K. Estela's True Confessions Part III: The Journey

We come back, continuing the great series of interviews by Writer K. Estela Rivera... We last left off on a discussion about music. When we begin this leg of the interview, she doesn't even give me a chance to ask a question.

K. Estela) I'm stuck.

Karla E.) On?

K. Estela) A song. I can't get it our of my head, it haunts me, but in a good way. I play it over and over and over....

Karla E.) What is it?

K. Estela) Grizzly Bear's 'While you wait for the others." It's this song that was introduced to me by my friend Kevin. It's only fitting that a post-production sound guy would introduce me to an amazing track. The guitar riffs remind me of Hendrix, the vocals are smooth, and there's this all male (maybe Black men) chorus that just hooks you. I keep playing it and it just takes me places...

Karla E.) Well tell me, how has music been a beacon for you? Throw some artists out there...

K. Estela) Oh Lord, that's a long list... I was bombarded with music my whole life. My uncle Charlie, now in his late 60's still beats the steering wheel as if it was a set of congas. That's an early memory. the first song I remember evoking emotion in that generation of my family - as I observed it - was this song by an artist called 'El Puma' and the chorus went [singing] 'Dueño de tí, dueño de qué? Dueño de nada!" He also had this other track and when my cousins and I were little we'd sing it in the car, "Estár enamorado es." But my cousins that were Spanish illiterate-ish would sing it and it would sound like, "Estamenamanamenes." But as a whole, there's a few categories that make up my musical journey...

I was raised by multiple generations and I was the baby of the family... so everything from my grandmother's generation, to my cousins who were twenty to three years older than me, trickled down. I was also raised in two cultures, and was exposed primarily to about seven distinct cultures in my early years, which expands as I get older... So it was old Spanish ballads, it was Doo-Wop, it was 70's Salsa, Chinese chi-gong and Classic Rock music, I was raised in Chicago...

Karla E.) Ah yes, the House revolution... In the beginning there was Jack...

K. Estela) And Jack had a groove, exactly... Bob Marley, El Gran Combo, Lavoe and company.. Michael Jackson, Madonna, The Cure, Depeche Mode... and then there was the world around me... Pop culture seeps in, MTV, Chicago Public Schools, the 80's... I took it all in. So that was the musical world that I was surrounded by... If you're talking to the me of the early 80's, my beacon was Menudo. Boy band of all boy bands. It was my first conscious musical choice. I still have all of their records on vinyl. Then there was Michael Jackson... but everyone liked Michael Jackson... i wasn't consciously loving the music for its intrinsic value. I wasn't taking a journey. I wasn't conscious of the ART of music... hell, I wanted to be a lawyer... I was stuck on semantics and argument at age seven.

Karla E.) So when were you taking the journey?

K. Estela) Depeche Mode was the first band I took a journey with. I was twelve when 'Violator' came out. I should also say that I was going through one of the biggest changes in my life at the time... Puberty, the end of grade school, self-awareness, gender awareness. I saw my first play and decided that I wanted to be an artist.

Karla E.) Which play?

K. Estela) 'Fiddler on the Roof.' and let me tell you, I went kicking and fucking screaming. In my mother's great quest to make me cultured at any cost, she bought tickets. It was starring Topol, the original star of the show. I could give a shit, really... I was so pissed. I fought and fought her hard not to go. Eventually, she shut me down and we went to the Civic Opera House in Chicago. If you haven't been to the theater ever, this place is like a palace. So we went. and it was the first time I saw live theater, besides the lamerod kids shows we'd have to go to on field trips. I was an old soul in a room of children. Anyway... The show captivated me. That's the only way I can explain it... I longed for its return during intermission and then... when the cast took their final bows... I felt this SURGE of LOVE coming from the audience towards these actors... and then Topol comes out and everyone just loses it.... It was then I knew... I wanted that. Love in a bottle, love in the forms of thousands of people applauding simultaneously... since then I never looked back. I started painting, auditioned and got into choir, and sang until I was 21. I started paying attention.... to everything. It was like I just allowed myself to become hypersensitive, like I pulled a scab off of me. Like I was set on fire I had all of this new skin that soaked in the sun's rays and raw emotion.

Which leads me to 'Violator.' It was the first album that I would stay up past my bedtime for. I would slyly go into bed with my walkman and play the tape over and over imagining, feeling...

Karla E.) Imagining and feeling what?

K. Estela) Anything... It was a tumultuous time in my life... It's hard to be a young girl, discovering, just becoming aware of her own body and no one to really talk about it with. It's like being in a straight jacket or watching an Aphex Twin video for the first time. It's a huge "What the FUCK?" My artistic spirit at that point was like an untamed horse. I had my hands in every cookie jar. My work was in the Art Institute of Chicago's Children's exhibit at age 11. I would exchange art projects for math homework. It was music that got me thinking visually. I envisioned music videos. Perhaps it's because I'm part of the MTV generation, or because every film has a soundtrack.... but I can safely say, that we all have a soundtrack to our lives. there are songs that take me to age 6. 'We Belong' by Pat Benetar reminds me of the first time I got stoned. 'Afuera' by Caifanes (now Jaguares) takes me to University of Illinois, where Cesar (one of my first great loves) and I would drive through the cornfields of Southern Illinois and get lost just to see if we could find our way back. There's this guitar solo in the middle that is so incredible it paralyzes you. 'Bizarre Love Triangle' takes me to Von Steuben dances, where we would scare away the ghetto kids with our 'Oh-My-Goth'-ness... 'Stairway to Heaven' reminds me of the first time I fell for someone. D'Angelo's 'Voodoo' album seduced me just as much as the man who played it for me every time we'd have sex.

There's music that makes me have cocaine nasal-drip, gets me high, makes me horny, instantly makes me crave nicotine, makes me smile, smirk, wanna fight, make a movie, and then there's music I just can't hear. It's like movies... there's movies that I can see once, that I can never watch again they're just that cripplingly powerful.

Karla E.) Like?

K. Estela) Cry Freedom, Schindler's List, Amistad, Babel, Antoine Fisher, Big Fish (which I hated in the beginning and then all of the sudden it made sense and I just started bawling like a little bitch). Anything that tells the truth... The truth scares me. Actually, let me amend that statement... Harsh truth scares me. Things we can't change.

Karla E.) How does that translate into your life?

K. Estela) It's the could'a-should'a-would'a moments... Bad memories... The what-if's, the burning questions, un-erasable decisions, moments that I look in the mirror and I see myself during rough patches... Like that scene in '25th Hour' where Monty Brogan gives his 'Fuck you..." monologue and blames the entire world for all that is fucked up about the world and New York, from the gays in Chelsea, to the Puerto Ricans, to Jesus. Then he sees himself for what he really is and says, "No fuck you Monty." Those moments are few and far between, you know? Writing helps with that to a certain degree.

Karla E.) Does sound do this for you as well?

K. Estela) Indeed.

Karla E.) What are some sounds you like?

K. Estela) Crashing waves, a solitary violin, coquis, bass lines that take over your body, birds chirping just before sunrise, orchestral sounds on hip-hop tracks, casino noises especially when I'm ahead, children’s laughter, acoustic guitar, African drums, heavy breathing (and knowing that I’m the reason for it).

Karla E.) What about sounds you hate?

K. Estela) Alarm clocks, sirens, bodily functions, constant drips, nails on a blackboard, crying, sounds of distress... But I would take any of these sounds over dead silence any day. I can't live without some sort of ambient noise... Maybe that's the urbanite in me...

Karla E.) What's hard for you?

K. Estela) Admitting defeat, admitting when I'm wrong, keeping promises that I've made to myself, holding a grudge, keeping my opinions to myself, self-censoring, not loving too much, not loving enough, losing weight, saying no, turning off the TV during a 'Law & Order' marathon, talking to my father.

Karla E.) Where is your father?

K. Estela) Puerto Rico somewhere... That's about all I know. That's all I care to know. He wasn't really my father. My mom might as well have used a turkey baster.

Karla E.) So who was your father?

K. Estela) I used to ask my mom that when I was really little. And she would say, "I'm your mother and your father." Which is a fucking hard concept to grasp when you're five and the neighborhood kids are making fun of you for being fatherless. Remember, this was the 80's and divorce wasn't the immediate, acceptable Plan B. My grandmother used to tell me he was in Vietnam. Which he was... in like, the 60's or 70's.

I was a product of infidelity. In fact, most of my half-siblings and I were. My father's a textbook S.O.B., and I'm sure he has his fair share of demons. But he brought that onto us... hardcore. Imagine being a child, visiting your 'father' and you're looking at the woman who replaced your mom. I remember being nine, maybe older, and having a huge freakout. I was at Esteban's house in Camuy. And at that point my younger brother Jorge and younger sisters Stephanie and Rebeca were small. I was supposed to sleep over and I outright refused. And this man got home and I remember just airing out his dirty laundry all over the place... I remember this clearly, being a little kid and just YELLING and crying and just making him aware of the fact that I knew how fucking fucked he was for what he did. He had a house, cars, three kids that wanted for nothing, and my mom and I were sharing a one-bedroom apartment, fending off roaches because our neighbors were disgusting. 'I know,' I remember telling him. Imagine being a grown up and having a child call you on your shit... Imagine being nine and being fed up. That's not a place where a child should be.

---Insert silence--

Karla E.) What are you thinking?

K. Estela) I think about nature v. nurture and if there's pieces of him manifested deep inside me. I wonder if his Karma will come to him. I wonder if he looks at himself in the morning and says, "what have I done?' We are born from women but we are also children of men. Genetically we carry that, we carry that imprint with us until we die, we pass it on of we reproduce, or it dies with us when we pass. I think about legacy and I'm scared about the one that will carry on after I am long gone from this world. There are oceans I will forge with reckless abandon. Then there are rivers and creeks that I cross with great care and respect. Because it's the little things that hurt the most.

Jeez... this got ridiculously dark. I don't like dark.

Karla E.) So where's the silver lining? I know there is one.

K. Estela) My uncle. He stepped up to the plate when I was very young. I mean, I really couldn't have asked for a better replacement. Let's just say, it's because of him that I'm not as manic and neurotic as I could've been. He brought a sense of normalcy into my life. And when I was finally ready to accept it, I gleaned his wisdom and let it manifest itself as positive energy. I don't necessarily take his advice all the time. But I grew up right because of him and my aunt. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. I can extrapliate meaning and a lessons from any situation in my life, good and bad. So maybe it was meant to happen this way... maybe if I had a perfect life I would be some lamerod with no mission in life instead of this complicated, talented, artistic, defiant, woman who thinks it's cool to interview herself for the entertainment of others...


TO BE CONTINUED....