Los Padrinos – 20 minute Conjunto lesson

From our performance at Luminarias (A San Antonio Arts Festival)

San Blas

The other day we had a gig and I was feeling under the weather.  Actually all that week I had a lot of congestion and cough, I was worried that I would not be able to sing for the gig we had.  That would have been bad, because I am the only other guy in the band that has a half way decent voice!  Anyways I was at church and the priest said he was going to bless our throats because it was in celebration of El Dia de San Blas.  I thought, “I sure could use that!”, so I lined up and received a blessing.  Well let me tell you I was still worried,  I brought cough drops, a jug of water, took some lemons, etc (just in case).  Well wouldn’t you know that from the first note I sang, everything was fine!  What a great relief! Thanks San Blas!  Now what do I do about the other days?

New head of the Texas Rangers

Tony Leal is the first Hispanic to lead los rinches de tejas.   Isn’t it ironic?

Spam emails

Here is a hilarious commentary from Carlos Guerra at the Express-News here in San Antonio…

Web Posted: 12/09/2008 12:00 CST

Alert: Spare me e-mail alerts about the end of the world

Don’t buy into everything you read, especially on the Internet.

More than a decade ago, I started adding an e-mail address at the end of my column for readers to contact me. It precipitated an avalanche of information that has led to incredible stories.

On the down side, my e-mail address is now on every spam list in the world, so I get e-mails in languages and alphabets I can’t even identify. One day, I got the same Nigerian letter advising me of my million-dollar good fortune in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

But the most amusing missives are the forwarded e-mails sent by new computer users who have just discovered the Internet. Most often users of AOL, formerly America Online, they send things I might not have seen before, almost all of which I have.

Many are alerts about impending cyber disasters. Last week, I got yet another warning I have been getting for at least a decade about a bogus bill pending before Congress to tax e-mail. How a hoax like that can exist so long befuddles me.

My all-time favorite, however, has to be the warning of the “ultimate virus” that, I am sure, was started as a joke but still gets sent out by people who don’t get it. This virus, I was warned, will “erase everything on your computer and any storage media within 20 feet of the infected computer, demagnetize the stripes on all of your credit and debit cards and change your pin number,” and “recalibrate your refrigerator, making all of your ice cream melt and your milk curdle” (at the same time), and “program all speed-dials on your cell phone to call 900 sex lines.”

Why people believe this message amazes me after it warns that the virus will “drink all of your beer, leave dirty socks on your coffee table when you’re expecting company and replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine” and “will cause you to do unusual things like running with scissors and throwing things in a way that is only fun until someone loses an eye, rewrite your back-up files, changing all of your active verbs to passive tense and incorporate undetectable misspellings which grossly change the interpretation of key sentences, leave your toilet seat up and your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub and will not only remove forbidden tags from your mattresses, (it) will also refill your skim milk with whole milk (while) molecularly rearranging your cologne or perfume, causing it to smell like dill pickles.”

And if that isn’t enough, it will even “change hotel billings so your girl- or boyfriend’s hotel bill will be charged to your account while he or she is cheating on you.”

But most often, these e-mail spams — which are almost always multiple-forwarded messages — come from people with a fuzzy agenda who are gullible and don’t have a lot of smarts or research capability. The latest of these funnies came from eight readers, all in one day, all via AOL.

“(W)e’ll probably have to Take (sic) action since B. Hussein Obama (“Henry B. Hussein Obama,” according to one letter) won the election,” and “Texas is the only state with a legal right to secede from the Union (Reference the Texas-American Annexation Treaty of 1848.)”

Hate to disappoint you guys (and yes, they were all guys, and probably really dumb or old ones, or both), but according to the Yale Law School blog, which includes the text of the Texas-American Annexation Treaty, there is nothing in it that allows secession.

But more important, the treaty doesn’t exist.

“That treaty was submitted to the Senate on April 22, 1844,” the Yale blog notes, “and it was rejected by the Senate by a vote of sixteen ayes to thirty-five noes on the following June 8.”

So don’t get your hopes up about never having to say “President Obama.” [END]

Only in San Anto

I happened to be downtown today near our Cathedral on a beautiful Saturday night.  The city recently renovated the main plaza downtown so I was enjoying the new addition to our downtown when I heard music coming from a small tent near the edge of the plaza.  I immediately heard an accordion so I walked towards the tent.  It was kind of dark so I couldn’t tell who the band was, they were pretty good.  As I got closer to the tent (it was surrounded by Christmas lights) I saw a group of people lounging around enjoying the music- about 20-25 people in all.  It was a very homey atmosphere.  As I got up to the tent (there was no stage it was set on the ground) I realized that it was Los Tex-Maniacs with Max Baca, David Farias, Speedy V and Chente Barrera on drums!  Only in San Antonio could you find this band playing for free and only about 25 people checking them out.  I went up to the tent to say hi to guys, then I left.  Just another night in San Antonio.

Manuel Peña interview

Click here to see this interesting interview from the #1 expert on Conjunto music Dr. Manuel Peña.

Lucha Libre

The other day my 5 year old asked me if he could watch WWE Monday Night Raw. He is a big time wrestling fanatic (especially of John Cena). It is funny because I don’t let him watch wrestling on TV, but it just took one night when we had friends over and their little boys brought a wrestling DVD…he was hooked after that. I remember in my house lucha libre was a family event – not that we wrestled each other, but that we would watch it on our black and white TV. Black Gorman, Mil Mascaras, Victor Rivera, Andre the Giant, and Chavo Guerrero were some of the names I remembered back then. In my jr. high and high school years, it was Bruiser Brody, Scott Casey, Gino Hernandez, Tully Blanchard all from Southwest Championship wrestling. Those were the days. Now I think wrestling has gotten too “adult” for kids to watch – or maybe I am taking my fatherly role too seriously, lol. So when he asked me, I kind of ignored the question and he soon forgot about it anyway. I prefer Youtube to see the greatest wrestlers of all time. Maybe for Halloween I will dress up like Mil Mascaras! The luchador gimmick has already be taken by the Conjunto “Los Enmascarados”, from San Antonio, they have been doing that for years. Yes, lucha libre is part of my culture!  Makes me feel like watching “Nacho Libre” again.  Anyways, here is a toast to a part of my up bringing: gathering around as a family, filled with warmth and love, as my mom screams: “¡Pégale Sonso!”

Sun block

Recently we played at a festival here in San Antonio.  I knew things were going to be bad when I saw that the stage was facing the sun.  Sure enough as soon as we started we began losing the shade we had on stage.  I was ready to call it quits because I was worried that the sun was going to ruin the reeds on my accordion.  The reeds on the accordion are held in place by wax.  Wax and sun do not mix.  We kept moving back to try to stay in the shade, until we had our backs to the rear of the portable stage.  Needless to say, there was no escaping the South Texas sun.  Luckily my accordions turned out ok, but I feel people should take more consideration when asking bands to perform for them; especially outdoors!  Stay cool.

Flaco Jimenez

We recently played at the Market Square here in San Antonio and had the pleasure of talking with conjunto music legend Flaco Jimenez.  It was nice to talk with him.  What was cool is when my compadre Juan started asking him questions about his early recordings, and they started singing some of those old songs together!  You could tell Flaco was getting a kick out of reminescing about some of the other legends in conjunto like Andres Berlanga, Fred Zimmerle, and others.  It was really the highlight of the whole night.  It’s moments like these that make me appreciate what we have here in San Antonio and in our culture, hope we never forget!

The Conjunto Network

I need to thank my compadre Jesús Ramirez for introducing me to ning.com.  Since we launched the “Conjunto is Life” social network it has taken off!  Thanks to all the participants!  Also, I need to apologize to Javier Galvan of Fama.  I banned him from the network.  Actually there was some technical glitch that caused me to have to do that – Yes I know Fama is not normally associated with Conjunto, but I have to remind everyone (I give them props for this) in one of their early hits they used Eddie Lalo Torres on the squeezebox!  Eddie Lalo is an awesome accordion player from San Antonio his brother is El Pavo Grande from Los Pavo Reales (La Reina es el Rey, Me Dicen el Borrachito, etc).  That was probably the only time Eddie Lalo was heard on Tejano radio all thanks to Javier Galvan y Grupo Fama.  Maybe Javier can put it on his player so we can all remember.  Thanks y Viva Conjunto!