Friday, October 02, 2009

Me gustan todas, me gustan todas, me gustan todas en general, pero esa rubia, pero esa rubia, pero esa rubia me gusta más. I like them all, I like them all I like them all generally but that blonde, but that blonde I really like most of all. Chiquillo, no digas eso, que tu madre te va a pegar. Mi madre a mí no me pega Cuando digo la verdad. Ta-ra-la-la, Ta-ra-la-la, Ta-ra-la-la.... Pero esa rubia, pero esa rubia, pero esa rubia me gusta más. Little boy, don't say that, or your mother is going to spank you. My mother does not spank me when I tell the truth. Ta-ra-la-la, Ta-ra-la-la, Ta-ra-la-la.... But that blonde, but that blonde I like most of all. Since I could remember my grandmother would sing the above song on how men like all women but specially when they are blondes. I have no idea what would have made her sing it (the tune was a catchy one) in my presence. The only blondes in my family at the time were all relatives from my father's side. In 1967 when this half-Latin gazed at the blond hair of my soon-to-be wife, noticed her lovely face, her wonderful blue eyes and her most shapely legs (as shapely as my mother's and she had the best legs in the world) I fell for her. Before I knew it I was married to Rosemary, a spectacular blonde. This is an action I have never regretted and I would do it again, over and over. But every now and then I will see a dark-haired woman, particularly Latinas like the Chilean-born Carmen Aguirre in the pictures here and feel a longing from what seems to be in my innermost being. It is a nostalgia for my Latin roots. This longing is there even though Latins, and particularly Mexican men (I lived in Mexico for many years) will lose all their cognative ability when they see a blonde. Juan Manuel Sanchez the man painting the mural on the big canvas hanging in my studio a few years, ago would have probably asserted, "Solo una morocha es una verdadera mujer." (Only a dark-haired woman is a real woman.) Whichever way you want to look at this, I wish I could leave you with the tune that is now playing in my head in the voice of my grandmother's colaratura. She had a delightful smile on her face as she sang it "con sal" (with feeling and humour). Perhaps she was looking into my future.