Salsa


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My father loved his salsa. In fact, he always carried a jar of salsa in his coat pocket just in case of an emergency. By an emergency, I mean that rare event when we ate a non-Mexican house or restaurant that had never even heard of salsa, peppers, or even Tabasco sauce. My father was always at the ready with his jar of salsa. He was prepared for any disaster of this type.

At Burger King, when they asked him if he wanted everything on his Whopper, he said, “Yes, everything. And salsa!” When they would tell him that they didn’t have salsa, he would say, “That’s okay! I brought my own!” And he would pull out his jar of salsa from his pocket. He loved watching their facial expression when they saw that he had a jar of salsa. Some days, he felt that one jar of salsa alone would not suffice, so he would also bring a jar of jalapeño peppers. He ate jalapeño peppers like some people eat olives.

At home, my father tried to instill in us the values of our Mexican heritage. Number one on the list was teaching us how to eat salsa or peppers at every meal with every food that we were served. We always put up an argument every time. He even wanted me to put salsa on my corn flakes once! He loved to make his own salsa, but no one else liked it, not even my mother.

Once he made some salsa and I saw him put a spoonful in his mouth. He had made it extremely hot. It was too hot even for him. He drank a tall glass of water, but it took a while before he cooled off. Then, he offered me some. I said no, of course. But then he gave me the “What kind of Mexican are you?” speech and I felt compelled to try some of his salsa. My father had tricked me into tasting it by telling me that it wouldn’t be that spicy. I did taste it, but grudgingly. He told me to try a piece of diced potato that had been floating in the liquid of his homemade salsa jar. I think, how hot can it be? It’s just a potato. Wow! I bit into this potato, and it was hotter than any jalapeño pepper I had ever tasted.

When I was growing up there were people starving all over the world, but our parish and school decided to collect alms for the starving children in Biafra. They showed us pictures of these Biafran children who were nothing but skin and bones with bloated stomachs. On the one hand, these children so evoked our sympathy for them that we donated our candy money to feed these starving children in Biafra. On the other hand, some boys soon forgot about the starving Biafran children and invoked the name of Biafra for other purposes. In fact, they started calling the skinniest boy in the school Biafra. Biafra, I mean the skinniest boy in the school, happened to be in my class. And whenever someone wanted to poke fun at this skinny boy, he would go up to the Biafra collection can on the nun’s desk, drop a coin in the can, and say, “This is for Biafra.” Of course, he would then take a long look at the skinniest boy in the school.

I’ll never understand why the skinniest boy in the school just took it, instead of exploding and just start pounding someone. Anyway, back to my father and his salsa. Nice segue, no? Sometimes my father would cook our food and put the salsa in it while he cooked, as if we wouldn’t notice the flavor of salsa in the food. And as a diversion, he would put a big jalapeño pepper on the plate, too.

One day, my brothers and I were just sitting there staring at our food on our plates. We were starving, but we couldn’t eat it. Then my father got angry at us and said, “You should be grateful you have food to eat. There are starving children in Biafra!” I said, “Well, why don’t you send the food to them?” But then I realized that no matter how hungry someone was, he or she wouldn’t eat my father’s food anyway. I tried to imagine a skinny boy in Biafra receiving my father’s care package and seeing my plate of food with a big jalapeño pepper on top of the food. How hungry would he have to be in order to eat my father’s spicy cooking? No, I never could imagine a Biafran boy eating my father’s food.

And what did I learn from all this? Well, I learned a valuable lesson that I sometimes share with my own sons. It’s part of our family tradition. So, when my sons are sitting around the table complaining about the meal, sans salsa, that I cooked for them, I tell them, “You don’t know how lucky you are! There are starving children in Africa who would like to have an X-Box 360 Elite!”

DDR

El Gallo de Oro


El Gallo de Oro, 2952 W. 63rd Street, Chicago, Illinois

When I lived at 3006 W. 64th Street, I always used to eat at this great Mexican restaurant that was exactly one block away. El Gallo de Oro, 2952 W. 63rd Street, 773.737.8101, has been there since at least 1981 when I moved back to Marquette Park after being honorably discharged from the Marines.

This Mexican restaurant serves real Mexican food cooked by real Mexicans to other Mexicans who patronize the restaurant. That’s how you can tell if a Mexican restaurant is really good: by how many Mexicans eat there. I remember once going to Milwaukee and my girlfriend suggested that we eat at a Mexican restaurant, either La Perla or La Fuente, but she didn’t know which one was better. We ate at the one where all the Mexicans ate! And it was great Mexican food! So, are you wondering which restaurant was better? Well, I honestly can’t remember because I drank a few too many bottles of Negra Modelo. Anyway, El Gallo de Oro has great Mexican food, and I say this after having come back from having eaten Mexican food in many Mexican restaurants and Mexican homes in Mexico. Well, lately, I’ve been going to different Mexican restaurants in the Chicagoland area, or Chicagolandia as I like to call it since we have so many Spanish speakers here, and I’ve been ordering the enchiladas de pollo. Today, I tasted the enchiladas at El Gallo de Oro, and they were ¡sabrosísimas! This is a great Mexican restaurant.

When I still lived in the neighborhood, I ate there several times a week. Of course, everything I needed in the neighborhood was within a two-block radius. The cleaners, the gas station, the locksmith, the used bookstore, my barber Aldo of Italy, and of course, El Gallo de Oro. I went to the locksmith exactly once, but it was nice to know that he was always available even though I dreaded the day that I would actually need him. Aldo of Italy cut my hair once a month before I ate at El Gallo de Oro. Aldo always loved speaking to me in Spanish while he cut my hair until I fell asleep. Anyway, again, I loved the attitude of the Mexican cooks at El Gallo de Oro. They were typical Mexicans who loved to brag about their food and service. I especially loved their sign in the window: “La competencia es buena, pero nosotros somos … ¡más chingones!” In English, “The competition is good, but we are … ” Okay, I’m not sure how to translate the last two words, but you could tell who was Mexican and who wasn’t by how they reacted to the sign. Of course, at that time the FCC let a lot of profanity get aired on all the Mexican radio stations. So the sign remained in the front window for many years until about two years ago. I rather miss that sign. That’s the thing about Mexicans. They have chutzpah!

One time, I told my father, brothers, and sister that I had a special surprise for them for our Thanksgiving dinner that year. They were so curious that I caved in to all their questions and told them my surprise beforehand. “We are eating Thanksgiving dinner at … ” and I paused for dramatic effect … “El Gallo de Oro!” “But we want turkey,” my sister shouted. “Yo quiero guajolote,” said my father. “Un momento,” I said. “El Gallo de Oro is serving turkey burritos on Thanksgiving Day!” After a little grumbling, they finally agreed to my Thanksgiving dinner plans! Everyone got to eat turkey, I got to eat at El Gallo de Oro, and my father got to eat so many jalapeño peppers that sweat poured from his forehead profusely and he had to keep asking for more and more water. Well, El Gallo de Oro managed to satisfy yet another finicky Mexican family–again!

DDR

Machos


Lotería playing card.

I just saw the play Machos written and directed by Coya Paz and performed by Teatro Luna at the 16th Street Theater in Berwyn, Illinois. Teatro Luna is the only all-Latina theater group in Chicago area, and I have seen many of their previous productions that were incredibly good, but this one is by far their funniest, and, also their most serious.

Machos is based on interviews with men about how they feel about being men. The men in the play describe what it’s like to be a man and how much pressure society, family, and peers place on them in their quest to be men. This play truly analyzes all aspects of society’s expectations of men in general and the Hispanic expectations of being macho, as the play’s title implies. Since all the men are portrayed by women dressed as men, there’s a tongue in cheek attitude about the whole analysis. They honestly complain about how they don’t understand women without sounding like a David Mamet rant against bitches.

If men were to put on this play, the tone would certainly come off as more hostile toward women. However, since the play is written and directed by a woman, the men portrayed seem more human and their problems and behavior seems more plausible. The play is a comedy about many serious subjects such as love, infidelity, sex, and homosexuality, but there also many poignant scenes also, like the one about the Mexican father who drinks alone at home listening to old Mexican music on vinyl LPs. Even though he’s at home with his family, he’s also alienating himself from them and therefore drinking alone instead of eating supper with family. It’s a vicious circle of which he’s oblivious.

Okay, my favorite scene occurred after the play was over near the restrooms. A cast member stood between the doors to the Men’s and Women’s room and said, “Which one do I use?” She, I mean He, I mean, S/he went into the Women’s room. I highly recommend this play.

DDR

Mexican jokes


My business card in 1986

When I was growing up, in an age before everyone tried to be politically correct, everyone told ethnic jokes. They were always insulting and mean-spirited to whatever group was targeted. Sure, some people were offended by these jokes, which only led to them being the target of more ethnic jokes. However, these jokes also brought a lot of joy and laughter among friends. For example, I worked in a peanut butter factory, named Derby Foods, with various ethnic groups who lived in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. In general, we all got along very well. Shirley, one of my Polish coworkers, loved to hear any kind of joke because she loved to laugh. Her real name was Ursula, but she preferred to be called Shirley. Anyway, she especially loved to hear Polish jokes. She always insisted that I tell her any new Polish joke that I heard. And when I didn’t learn any new jokes, she insisted that I retell her the old ones. Whenever I told her Mexican jokes, she told me she liked the Polish ones better. In this age of political correctness, I will not tell any Polish jokes lest I offend anyone. But I suppose it would be okay if I told some of the Mexican jokes that I still remember. I’m not doing this to propagate any negative stereotypes about Mexicans, but merely as a scientific exercise to preserve our humorous past. Now, I’m not saying that these jokes are funny anymore, but once upon a time, people laughed at these jokes. Some of them are quite dated. Okay, you have been forewarned!

  1. Why can’t Mexicans be fireman? They don’t know the difference between José and Hose B.
  2. Mexican weather report: Chili today. Hot tamale.
  3. Why do Mexicans wear pointy shoes? To kill cockroaches in the corner.
  4. What is the name of the Mexican telephone company? Taco Bell.
  5. Why don’t Mexicans have barbecues? The beans keep falling through the grille.
  6. How can you tell if you’re at a Mexican birthday party? There are more adults than children.
  7. What do you call a Mexican basketball game? Juan on Juan.
  8. What do you get when you cross a Mexican with an octopus? I don’t know, but boy can it pick lettuce!
  9. Why doesn’t Mexico have an Olympic team? Because every Mexican who can run, jump, or swim is already in the U.S.
  10. What do you call a Mexican in a BMW? A valet.

Upon further reflection, I retract the above listed jokes because they are in extremely bad taste. With apologies to Ursula, I mean, Shirley!

DDR

Comedy


Sally’s Stage, Chicago, Illinois

I’ve always loved comedy in any form since I was a boy. Of course, I loved all the old TV comedies like The Dick Van Dyke Show, the Honeymooners, and Laugh In, and the variety shows like the Carol Burnett Show and the Flip Wilson Show, but I especially loved watching the standup comedians like Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Bob Newhart, Joan Rivers, and Phyllis Diller. I loved watching them so much that I wanted to be a comedian, too. For some strange reason, I would always remember every joke that I heard. Of course, I had trouble retaining my school lessons, like the multiplication tables. But I knew hundreds of jokes by the time I was a teenager. Other boys memorized baseball statistics from baseball cards or knew where all the pretty girls in the neighborhood lived. My friend Adrian could tell the year and make of any automobile just by looking at the taillights, the headlights, or the grille. When that became too easy for him, he graduated to airplanes. Anytime a plane flew overhead, he would tell us what kind of plane it was and what airlines used them. If no one stopped him, he would recite every statistic he knew about that plane. He even knew about military aircraft. But he still knew his cars as well.

Anyway, surrounded by friends like that, I wanted to find my niche, my very own specialty. Something in which I could indulge to the nth degree. In the immortal words of Tina Turner, I never do nothin’ nice ‘n’ easy! I decided that jokes would be my forte! When we went to the library, I would check out a joke book. Every Sunday, I would read the jokes religiously in the My Favorite Jokes section in the Parade Magazine that appeared in the Sunday paper. Since I didn’t speak English that well, learning all these jokes helped me improve my English. And I became one of the best spellers in the third grade even though I didn’t speak English all that well. My mother, who had the same love for jokes, and I would always tell each other the latest joke we had heard. I even read Reader’s Digest just for the jokes.

So, it’s no wonder that I became a standup comedian. However, I was always nervous on stage, even when I settled down and became comfortable. That’s one of the reasons I gave up performing. I would feel nervous for days before performing. That feeling would intensify while performing. And then, I wouldn’t get over my nervousness afterwards for days because I would think about all the mistakes I had made or things that I should have said. But that didn’t stop me in my quest to become funnier.

Funnier? I wanted to be the funniest comedian ever! That’s the way I am. When I do something, I must go all out. I don’t let my actual talent and limitations stop me. I know my limits because I cross them all the time. I wanted to become so funny as a standup comedian that I would make someone die from laughter! I fantasized about someday performing at the Chicago Theater and seeing my name on the marquis and an ambulance on standby parked in front. Yes, I thought I could be that funny!

And to that end, I watched every classic TV comedy show and every classic comedy movie ever made. But that wasn’t enough for me in my quest for killer comedy. I also read every humorous book I could find, usually by culling the bookshelves at one of the many used bookstores that we used to have in Chicago. I even bought a book autographed by Bob Hope for a dollar! I read a lot of comedy, humor, and joke books in my lifetime. Well, as usually happens to me whenever I read a book, while reading I discover at least two or three other books I must read. Especially with the comedians who are always thanking someone who positively influenced their comedic skills. So, let’s just say that I read a lot of funny books.

My favorite book of all time!

So, one day, I was invited to a party by my friend Mary McCall at her condominium at 400 E. Randolph. That’s the high-rise building with the pool covered by the glass geodesic dome that used to be located by the Lake Shore Drive S-curve until someone decided to straighten out the S-curve. The building is still there, but the S-curve is gone. Anyway, I met, just by chance, Aaron Freeman the comedian. Mary introduced me to him, but we already knew each other because we both had performed at the Clout Club, the comedy club founded by Jim Wiggins on North Lincoln Avenue in 1986. Aaron mentioned that there weren’t any funny books written. I couldn’t help it, but I had to disagree. “What about the classics?” I asked him. Aristophanes and Shakespeare wrote some very funny stuff. Cervantes was a very funny guy, too! Of course, Catch-22 and Catcher in the Rye are also hilarious. I told him he had to read anything by some of the lesser-known humor writers, but equally as funny, such as Ring Lardner, Stephen Leacock, S.J. Perelman, James Thurber, Groucho Marx, Will Cuppy, Woody Allen, Dorothy Parker, Richard Armour, and Max Shulman. He said he would read them. I really enjoyed that conversation with him because I love talking about jokes and funny things that I have read. I never met Aaron again, so I haven’t been able to ask him if he ever read any of my suggestions and read any of those funny writers. Such is life.

DDR