Sometimes positive outcomes of negative occurrences cannot be ignored. Like when tragedy at SeaWorld leads to a drop in attendance. In my last post, I wrote about how Spirit Airlines was the worst when they broke international law just so they could break my guitar. Spirit Airlines is to the airline industry what SeaWorld is to zoos and Chick-fil-A is to fast food—a company where management scoffs at the word ethics and full-time employees are hired to delete any complaints addressed on the company’s Facebook wall. Totally Spirit, giving customers a voice in a country where people have a choice is dangerous for your business plan . . .

But Mariachi Themed Good Has Come From The Spirit Airlines Broken Guitar

Guitars are our friends and I was unwilling to give up on my guitar Uprissa, hoping that, this being lent, she might yet be yanked from the clutches of brokenness, like that time United Airlines broke her, and a guy named Sky resurrected her with glue and knowhow.

Uprissa’s basic problem is that pieces that are supposed to be together have broken up with each other. She is kinda playable, but two of the strings give off a buzz due to the separated pieces, which makes her unplayable in any sort of concert setting.

My own attempt to fix Uprissa worked about as well as my attempts to date girls in high school—I just made everything worse.

So, I brought her to the guitar repair shop in Antigua on Saturday. There I was informed that the top of the body was so jodida, Uprissa’s condition so terminal, that there was “nothing that could be done.” I wanted to take this man and shake him. If he were a doctor would he say this about a sick baby? “We must have faith!” I wanted to declare to him. Instead I hummed a line from American Pie, “This will be the day that I die” and left the store with broken Uprissa.

I called a number in my phone marked Mariachi, a phone number shared by members of Los Luceros, a mariachi outfit out of San Felipe. Mariachi around the barrio are the real deal. The mariachi are dressed like mariachi but these are not costumes. Their daily job is to hang out around the San Felipe’s Central Plaza, dressed as the mariachi they are, playing mariachi music—this is how they make their living and that is awesome.

That living is modest enough that when a guitar breaks down, it is fixed. FUBAR, in the barrio is FUBFA—f*cked up, but fixable. On Sunday morning, on the day I was to bring my guitar to Los Luceros to see if they could fix it, a get-together with friends at my new favorite bar in Antigua, The Snug, turned into a Sunday bender of beer drinking. By noon anything that everyone had to do that day was rescheduled for Monday.

Expat Alex, a spray paint artist from England who can rap like nobody’s business, opted to ditch the bar with me to come to the village for moral support.

On the way to the taxi park by the Church, we passed a horse drawn carriage. The day was sunny and blue. We were in no hurry.

Life hack: When the price of a taxi is $4, and the price of a horse drawn carriage is $8, and you have time to burn, take the horse drawn carriage.

If you feel those beers from the morning singing to you, take out your broken guitar and sing to everyone you pass. Alex and I nodded at each other–this was a good day.

Then you realize, in the weird scheme of this strange world, this moment, enjoyed very much, is brought to you by the international law breaking, and disdain for customer service of Spirit Airlines.

When we arrived it turned out that Los Luceros did not think they could fix the guitar. They were seated in a bodega drinking Coca-Colas. “Sorry,” they said looking genuinely apologetic, “Your guitar is jodida.”

 

So back I went to The Snug, and whatever writing I had to do on Monday was pushed to Tuesday, since Monday’s priority was one last ditch effort to fix the guitar.

Can El Mariachi Los Principes Fix The Broken Guitar?

I called the other Mariachi band I know, Los Principes—The Princes. Los Luceros are young, the junior high team of mariachi bands, while Los Principes carry the slow weathered look of musical confidence—this is our barrio, and these are our songs. Alfonso, head mariachi, told me to come to the plaza at 1pm on Monday and he would take a look at the guitar and see what could be done.

My last dealings with Los Principes was at last year’s 3rd Annual Mariachi pub crawl. Drunk off all the beers they had taken when people weren’t looking, (My amigos and I talked about it afterwards, mariachi members can take any beer they want) they went on strike and demanded more money. But whatever happens at Mariachi pub-crawl does not last through the night and there was no ill-will on either side.

I had met at the previous day’s beer bender an American writer named Cindy who had just installed a library for a lower-income school in Parramos. We had tentative plans to grab lunch and talk about her work and my own in development, so she came along for the mariachi meeting on Monday.

As we ate in La Cafeteria just off San Felipe’s church. Our conversation about Cindy’s development work was interrupted by sound of Alfonso’s boots and bell clattering mariachi pants. He extended a warm hand in greeting, “Lucas, has regresado, eh?” We made some small chat. I told him about how in June this year’s Mariachi Pub Crawl would be turned into a two-day music festival on the mountain El Hobbiton. He seemed pleased about this.

Then we got down to business and turned our attention to my guitar. He looked with trained eyes at cracks that had been glued shut by Sky and then reopened by Spirit. In the end he seemed to think it could be fixed. He told me to come back on Thursday to see, then left with the battered guitar. A few minutes later he came back with the whole band, Los Principes. “We would like to gift you a song,” he said.

They then began playing the Vicente Fernandez Mariachi classic “llorar y llorar.”

“Yo se bien que estoy afuera  / Pero el día que yo me muera  / se que tendrás que llorar, llorar,llorar,llorar,llorar.”

I could cry and cry about my mishap with the guitar.

“Dirás que no me quisistes  / pero vas a estar muy triste  / y asi te vas a quedar.”

But I cannot deny the fact that this mishap had given me so far two wonderful mariachi filled days with one old and one new friend in the village of San Felipe.

“Con dinero y sin dinero  / hago siempre lo que quiero  / y mi palabra es la ley.”

Nor can I deny that in 2013, this guitar sat in a closet broken, and I never thought it could be fixed until a friend of my sisters’, Sky, up and reparied it in time for me to record my first LP on it. I will always have that LP.

“No tengo ni trono ni reina”

So what else is there to fee but very fortunate?

“ni nadie que me comprenda  / pero sigo siendo el Rey.” 

Nor is it lost on me that while Spirit Airlines broke Uprissa, it is a pretty wonderful world we live in when a week or so of work can be exchanged for a ticket into a flying magical tube that will let you take three bags filled with your favorite things to wherever you want to go in the world.

“Yo se bien que estoy afuera  / Pero el día que yo me muera / se que tendrás que llorar / llorar,llorar,llorar,llorar.”

It has been a good week back here in Antigua, Guatemala—home—catching up with old friends, meeting some new ones, passing the afternoons with Mariachi and making my writing office out of cafes that resemble botanical gardens covered in warm light.

“No tengo ni trono ni reina / ni nadie que me comprenda / pero sigo siendo el Rey.”

So if in exchange for all these fabulous things, a few guitars have to get roughed up in the process, that’s a life tax I am willing to pay. And who knows what news the Principes will have for me tomorrow. If I have learned anything around this town, it is likely that this news will be to call them next week, because repairs are taken longer than initially expected. There is also always the possibility I will never hear from them again. But that’s just part of the excitement of it all.