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The sixties fell on my then bushy head like that
thunderbolt upon Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. I recall the very
moment, the exact spot and even the date: June, 196 1. It was on one of
my high-schools' lawns. An older school chum wanted to show me a poem.
In other times I used to write him sonnets for his sweetheart in
exchange for a few pesos to go to the movies. This time I was not to be
the author. He just asked for my enlightening opinion.
I opened the pages and read. I'm so young and you're so old, oh Diana,
I've been told.
It was in English. Dam it Anyway, I continued. I don't care just what
they say
'cause forever/ will pray.
"Why in English?", I asked him. "Is it a 'gringa"'?
"No, he said. "She is Colombian. That's why I r-,ed you. You have to
translate it. It's by an unknown Canadian singer by the name of Paul
Anka".
A few days latter, while I tried to figure out a decent version for the
poem with the help of the Cuyas Dictionary, I heard a song on the radio
which sounded familiar. It was the voice of the Mexican singer Cesar
Costa:
Yo soy joven para ti,
to eres grande para mi. Eso dicen por ahi
los que no saben vivir...
Yep! It was Paul Anka's "Diana" allright: I lost the hours worked on my
translation, but I came upon the wonderful world of the new decade, red
carpet style. "Diana" was followed by "In the subway" (Rocky Pontoni),
"Secret Love" (Enrique Guzman), " Juanita Banana" (The Hooligans),
"Moonlight" (The TNT's), "Rouge stained 'kerchief' (Lalo Fransen) and
dozens, hundreds, thousands of songs, all sounding differently to the
familiar boleros, porros, blues, o and rock'n' roll that were heard
during the prior decade. The shaggy haired beatles promptly proceeded to
make an art of the Aquarius age sounds.
The sixties impacted all behavior in Colombia. First music; then clothes
politics. They invaded the universities and the relationship between the
they shook up literature, they imposed new values and opened new "c
semso botoes", if I may be excused for the platitude. What I really w
say is that youngsters realized that their place in the world was closer
tc re than to business. They woke up to the notion that vague energit
through things, jibing alliances between people.
The political event that opened the decade in Colombia was the N<
Front's first years. In economic terms, it still was an austere nation,
havi the first time more inhabitants in the cities than in the
countryside. Cull the there was a lasting surge of the topic of the
years of La Violencia o rature. Bicycling was the national sport. The
symbiosis between theater TV was just beginning.
History had just gone past the front door by way of Dictator Rojas F
overthrow, the Benidorm and Sitges political pacts, the Military Junta
Alberto Lleras' election. Changes seemed more likely to take place
society than within the State. And that's what finally happened.
From the Vatican Council to the Crem-Helado. Ice Cream Parlor.
After fifteen years of post-war-times, changes began to appear. Fidel
took over in Cuba, John XXIII called the II Vatican Council, John F.
Kennedy was elected President of the United States, space became a
satellite backyard and France's Nouvelle Vague marked cinema's pace.
Many names lit Colombia's billboard at the dawn of the sixties: Alicia
del Carpio and her "You and me" TV comedy; cyclist Roberto "Birdie" Buitrago soccer star Delio "Marvel".Gamboa; Pacho Galan and his
merecumbe, Lucho Bermudez band; Garzón and Collazo's bambucos; "Tocayo"
Ceballos and "The congeniality hour" radio program. In the wrestling
ring, Hurricane Ramirez was at his nastiest best (the Assassin Doctor
had already passed away, I don't recall if murdered). Matador Joselillo
of Colombia, was peak of his glory, and, thundering from his the pulpit,
was Monsignor Concha Cordoba, one of the last cavernous church
survivors.
 For
me and many of my generation Colombia was Bogota and Bogota was the
Chapinero neighborhood, and Chapinero was a string of movie houses and
the first ice cream parlors in the country. Thanks to the heroic
breaches of the movie censorship code dared by the “empresarios”
business man running the Chile, Empire, Caldas, Fausto and Escorial
movie houses, guys under 21 were able to see the flicks ushering in a
new era. Fellini, Truffaut, Lean, Dassin, Godard, Charbol, Came, Resnais,
Kubrick. James Bond, the Beatle films and, before the decade was over,
the droopy, adrift, freckled and big nosed Woody Allen features came
along.
Friday's awesome night out was watching an evening or late movie show
with the gang (with or without sweethearts: better with) and later
hitting the drive-in 67th Street Cream-Helado Ice Cream Parlor. Up to
three couples per hotrod. A mercurial waiter took care of those in the
cars and, at some point in time, nobody knew when, he would show up
balancing hamburgers, hot dogs, beers and passion-fruit shakes. He
always missed something: the mustard, the ketchup, the napkins or the
onion rings which were always ordered.
Below the anemic neon lights of the Cream-Helado Ice Cream Parlor, and
under the cover of a quick cheeseburger, many an enterprising couple
took to their own version of the era's sexual new freedom right then and
there.
I protest, you protest, he protests May my body be a delightful railroad
track for your cold little hands to twine: may they run palm by palm
along my back, until they are joined by mine...
The New Wave teenage song mania, led by studs such as Mexico's Enrique
Guzman and Cesar Costa, reaped pandemonium upon Colombia. Pablus
Gallinazo, poet and publicist, left a bundle of compositions by himself
sang by Oscar Golden and the Clan Club guys'n gals: "Gum mouth",
"Revolutionary mule", "A flower to chew".
It was during this time when singers took to changing their phonetics.
The "i" sound took over the "II" sound, and the tongue-and-tooth
pronunciation of "v'", nonexistent in Spanish, was taken with fury in
imitation of Paul Anka and The Beattles. With time these mannerisms were
taken to extremes. It was chic to pronounce "b" as "v'": "I vet it's the
Beatles...".
Both whims still linger on. Singers with a poor tongue spelling area
curiosity straight out of the sixties.
Right alongside the love curio songs ("All my love is for my darling
little Broomsticks/ And when on dancing I ask her to shake/her poor
little legs just seem to break") and the synthetic rebellious songs ("So
much control, so much control/there's always so much control") came an
outpouring of protest songs. Latin America broiled. Folk music boomed
under a flury of Violeta Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Victor Jana, Alfredo
Zitarrossa songs...
Latin American narrative literature Big Bang started in 1967 with One
hundred years o f solitude, but it also called upon works of the prior
fifteen years. That happened to some books by Julio Cortazar, and to
authors who had finished their last work by 1955, like Juan Rulfo.
Che Guevara's image as a heroic guerrilla fighter was an invitation to
"head for the hills". Many followed the call, such as Father Camilo
Torres, ending their lives for the sake of a more just society. Several
promising student leaders, who could have contributed more to changing
the system from within, also perished on the guerrilla adventure. Who
knows? Today they probably would be working for some financial
organization, golfing on Sundays.
The images of the times reflect the strange Colombian "zoo" of the
sixties: naked hippies taking baths and munching on hallucinating
mushrooms at the La Miel River... Priests shedding cassocks and going on
honeymoons... Long boned, short-haired fashion models...
Disheveled-bearded and wild-haired students... Sociologists anticipating
La Revolution with their peculiar slang: "Do you know what I mean,
brother?... Marihuana-puffing rock musicians... Beatnik poets demanding
the exhumation of the body of Maria, the chaste heroine of romantic
fiction, in order to dispel their doubts about her nifty...
Theater people waiting for Go dot at La Mama theater... Discotheque
beastly names such as The White Elephant and The Pink Mammoth... Peg
tearing down fences under the cry that "the land belongs to those who on
it..." Painters designing transparent ladies' dresses...
 Enduring
changes
Love and also war were made during the sixties. Paris and Chapinero mes,
many things were gained and many were lost. Among the latter, ties, the
novelty of jet flying and blushing at indecent exposures. It w~ decade
ushering the first strip-tease joints, spreading all over Bogota at th
of an eye. At the California Theater, the Argentine girls of a nudist
Shaw "Legs, horns and bulls" did their thing for the benefit of 18
years-old o students finally able to praise the Lord for the saucy
ingenuity of His war They were also the last years of Gabriel Antonio
Goyeneche, the eternal presidential candidate. As any aspirant to the
job, he had to be really lunati at least the guy looked the part. These
were also the waning years of n light serenades with hastily recruited
midnight trios at the spirituous-li scented El Autentico Bambuco and
Club Camucol digs.
During the sixties, Vallenato music (accordionish beats from Colombia's
Valley area) began its invasion. Within thirty years, it lifted rock 'n'
roll's nation and completely sidelined the cumbia and pon-o sounds.
These years of bell bottoms, mini skirts, rhombus stockings, huge wrist
watches form shoes, black stripes on female eyelids, pale pink lipstick,
hair bank guys' heads and ribbons on the chicks', and the ever present
peace me& on everybody's chest.
It was a decade full of surprises and colorful changes showing that the
of youngsters was a giant Woodstock. Even the most frustrating event
guerrilla warfare, drugs and riots, were romantically inspired. For the
firs the profit thirst was unimportant to the young generation, albeit
not so decades to follow. Peace inspired civil unrest against Vietnam,
and tF encouraged lay revolts against the teachings of the Church. Many
I imprints and several value changes from this era are still part of
today's behavior codes. Perhaps the three most important are the sexual
revolution enjoyed today by the offspring of those who started it;
ecological awan which launched the return to nature encouraged by
hippies; and the it tant achievements in women's rights.
As we said, the decade began by doing away with the solemnity of prior
rations' sacred icons ("I have a gal who's a bit dumb..."), and further
along music as an instrument of change, as in that famous Cuban song:
"The mander arrived and ordered to stop".
At the end of the day, the era's philosophy was also best summarized
musician. As in many of his songs, Joan Manuel Serrat expresses in "To
nut his own" what many of us feel:
If left to choose, I prefer a good lay to a reprimand and a fireman to a
bomber, growing to maturing; I prefer flesh to metal and windows to
bars,
the mole on your face to the National Art Gallery, and revolution to
nightmares. I prefer time to gold, life to dreams, the dog to the
collar,
the walnuts to the noise
and the wise yet to meet than the nuts already known. The sixties was
the prodigious decade. |
