Canto CDXXX: Bien Planchadito

Gentle cabrones:

On Wednesday, I gave a short speech in the art-filled Valley High classroom of SanTana councilmember Ben Vazquez (Canto CCXLIII) as part of the unveiling of a wonderful, thorough, student-created mural about Chicano history in SanTana.

I’ll be honest: I almost didn’t make the speech.

Ben invited me a few days earlier, and I immediately put it down on my Lalo Alcaraz calendar, whose signing at Alta Baja last Saturday nearly all of you missed for reasons known only to you. But that date quickly was buried in the week that was.

Two finals administered with about 70 papers to grade by next Friday. A columna turned in, with two more at least on the way for next week. A no good, very bad, terrible day that’s still not over as I write this late Friday night — later than usual. Personal stuff — nothing bad, but stuff that needed to be done and still needs to be finish.

Thank God my friend texted me about what was the plan with regarding Ben’s class with enough time so that I could shower and speed off. What to wear? I looked in my closet, found my Oaxacan shirt and gray slacks…and saw they were more wrinkled than a raisin — UGH...

I needed to speed off to my speech. There was no choice.

I grabbed my iron, unfolded my ironing board and dried myself while the iron heated up. Then, just like my mami taught me so long ago, a planchar.

Right side of the shirt, making sure to swoop into the spaces between the buttons. Back of the shirt in thirds, always forgetting to bunch up a strip down the middle like my mami taught me. Left side of the front. Line up each sleeve, iron each side. The collar for the finish.

Then the pants: one leg, both sides, repeat. Put both of the legs together for another swipe. A final ironing of the upper front and back. Ensure that the creases on the shirt and pants are sharp enough for a switchblade. Put on the hanger usually, but not this time.

Dapper Dan in 10 minutes. And off to the ceremony I went — got there early, even!

The speech was short but to the point: celebrate artivism. We belong to a continuum of activists. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. To the young people: they were sitting among some of the important players and orgs of the past 25 years of SanTana history. To the history makers: we are now yesterday’s news and that’s okay because the next generation is on it just like we were at one point when we were the youngsters.

Afterward, as students talked to us about their creation, I looked at one of the panels showcasing a pachuco beating up a racist servicemember when they tried to invade SanTana shortly after LA’s Zoot Suit riots. His pants were ironed.

Chuco suave.

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My mami taught me how to iron as a teen, but she actually rarely allowed me to iron — Mami always insisted she do it, mostly because she thought I did it wrong. Too hurried, she said. Not sharp enough. Nearly every time I visited, she’d insist I take off my shirt no matter how hurried I was para darle una planchadita — to give it a little ironing.

I was always insulted but I almost always let her because she wasn’t wrong. A great crease is a beautiful thing and shapes up any schlub who wears it. But I always found it funny how she kept kindly hectoring me but not my brother, because he obviously learned well from her and I guess I didn’t?

I’ve written about how much pride my mami took in how she dressed us as kids and how she insisted we dress well at all times (Canto CCVII), a philosophy I don’t necessarily believe in — I still say kids should be dressed like Swee’Pea from Popeye until they enter kindergarten. But ironing is another matter. It’s the epitome of the saying that the little things count. The well-ironed individual is someone that always takes that final, necessary step, that notices details, that knows one must prepare to truly take on the day.

They see a personal fault and try to correct it. They take their time. They care. They don’t forget.

My mami always said ironing takes time and should be something to be proud of because it’s a reflection of them. I know this and yet I don’t practice it. I remember this every time after we do laundry and I hang my wrinkled clothes in the closet, I remember my mami’s extra admonition to iron everything at once para que no ande de carreras in the future — so I’m not in a hurry.

I almost never do and then curse myself when I catch myself in moments like earlier this week for Ben’s class.

Slowing down is so important to live the best life but it’s never been how I’ve lived. The funny thing is that I always extol the virtues of gardening, which is all about that which cannot be hurried and which must be done with care. I just figure I can get away with a wrinkled shirt or slacks. But when I stare down and see the mess of crooked lines before me, I shake my head in shame.

Self-care! It’s time for me to practice that. It’s time for me to iron more. The wrinkles are lovely, dark and deep — but I have speeches to keep blah blah blah

Postscript: Welcome to the subscribers to my Substack that I just imported last night. Like I told ustedes over there, this is where I do my thing, not Substack. And a special welcome to [email protected], which signed up last week!

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Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: The incredible shrine to La Virgen de Guadalupe that takes up the entire front of a house AND the roof on the corner of Broadway and Camile in SanTana — even Diocese of Orange Bishop Kevin Vann showed up on Dec. 11 to pay #respect

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” — Eric Hoffer

LISTENING: “Shout (Live At The Richfield Coliseum/1983),” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. So LONG ago, back when KIIS-FM was cool and I was still up with contemporary music — so let’s say New Year’s Eve 1994 — they did a rundown of the Top 100 party songs of all time to end the year. “YMCA” was a great #2, and I can’t remember the rest of them but I’ll never forget #1. I was expecting a hip-hop song or some ‘80s jam, but it was…the original “Shout” by the Isley Brothers — HWUT. I remember being bewildered and thinking it was kind of a weak salsa choice even though I was an oldies fan because how could a song that was at least 35 years old at the time possibly be the greatest party song ever? 31 years later or so, NO song can beat “Shout” on the dance floor even as its memory slowly starts to fade away from the public conscience in the wake of “Sweet Caroline,” “September” and other great songs turned to dreck by being overplayed. There’s a reason why most party songs are known only by who originally recorded them while “Shout” got treatments by the Beatles and Otis Day and the Knights and why Bruce Springsteen made it a staple of his live shows for a decade — but Tom Petty covered it best, especially this 1983 version. The joy, the crowd, the instrumental solos, the asides the slowing down then the rush — live music par none while respecting the legends. Hence included in Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly Radiola of Randomness YouTube songlist, where I’ve included every song I’ve ever featured in a canto — give it a spin!

READING: “Jim Morrison’s Gravesite Bust Was Found. The Mystery of Its Disappearance Continues”: Haters keep saying Rolling Stone isn’t what it was — but what publication ever was what people say it was except the Infernal Rag? They still put out great rollicking reads like this one, teaching me something I had no idea about regarding a musician whom I thought I knew most about. And shoutout to my former UC Irvine literary journalism student Charisma Madarang, who subscribes to this canto, is Rolling Stone’s night editor and a great writer — you’ve made your wacky profe proud multiple times over!

BUY MY NEW CO-BOOK! People’s Guide to Orange County tells an alternative history of OC through the scholarship and reporting of myself, Elaine Lewinnek, and Thuy Vo Dang. There’ll be signings all year — in meanwhile, buy your copy TODAY. And, yes: I’ll autograph it!

Gustavo Events  

Dec. 14 aka THIS SUNDAY, 2:45 p.m.: I'll be in conversation with Ilan Stavans and Margaret Boyle, co-authors of the spectacular Sabor Judío: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook at the Skirball Cultural Center as part of their Hannukah Festival, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. $20 — but that get you access to the full festival!

Gustavo in the News

“News columnist praises CSULB professor’s new book”: Cal State Long Beach is glad I shouted out the work of one of its profe’s in a columna of mine.

“The Santa Ana Stop: Your Launchpad to the County’s Most Layered Downtown”: A few weeks after shouting out Joel Beers’ great series of OC train station profiles, he shouts me out in one of them!

“‘The menu’s other highlights smack of the surreal’”: Someone at The Week really likes me…

“Rough & Tumble“: …and so does someone at Rough & Tumble!

“LA28 chairman bows to Netanyahu”: An Olympic tweet of mine is embedded here.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“The legacy of Chicano artist Jose Lozano”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about the Fullas legend.

“In Trump’s regime, Catholics are among the most powerful — and deported”: My latest L.A. Times columna puts the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the bigger context. KEY QUOTE: “Now that Catholics are at the top, they’re the ones pushing policies that persecute the new generation of immigrants, Catholic and not.”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!