Whereas “Madretambor” spoke about Panama with its grip firmly held on the pulse of the Panamanian way of life, who Panama feels from within and marches on against adversities that come from all fronts, “MCMLXXXII” takes a step back to show us a macro view of things, not just from the country’s present but also showcasing its convulsed history, showing us what it has paved for future generations.

“BIENVENIDO, MI GENERAL!”

It all begins with a smack to the face as the first track, “1982,” gives us broad strokes on what it was for those who lived through the military dictatorship/coup of General Omar Torrijos Herrera and his infinitely problematic successor, General Manuel Antonio Noriega, at the beat of a military chant. Many seem to forget how Panama wasn’t always a tax haven and tourist/real estate paradise; there were moments where many, my at-the-time young self included, feared for our lives and our families’ safety. Ironically, there’s a fierce commentary to be pulled out of this song, as Panama now faces a problem that is, in many respects, far more dangerous than what any machete-wielding dictator could come up with: our loss of identity. Just like Panama subdued its rights to democracy by a very real physical threat, now the country faces a loss of its values in favor of money and power…

Whether this is criticism towards Martín Torrijos, president of Panama and son of General Omar Torrijos, is up for discussion, but there is a strong sense of irony as to how, in one way or the other, we’re back to where we started. The people, when Gen. Torrijos was in power, revered him as a superman. as the song itself says: “Lo que sea que esté pasando aquí, déjenmelo a mí” (“Whatever it is that’s going on here, leave it to me”). Martín, perhaps as a result of a well-played political campaign 10 years in the making, was revered as the man that would make everything better, much like his father. Now, Panama has changed. Is it a balanced change? Both the song and I agree that the answer is a definite “no.”

“RÍE MAÑANA LO QUE SUFRES AHORA”

The three following tracks, “Reflexión,” “Insensato” and “Ice Melting,” talk to me about melancholy. They’re somehow married in regards to their themes; while the former speaks of retrospection as an idea (“Qué sería de hoy sin el ayer?”/”What would today be without yesterday?”), the following tune addresses it in the form of a story that is all too familiar with anyone that’s gone to a bar in the interior, or knows someone with roots there. A story of deceit that could happen to any of us, telling the tale of a man who goes to a party and witnesses his woman cheating on him with another man. In a blind fit or rage, he takes out his gun in order to “unload his rage.” Of course, this all comes to fruition when he remembers what his father told him: “Insensato todo aquel que tenga un arma, que la use para descargar su ira” (“Foolish is he who has a weapon, and uses it to unload his rage”). We can all relate to this, that sense of heartbreak that seems to rip us apart and indulges our need to do something completely foolish. None of us can escape it, but the song sheds a light in the dark to the beat of a sweet rhythm and accordeon arrangements.

Finally, “Ice Melting” broadens the scope once more to cover even the themes laid out by the record’s first track, speaking of man’s gullibility. This could be power, love, hate, the weather and everything below it, all of this woven together by a complex rhythm and melancholic guitar. This all leads up to one of my favorite tracks of the album, and in recent memory: “Donde Quieras.”

It’s tracks like “Donde Quieras” that remind me to implore you to catch Señor Loop live the first chance you get. The band lets the deep introspection go at this point in the record and begins to set free their musical aggression; and even though I’m going to get into how glorious they sound live further down in this walkthrough, I will say that “Donde Quieras” sounds beautiful on the record, but it’s one of those songs you just know is a blast to listen to performed live. This song speaks to me about letting go of what worries you, of what holds you back, and just give in.

Lyrically and musically the song is simply without a care in the world and it’s beautiful. The soundtrack of your life, played out before you. The song has several layers that subversively sync up so that by the closing salvo you’re catapulted to a state of musical delirium that, big words aside, is intimately liberating.

“YOU WILL BE MY TORMENT!”

“Malhumox,” track 06 of the album, is in my very personal opinion a companion piece to their song “Roncabalao,” off their 2004 album “Madretambor.” They both deal about a person’s longing for something or someone and the delirium/dementia that goes with it… expertly commented on by a bit of dialogue sampled off a movie that for the life of me I can’t bring myself to remember but if I ever do recall it one of the great mysteries of my life will be solved. The line “You will be my torment!” has been used by the band in every one of their records, and has been used by yours truly many a time to describe something I’ve had in my mind for an unhealthy amount of time, and it’s a shoe-in for the feelings described here.

Whereas “Roncabalao” deals directly with relationship drama, “Malhumox” takes the approach adopted by “MCMLXXXII” and goes macro, pointing out the sell-out and surrender of the soul over ideas, corporations, movements or any other sentient concoction made by man. Of course, “Malhumox” is very much angrier in its execution than “Roncabalao” and with good reason: I’d be just as pissed, too. Out of the remaining 5 tracks in the album, and I could talk about each and every one of them as I have the first half of the record, I simply can’t contain myself to go right where I’ve been wanting to go ever since I began this piece. Out of all of this, there’s only one that absolutely kills me because it perfectly represents not only the musical power of the band in all of its wavelenghts, but also represents the state of one of my favorite places in the great green and blue marble we like to call Earth: “Bocas Town.”

“Bocas Town” is sandwiched between the triple threat of the aggressive “Llegá,” love song “Dile” and tripped-out “Kan Air” and the exit songs “Balsa” and “Onda y Partícula.”

“El Tiburón Llegó, Llegó a Isla Colón…”

Bocas Town is the town located in Isla Colón in the Panamanian province of Bocas del Toro, a place full of rich culture, genuinely amazing people and a laid back, friendly atmosphere that’s genuine and simply unparalleled. Due to the real estate boom that seems to be drowning certain bits of Panama, Bocas del Toro (mainly Bocas Town) has been flooded with new hotels, tourist-friendly venues and other amneties that have quite literally changed the face of what Bocas del Toro was once upon a time. Swanky hotels, beach front development projects and the like has totally erased what Bocas Town used to be. Bocas Town used to be a place where you could hide, disconnect and get in touch with what makes you tick, at your own pace and without restraint. Now it’s a place with ATM machines, $30 lobster dinners and $6-a-bottle coconut oil. To give you an idea of how things have changed, a bottle of coconut oil should cost $2, and come in an empty seco container.

The place doesn’t feel organic anymore… it’s flashy and fabricated, like walking into the Hollywood version of what a Caribbean beach community should be. Those of us who saw what Bocas used to be can’t help but feel a little saddened by what’s happened. Bocas still resists, holding on to its identity at all costs, but things are still changing. It’s worrisome. I’m scared I’ll go again and not recognize the place I swore I’d rest my dead bones in any longer. This song completely encapsulates what I feel, both in its lyrics and its musical arrangement; the struggle, the laid back, sorrowful caribbean theme as Lilo Sanchez sings about how the world discovered this gem and is now trying to take over… but they won’t. Not for a while.

Still, much like the wave spoken of in the song, is inevitable. Where will the beautiful residents go to when they’re pushed aside by the corporate shark? What will happen? One thing’s for sure, and the song knows it: “Nothing will be the same.” What follows after this revelation is an onslaught of sound and music that is absolutely glorious to listen to. I might be biased to the song because I first listened to it live (I talk about it during my time at the horrible, horrible Koppas bar) but really, it HAS to be experienced. It blows me away every single time. You have to listen to it. YOU HAVE TO.

As luck will have it, Señor Loop’s music is incredibly easy to find for people both in and outside of Panama. If you have the chance, go the old fashioned way and purchase the CD in any of the fine music tores scattered across the isthmus. It features art by Panamanian artist and great guy Jonathan Harker (no relation to the “Dracula” character, that I know of), illustrating each one of the songs on the booklet as well as the cover you see above. If you can’t purchase the CD or simply can’t find it, you can purchase it via the band’s website; they have set up CD Baby and iTunes links there for your downloadable pleasure, so you can not only purchase “MCMLXXXII” but also “Madretambor.” As an added bonus, they’re included MP3 links of their EP released in 2000 simply titled “Volume One” in its entirety. Please click on by and visit, will ya?

I thought I’d walk you through, dear reader, and help you discover great music. Hopefully I’ve done you justice by writing about Señor Loop, “MCMLXXXII” and how great life can be if you just influx it with near-perfect melody.

Sexy, geeky update: Friend of the Federation Johnathan Harker kindly pointed out an error in my assessment that has rocked the foundation of my belief systems: the quote “you will be my torment!” is actually “you will be absorbed!” and it’s from a Star Trek episode. I apologize to the women I used to date and called them exactly that as a clever poke… I’m a silly fool! Anyway, the episode where this sample is taken from is from Season 1, Episode 22 called “The Return of the Archons,” which you can download and enjoy in sexy remastered video via wonderful torrent technology right here.

The quote will remain untouched though, as I really like it.

Vito: Hey, are you the same Rob Rivera that has that website?
Rob (startled): Uhm, I guess I am, yes.
Vito: Really? Because I was reading Google News and there was a story there that put your site as the #1 Blog in Panama. Congratulations!
Rob: Umm, wow, thanks…?

My silly chunk on the Internet came in first at something? anything? I must be on crazy pills. Either that or I was still riding on the post-coital side effects of the night prior, one that was just as weird for a whole bucketful of different reasons. Nevertheless, I fired up ze… emm, Firefox… and logged on to Google News to see what all the commotion was. If I’m going to let my ego have a field day with this, might as well corroborate it. A few clicks here and there, and well… here you go:

A good blog, like a good man, is hard to find.
1. http://www.rob-rivera.com/

Fun, satirical, and the know on the art /music scene. A busy site; it takes a while to load sometimes. Rob has thoughts from current events: “the real estate boom pushed forward by Americans, Canadians and Europeans has kick-started a strong degree of social discomfort due to the notion that Panama is being sold piece by piece, fearing that there will come a time where Panama won’t be for Panamanians at all.” to tacos: “Legends of the Rock Cafe tacos curing illnesses such as depression, the flu, breast cancer and Parkinson’s have not yet been verified, but I can tell you for a fact that they sure as hell brush off a foul mood when you’re so mad you could scorch fire and eat babies.” Funny and relevant, Rob is at the top of the pack of the Panamanian bloggers. He also has organized such quirky activities as “the zombie walk” in Panama City.

I would like to thank Robin and the folks behind Panama Travel News for giving me this very reassuring pat on the back. I also appreciate the nice touch on clarifying that you’re talking about the blog, and not the basket case that writes on it. She’s right on how slowly the site’s been loading lately; it’s like I’m driving Miss Daisy here, but like every constant struggle for dominance I (along with my code-munching friends at Porto Diao) have to constantly keep this heap in check. Even still, I very much appreciate the sentiments. I bet Robin’s cute, too. Mmph.

You can check out who came up behind yours truly (sexual implications aside; please try to ignore the ambiguously gay phrase as Bananama Republic came in at #2. Geez, I waltz into these sometimes) by checking out the Panama Travel News piece right here. You can also engage in the lovely clash of the titans going on in the comments section. I can’t wait until a Spanish-speaking nationalist comes in there and poops all over their heads.

The rest of the day is a blur, but Vito did tell me later in the day that I showed up in Google News again; that could be the reason why this here site’s been so slow these past couple of days. Anyway, thank you very much for coming and I’ll try to keep the snark in top form. I remembered I had to mention this here though because I logged on to Facebook this morning to check up on our Grainjaus Grindhouse double feature night at the Theater Guild of Ancon this April 11th (wow, that shameless plug came out of nowhere) and I saw the following. Take a look at the picture. Left column. Closely, friend. Closely.

That makes me want to put an ad of my own! In fact, I’m gonna look into it right now. I don’t want to throw Bananama Republic a banana peel (heh) because they’re funny folks, but that just struck me as funny. Anyway, you better believe you’ll be seeing my mug at some point this umm, month. I don’t know. I lost my point somewhere after I drew the “OMG!” on the picture.

Señor Loop’s MCMLXXXII album is forthcoming! Here’s a preview review: if I listen to the record a little more than I have already, there is an 81% possibility that I will, in fact, become pregnant. You can check out their single “Insensato” at their MySpace page.

My apologies, for I digress; Koppas is what could be considered the next “it” bar for a number of reasons. First, it’s new and in the middle of a popular party sector and that’s enough to pull in customers. Seriously, half these bars and clubs don’t have to waste a dime on adverts and promos; I can’t count the times I’ve cruised along the city and have found some new bar packed full of people only to find out it’s been open for 3 months already and I just wasn’t in the loop. The most popular club in the city at the moment is one called Mystik (as in “mystic,” with the misspelling edginess that gave Korn its rock star status), and I can tell you for a fact that in the past 7 seven years as of this writing there have been at least 3 other establishments that served the same purpose, and all of them enjoyed great success. Hell, I remember the first club I got hammered in when I got my ID was Café Dali, the first version of the place. Of course, the place has seen improvements over the years and what is there now is leaps and bounds more spectacular than what was there when it was first built (imagine the bar at the beginning of the video for Depeche Mode’s “It’s All Good,” sketchy people and all), but the real estate where the building was eradicated must’ve been blessed by a cholo Shaman King or something because no matter what has been put there, the owners have managed to make a pretty penny out of it.

What frustrates me the most out of the whole thing, dear reader, is that there will come a moment where you will read this and Koppas, Mystik and Lighthouse, among other places I have and will mention in this piece, will be long gone. Such is the way of things in the world of clubbing. It still is mighty remarkable that in a city where a little over a million people live, clubs can survive not months, but years. Still, as it is with these things, clubbers crave the next big thing and, unless you’re the infamous Rock Café (not to be mistaken by the Hard Rock Café) and have managed to stay open almost 20 years despite the fact that people have died on the dance floor, will bite the dust sooner than later.

Why was I in Koppas? Butter, the girlfriend, Jenny and I went to the place early in order to get good seating, and when I attacked the bar the only beer they had was MGD. Later I found out that they did in fact have national beer, my sweet, watered-down national beer, and they just wanted to sell MGDs, which where $1 more expensive. Koppas 1, Rob 0. We found seating and a table to wait for the main show (which was the reason why we went, the reveal forthcoming) and almost immediately some honest-to-goodness jackass in a “Koppas” shirt came to ask us if we were going to buy a bottle. We saw our bottles of beer and assumed he hadn’t seen them in our hands, so we showed them to him. Little did we know that Koppas is the type of bar that demands you buy a bottle if you want to have a fucking seat.

Koppas 2, Rob 0.

The place steadily got fuller and fuller, and we began to notice the crowd of people that congregated in Koppas: people who go out to clubs for the popularity contest. Sadly, I ran into a couple of ex-girlfriends at the joint (and in one case, the brother of an ex that really had it in for me for breaking the girl’s fragile litte heart. He was drunk and making with a girl that looked like a she-male, so the joke’s on him!), which shows that I’ve been there and done that, but I’m happy that I’m not part of that world anymore. Yet, my friends and I were severely outnumbered as more and more came. Add to that the insurgent annoyance the damn waiter was causing with us as he came every 15 minutes asking if we would buy a bottle, giving up prices and pushing for the sell… soon, we were pushing to have some personal space as well.

I don’t know if a Panamanian’s perspective of time and space is askew or what but it’s the only explanation that I can think of that explains why we’re never on time anywhere and why clubs and bars are so frickin’ small when they’re advertised as spacious and comfortable. After a couple of hours we were fending off drunks and likes of the preppy kind who wanted our table (and eventually settled in, regardless of whether we were there first or not) and inhaling the second hand smoke because we were indoors and the place didn’t have air filters to suck out the nicotine smoke, the time for the show finally came. We got there at 10. The show finally started at 12:45. During this time I hade 3 MGDs, at $3 bucks a pop, but my tab somehow totaled $11 bucks. Why $11, you ask? I asked a guy to bring me a beer and he did, and I gave him a $5 dollar bill expecting $2 back. Of course, I didn’t see him come near our area for the rest of the night.

Motherfucking Koppas 3, Rob 0.

Right before the show began I asked for a beer (national beer at this point, since they managed to sell all of their MGDs because of their “Beer Nazi” policy prior in the night) than never came. I asked for it 3 times, and it never came. The assholes that invaded our table were rubbing against Jenny’s leg to the point where if a flock of pigeons landed on their crotches thinking they were flagpoles I wouldn’t have been surprised. Rob has no beer. Rob is being shoved around by bratty idiots in high heels. Rob is not happy.

Then the show began, and Señor Loop started playing.

I well tell you right now that even though I’m an impressionable lad, there aren’t many things that blow me away. The feeling of being overwhelmed becomes a rarer occurrence as the days go by, and by proxy seeking out thrills is becoming a more daunting task over time. I still get the chills and get excited over many things, but the sense of discovery and uncontrollable emotion is one that doesn’t come by along these parts often.

Señor Loop, at the time when this gig took place, was collecting funds in order to print and distribute their latest production, and they would reward fans for paying the 5 dollar entrance fee with all-new tracks from this new album. I was there like a dart. I took on getting practically mugged by the bartender who never gave me my change, getting upset because the other waiter I asked a beer to more than a knaggy wife never showed with my brew, and having to step aside because men and women big and small decided to make the spot I was standing on a pedestrian transit route. I took on all of it, because Señor Loop was playing that night, and I was hoping that their music would make it all worthwhile for me. They had a big responsibility on their shoulders, because I’m sure that the other few people who went exclusively to hear the band play were just as annoyed as I was. “They better deliver the goods,” I thought to myself, as the baseline roared through the jam-packed bar.

One of the songs from their new album started playing, and I shit thee not, there were moments when the sound was perfect. In every sense of the word, perfect. There was a continuing crescendo that bulldozed everything and everyone in its path and, like the Incredible Hulk, the more they destroyed the stronger they’d become up to the point where time and space collapsed and all I could see, hear and feel was the music. Everything else around me ceased to exist. The shitty bartenders, the drunken table invaders, the pedestrian transit route, the ex girlfriends, the rude and obnoxious people all around us… all of it, all of it was mute in comparison to what I heard that night. The concept is very subjective and prone to the scrutiny of every person on the planet to determine what said concept is for them, but to me, all I heard was perfection. Honest-to-God perfection. I was so happy. It wasn’t a fluke either; of course, that one song (an ode to Bocas del Toro, from what I could hear) reached the peak of everything that’s good and great about music, art and performing live, staying there as if it was all planned. It’s like they said “yeah, in this instrumental section of the song let’s just play fucking perfectly, for shits and giggles. We have to reel it back in though, because the sonic onslaught will melt their brains.”

I could write a thousand words about how consistently they reached perfection in their sound, but because they did and because what I heard was perfect the best thing you can do is check them out live and buy their new album when it comes out. If you would like to know more about Señor Loop, you can visit their official site here, where they have all of their past albums in MP3 form, free to download. I talked about them as well here, and where my fandom comes from. If you appreciate music and the power it can have on people when done right, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

El escritor

19 de Septiembre de 2006Hola. Hoy nuestro amigo Rich Potter encontró a un buay, Rob Rivera, que escribió una reflexión sobre su arte y el arte en Panamá en general. Lo bonito del asunto es que nunca se sabe las consecuencias de los actos: nosotros hicimos un disco de corazón y ni idea de los efectos que esto puede tener en la gente que lo escucha. Yo me imagino que esto le pasa a todos los que hacen alguna expresión artística. ¿No?

Pueden leerlo y comentar en esta dirección. Está escrito en inglés.

saludos

This is very humbling. It also goes to show how linked we all are, as impersonal as the Internet can be, in regards to how easy we can find each other, specially via blogs. It’s true what the say about them, that they’ve revolutionized the way we share information and as a result have made us come closer together. I will take this oportunity to say hello to the fine folks of Señor Loop and to say I’m waiting for their new CD; this place updates daily and the network where my and a host of other sites are housed, PortoDiao.com, is also a great place to visit and get some great content. Now, before I read as if I’m kissing ass, I will also take a moment to mention that Daigoro has a new layout, as well as a blogroll that I will be filling up with all of the site’s numerous sources. It’s gonna be fun… I can see it now!

Anyway, the guy’s right: you never know who much you can reach other people on a very personal level with every little thing you do. It happens much more so when you create and express yourself artistically; personally I don’t think I’ll ever get used to some of the e-mails I get sent telling me how much they enjoy my work… all I can say is thank you. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I hope you come again; I’ll try my best to be all you think I am and deliver the goods on a daily basis. I just wish I would’ve found out about this sooner!

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