I wasn’t always aware of the cultural movement going on in my country. Most of the time I limited myself to play in the confines of my own mind and, in many respects, thought of Panama as a doomed society in terms of culture and artistic expression. I just didn’t see it pulling itself out of the United States’ ass. After I graduated school and was rushed into the “real world” I was forced to expose myself to what was going on in the city I lived in on various levels and slowly, but surely, I began to read and watch and listen to what my country was producing at the time in terms of art with a slight sense of dread and steadfast caution. I jumped here and there doing what most kids inclined to the arts do when they’re out of school and they realize they don’t want a desk job doing some mundane corporation’s errands… I didn’t know what I wanted. Panama, at the time, didn’t have that many options for an artist (in this case, an aspiring writer) in terms of educating myself and pave my way through the branch I ultimately chose to make my own, that of playing with words. All I had (and in many ways, still have) is my encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture, the books I’ve read and all of the stuff I’ve learned from them. When I got out of school I didn’t know any writers first-hand, I didn’t enter any literary circles and I wouldn’t share the experience of reading with anyone since most of my friends don’t make a habit of reading… definitely none of my friends from school did. I’d take hundreds of comic books to school and I would read them again and again, inadvertedly learning about character development as I tried to emulate the pretty drawings. I had books, too, but I didn’t touch them at school since they’re a more personal affair to me.

Anyway, I still had a mini library that I would lend to anyone willing to read at will. Of course, the most popular titles I’d loan out where my Maxim Mags, and they were barely read as much as they were taken to see the hot girls in bikinis. The teachers never gave me shit because to them I was their Will Hunting: out the ass with talent but too lazy and smart to give a damn (this didn’t come from me, this is my 10th grade English teacher talking… ironically, we live in the same apartment building). When I was out of school and wanted to be a writer, I didn’t know where to begin… there was an almost nil cultural movement, and I say that because I come from the mainstream demographic of Panamanians and since I hadn’t been exposed to the circles I have I didn’t know the where, how, when and why of these people… immediately I thought this was wrong, and I thought someone should do something about it.

Six years ago it was near-impossible to be an artist for a living. Even when I found my way in the literary circles and began to know the key players and movements around 2002, The outlook was grim: to me, it seemed like they weren’t bonafide writers. Of course, back then I didn’t know any better and was far more ideallistic than I am now but bare with me for a second… I was much cockier back then (I still am, but a little more level-headed… if you can believe it) and I had a very romantic view of how an artist should be… passionate about his art and willing to dedicate himself 110% to it but then I started meeting some of the writers born and raised here and my impression of them at first glance was that they were something else first, and writers seconds. They weren’t artists: they were lawyers, acountants, managers, technicians and everything under the sun first, and this words thing was just their way of indulging their alter egos. At first I didn’t understand but then it became increasingly obvious as more time passed by and I eventually took a tech course in creative writing, the first of its kind in Panama and an iniciative in someone who, even if he’s still stuck in his old ways I respect tremendously… Enrique Jaramillo Levi. He’s like an inmortal, for as long as I’ve known him he’s always been fighting for his voice to be heard and push his cultural agenda to a broader audience.

I started noticing during these courses that I stuck out like a sore thumb because when you’re writing about a pot-fueled version of the little red riding hood (”Buena Hierba”), and the club life with the dirty, mispronounciated slang of “the kids today” (”Güey”) while others in the class were going for the obscure and cryptic stuff that would make Saramago and García Marques giggle with delight, you tend to get noticed and not in the good way… my perception was that I kept rattling their cages constantly by simply being. It can all be summarized by something Héctor Collado (another man I respect tremendously) told me during the poetry portion of the career… we were asked to write a poem with a random subject he had chosen and we would all put the poems on the wall unmarked so that we could all figure out who had written what. Mine turned out to be one of the best because of something that has stuck with me to this day: unlike the other poems, mine was visceral. it was raw, no apologies, no restraints and, as a result, powerful. It stood out. All of my work during my time there would stand out, and the difference between me and that crowd could be summarized in one story: “El Dislate del Ser.”

I wrote it because Levi offered that the best 3 stories would be published in the country’s top (and in many ways, only) literary magazine in Panama, called simply “Maga.” After many stories defying everything they were used to, I decided I wanted to get published… but to do it, I knew I would have to write what they wanted to read about. So, of course, I made the dark, somewhat surreal story of a man who wants to go crazy. They gobbled it up like it was friend chicken and I easily breezed by the competition and got my top spot in the publication. in 2004, as a result of a bad breakup that was bad because of my inability of letting go I needed to validate and prove myself by doing something incredible… the result was “Mada Faká,” the first storybook of its kind. My mistake was to promote a book designed by my generation to the literary circles of Panama, which aren’t of my generation at all. I tried and tried, and as a result was met with an uphill battle. I thought that they would be open-minded enough to accept a new type of writing, or maybe the book is shit, I don’t know, but there were certain people who really loathed what I had done (I won’t name any names, but he has a radio show and he invited me to inadvertedly rip me to shreds on the air. When his literary group had a monthly meeting ruight after the broadcast he thought he could rip me apart in front of a live audience but he gave me the floor and with my speech I sold over 30 copies that morning) and the friends I had made along the way understood what I was trying to do but they told me about various realities I wasn’t fully aware of at the time.

During my book promotion I was asked to talk in a literary show in local network RCM. It was me, fellow writer David Robinson (cool cat) and our honorable legislator (member of the comedy show “La Cáscara” back in the day) “Agapito” Cleghorn. The miss who conducted the show is also the head of the Panamanian Chamber of Literature and she loved the concept I represented so she invited me over. David Robinson hadn’t met me before so when I was introduced as someone preaching that it was possible for a writer to write for a living, he freaked and started disregarding my claim since he’s a professor who’s been int he game for a good 20 years and he’s never been able to see any substantial income out of the practice. I explained to him the reasons why I thought it was possible and by the end of the interview I made a new friend, and entertained everyone else in the panel. Out of all of them, the only person I’d see again in person was David.

From that point in 2004 onwards, I began to look into what the cultural movement was all about. Stuff was changing, mostly because of the Internet. Soon afterwards and in part because of my book I landed the job I have now and have amassed some notoriety due to the fact that I haven’t heard bad things of my body of work from people belonging to the demografic I cater to… I abandoned the literary groups, sore due to the lack of understanding and, I suppose, acceptance. Things during 2004 were rather difficult since it was my first foray into this whole publishing business and I noticed how no one helped. There aren’t enough bookstores, and those that do exist ask you to do all of the work, the promotion and the callbacks for when your checks are ready. Since I didn’t have any contacts or influences anywhere, no one took me as seriously as I would’ve wanted but still, the book sold. The author with most books sold is Rose Marie Tapia, and I believe that’s because she has influences that have let her open more doors. Her work is Agatha Christie grade, which I suppose is fine… I think her average is around 10,000 copies of her books, and God knows how the hell she’s managed to acquire such a huge printing run.

With the Internet growing and my never-ending affinity to it, I figured that I could use this tool to not only promote myself, but promote other people with talent to countries abroad since Panama has such a little audience that it’s almost a crime… most people don’t care about culture. They care about pop music and the latest club, but they don’t care about culture and the arts. Both our neighbors have that much bigger cultural movements and Colombia is the birthplace of some of the greatest writers of the last century, and you’re telling me that this can’t be the case in Panama? Please, give me a break. I kept watching and slowly but surely more events started to come out from other circles who encouraged creativity and I began to take interest in those acts and presentations… but the one thing that sold me was a song I heard on the radio and it was in constant rotation. it was majestic, laidback but sure of itself. I couldn’t believe it when the DJ said it was from a Panamanian band… punch #2 came when he revealed the name of the song as “Daigoro,” and I was down on the floor when he let me know the name of the band who played it: Señor Loop.

I couldn’t believe it. “It’s probably a fluke,” I thought. A freak of nature, this song. No Panamanian band can be this non-commercial and brilliant. I sought out to find their recently released CD at the time, called “Madretambor” and, for the first time in many years, I locked myself in my room, popped it into my computer and dedicated myself to listening to the whole record. I fell in love ever since. After that, my plans for a cultural movement began to take the forefront and I started making inquiries, getting more involved, more interested in what was happening, listening to other local bands that weren’t hacks and opening myself to a subculture that carried artwork, cinema and much more stuff that didn’t feel pretentious; on the contrary, it felt genuine. If I thought that 2004 was a good time to start what I had in mind, then this awakening solidified it. With the liberation of culture that much more palpable now, the freedom of information that much more accepted in this country considering that you can buy pirated copies of movies and music on the street and in front of cops without them saying a word, I changed my ways and embraced the concept… that’s how this here page and Porto Diao were born. It’s a great time to be an artist here, considering that with the Internet now the whole world is your stage, and if people really like your work they will pay for it. All of this, I realized it by listening to a song on the radio.

The stage is ripe for a cultural revolution… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Panama is coming into its own in terms of culture, after laying dormant for many years. We’re still in our infancy not in terms of artistic output (there’s plentiful) but of the mainstream’s acceptance of it. I always thought and written that it’s all about making culture “cool” for whatever reason a hipster deems something cool… it doesn’t matter as long as it catches his interest. In Panama, the literary world seems to be the same as it’s been for as long as I can remember and there are no signs of it changing anytime soon and much less me barging in and shaking up the status quo the way I’d like to but there are other places or groups that accept true creativity and don’t judge or condone it… this credo was something the country was lacking when I graduated high school but now it has acquired. It’s a good moment for me to go forth and try to promote Panamanian talent and blend circles… it’s ambitious, but I believe that the time is now.

Señor Loop has a blog on their official site (http://www.senorloop.com) but I’ll do you the favor and direct you to their discography section, where they’ve been kind enough to encode and post their entire discography on MP3 so that you can download and enjoy, free of charge. They have a new album coming up soon and personally, I can’t wait to buy it… below, some selected tracks from the page. Please enjoy and support local bands and other forms of expression… we’re not hacks anymore, and Señor Loop is a testament of that.

Daigoro :: Sequía/Wégala :: La Gelatina de las Galaxias :: Roncabalao :: X-Mar

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