Oh yes, it’s that good.

Your Faithful Correspondent has actually been somewhat less faithful to the blog over the last few weeks, owing to a excellent visit to the land of the free and the home of the brave. But the fun and games are over now, people, as he has returned to Mexico in search of some decent grub and a population that doesn’t spend all day complaining about gas prices. (UPDATE: Found!)

So here’s the plan: This week and next week, we have a “what I did on my summer vacation” sort of feature - a travel log about my recent 1,000-mile bike trip between Western Washington and Glacier National Park. (Hope someone outside of my immediate family finds that one interesting.) Then, we get back to chronicling Mexico, the way God clearly intended.

What would posses someone of otherwise sound mind to attempt a 1,000-mile bike trip? The answer, in a word, is drugs. Not the kind that get law enforcement all riled up, but rather the sort that the brain naturally produces en masse when you are averaging 80 miles a day. There’s no describing this sublimity to the uninitiated, so I won’t bother trying, but trust me on this one, it’s great.

The other great advantage goes to those of us who, in normal life, simply cannot stop thinking and planning. Maybe this lot should take up Zen or vodka or something, but cycling seems a pretty good option as well. On the road, life is stripped down to the essentials, converting minds that usually focus on ”retirement plan, doctors appointment, women, future” into minds that pretty much stick to “food, water, sleep.”

Call it the ultimate mind-clearing experience, all done in settings that couldn’t be more beautiful. It’s not fun, per say. But it still does great in the meaning department.

(Click here to view a map of the first week’s adventure.)

Day 1/July 14: Olympia, WA to Randle, WA - 85 miles     The road out of Olympia (home of parents, one of whom is a bike mechanic) led to rural logging Republican country pretty fast and afforded some excellent views of Mt. Ranier. I followed Highway 7, and the Nisqually River, past a number of pennance parks created by Tacoma Power for those who enjoy the fishless flatwater the company’s dams create. Shopped for dinner at a grocery store in Morton, home of a thriving saw mill. At a campground near Randle, I basically collapsed, more exhausted than I had been in a very long time. Then, a hoard of mosquitoes - by far the worst of the trip - took advantage of my vulnerability.

Day 2: Randle, WA to Carson, WA - 80 miles     Hills and sore feet marked this day of elevation gains and scant available supplies. The ride started, for some inexplicable reason, at 5:30 a.m., and that necessitated a two-hour nap at a Forest Service day use area not long after. Saw some beautiful ribbons of fog spilling over the green hills and a few early riser livestock as I cruised toward the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Views of Mt. Saint Helens were frequent and up close, as the road essentially went through its backyard. Ranier also popped into view in the morning, and also Adams, which competed with the smoke of the Cold Springs fire. I found a hot shower at a campground outside Carson. From my picnic table I could see the Columbia River. I had difficulty feeling my pinkie toes.

Day 3: Hanging out in camp - 0 miles     Finally gave in to frantic petitions from my knees and other sensitive areas and took a day off. I spent most of it wandering around the grounds in a trance. Then I woke up in the evening.

Day 4: Carson, WA to Roosevelt, WA - 94 miles     A ferocious tailwind carried the day, which started in a rainforest and ended in the brown hills of Eastern Washington. Temperatures were in the 90s, and water was about to run out at one point just before I found a small orchard with a faucet. The woman at the Roosevelt Mini Mart, who keeps a kind of guestbook of all the cyclists who swing by, directed me to a free campground on the banks of the Columbia. Just a field with picnic tables and a bathroom with showers, which is all I ever want on these trips anyway. In camp, I met a couple of guys from Guadalajara who work the fields in the U.S. for nine months a year. Also an Indian named Blue Jay who was there for a pow-wow the following day. The appetite kicked into gear, with dinner consisting of two cheeseburgers, two burritos, an apple, some string cheese and marshmallows. But I was missing Mexican food.

Day 5: Roosevelt, WA to Pendleton, OR - 88 miles     Tailwind continued all the way to Umatilla, where I hooked a right and returned to God’s Country (Oregon). Who knows what those Washington punks are capable of, but Oregonians can generally be trusted. For instance, a gentleman at the Welcome Center told me that there was really nothing in North Umatilla County, so I rerouted my way to Pendleton. From Hermiston to the comically named Echo and along a back-road that follows the beautiful Umatilla River. The desert terrain continued, resembling New Mexico a great deal. In Pendleton I sprang for a room at the Relax Inn, where I had yet another glorious shower. Honestly, you can never truly appreciate showers until you have one at the end of the day on a bike trip. Just divine. I also concluded that the persistent pain in my foot, which had spread to both of my knees, probably had more to do with the aged state of my shoes rather than old age (25) aches and pains. The shoes were little better than an extra pair of socks, and the new pair eventually proved to be the ticket back to a pain-free riding experience.

Day 6: Pendleton, OR to Minam State Recreation Area, OR - 86 miles     Got out of Pendleton late thanks to some phone calls that needed making. Also put Slime in the tires to guard against the hated goat heads. I started out taking a long and winding county road toward La Grande. But it was too winding, and after a while I opted for Interstate 84. Not the most scenic option, but generous shoulders! After wolfing down dinner outside of the La Grande Safeway I headed north through wheat and alfalfa fields to Elgin, then east to the Minam Recreation area, which is ranked by The Oregonian as one of the state’s ten best campgrounds. It’s an old fishing stream deep in a canyon. The camping is primitive, so that keeps most of the RV riffraff out as well. The last act of the day was a refreshing dip in the river.

Day 7: Minam State Recreation Area, OR to Joseph, OR - 38 miles     Enjoyed the first hot food in a week courtesy of my neighbors at Minam, who had more food than they could eat. Hash browns, eggs, and chicken never tasted so good. The ride that morning, up a gently sloping Wallowa River, was excruciating, thanks to the previous day’s trek over the Blue Mountians. Things didn’t improve when I reached flatter farm country. They did, however, get better in Joseph, where I met up with Craig Strobel, college roommate of my old man and brother of my godfather. We - he and his two daughters - went for a dip in scenic Wallowa lake, and then to a barn dance. I ate three gigantic plates of food and daughter Betsy taught me a few swing moves to the accompaniments of a local bluegrass trio. After, Betsy, Craig’s ex-wife, Monica, and I stayed up late talking about religion. It seems necessary to have at least one of these late night conversations once a year or so.

The exciting conclusion next week!

Ahoy all! Your faithful correspondent is still whooping it up on his United States family tour/vacation. So this week, I want to encourage you to try out some different blogs.

First: Ask a Mexican. This newspaper column is syndicated by the alternative Orange County Weekly. It’s a Q and A format, but that’s about where the similarities with Anne Landers end. Writer Gustavo Arellano takes on everything - from politics to religion to movies to ice cream.

Second on the must read list is Mexico with Heart. My pal Rosana Hart is the scribbler-in-chief on this blog, a romp through Mexican life from the northern shores of Lake Chapala. Rosana is an astute observer of life, and living in an area popular with Gringo retirees, she has an excellent post from which to see the comparisons between Mexican and American cultures.

Happy reading.

Relax. It’s just bread.

EAST LOS ANGELES — This was the plan that could not fail. My sister lives in East LA, which, despite being in the United States, is one of the world’s biggest Mexican cities.

So what better “hey I haven’t seen you in a while” present could there be than a jersey from the Guadalajara soccer club Chivas (goats)?

Did I mention that the word ”BIMBO” screams across the chest?

Half of her friends and neighbors would think it hilarious, and half would think it a perfectly normal. That’s because in Mexico, Bimbo is basically Wonderbread or Hostess. The word carries not the slightest hint of insult in Spanish. When I explain to Mexicans the significance in English, the reactions have ranged from chuckles to disbelief. 

Bimbo (pronounced BEEM-bow) joins other hilarious sounding brands marketed in Mexico, such as Fud (pronounced FOOD), a meat products brand; Lala, a kind of milk; and Bing, a popular ice-cream joint.

But this story didn’t have quite the happy ending I wanted. The sister, always a shy type, tried it on but said she would never wear it around. Still, we got about an hour of conversational entertainment out of it and she said that was enough of a present. So instead, I will be treating her to fish tacos at this little joint at the corner of Cesar Chavez and Interstate 5. Believe me, you’ve never tasted better.

And while I eat, I will be wearing my new Bimbo shirt. What goes around comes around.

Grupo Estrella: One day, they may wake you from a peaceful slumber. 

JACONA, Michoacan — Normally at 12:30 a.m. this sleepy residential street on a hill overlooking Zamora, is, well, asleep. But one recent early morning, about a dozen conspirators gathered to carry on a tradition that, while started by Europeans, has been honed to a fine art by Mexicans.

The plot is simple: For between $50 and $100, you hire a band and then wake somebody up - usually a girlfriend or wife - in the middle of the night with a surprise private concert. The goal is to celebrate, to score points, and occasionally, to make up for something horrible you’ve done. But serenading isn’t easy, because like a thief, you must close in on your target without causing too much ruckus.

For the Zamora-based all-female guitar group Estrella, just finding the location of one recent gig proved difficult. One of the band’s members, Lidia Cabrera, told me that she had never been to this part of Jacona, despite spending essentially all of her 27 years in that town. The result: We spent about 20 minutes, with five people crammed into Cabrera’s blue compact, totally lost in a semi-rural area with no street lights and without what are normally the two best options for getting unlost. Calling for directions would ruin the surprise, and there was nobody to ask on the street, since everyone was, at least for the moment, asleep.

After several rounds of patient cell-phone triangulation with the other car, we finally found the place, only to then face the challenge of trying to unload a bunch of people and musical instruments from a car without making a sound, all the while coordinating with the assembled family members and significant other to establish just which house was the target.

But these people are professionals, and soon a silence born of anticipation fell over the scene as the band, clad in their white uniforms, formed a semi-circle on the front lawn of number 68. Someone opened a window to enhance the effectiveness of the wake-up in the completely dark house.

Then the guitar music pierced through the night. Las Mañanitas, the traditional birthday and saint day song, never sounded so good. Soon, the neighbors started to perk up, coming to their doorways to see who was the recipient of this extra special present. But the house remained dark.

The band had almost finished the song when the lights finally came on, and soon there appeared a young woman, bleary-eyed and barefoot, dressed in shorts and a tee shirt. Soon, the sleepy look turned to realization, then surprise, then emotion, as her boyfriend and other family members came up one by one for a birthday hug.

The concert soon had to be moved indoors on account of rain, perhaps a convenient segue for the tears that came slowly from the eyes of the serenaded. In the house, the laundry draped all over the small white and yellow couches betrayed the success of the surprise.

The festivities then entered a sit-back-and-listen phase. The birthday girl continued to look moved. Members of the family, unable to squeeze into the living room, hung out outside and made funny faces at each other. The repertoire was pure love, both the sad longing kind and the joyous tidings forever kind. Now and again, someone gave a look that seemed to ask “why is there an estadounidense taking notes on my couch?”

After the half hour of singing concluded, the event turned into a brief social occasion. The family passed out glasses of Cherry Coke, and everyone started reminiscing about one thing or another. Then the group moved outside again, to the quiet street with a view of the Zamora skyline. Pictures were taken, jokes were made, and rides back to town were coordinated. By 1 a.m., as the band members cars pulled away, the lights in the house went out.

Covering Dylan: The Spanish Rocker Eva Amaral

So a few weeks after concluding that Bob Dylan was a lost cause for Spanish speaking audiences, I woke up to Radio Zamora playing a Spanish version of Hard Rain that features the same top-shelf passion as the original, all while actually sounding better.

Turns out the song is a very new creation from the Spanish group Amaral. Called “Llegará la tormenta,” it does not directly translate the song, but instead creates a kind of serious funhouse mirror version of it. Very close variations on a theme by Dylan, you could call it.

And really, the artist probably had no choice. Translating expressions is difficult, and Hard Rain is full of them. Something direct would probably sound absurd, and hence “hard rain’s a gonna fall” becomes “it will arrive the storm that announces the sky.”

But even that is about as direct as it gets. While lines like “I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains” are left pretty much intact (Caí entre la bruma de doce montañas), the Amaral version features a line that translates back to English as “the voice of a clown covered in blood.” Apparently, “I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children” just didn’t sound that good in the Spanish.

And speaking of Spanish, you can even hear her accent. “Triste cancion” becomes “trithte canthion.”

But that is neither here nor there. The point is that Spanish speakers now have a beautiful excerpt from the Dylan universe to listen to, and even you English types would do well to check it out. Here’s the video, and the words, and the original words.

 Let’s hear it for those spacious skies and amber waves of grain, baby!

LOS ANGELES — Your faithful correspondent returns to the United States today, for a month-long vacation/family obligation tour. The Mexican school year is over, so it was a logical time to head back. But as it happens, this is also the week when we raise our glasses in honor of the 232nd birthday of this great experiment in representative democracy.

We are often at our nationalistic most when outside of the country, and since I’m no exception, I’ll be raising mine extra high this year.

Why? Because while our society is highly imperfect, as anyone who grew up around guilty liberals knows very well, the glass I raise will be half full. Our forefathers were responsible for the genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of African Americans, the internment of Japanese Americans, the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians. More recently, we the living are all in some small way responsible for the commencement of yet another mostly pointless war, this one featuring the torture of foreign nationals. (No matter your opinion, some of your tax dollars went to Guantanamo Bay and to Baghdad.) Morale is low these days. Lots of people hate us, and it doesn’t quite seem like a flag-waving sort of moment.

But it is. This is still a country worth raucously celebrating, for two big reasons that set us out from the pack. They are reasons that are so subtle that they don’t often crystallize into reality without some unusual circumstance, like living outside the country.

First, thanks to many generations of anal-retentive government bureaucracies and competent leadership, we have the hardware for success. I’m talking about the stuff that functions so well that nobody ever thinks about it: The reliable electrical grids, the good roads, the efficient rail networks, the mostly incorruptible judicial system, the telephone lines, the fiber-optic lines, the schools, the universities, and all those millions of good-hearted people who issue business licenses, arrange lot-line adjustments, read water meters, guard prisoners, give out traffic tickets, manage campgrounds and assess property values without taking bribes.

Why are we filthy rich while many of our neighbors to the south live on less than $2 per day? Why do so many people have the problem of not having enough to eat, while we all have the problem of eating too much? You could write a very long book on the reasons, but here’s a big one: Over the generations we have evolved a tradition of delivering quality public services and good regulation that makes innovation and job creation not just possible, but easy.

This service doesn’t just translate into the luxury of convenience, for often these unheralded government institutions also keep us safe. The other day, as a friend of mine walked to work at 8:00 a.m., she witnessed an few men in masks stopping a car and kidnapping its occupants at gunpoint - not an unusual occurrence for Zamora. So what is more tragic? The fact that such a thing can happen in the first place, or the fact that nobody called the police. Why bother, after all, when they could take a half hour to arrive, and anyway might very well be paid off by the same organized crime figures who arranged the kidnapping in the first place.

And the list goes on. In exchange for some cash, building inspectors overlook the lack of rebar in concrete structures, and as a result lots of people die in the next earthquake. Paramilitary units, apparently accountable to nobody, torture their fellow citizens. These are ripped straight from the headlines of the local paper in Zamora, but they’re not even front page headlines, since these happenings are so routine.

Sure, Mexico is still a great country. After this U.S. visit I’m going right back. But anyone who has managed to spend time in a non-first-world country without developing a more nuanced appreciation for the United States was quite simply not paying attention.

Here’s another reason to join the cheer: We Yanks change, and we deeply believe in our collective gut that it - whatever it happens to be at the moment - can be done.

Those who followed the Democratic Primaries heard this line dozens of times. Obama’s early stump speech concluded with a rousing list of all the great things we have accomplished over the years. Clinton’s line was more to the point: “There’s nothing we can’t do if we start acting like Americans again.”

We have it in our power to make the world over again. The sentiment is just as true today as when Thomas Paine said it during the revolution. A cliche? Perhaps, but cliches can still be true.

Since the birth of this unlikely nation we have been a people that marched to the beat of a different drummer. We dream big, work hard, and make a lot of mistakes. We’re the world’s rebels, and it has brought us some big successes and some big failures. We got to the moon, but we also got to Vietnam. We built the transcontinental railroad, the Hoover Dam, and we invented the light-bulb, the telephone, the P.C., and the Internet. We also invented the atom bomb. We hosted the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, and the so far the gay rights movement seems to be going pretty well. But we also created the terrible conditions that necessitated those movements in the first place.

So we get in trouble from time to time, and thanks largely to the current administration, this is one of those times. But this too shall pass, grasshopper. It’s a good bet that one day we will again be that shining beacon on the hill.

It’s also a good bet that one day we will again be the embarrassed outcasts of the world, because history usually repeats itself. But this is to be expected from a country founded by rebels, and today populated by a tumultuous mix of unemployed factory workers, retirees, NPR listeners, immigrants, farmers, and Texans, all represented by an uncountable number of ethnic groups.

Our country. Often right, often wrong. But right or wrong, our country.

The drama. The bodyguards. The babes. The reality-defying plot twists.

All the finest ingredients combine and then explode in a cloud of jealousy and betrayal every weekday at 2 p.m., when Azteca 13 broadcasts this compelling train-wreck of a telenovela, Amor en Custodia (Love in Custody). It’s so bad, so melodramatic, and so cheesy as to make for absolutely gripping television.

The plot is so complicated that the other day I spent a few hours with my pal Rosee diagramming just exactly what is happening. The results are in this excellent flow chart, which you will have to zoom in on.

That was just over a week ago, but already the story has taken so many twists as to be nearly unrecognizable. Sure, Barbara is still in love with the boxer dude, but turns out she’s not pregnant after all, and in any event, that was before he crashed his car into the other man in the love triangle, and long before Tatiana actually bribed the doctor into telling Pacheco that it was his baby and not that of some functionary character she hooked up with in Switzerland. And way before she was thrown in the insane asylum and her baby plot was discovered by her father, who is actually her uncle.

Take a deep breath.

While the plot twists are famously complex, there are a few things that don’t change. All the characters appear to live together in one big house. Everyone is filthy rich. Basically all the guys are bodyguards, though it isn’t clear just why their clients need such protection (though perhaps living in Mexico City is enough). Consequently, we see more guns and allusions to violence in this one than in your average soap opera.

Another thing that sets this soap apart: time warps. We’ve seen two six-month jumps in the last few months alone, but, thank God, no corresponding uptick in the maturity level of the characters. Also, the female characters have the remarkable talent of reducing the normally mandatory nine-month period for gestating a baby down to a more reasonable three or four weeks.

Who cares? Mexicans do. Soap operas are a big freakin deal here. They’re not just for bored housewives and retired grandmothers. Amor en Custodia is relegated to 2 p.m. (not such a bad timeslot in a country with a 2-4 p.m. lunchbreak) only because it is actually a rerun. First run novelas get prime time slots, and are played on the television sets at such bastions of youth and family as my favorite burger joint in Zamora.

But enough talk. First, check out the diagram. Then, take a look at this exerpt from You Tube just to get the (cheesy) flavor. You’ll be shocked. You’ll be horrified. And just like a car accident post-mortem, you’ll want to keep watching.

I should have been lecturing this particular English student about his obnoxious habit of not doing his homework, but honestly, I was more interested in his shirt, which featured the English phrase “Molars Forest” in giant capital letters.

What exactly was that all about, I wanted to know. Who/what is Molars Forest? And why is it that when it comes to meaning, the English speaker in this room is just as clueless as the English student?

But it was a fools errand. He had about as much background on his shirt as he had on the past conditional. He just liked the way it looked, he said, and had no idea what it meant.

That’s when another student walked in wearing a shirt featuring a Hawaiian theme, a picture of a parrot, and the sentence “Get Lei’d Island Style.”

Same question, only this time it was rhetorical: Do you have any idea what that means?

Yes, the new student told me, but she had only found out after another English teacher explained it to her. She also had bought the shirt based not on what it said, but how the letters and other design elements looked.

You can find examples like this all over Zamora, and probably all over Mexico. It’s English, but somehow, it has nothing to do with any language.

Sometimes it’s innocent, like the time I translated “get hooked” off of a friend’s fish-themed shirt. Sometimes, it’s borderline scandalous, like another female friend’s shirt that read “I’m expensive.” Sometimes, it’s weird, like the shirt that read “You cried and your tears tasted sweet.” That one was a caption for a truly odd Salvador Daliesque drawing.

And sometimes it just gets surreal. The other day I found a friend of mine - a grandmother, in fact - happily dancing away to a Snoop Dogg rap that prominently featured the word “motherfucker.” I was horrified, but for her, ignorance was bliss. I elected not to translate for her. It’s just as well, since the reaction of people to the meaning of their shirts is usually just passing amusement.

This is a situation English speakers don’t find themselves in too often, being fluent in the World’s official language, and it brings up some interesting questions. Do we have some kind of obligation to know what is printed on our shirts? Let’s say I had a shirt that read, in some obscure but not dead language like Tamil, “I have an IQ of 10.” I would want to know. True, few would understand, but those few that did would give me very strange looks.

Or maybe not. The use of language in odd contexts is nothing new. For instance, nobody seems too bothered about the actual contents of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, nor Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, possibly the two most famous pieces in the classical repertoire. We just like the way they sound.

Yet while the poem that Beethoven worked into his masterpiece is basically an ode to brotherly love, peace and harmony, the Carmina Burana is a salacious screed about lust, gambling, drinking, and general hedonistic ruckus. And old conservative audiences give both standing ovations all the time!

Perhaps next time they will trade in their tuxes for “Get Lai’d Island Style” shirts.

Just imagine the uproar if a drug kingpin knocked off an American police chief coming home from work. Think of the live continuing news coverage, the outrage, the congressional hearings, the candlelight vigils, the marches, and the fiery speeches laced with a thousand never agains. 

But here in Mexico, sadly, this sort of incident is becoming so common that it barely merits a two minute mention on the news, before the broadcast breaks for the latest on the Chivas-America soccer rivalry. Police who go after cartels are being killed by the dozen, some are requesting asylum in the United States, and citizens and journalists, especially in the border regions, are also caught up in the crossfire. The Bush Administration recently issued a travel alert encouraging US citizens to use extreme caution when traveling to Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.  

What’s going on? Chalk it up to President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on drug cartels, large organized crime corporations. He’s deployed the full faith and credit of the Mexican army against them, but still doesn’t appear to have gained the upper hand, as the New York Times reported recently.

The War on Drugs is a reality in America, but it looks different. It’s cops arresting people, sometimes people you know. It’s that burglary or mugging that you experience or hear about that you know is connected somehow to drugs. It’s laws against users that are often applied unevenly. And it can get violent, but on the whole, not that violent.

The Mexican experience, especially these days, is just bloody, as drug cartels continue to refuse to pick on someone their own size. Here in Zamora, according to the local gossip mill, things are solidly controlled by one cartel, so there’s no cause for a turf war. Still, cops here and everywhere have to make a choice: You can take money from the cartels to supplement your own lousy salary and look the other way. (Normal cops in Mexico City draw a monthly salary of about $700, just a hair more than this part-time English teacher.) Or you can risk life and that of your family (neatly summed up in the expression “silver or lead”). Those cops who stand up for the rule of law can easily find themselves on the business end of an agitated machine gun.

It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s worth taking a minute to understand the background. To that end, I’ve assembled a couple of links to more information.

• First, a case study from the Clinton years in the far reach of drug corruption. It reaches the top, the New Republic reports.
• Second, an excellent overview of the situation from the uber-nerds at the Council on Foreign Relations. It’ll take a few minutes, but it’s worth the read if you want something comprehensive.  

And as for the current situation, more information can be had from articles courtesy of…

• CNN
• The El Paso Times
• The LA Times
• Public Radio International

Normally I would wish you happy reading. Maybe next week.

Imagine the combined popularity of Elvis and Madonna, then add the staying power of The Beatles. That’s Vicente Fernandez, the Mexican crooner who is knocking at 70’s door, but doing it with vigor and immense popularity.

These days, it’s darn near impossible to walk down a street without hearing his latest smash hit, “Estos Celos” (This Jealousy), a long lament of lost love that he belts out with subtle strength. (Video here.)

The song is a favorite at the jukebox at the ice cream shop next to my school. It is a popular hit with the bands you can hire at the local lakeside Sunday picnic spot, Camécuaro. And at the pirated music stand in Zamora’s central market, you’re likely to hear it as well. The guys at one of the market’s butcher shops enjoy slicing up pigs and cows to Vicente’s greatest hits. You’re not likely to attend a wedding, graduation or birthday without hearing him.

Vicente - who like Madonna and Elvis often goes by a single name - spans the generations. Those in their 20s are happy to blast “Estos Celos.” Even my class of teenage boys had good things to say about him, though he seems to be especially popular with the other gender.

But those youngins can also talk about the latest songs with their ancient relatives. Those in their golden years remember Vicente fondly, especially for a raft of movies he turned out in the 1960s and 1970s. He is one cultural figure that everyone knows and nearly everyone can agree on. And even if they don’t, there’s always Fernandez son Alejandro to fall back on. He’s more handsome anyway, according to the secretary at my school.

Estos Celos (words) is a sad song which Fernandez manages to turn even more sad with a drawn out near scream of “Ay, ay amor. Ay, ay que dolor” (Oh, oh, love. Oh, oh, what pain.). Those accustomed to American love songs will be surprised with how direct he is. (”Today I die to think that I am not going to be the one you love.”)

But the popularity of Estos Celos, and his other recent hit, “Para Siempre” (video), isn’t all based on tradition. They are well-crafted songs, backed up by a voice that has obviously been taken care of. (One need only listen to Bob Dylan’s most recent album to learn that this is not easily done.)

Fernadez will celebrate his 70th birthday in 2010, but it’s easy to see him packing ‘em in at concerts for many years to come. And without a doubt, his songs will ring out from the ice cream store jukebox long after that.