Latin Music and a Tenth Anniversary

Dear Mexican,

I’m interested in a job that says it is a plus to have an understanding of Latin, Spanish and Mexican music. I found out some names of musical styles such as Tejano, norteño, mariachi, banda, cumbia, merengue, flamenco and so on. I’m wondering if there is a way to form a “good ear” for the different styles of music and, if asked, I could explain the different styles of music on a structural basis and know something about the artists in the different genres. I know they have introduction books and CD programs for classical and jazz, but was wondering if there was a similar one for Latin music. Or some similar learning method. Can ya help a gabacho out here?

P.S.: Will this kind of knowledge give me an “in” with the Latin ladies or does that just come with salsa dancing?

Gabacho who Seeketh Knowledge

Dear Gabacho,

True story: An amigo of mine once texted me that he was going to a Romeo Santos concert and wanted to know who he was. I immediately texted back that he was going to chichis heaven, that there would probably be 14,999 shrieking women — all of them 10s — to see the bachata superstar, and that he’d be the only straight male. He replied that he wished he knew that information beforehand, because he had taken a date to the concert: “A 10,” he wrote, “but I’m surrounded by 12s!”

For the last time, men: Women in general love to dance, but it’s a requirement to bed a mexicana. You need to learn the slow groove of a cumbia, the flips of salsa, the hip-shaking beauty of merengue; a proper waltz or polka to be able to dance to norteño and banda sinaloense — all of it will lead to choni-melting abilities. I’m not going to direct you, Seeketh Knowledge, to any books or CDs to learn Latin music’s many grooves, but rather urge you to become a quinceañera crasher — cute second cousins for días!

¡FELÍZ BIRTHDAY, ¡ASK A MEXICAN! This week marks the ten-year anniversary of this infernal columna – ten pinche years already! The Mexican is not much for retrospectives — that’s a gabacho thing — but I do want to take a moment to offer thanks to a couple of cabrones: former OC Weekly editor Will Swaim, for giving me the idea for the column; Vice Media chingón Daniel Hernández, for writing the Los Angeles Times profile that changed my life; Scribner, for printing ¡Ask a Mexican! in best-selling book form; mi chula esposa, for all her support and pickling my peppers (and that is not a metaphor); Tom Leykis, for hosting a call-in-version of ¡Ask a Mexican! all these years (subscribe to his podcast at www.blowmeuptom.com); all the haters, whose vile words remind me why I started writing this in the primera place; my friends and familia, for the obvious reasons; the Albuquerque Alibi, for being the first newspaper besides my home periódico to have the huevos to run the column. And, lastly but not leastly: ustedes gentle readers, whose eternal curiosity about Mexicans makes this weekly rant an eternally rollicking bit of DESMADRE. To the next decade or 50!

Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!