La Vida Yaya

Las fundadoras, Laura Rebolloso and Martha Gonzalez. When the lead singer of my favorite band comes a-calling for a special request to write about her new project, there is no way a super-fan can say no! As much as we are hounded to death to financially support everyone else's jogathon, spring break trip to Nepal, or buy magazines from guitar-playing Xanax junkies, once in a while comes a project that you wish you could fully fund on the spot. Alas, being $9,980 short, I'm doing my part and blasting this far and wide. Aside from being a Chicana singer/songwriter extraordinaire for the band Quetzal , Martha Gonzalez is also one educated chica. In 2007, Martha was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to head to Veracruz and write songs from a feminine perspective along with collaborator Laura Rebolloso, founder of Son de Madera , a son jarocho group in Veracruz. There Martha and other local women musicians gathered around kitchen tables and living rooms, multitasking songwri...

Luna at 2 Tracks Studio. Photo by Y. De Leon This post is not about art saving a young, impressionable boy from the barrio. It's not about how he would be dead right now if not for art. It's not about Highland Park or Mexico City. That would all be superficial, convenient, passive. It all made sense sitting there at 2 Tracks studio which he shares with the equally talented New Mexico artist Pola Lopez , in the Northeast LA neighborhood of Highland Park, watching him move about, waving his hands in the air as if to control its direction and flow. Is there something in that air or is it just the haze in our eyes from a long day winding to a close? Outside, passersby walk hurriedly against the fading light of day. Teen boys posturing macho bullshit about girls they hope to conquer. Old men lusting after a cold can of beer. Mothers eager to get home. Inside Heriberto Luna paces on edge wondering what I'm about to ask him. He takes me into the Avenue 50 Studio in the n...

My daughter never ceases to amaze me with the words that come out of her mouth. I've always seen her as an alien from another world that I am charged with introducing to this one. As I've mentioned before, I have a twitter account for her called Lydia_said . There I post her memorable quotes of the day. Today, she said off-the-cuff, "Mom, I love you. I don't want you to die, but you will." What does one say to that? We've talked about death before and she's still a bit obsessed with it. I know she thinks about it often. So I thought that perhaps I should write this letter to her  . . . in case. I plan on living until I'm in my 80s or 90s but I'd hate to leave Earth without writing a letter that she can read when she's grown, just in case. My Dear Lydia, What can I say to the grown-up you that you don't already know. You've always been very intuitive and understood things way beyond your years. You just turned 6 years old yet you ...

LA Sunset by Abel Gutierrez I had a blogger epiphany today. I realized I could purchase my own domain name for only $10 a year so I said, sure, what the heck. But I'm a Libra! Wholly indecisive. How will I pick a name? This blog has already had two names, now a third? Well, I figured it's not that popular yet, but judging from the hit count and comments I get on Facebook, Twitter, and here, I thought, wow, it could happen. Plus, the domain name was available. Score! So here goes, my own domain name . . . Allow me to introduce you to LA Vida Yaya ! I wanted to keep "LA" in the title to reference Los Angeles. It's also in Spanish and has my nickname. It's a play on La Vida Loca which I can relate to at times. I'm just happy it came to me so quickly and I didn't spend days agonizing over it, changing my mind in good Libra fashion. So that's it! No changing it! I got it for a year. My old links still work. They just redirect here. Wow, this blogging ...

I had a great opening line for this post but now I can't remember. Ah, aging. Ain't it great? One day you're fun, and young, and free and the next you've gained 50lbs of baby weight and insert-other-reasons-here. Then, instead of drinking the night away with all your carefree friends, you're stuck at home writing a blog about it. As with anyone, the past few years have been a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs. I wound up with back problems that took about three years to figure out. During that time, I was scared to move for fear of re-injuring myself, at least that is what the doctors had me believe. This past December I got the news I wanted, needed, to hear. As most curvy girls can relate, this isn't my first attempt to lose weight. Countless Weight Watchers sessions, reading up on trendy diets, fasting, raw diet, 3-day diet, yoga, you name it, has led to temporary results. So what makes this time different? It is about pain management. The more weight...