Mission Mission

Here’s your daily dose of enthnomusisnobbery. Those guys walking around the Mission with guitars? Not Mariachi. Mariachis wear the Three Amigos getups and feature violins as the lead instrument (not just trumpets), according to this informative video:

It goes on to point out that if you want the real thing, you gotta go to San Jose or LA.

Use that on your next date at Cava 22 to impress. Here’s some sample copy: “Actually, this doesn’t quite fall under the Mariachi idiom.” Be sure to use an extra nasal and high-pitched voice when you say “actually”.

California is a Place posted a lovely mini-documentary on a Los Angeles Mariachi trumpeter who goes by the name “El Rey” that you should check out. These guys live music.

Next time you’re sitting next to one of these smartly-dressed fellas on MUNI, be sure to wish him a good gig.

Here’s the link. Embedded below if you’re not google reader’ing.

Have you ever been to Mariachi’s on Valencia for fast, fresh, and healthy Mexican food?  Well, if not, you’d better hurry, because according to Grub Street, both it and its ten (10) different kinds of delicious vegetarian burritos will soon be gone and replaced by a Grandeho’s Kamekyo sushi bar.

Where will all of Mission mariachis go for dinner?  La Rondalla can’t open soon enough!

Photo by Jonn.Gordon

Romantico, the 2005 film that follows mariachis Carmelo and Arturo around the Mission as they sing for tips, was unbearably depressing. The highlights include: a tour of their apartment, which they share with 8 other people and where Carmelo sleeps in a tent made out of a sheet and a shelf. A phone call in which Carmelo calls back home to speak to his wife Carmela (yes, seriously) and finds out that his mother has lost her other leg to diabetes and is now fully legless, blind, and almost inflables completely deaf. Later Arturo enters “daycare” to cope with his alcoholism.

Basically, the message of the film, if there was one, was that these guys have to choose between living a lonely and poor life in the Mission to send money back to their families or living a lonely and poor life in Mexico where they don’t make any money at all.

The film was 83 minutes long. And I felt every single one of them.

After it ended, I looked to Pauline and said, “Oh GOD I need a hug.”