Vagamundeando

Busco Mariachi

Yesterday Mexicans celebrated with a holiday the birthday of Benito Juarez, one of their most beloved leaders (the equivalent of George Washington in the US). Because of that, Ale, the owner of Oslo Lounge, the coffee shop downstairs from the apartment where I’m staying, decided to open his shop later in the day and come with me to Plaza Garibaldi; the epicenter of the mariachi world.

At this legendary square, mariachis of all ages and levels of success can be found, day and night, playing for whoever will walk up to them and pay or waiting by the main avenue that runs in front of the plaza for cars to stop and hire them for gigs.

The purpose of my visit was first, of course, to experience the place, but also to post flyers that read “Busco mariachi para un documental” (Looking for mariachi for a documentary). The idea to film the day in the life of a Mariachi has been brewing in my mind since I went to the canal city of Xochimilco a couple of weeks ago. Like in Venice, there too you can hire a trajinera (a kind of gondola) to ride around the canals. As you ride, other trajineras approach you and offer various services such as food, souvenirs, or musical performances in the form of mariachi bands singing as many requested songs as you’re willing to pay. We hired one of these bands to play a few songs for us and, as they sang, I looked at the members of the band and wondered what their lives were like. The thought came and went until a few days ago I was having dinner with Tania, a friend I met at a party the weekend before, and a couple of musicians came by our table and asked if I wanted to buy her a song. I did but I mainly did it for a chance to observe the strange pair as they played their guitars and sang the songs Tania requested. As they played I again found myself wondering what their lives were like. What path brought them to do what they do? I mentioned to Tania the idea of the documentary and she said she liked the concept a lot and suggested I go to Garibaldi.

The next day I mentioned the idea to Ale and he loved it, but was apprehensive about me going to Garibaldi alone, since it has a reputation for being in a rough part of town and offered to go with me.

We got there by 9 am and a few mariachis were already around. The plaza is currently being revamped. Actually, the revamping process has been going on for a while, as a woman who’s been living in the area for over 30 years told us. The idea was to clean up the place and make it more of a tourist attraction where people would feel safe walking around, but in doing so trees and gardens were removed and replaced with huge paved areas and ugly structures too modern looking to match the colonial look of the plaza’s surrounding buildings.

inside of the Mercado San Camilito

After posting our flyers, Ale and I went to try and get some breakfast at the Mercado San Camilito located on one side of the plaza. There are different kinds of mercados (markets) in Mexico. Most of them are huge indoor and outdoor places consisting of hundreds of small stores specializing on either clothes, crafts, vegetables, meats, chiles (hot peppers), etc. The Mercado San Camilito is different in the sense that it’s mainly a huge dining hall. In it, row after row of long and narrow restaurants flank a long hallways where you can walk and pick where you want to eat. To help you decide, hosts quickly walk up to passersby and tell them what makes their place special or offer you discounts on the menu prizes, or both. Ale and I were in the mood for some eggs but, unbeknownst to us, that’s not the breakfast of choice for mariachis. Most places were focusing on selling Birria, a broth-based soup with boiled meat and a few vegetables. Apparently, there’s nothing like it to cure a long night of music playing and serious tequila drinking. After walking by a few places, however, Ale and I did find a place that could prepare us some huevos rancheros and coffee.

After breakfast we went looking for Ilario, the owner of a shoe store whom the lady we spoke with about the construction in the plaza told us we should talk to, since he knew every mariachi on Garibaldi. Iralio’s place was close, but we were told it’d probably open at around 11 (that’s very Mexico, by the way). It was only 10 at that time, so Ale and I went for a walk.

Here it is interestingly to mention that Ale, despite having told me that the Garibaldi area was not safe, he had never been there himself and was surprised how cool it turned out to be. He thanked me for having brought him there and told me about how he used to hate Mexican culture; the crowded and smelly markets, the street vendors yelling out their offers using the worse street slang terms, the way thousands of people can always be found walking the streets looking to buy who knows what. But now he admitted that he had come to terms with all that, however. He finally appreciated Mexico and all its extravagant excess of color, detail, and expression.

To experience all that to the max, while we waited for 11 o’clock to arrive, we went to the Mercado de la Merced (one of the biggest ones in Mexico), we walked into a couple of churches where that baroque excess of detail is displayed best of all and walked around el Zocalo (the DF’s historic center) where we cracked up and imitated the callings and terms used by the street vendors. We ended up walking around for so long that we wandered way too far and had to take a subway back to Garibaldi.

By then Iralio’s shop was open and he was happy to try and help us out. As it turns out, Iralio himself is a mariachi. He hasn’t stood on Garibaldi for years, but he told us that he’s on call and ready to go on a moment’s notice. If a gig comes up he just pulls down the metallic door that guards his shop and goes.

Ilario

Iralio was born in provincia in the Mexican state of Puebla. He’s a country boy, like most mariachis are. He’s of dark features, round face, thick black hair and very kind eyes. I don’t know if he looks very Mexican or if I’ve seen him before. Either way, he looked very familiar to me from the start. He told us that he was as poor as they come growing up, but always knew he wanted to be more. He told us, “I was born in Puebla, but I always knew I was not from there. When I was eight I would look at the mountains over which I’d been told the capital was and count the days till I’d go there.” Iralio finished primary school as fast as he could and, knowing his family could not afford to send him to high school, took off and at the age of 13 came to Mexico City to sleep under cars and make something out of himself. He told us he became a mariachi out of necessity. You could earn decent money playing music back then and so he learned to play the violin. He loved the life, of course, the proof is that he’s always ready to close his shop and go, but I didn’t get the sense he would have done it if he would not been able to live and feed his family at it.

After talking for a while, Iralio asked me if I would accept a drink of Tequila that a friend had brought him from Guadalajara so that he could enjoy with friends. I told him that if offered me a drink I could not say no, so he produced this five-litter plastic jug filled about halfway with a golden liquid and poured three shots into plastic disposable cups. He explained he was taking medicine, so he’d only have a sip himself. It was the second time I drank tequila in Mexico, the first one having been with Adriana and her dad, and I liked this second tequila just as much as the first. Iralio’s tasted bolder than Adriana’s but still very smooth. In a way Adriana’s tequila was more like her and her dad and Iralio’s was like him. His must have also had a much higher alcohol content than Adriana’s because I drank three shots of hers and I was fine but I hadn’t had three sips when I was already feeling pretty darn good. I noticed Ale was feeling its effects too. After a sip or two I could detect a change in his personality. He became more animated and a tiny slurring of his words began to pop up. I should have heeded those signs being that we were in a supposedly rough part of town, but when Iralio offered me a second shot I said yes, anyway. Drinking tequila with Iralio felt like drinking tea with the queen might feel if I’d gone to England or vodka with a Cossak in Russia, you just don’t say no to the opportunity.

Further talk and tequila reveleaed that Iralio had been married 5 times and had 23 children. ‘That’s tequila for you,” I thought and continued listening as he told us how he’d decided to open the shoe store (which only sells charro shoes and belts, by the way) after thinking of his old age. He said he didn’t want to have to depend on any of his kids to take care of him and so the shoe store had seemed like a good idea. I asked him if he regretted having given up the life at the plaza and he said no. He insisted that whenever a gig comes up all he needs to do is close up and go. But as I struggled, due to the increasing effects of the tequila, to focus my eyes to see him through the bars which separate the exterior of his shop from the street, it seemed to me that he looked a bit like a caged animal. A black panther self-sentenced to live a life of incarceration because of the dark specter of old age. That ghost has shown himself to me a few times, so I cannot say I judge him for choosing the safer road, but I still wanted to reach in and yank him out. I’d had the same feeling earlier that day when walking through the Mercado de la Merced we passed by the live animal areas and creatures of all breeds looked at me with sad eyes from inside their cages.

In the end, Iralio gaves us the name of the secretary of the local mariachi organization for us to inquire with him about finding a charismatic mariachi to be the central character in my short film, but would not give us any names of mariachis himself. I asked if he would be my character, but he didn’t feel he was mariachi enough. He didn’t say it like that but he did say he was in the store too much.

When Ale and I went to look for Leonel, the man Iralio had told us about we noticed almost all of the signs we had posted were gone. The secretary of the mariachi association wasn’t there either, because of the holiday. Oh, well. I began to feel that the whole idea of the mariachi film had been a trick by fate to bring me to meet Iralio and his story. To experience the emotions of joy and sadness it held. To drink tequila with a guy who called me his friend after knowing him for 30 minutes and I could not sense an ounce of falsity in the use of the word.

All in all it was another great day in Mexico. Another great experience that I will drive off with when, in less than two weeks, I load my car up again and head to Puebla. When I get there I know the first thing that will come in my head and what I will tell people I meet, “I got a friend that’s from here. He’s a mariachi in the DF.”

Me, Stell, and Ale

To cap off the great day I had, I bought a black cowboy hat I’ve been wanting and Ale wanted to celebrate by drinking some beers at a local cantina he knew. Somehow later we ended up back in Plaza Garibaldi watching Mariachi’s perform for a group that was taking requests from a family member over the phone. About that time our friend Stell joined us and soon we were drinking again. Viva Mexico!!!