Canadá acepta refugiados...Mexicanos?!!

Hace unos dias el Vancouver Sun publicó una noticia en primera plana que me dejó con el ojo cuadrado. Según el periódico, Canadá está recibiendo números record de solicitudes de refugiados mexicanos. El año pasado, más de 8000 mexicanos solicitaron entrada a Canadá como refugiados, posicionando a México en el lugar #1 en la lista de solicitudes. Es decir, olvídense de Iran, Iraq, Afganistán, Sudán, y demás países con guerras, represión extrema, y dictaduras militares. La guerra contra el narco de Felipe Calderón es la que más refugiados está mandando a Canadá! 

Desgraciadamente, el Vancouver Sun es un periódico sensacionalista donde constantemente se publican fotos terribles sobre la guerra contra el narco en México sin mucho contexto histórico o estadísticas sobre el conflicto, creando la imagen falsa de un país en guerra total. Así que, aunque hay diversos factores que pueden explicar ese número de solicitudes, para el periódico está clarísimo que México es un país donde la población está en manos de los narcos. 

Lo interesante de esta nota va a ser cuando Canadá responda a las solicitudes y determine si acepta a los refugiados. Creo que sería un golpe político tremendo contra el gobierno de Calderón puesto que, al aceptar a los refugiados, el mensaje directo es "México no es capaz de proteger a sus ciudadanos." En lo personal, si eso va a contribuir a que el gobierno de Calderón reevalúe su absurda campaña contra el narco, que los acepten a todos!  

Fistful of Love

Yes, a very late review of the Antony and the Johnsons is in the works. In the meantime...

Junos!

Apologies to all my readers for this long absence. I have no excuse except for a bad case of writer's block that was aggravated by the rain. In any case, I have now found a great reason to post again! 

As you all probably know, the Juno Awards are happening this weekend in Vancouver, and there are a number of festivities around the city. There's even a Juno Fest. I must warn you that of the more than 100 bands playing in this fair city this weekend, there are no more than 10 that deserve your attention. And by your attention, I mean the attention of people that have musical tastes similar to mine and enjoy the music I share in this blog and the tales of concerts and musical adventures published here. 

I personally think that the credibility of the Juno Awards as a measure of high quality music suffers tremendously from the fact that Nickelback (or the worst band in the world) is nominated for five awards. One of my top ten favorite moments in Vancouver happened yesterday as I was doing some grocery shopping: Nickelback was playing in the background and I walked next to a man that said "every time that Nickelback sings, the Lord weeps." Hahaha. There's even a Facebook group called "Every time Nickelback is played, God kills a Llama". As for the term Nickelback, here is a precise definition.

Having said that, here are the bands that I wish I had seen yesterday night at the Media Club:

Said the Whale

Hey Rosetta!

And these are the bands that I'm excited to see tonight at the Railway Club:

Eldorado

Deep Dark Woods

Plants and Animals

p.s. hoorray for all the "green" band names.

Reminiscing Radiohead

I'm sitting in my Vancouver apartment, suffering from a terrible cold. I can feel the antihistamine drowsiness kicking in as the first notes of There There burst out of my speakers. The runny nose and persistent cough are a modest price to pay for one of the most fantastic weekends of my life: Radiohead TWICE in Mexico City!

Flashback to September 10, 2001. It's 9pm and I'm at the Santa Maria Novella station in Florence, waiting for a train that will travel all night to Berlin. I get off the train at Bahnhof Zoo at 5pm on September 11 and I see hundreds of people staring at the television screens. The Twin Towers are burning, people around me are shouting in German, and the only word I can register is "terroristen". A couple of hours later, I'm standing at the Parkbühne Wuhlheide with my friends Jan, Raúl, and Tatiana, listening to a very angry Thom Yorke singing "Come on, come on, Holy Roman Empire". The metaphor is too fitting. "Come on if you think, come on if you think, you can take us all." (This historic concert is now the I Might Be Wrong: live recordings.)

Fast forward to Florence, July 9, 2003. I'm at the Piazzale Michelangelo with Jessica, Aranzazú, and Andrés, desperately trying to find a scalper. Outside the concert fence there is a mass of ticketless fans trying to catch a glimpse of the stage by standing on top of cars and trashcans. We roam around the entrance like blood thirsty predators, until the music begins, forcing us to sit outside in resignation. The sense of community is unavoidable in this large group of outcasts, as we all tap our feet and quietly murmur the lyrics of the show we can't see. Thom is almost cruel when he says "There's a gap in between...where I end and you begin."

Then it's August 19, 2008. I cross the street from my apartment in Vancouver and arrive at Thunderbird Stadium with Pablo and Ignacio. A perfect new album and a great venue promise a perfect show. But the sudden combination of rain and an imperfect crowd make it all uncomfortable. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? 

Not for long. 

It's March 14, 2009. I arrive unannounced at my father's 60th birthday party in Mexico City and my sister informs me that, by mere chance, Radiohead is playing this weekend. My heart leaps out of its chamber as I work through my phone list to get tickets (gracias Diana, gracias Pablo). Twenty-four hours later, I'm standing at the Foro Sol, listening to the opening beats of 15 Step and shouting at the top of my lungs. The concert is insuperable, the setlist tailored to perfection. A day later I'm at the exact same spot, next to the central console, listening in disbelief to How to Disappear Completely. I suddenly realize that after two years of living in Vancouver, I forgot what it's like to experience a concert in a Mexico City crowd. The amount of passion, the noise, the warmth are unexplainable... DF, "You're all I need, you're all I need". 

As I grab yet another tissue and blow my nose, I stop and remember the weekend. I close my eyes to relive the euphoria, the shouts and chants coming out of 55,000 voices. My cough interrupts the memory of the bright led tubes just as the last notes of Videotape echo from my ongoing playlist. It suddenly hits me that I will never listen to this (or any) song in the same way. 

(p.s. This is what a real crowd feels like. Or this. And again. At 1:38)

Waiting Impatiently in DF

My absence from this blog in the past week can be explained by a number of correlated factors that kept me away from my computer. There are many stories to tell and many posts waiting in line: the Andrew Bird concert in Seattle, Antony and the Johnsons in Vancouver, another post on The Watchmen, and maybe a joke or two. But today is not the day to write them.

Today, I'm in Mexico City waiting impatiently for my father's suprise birthday party. He's turning 60 and I decided that the best gift would be to grab a plane and show up at his party. Hopefully there will be a microphone lying around somewhere, because not only do I intend to sing, but my father is the funniest talk show host you can imagine when it comes to his own celebrations! Needless to say, I'm planning to make an explosive entrance that involves being concealed inside an enormous cake. I can't wait to see his face! (the interesting thing about surprise parties is that the surprise becomes perfectly reciprocal).

AND, by mere chance, I'm also waiting impatiently for the most anticipated and talked-about event of the year. Radiohead in Mexico City. I repeat, RADIOHEAD in Mexico City! As you may recall, I already saw this tour in Vancouver, but I can't even begin to explain how different this will be. In fact, I can't even say that it's the same tour. (I don't think I need to explain the difference between the boring Vancouver crowds that simply "chill" at concerts and the 80,000 screaming Mexican souls that sing each and every song from beginning to end) Mexico has been waiting 13 years for this concert and it took me only a minute or two of navigating through the radio frequencies today to realize that this megalopolis has high pressure Radiohead pumping through its veins. In other words, the history of Radiohead will have a before DF and an after DF. I hope Thom Yorke understands what he is up against tomorrow night, otherwise he's in for his ultimate surprise party.

The Watchmen

I'm waiting impatiently for tomorrow's release of the movie The Watchmen. Following in the footsteps of many a hipster, I've had the comic sitting in my bookshelf for about a year, acquiring the dust that invariably settles on projects that are indefinitely postponed. 

I must confess that I was one of those poor souls that first heard about The Watchmen in 2008, when news about the movie's production was already in the airwaves. And yes, I was also one of the many hundreds of sheep that payed attention to the book only after seeing it lying around in one of those temples of hipsterdom, Urban Outfitters. 

Like a new pair of Onitsuka Tigers, the bright yellow cover was too cool to ignore. Like an avid consumer of trends, I relaxed my muscles and let the store decide what I needed to have. And so I bought the book, skimmed through it on the way home, and shelved it thinking I would get to it eventually. 

Months passed, moths sat on it, and it was only after I saw the poster for the movie two weeks ago that I realized I had an urgent date with a comic book. Today I'm at the last chapter and my mind is racing in all directions. The moral dilemmas of vigilantism mixed with philosophical considerations of the value of life on Earth, all wrapped in a superhero story full of intrigue and placed in the middle of Cold War geopolitical dilemmas, is simply too complex and incredible to describe in this simple post! 

I understand that to many of you I'll sound like an idiot who all of a sudden realizes that the White Album is pure genius and tells you "duuude, you have to listen to that band, The Beatles"... but to all of you who haven't discovered The Watchmen, this book is not just a fad, it is literature at its best, and I suggest you read it! 

P.S. For a more academic reading on The Watchmen, Prof. Jason Dittmer discusses the comic's treatment of the Nietzchean dilemma of the Superman (Übermensch) in his article "The Tyranny of the Serial: Popular Geopolitics, the Nation, and Comic Book Discourse" (Antipode, Volume 39, Issue 2, p. 253).