in school and I hated it because I didn’t like girls -- yet.

On Saturdays, my mother would give each of us something like seventy-five cents and send us to the Pitkin Theater across the street on Pitkin Avenue (our apartment faced the back of the Pitkin Theater). The cost of admission was twenty-five cents and for that sum, you would see two new releases, plus the cartoons sandwiched in-between.

But the Pitkin Theater also held live shows and this is where I first experienced live soul music. I remember seeing Little Anthony and the Imperials there, and there were other acts. Many of the then up-and-coming Motown acts used to pass through in those days, part of the circuit and these were hugely popular. I remember the first time I was sitting down at the Pitkin and they were showing, between films, the hottest acts of the day. It was the first time I remember where all the white acts were booed and the Black performers cheered loudly. LMAO!

Now, James Brown, he was no up-and comer. JB was the King -- the Godfather of Soul. I don’t know if he ever played the Pitkin, but whenever I think of JB, I’m reminded of the Pitkin and those long-ago days. JB took the field holler and put it to a fatback backbeat. When JB squealed, screamed, hollered, it was almost as if the collective pain and anguish of the oppressed was concentrated in those musical moments. JB had the nastiest, funkiest rhythm section and if you listened closely, all the West African rhythms were encapsulated in his vocal stylings. To listen to James Brown was to be reminded that you were alive, that you were sensual, sexy, and a bad-assed muthafucka on the dance floor.

Without James Brown, popular music as it exists today would not exist. JB is the most sampled artist, the most emulated, having influenced people from the great Miles Davis to Prince, almost every Hip Hop luminary, and everybody in-between. Our world is a better world because of James Brown, whatever his inner demons were, and today, we’re a lot less richer because of his passing.

And the Pitkin? Unfortunately It closed in the late-1960’s. After, it served for a long time as a church, but the congregation eventually moved out. The entry lobby was converted into retail space (later used as storage), and after over the 40 years of neglect and dereliction the building gradually became a wreck.

In the Summer of 2010, work on the building began and today it has been converted into a school and retail use. So, in a real way both the Pitkin and the Godfather of soul live on.

Rest in peace, JB

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization... 

They Call Me La Lupe

Hola mi Gente,

I don’t know how I missed it, but apparently Brooklyn-born actress Lauren Vélez (of Dexter and NY Undercover fame) has spearheaded a kickstarter campaign to bring to the screen the story of Latina songstress, Guadalupe Victoria Yolí Raymond, also known as La Lupe. Here’s the trailer and Ms Vélez, who resurrected La Lupe in a one-woman show a couple of years ago, called They Call Me La Lupe (the title of the film as well) at Teatro LATEA here in NYC, seems to capture her essence:

I was fortunate enough to be able to see La Lupe at the height of her career in the 1970s. A few years ago, I wrote about the impression this singular artist left on me.

* * *

La YiYiYi/ La Lupe/ La Reina

El dia en que te deje/ fui yo quien salio ganando

(The day I left you/ it was I who came out winning.)
-- La Lupe, La Gran Tirana

One day a question from one of my readers/ friends left me thinking about boleros, this in turn, led me to reflect on who in my opinion, was one of its greatest interpreters, La Lupe.

I first saw La Lupe, aka La YiYiYi, barely into my 20s and before then, I wasn’t a big fan. I viewed boleros (love ballads) as a musical genre that older Puerto Rican people enjoyed and sang to one another. I think it was a common enough occurrence among Puerto Ricans: my parents would sometimes have arguments via songs. My father would sing some lyrics of a certain song, and then my mother would reply with lyrics from a song of her own choosing, that type of thing. Like an argument, but with song lyrics... LOL

Anyway, one of the songs my mother would sing to my father was one of her favorite boleros, La Gran Tirana, by the inimitable La Lupe. Its lyrics was something like a feminist rallying cry for women from El Barrio and sung by La Lupe, they oozed irony. The opening lines go something like so:

Segun tu punto de vista
yo soy la mala.
Vampiressa de tu novela,
La Gran Tiriana.

(According to you,
I am the bad one.
Vampiress of your soap opera,
The great tyrant.)

I still get chills whenever I hear those opening lines.

In the hands of a lesser artist, La Gran Tirana could have easily devolved into something melodramatic and trite, but as sung by the La Lupe, it’s a powerful claim to liberation, of doing away with oppression -- Yeah, you want to paint me as the bad one? Go ahead! La Lupe, for me at least, was the receptacle or emblematic of the power of the women in my own life, all of whom bravely faced violence and racism with a power and grace that would inform my own life.

I saw La Lupe perform only once, many years ago in NYC’s old cavernous Madison Square Garden. There were thousands of screaming fans, the noise level distracting, and the sound acoustics horrible. There were many acts that night in the early 70s, the main one being The Fania All Stars, a group of NYC Latino/a musicians that would eventually storm the international music world and bring that uniquely Nuyorican cultural phenomenon/ urban folklore known as salsa to the world. But that night, salsa was ours and ours alone. No one knew what the hell salsa was, and even less of La Lupe.

When La Lupe came on stage, the audience, composed mostly of young Latino/as, went into a frenzy, screaming her name and demanding dedications. To this day, I can’t say I have witnessed a more powerful performance and I have seen many, many performers. I believe it was Frank Sinatra who said that it was dangerous for a performer to give everything, that a performer must, for their own survival, save something for themselves.

Well, La Lupe, bless her soul, gave everything that night. She left nothing, not one thing, for herself. Halfway through her performance she was sitting on the edge of the stage and all of sudden, it didn’t feel like Madison Square Garden anymore, it was as if we were all transported to an intimate world created wholly by La Lupe. It seemed as if she sang as if it were the last time she would sing, throwing everything into every song, every note, every syllable. Each movement was imbued with meaning and energy as she sang, laughed, and cried. Her ability to create that level intimacy was remarkable. You could feel her life force reaching out to you, taking you in, seducing you. She would claw at her clothes, scratch herself, yell out in pain -- she gave so much. And I sat there transfixed. She called herself an empress and I'd be a damned if she really wasn’t. 

Finally, she came to that point in her performance -- she sat on the edge of the stage her clothes by now gone -- torn apart by her own hands -- scratched and bleeding, she sat there in her bra and lingerie, and she managed to look like some reincarnated Taina queen. 

You could hear a pin drop... 

And that’s when she sang the opening lines to La Tirana:

Segun tu punto de vista/ yo soy la mala…

 

And it was too much; the crowd went wild, taken over the edge by a rare and masterful artist. At that moment, I fell in love with that woman’s soul. She possessed so much spiritual power and she was so willing, even in the face of what seemed like certain annihilation, to share it. I actually feared for her, screamed for her, I -- everyone that night -- felt her pain, her joy, her bliss, and we all heard that cry for freedom. I saw people cry and cheer. Her performance was so powerful that I sit here, more than 40 years later writing about what was a powerful epiphany.

Unfortunately, I never got to see her again and, due in part to poor management and bad career choices, she would fall into relative obscurity. The great Spanish director’s, Pedro Almodóvar, use of La Lupe’s song Puro Teatro, in his 1988 film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, rekindled interest in her music. And Ms Velez’ efforts produced an Off-Broadway play and in that way, her music was revived for a new generation.

Sadly, La Lupe would become destitute after her recording contract was not renewed. She would pick up the pieces, would become a Christian minister, and living as an unknown in a South Bronx tenement she passed on. When news of her death became known, tens of thousands grieved. Money was collected for her funeral and musicians and other artists came together to pay tribute to the true Queen of Salsa. 

She was one of those souls that flared brightly if too briefly and gave all she could, throwing caution to the wind. To me, she was woman incarnate that night on that stage. I would never forget her.

A bolero is a ballad, my friends, and with that, I give you, ladies and gentlemen, La Lupe:

* * *

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Resources

La Lupe would become a a gay icon of sorts and you can many clips of her performances on YouTube.

As I understood it, the film was supposed to be released in 2013, but considering this is an independent feature, I am not sure of the film's current status.


You can find an interview of Lauren Velez in which she goes into depth about La Lupe and her motivation to bring her to the screen here

The film's Facebook page here

The film's kickstarter page here
 

The King and The Palace

Hola Everybody...
It’s been several years since James Brown passed away. I wrote this back then... 

* * *

James Brown and the Pitkin Theater

At a crucial point in the award-winning film, Mr. Holland’s Opus, the teacher of the title is fighting to save the high school arts program from budget cuts. The exchange goes something like this:

Vice Principal Wolters: I care about these kids just as much as you do. And if I'm forced to choose between Mozart and reading and writing and long division, I choose long division. 

Glenn Holland: Well, I guess you can cut the arts as much as you want, Gene. Sooner or later, these kids aren’t going to have anything to read or write about.

It is a telling moment in a movie that’s principally about teaching our young. The fact of the matter is that art is indispensable to education. Numerous studies have shown that children who are immersed in arts programs tend to do better in reading, writing, and mathematics, for example. The word educate comes from the Latin root word educare, which means to draw from. The implication being that education is not about filling children’s minds, but drawing out the potential that already exists. It is unfortunate that today we eat our young and then blame them for our own collective narcissism and shortsightedness. 

I won’t get into that today, but I mention the arts because it has been such an integral part of my life. Art, or Beauty, or Truth, or whatever you want to call it, saved my ass. When I was at the lowest point in my life what saved me was art. What saved me was the knowledge that in this fucked up world, full of petty motherfuckers racing like lemmings to catch/ buy/ sell/ the latest trend/ soundbite, flavor of the month, there was Beauty.

In my destitution, I could find sustenance in the intricate beauty of a Faulkner paragraph. I could drink Neruda’s passion; I could listen to John Coltrane’s fearless wide-eyed peer into the void. Knowing and experiencing the beauty of a Monet assured me that there was sanity in this world and that it was worth living. Therefore, it is with great sadness that I mark the passing of great artists – those who sustained me, when I felt I couldn’t do it myself. I feel a profound sense of gratitude for the archetype of The Artist, because they serve to remind us that there’s more to this momentary passage of time on this ball of mud we call Earth. The Artist, sometimes at great personal cost, follows her vision and sometimes points us to what matters most, though we oftentimes don’t pay heed.

And so it was with James Brown. I remember growing up listening and dancing to the sounds of James Brown. As a young teen, I danced the Camel Walk to James Brown. And who can forget his anthem to black pride when he sang, “Say it loud! I’m black and I’m proud!” At the time, it was a radical notion, for people of color to be proud of their skin color, the texture of their hair, and their culture. We take it for granted now, but there was a hard war fought in order for us to assume that we should be proud.

I was born of Puerto Rican parents and raised in the slums of New York City, rubbing elbows with African-American neighbors who also lived in those ghettos. I remember it was 1967 when we moved to East New York Ave in Brooklyn, right behind the Pitkin Theater (that’s the Pitkin Theater above). In those days, movie houses were built to resemble opulent palaces: velvet seats, gilded trimmings, lush carpeting in huge auditoriums facing a great stage where a huge silver screen hung. There was even a balcony and the older kids would go up there to make out.

At the time, we were one of the only Puerto Rican families living on that block embedded in a predominantly African-American community. In the beginning, I had to fight my way to and from school almost everyday. Eventually, I would befriend most of my neighbors and the first girl I ever kissed was this beautiful light-skinned girl called Gail. Actually, she would kiss me when we stood on line in school and I hated it because I didn’t like girls – yet.

On Saturdays, my mother would give each of us something like seventy-five cents and send us to the Pitkin Theater across the street on Pitkin Avenue (our apartment faced the back of the Pitkin Theater). The cost of admission was twenty-five cents and for that sum, you would see two new releases, plus the cartoons sandwiched in-between.

But the Pitkin Theater also held live shows and this is where I first experienced live soul music. I remember seeing Little Anthony and the Imperials there, and there were other acts. Many of the then up-and-coming Motown acts used to pass through in those days, part of the circuit and these were hugely popular. I remember the first time I was sitting down at the Pitkin and they were showing, between films, the hottest acts of the day. It was the first time I remember where all the white acts were booed and the Black performers cheered loudly. LMAO!

Now, James Brown, he was no up-and comer. JB was the King of Soul, the Godfather of Soul. I don’t know if he ever played the Pitkin, but whenever I think of JB, I’m reminded of the Pitkin and those long-ago days. JB took the field holler and put it to a fatback backbeat. When JB squealed, screamed, hollered, it was almost as if collective pain and anguish of the oppressed was concentrated in those musical moments. JB had the nastiest, funkiest rhythm section and if you listened closely, all the West African rhythms were encapsulated in his vocal stylings. To listen to James Brown was to be reminded that you were alive, that you were sensual, sexy, and a bad-assed muthafucka on the dance floor.

Without James Brown, popular music as it exists today would not exist. JB was the most sampled artist, the most emulated, having influenced people from the great Miles Davis to Prince and everybody in-between. Our world is a better world because of James Brown, whatever his inner demons were and today, we’re a lot less richer because of his passing.

Rest in peace, JB


My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Real New York [Colossus]

¡Hola! Everybody…
It’s cold, windy, and it’s February. Regardless, I would rather live here than whatever Armpit, USA you call home. LOL!

* * *

-=[ I Love Manhattan ]=-

There can be no destination. No map. Who among them can complain. Live here long enough and you have a compass… Let it happen. These are the terms of the truce he has made with Broadway.

-- Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York

Aussie singer/ songwriter, Michael Ress, has written a new song and he wants you to help him pick the best version (click here). It’s called “I Love Manhattan” and it’s a fitting tribute to what is in actuality, The Center of the Known Universe. My favorite version is the one sung by the various tourists and New Yorkers:

I like the video, it captures the diversity, culture, and excitement that is a lure for so many people who come here to live from all over the world. There are two other versions, one for kids even. LOL!

As for the other boroughs, you ask (fuck Stranded Staten Island!)? Mr. Ress says he has more songs coming up…

Check out the Facebook page (click here).

Love,

Eddie

The Friday Sex Blog [Love Songs]

Everybody…
Before I move on to the sex part, allow me to bring to your attention my article for the online magazine, Subversify (click here). Every year this day I celebrate an anniversary of sorts. Over the years, I have received many personal messages in response to this story. To be sure, it is my story, but it is also your story as well. I post it in the hopes that it will reach those who need to hear it the most...

* * *

-=[ Torch Song Trilogy ]=-

And there’s a storm that’s raging through my frozen heart tonight…
-- John Waite

It’s no secret to my lovers (and others) that I have a thing for wrist-slashing love songs. I’m really bad. I once wrote about La Lupe and her mastery of the bolero (ballad), and I still get goose bumps when she sings the opening lines to her La Gran Tirana (The Great Tryant):

Segun tu punto de vista/ Yo soy la mala/ Vampiresa de tu novella/ La Gran Tirana…

(According to your point of view/ I am the bad one/ Vampiress of your soap opera/ The Great Tyrant… )

As sung by La Lupe the words ooze with irony. Not an easy feat. Irony isn’t easy. Melodrama is easy (blah!). Anyone can do melodrama, but irony? Irony, you can’t fake irony. Irony comes from experience. No one else will ever sing that song like her. She owns it, it’s hers...

While I readily admit a fondness for cheesy love songs, I withhold my greatest admiration for those in-yo-face-grow-a-fuckin-backbone-muthufucka love songs. I love angry love songs! In fact, I like to call my poems full-frontal angry love poems.

For example, Tina Turner, one of my all-time favorite artists, sings a love song as if she were sucking a raw cock. This is not meant as a put down. What I mean is that Tina can milk every ounce of emotion out of a love song and somehow you come away from the performance not feeling all cheesy. Tina can do more with an arch of an eyebrow or sneer than most women can do with a whole song. Look at what she did to What’s love Got to Do with It? When she sings the title, you know you’re in the presence of someone who has felt deep, deeeeeeeeep pain and she’s slinging it out, no holds barred. She's almost saying:

Muthafucka, what’s love got to with it?!!

If recovering from a broken heart or a loss of a relationship is comparable to grieving, then denial and anger are its first stages. And many love songs (at least the good ones) speak from that painful, desolate, and barren landscape. One of my favorite love songs is John Waite’s (I Ain’t) Missing You. Waite sings this tough song of loss with a raw transparency reflective of the denial he’s feeling. It’s a denial he readily admits, but when he bangs out, I ain’t missing you… it’s more of a defiant cry borne of profound anguish. Left alone and abandoned by his lover, admittedly missing her and totally consumed by this loss, his only last ounce of dignity is to belt out…

I ain’t missing you at all!

And of course, we all know he’s missing her, she knows he’s missing her -- shit, he’s fuckin’ missing her with every fiber of his being, but he’s not going to admit it. I can lie to myself he sings defiantly. He’s not going to fall into the finality of admitting it.

Because he can… or can't

The song utilizes a heavy backbeat and there’s very little that’s tender in it and yet it manages to convey a raw emotion often missing from recent love songs. For example, the first line: Every time I think of you, I always catch my breath reads like major sappiness. But as sung by Waite with that hard backbeat, the line morphs into something deeper, something rawer. Like I said, anybody can do melodrama, crying and shit, but to convey genuinely that level of hurt, that level of awareness of feeling all alone and abandoned –- that’s art!

I love these lines:

In your world I have no meaning, though I’m trying hard to understand/ And it’s my heart that’s breaking down this long distance line tonight

I think those lines captures the profound hurt we all feel when love goes awry. There’s that essentially painful sense that you have no meaning in the other person’s life. It’s as if everything you shared, all the intimacies, all those tender moments, the vulnerability -- all of it -- meant nothing. There’s no meaning. That’s a hard load to bear, isn’t it?

In the end, I come away from Waite’s rendition feeling a sense of liberation from the obsessive grasp of compulsive love because though he’s still in denial, though he's raging, there’s a underlying strength to that denial. There is a sense that he knows she won’t come back and that his recovery process will be long and slow, but when he sings those words, I ain’t missing you at all, you sense that he will be OK in the end. It’s a howl, a challenge to the cold wind blowing through his crack in his heart.

In actuality, his cry of anguish is a plea to his lost love. Within that heartbreaking denial there’s expression of just how much he misses her, but his denial demands he doesn’t offer a full admission, because she’s gone and that’s it and the finality of it all is so painful.

You gotta love that shit! LOL

Love,

Eddie

The Queen of Latin Soul

¡Hola! Everybody...
A chill is creeping into the air, as summer breathes its last sighs...

* * *

-=[ La YiYiYi/ La Lupe/ La Reina ]=-

El dia en que to deje/ fui yo quien salio ganando

(The day I left you/ it was I who came out winning.)
-- La Lupe, La Tirana

One day a question from one of my readers/ friends left me thinking about boleros, this in turn, led me to reflect on one of its greatest interpreters, La Lupe.

I first saw La Lupe, aka La YiYiYi, barely into my 20s and before then, I wasn’t a big fan. I viewed boleros (love ballads) as a musical genre that older people and parents enjoyed and sang to one another. I think it was a common enough occurrence among Puerto Ricans: my parents would sometimes have arguments via songs. My father would sing some lyrics of a certain song, and then my moms would reply with lyrics from a song of her own, that type of thing. Like an argument, but with song lyrics... LOL

Anyway, one of the songs my mother would sing to my father was her favorite bolero, La Gran Tirana, by the inimitable La Lupe. Its lyrics was something like a feminist rallying cry for women from El Barrio and sung by La Lupe, they oozed irony. The opening line goes something like this:

Segun tu punto de vista
yo soy la mala.
Vampiressa de tu novela,
La Gran Tiriana.

(According to you,
I am the bad one.
Vampiress of your soap opera,
The great tyrant.)

I still get chills whenever I hear those opening lines. The great Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar, uses the song in one of his films; I believe it’s Women on the Verge.

In the hands of a lesser artist, La Tirana could easily sound melodramatic and trite, but as sung by the La Lupe, it’s a powerful claim to liberation, of doing away with oppression -- Yeah, you want to paint me as the bad one? Go ahead!

I saw La Lupe perform only once, many years ago in NYC’s cavernous Madison Square Garden. There were thousands of screaming fans, the noise level distracting, and the sound acoustics horrible. There were many acts that night in the early 70s, the main one being The Fania All Stars, a group of NYC Latino/a musicians that would storm the international circuit and bring that uniquely Nuyorican cultural phenomenon known as salsa to the world. But that night, salsa was ours and ours alone. No one knew what the hell salsa was, and even less of La Lupe.

When La Lupe came on stage, the audience, composed mostly of young Latino/as, went into a frenzy, screaming her name and demanding dedications. To this day, I can’t say I have witnessed a more powerful performance and I have seen many, many performers. I believe it was Frank Sinatra who said that it was dangerous for a performer to give everything, that a performer must, for their own survival, save something for themselves.

Well, La Lupe, bless her soul, gave everything that night. She left nothing, not one thing, for herself. Halfway through her performance she was sitting on the edge of the stage and all of sudden, it didn’t feel like Madison Square Garden anymore, it was as if we were all transported to La Lupe’s intimate world. She sang as if it were the last time she would sing, throwing everything into every song, every note, every syllable. Each movement was imbued with meaning and energy as she sang, laughed, and cried. Her ability to create that intimate connection was remarkable. You could feel her life force reaching out to you, taking you in, seducing you. She would claw at her clothes, scratch herself -- she gave so much. And I sat there transfixed. She called herself an empress and I'd be a damned if she really wasn’t.

Finally, she came to that point in her performance -- she sat on the edge of the stage her clothes by now gone -- torn apart by her own hands -- scratched and bleeding, she sat there in her bra and lingerie, and she managed to look like some reincarnated Taina queen.

You could hear a pin drop...

And that’s when she sang the opening lines to La Tirana:

Segun tu punto de vista/ yo soy la mala…

And it was too much; the crowd went wild, taken over the edge by a rare and masterful artist. At that moment, I fell in love with that woman’s soul, she possessed so much spiritual power and she was so willing, even in the face of annihilation, to share it. You actually feared for her, screamed for her, you felt her pain. I saw people cry and cheer. A powerful epiphany for me.

Unfortunately, I never got to see her again and, due in part to poor management and bad career choices, she would fall into relative obscurity. La Lupe would eventually die destitute living in a run-down tenement in the South Bronx. When news of her death became known, tens of thousands grieved. Money was collected for her funeral. An Off-Broadway play was written and in that way, her music was revived for a new generation.

She was one of those souls that flared brightly if too briefly and gave all she could, throwing caution to the wind. To me, she was woman incarnate that night on that stage. I would never forget her.

A bolero is a ballad, my friends, and with that, I give you, ladies and gentlemen, La Lupe. Que Dios te tenga en la luz:

La Reina, La Gran Tirana, La Lupe

Hola Everybody!
It’s an amazing day today – bright sunshine, tolerable temperature, a soft breeze. I have to go get an apartment! LOL!

* * *

"El dia en que te deje, fui yo quien salio ganando."
(The day I left you, it was I who came out winning)
-- La Lupe, La Tirana

The other day, one of my friends left a comment asking what a bolero was and I wasn’t able to respond because it was one of those hectic work days. However, the question left me thinking about boleros, which led me to think of one of its greatest interpreters, La Lupe.

I first saw La Lupe barely into my 20s and before then, I wasn’t a big fan. I viewed boleros as a musical genre that parents enjoyed and sang to one another. I think it’s a common enough occurrence among Puerto Ricans, but my parents would sometimes have arguments via songs. You know: my father would sing some lyrics of a certain song, and then my moms would reply with lyrics from a song of her own, that type of thing.

Anyway, one of the songs my mother would sing to my father was her favorite bolero, La Gran Tirana, by the inimitable La Lupe. Its opening line was like a rallying cry for women all over El Barrio and sung by La Lupe, they ooze with irony. The opening line goes something like this:

"Segun tu punto de vista
yo soy la mala
vampiressa en tu novela
la gran tirana... "

(According to your point of view
I am the bad one
The vampiress in your soap opera
The great tyrant... )

I still get chills whenever I hear those opening lines. The great Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar, uses the song in one of his films; I believe it’s Women on the Verge.

In the hands of a lesser artist, La Tirana could easily sound melodramatic and trite, but as sung by the La Lupe, it’s a powerful claim to liberation, of doing away with oppression.

I saw La Lupe perform only once, many years ago in NYC’s cavernous Madison Square Garden. There were thousands of screaming fans, the noise level distracting, and the sound acoustics horrible. There were many acts that night in the early 70s, the main one being The Fania All Stars, a group of NYC Latino/a musicians that would storm the international circuit and bring the phenomenon known as salsa to the world. But that night, salsa was ours and ours alone. No one knew what the hell salsa was, and even less of La Lupe.

When La Lupe came on stage, the audience, composed mostly of young Latino/as, went into frenzy, screaming her name and screaming for dedications. To this day, I can’t say I have witnessed a more powerful performance and I have seen many, many performers. I believe it was Frank Sinatra who said that it was dangerous for a performer to give everything, that a performer must, for their own survival, save something for themselves.

Well, La Lupe, bless her soul, gave everything that night. She left nothing, not one thing, for herself. Halfway through her performance she was sitting on the edge of the stage and all of sudden, it didn’t feel like Madison Square Garden anymore, it was as if we were all transported to La Lupe’s intimate world. She sang as if it were the last time she would sing, throwing everything into every song, every note, every syllable. Each movement was imbued with meaning and energy and she laughed and cried. Her ability to create that connection was remarkable. You could feel her life force reaching out to you, taking you in, seducing you. She would claw at her clothes, scratch herself – she gave so much, and I sat there totally transfixed. She called herself an empress and I'd be a damned if she really wasn’t.

Finally, she came to that point in her performance – she sat on the edge of the stage her clothes by now gone – torn apart by her own hands – scratched and bleeding, she sat there in her bra and lingerie, and she managed to look like some reincarnated Taina Queen.

You could hear a pin drop...

And that’s when she sang the opening lines to La Tirana:

Segun tu punto de vista,
yo soy la mala…

And it was too much; she had us – all of us -- eating out her hand. At that very moment, I fell in love with that woman’s soul, because she possessed so much spiritual power and she was so willing, even in the face of annihilation, to share it. You actually feared for her, screamed for her, felt her pain.

Unfortunately, I never got to see her again and due to poor management and bad career choices, she would fall into relative obscurity. La Lupe would eventually die living destitute in the Bronx. When news of her death became known, tens of thousands of the people that loved her grieved. Money was collected for her funeral. An Off-Broadway play was written and in that way her music was revived for a new generation.

She was one of those that flared brightly if too briefly and gave all she could, throwing caution to the wind. To me, she was woman incarnate that night on that stage. I would never forget her.

A bolero is a ballad, Amy, and with that, I give you, ladies and gentlemen, La Lupe. Que Dios te tenga en la luz: