Canto CCCLXI: The Bigger Thing

Gentle cabrones:

You’re going to the Lalo Alcaraz calendar signing TOMORROW (Dec. 8) from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. at Alta Baja Market in SanTana, right? Because you read everything in my cantos, right? Right?

Right? We’ll see!

I don’t bring up the event just because all of ustedes should buy Lalo’s brilliant calendar and support an event at my wife’s store, but also because I’m already booking events for 2025 and thus have to write on the margins on his December 2024 page until I get a new one, which means random events from the past year have crossed my mind over the past month.

One genre? Schools.

In 2024, I spoke at a high school in Northridge, Frank del Olmo Elementary in Historic Filipinotown for Career Day (where I was going to make a reference to a fourth-grade crowd about eating tacos, remembered my crowd, then switched it to pupusas, which got them basically cheering) and a middle school, which is the toughest crowd of them all. Not too many colleges this year, which is fine.

Gilbert High in Anaheim, a continuation school where the students were mostly quiet but asked great questions. Godinez High in SanTana, a fundamental school where the students did NOT like my joke about ASB geeks (I stand by it). Next week, I’m going to try to get to Los Amigos High, which is in Fountain Valley but part of the Garden Grove Unified School District even though most of its students are from SanTana. And I hope to finally speak at an Oxnard high school next year, a promise years in the making.

But the visit I’ll remember the most from 2024 is Segerstrom High in SanTana.

A group of classes read some of my work, and so I was asked to talk about it to them. Good, smart questions, nice reception. But what I remember the most was the class before it. I spoke at an auditorium, and one of the teachers took me there early in case I needed to gather myself (I never do). So I sat in the audience of none and listened to a Segerstrom music class — brass, clarinets, timpani and the like, but no strings.

They were rehearsing a Mexican waltz, if memory serves me correct — nothing popular, and I lost the photo of the sheet music that I took. They went through a couple of takes, because they weren’t quite nailing it. The instructor wasn’t angry, wasn’t rah-rah — he was calm. He lectured a bit on form, offered tips to specifics people while others were listening. Professional.

And then he said something that so impressed me, I immediately emailed it to myself to make it into a canto:

“Play the phrase, not the note.”

Ustedes know how much I love music. I never had any ambitions of being a musician, or singing (although I love to sing’a), though, because I have no skill for it. I can’t play a guitar worth a damn outside of “Blackbird,” “No Reply,” the opening riff to “Day Tripper,” and Vivaldi’s “Largo” — and absolutely nothing on the piano except some short ditty that my sister’s piano instructor taught her at this point 30 years ago, which I remember like it happened a week ago and man how the decades go.

I digress.

I’m sure there’s a musical concept attached to “play the phrase, not the note” — but i wouldn’t know it. What I did know when I heard the music teacher say that was that THAT is an instructor, THAT is wisdom.

THAT is a reminder, a challenge.

First time reading this newsletter? Subscribe here for more merriment! Feedback, thoughts, commentary, rants? Send them to [email protected]

Maybe I’ll write my moral and intellectual code one day, ala Tsunetomo's Hagakure or Jordan Peterson — okay, maybe not the latter one. But one of the pillars of my life is to always remember that you are but a speck of dirt on the beach that is the universe — but that speck has its place and can bring anything down, if only you wait for the moment.

Sometimes, it’s of your own choosing. Usually, your chance or calling comes, and you have to move at what Cartier-Bresson would call the decisive moment. So when you do something, don’t focus on what you’re about to do, what you just did, or what you did. Link everything together to get to a bigger chunk of the whole, um, whole. And link yourself to others, to other things, to other eras and errything.

What are famous notes in music? Not a chord, so not the opener to “A Hard Day’s Night.” Not a progression, so not the opening four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth. There are no famous individual notes, because they’re all part of a bigger thing.

The bigger thing. It’s why people stay at something even though they don’t like it. Why people make outlandish plans that they’ll pursue until they succeed or fail. The basis of religion, of nations, of humanity itself. Why people will stick with institutions even if the people heading them are blitzed out of their boxes.

The bigger thing. It’s why people will sacrifice their own advancement to help or protect others, or the institution itself. Why people take the arrows so that others may succeed.

One of the things I hate most about Americans is the continual centering of immediate, capricious needs. The funniest summation of this is when Moe bought a humongous fryer and boasted he could flash-fry a buffalo in 90 seconds, and Homer said, “But I want it now.”

GREAT line, terrible way to live — and here we are.

I don’t know if the Segerstrom music teacher was hoping his students took more from his (pardon the pun) note than (pardon the pun again) just the phrase. Maybe he really was just talking about music, and I’m reading too much into what he said. But I really don’t think so.

The Segerstrom Stokowski wasn’t telling his students to skip a note, or that notes don’t matter. It’s that you need to see the bigger thing that you’re a small — but essential — part of. And sometimes, you’ll play a role you never expected — but you gotta play it, Jack, because we’re always being called to fight for something higher, for something bigger than us.

We’re all one note in the bigger phrase of whatever we’re in — and we each need to hit our note for the phrase to hit, and for you to really succeed.

You might feel demoralized and hopeless in the face of fools. But that’s what they want you to feel. They want you to be down — don’t let them. They want you to become listless — become more committed than ever. They want you to quit — don’t.

Do it until you can’t do it no more.

But don’t take it from me. Just yesterday, screenwriter Peter Murrieta wrote this beauty on his Substack just yesterday (subscribe already to help him reach his year-end goal):

Slow and steady. It may not win the race, but it always reminds me that there’s a bigger race than the one I think I’m on right now. Maybe that’s the big prize. It is good to remember there’s a bigger picture than the one you think you’re in.

THIS.

Put those pictures together, and you have a series. See the series, not the picture. Play the phrase, not the note.

The bigger thing. And the beat — rather, the notes — goes on…

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: Disgraced, soon-to-be-ex-L.A. councilmember Kevin de León with his right-hand man, Pete Brown, about to enter the Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights in the fall, where De León proceeded to Hispander like no one since Nativo Lopez. At right looking on is some annoying, not from L.A., vendido, out on the field as usual because that’s where the WERK is.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Nobody understands human psychology like Dostoyevsky, and that's why I've banned him” — Joseph Stalin

LISTENING: “Plain to See Plainsman,” Colter Wall. Stark as the prairie, profound as an Oklahoma sky, with strains of At Folsom Prison, some Charley Pride — and was that a tad of Hank Snow I noted? Recommended by the comadre Hailey Branson-Potts, the Charles Kuralt of rural California.

READING: “Billy Wilder Revisits “Sunset Boulevard”: As much as I love Wilder, and as great as this profile is, the REAL meat is when the author accompanies the director to see his masterpiece for the first time in 45 years — that should’ve been its own “Talk of the Town” piece, and it would’ve been remembered as a masterpiece ala the Soup Nazi origin story or the one about the prep-school Upper East Side girls smoking. All that said, it’s Wilder — and he has the last word, and that’s all you need to know.

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. 8, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. aka TOMORROW: It’s time for Lalo Alcaraz’s annual takeover of Alta Baja Market as he sells his incredible calendars, prints, and gets FAAAAAADED with me. Show up and hang out with us, and buy some stuff! 201 E. Fourth St., Ste. 101, SanTana. Appearance, FREE; calendars and prints and micheladas, BARATO.

Jan. 4-5: This is really cool: Jouyssance, a choral group committed to singing pre-Baroque pieces (and which my sometimes-jefe, L.A. Times features editor Steve Padilla is a member), is doing a Christmas program featuring 16th-century Mexican music — and I'm going to be the narrator! Jan. 4 will be at 7:30 p.m. at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, 6700 W. 83rd Street, Westchester; January 5 will happen at 4 p.m. at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 122 S. California Ave., Monrovia. Tickets are $25 general admission, $20 for seniors, and $10 for students with ID — buy them TODAY!

Gustavo in the News

“Good Food”: A KCRW newsletter you should subscribe to plugs #tortillatournament.

“See the potential in undocumented immigrants | Letters”: Someone in New Jersey reads me!

“Remembering OC Weekly 5 Years After It Closed”: The Blueviator finally has something nice to say about the Infernal Rag that doesn’t involve Commie Girl.

“Alta Wins in Criticism, Illustration, Commentary, and More at the National A&E Journalism Awards”: Co-second place is better than no place?

“Part 135: The Troubled Los Angeles Times – Patrick Soon-Shiong and the MAGA Crowd“: Legendary whistleblower Zachary Ellison mentions me in a story of his.

“Part 136: A Farewell to Kevin de León – Chaos and Order in Los Angeles”: Legendary whistleblower Zachary Ellison mentions me in another story of his.

Gustavo Stories 

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

“North Tustin wants its own zip code to pay fewer taxes”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about the snooty unincorporated part of SanTana.

“KCRW and Gustavo's Great Tortilla Tournament is Back, Better Late Than Ever!”: Just like the headline states. KEY QUOTE: “But, as a wise person once said, the tortilla must be heated on both sides, so behold a truncated — but no less brilliant — edition, our seventh.”

“Here are Your KCRW and Gustavo's Great #TortillaTournament San Diego Invitational Winners!” Don’t sleep on those America’s Finest County tortillas! KEYER QUOTE: “The flour tortilla game down there is pound-for-pound better than L.A. because of San Diego’s proximity to northern Mexico. And because of said proximity, you also have way more random liquor stores selling their own tortillas than L.A. and O.C.”

“Tortilla Tournament, Round 1 Results: Favorites Fall!”: 64 tortillas started, and then there were 32. KEYEST QUOTE: “The notes are LOOOOONG…but that’s how #TortillaTournament rolls, with a pinch of salt and maybe some butter…”

“KCRW Insider”: I reveal the #TortillaTournament’s Suave 16 finalists in the newsletter that the comadre Connie Alvarez usually helms, but for which I LOVE to moonlight. KEY QUOTE: “Our annual celebration of tortilla culture in Southern California and beyond — where myself and three other judges match up 64 tortillas (32 corn, 32 flour) in a sports-style competition — is two months late and won’t have a live component this year, and it’s all on me: I got caught up in my day job as an L.A. Times columnist, between something called the presidential election and another thing called Kevin de León.”

“Dolores Madrigal, lead plaintiff in landmark sterilization case, dies at 90”: My latest L.A. Times obituary talks about a quiet legend. KEY QUOTE: “On a fall morning in East L.A. in 1974, Dolores Madrigal and her husband, Orencio, ate breakfast while listening to ranchera radio station KWKW when a news segment aired that would change her life.”

“In 2024, books by and about Southern California Latinas shined": My latest L.A. Times columna is my annual book guide. KEY QUOTE: “That’s why I was excited to see so many voices, new and familiar, dominate the 2024 nonfiction releases, showing that Latinas have played important roles in the Southern California story and deserve far more recognition.”

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!