Livin' La Vida Loca...and "Livin' La Vida Loca"
A few notes on embracing chaos, having a good time in spite of it all, and a song that keeps following me around.
A couple of weeks ago, I was texting with a musician to set up a time to chat about writing a band bio — a job I’ve been hired to do a lot lately, and also one that I have really begun to enjoy. I’ve known this particular person for quite some time, so I was excited about the chance to catch up a bit as well.
“How the heck are ya?!” I asked, and watched as the three iMessage dots popped up on the screen.
“I’m good!” he replied. “But probably not as good as you, with all your jet-setting and book-learning and la vida loca-living.”
I chuckled out loud at this response. It’s true, my vida has indeed been in a state of loca-living for quite some time: Last year I quit my career to finish my undergrad degrees in communication and psychology and, in doing so, also moved out of my apartment in Los Angeles, put all of my stuff in storage, and moved in with my family in Northern California.
The intention was to get another job, move back out, and hopefully get accepted into a master’s program for clinical mental health counseling so I can work toward a future as a therapist for musicians and other creatives. However, the job market has proven to be abysmal (especially for people in the writing/media/communications-type fields like myself), and I’ve had to hold off on the grad school plans – at least until I sort out the basics like what I can afford and where I’m even going to be living.
I was pretty bummed out about the forced change in plans at first, but if there’s one thing my wild rock ‘n’ roll life has taught me, it’s that sometimes shit simply doesn’t work out the way you think it will, so you might as well try to enjoy yourself anyway.
So that’s exactly what I did: Just a few days after I finished the post-bacc in psychology, I jetted off to the east coast to visit an old friend in Boston, then took a train to New York City for a week to visit for the first time since I left in 2020, and then spent 10 days on tour slinging merch (as my ostensible drag persona, Merch Daddy™️) for some of my oldest BFFs in the San Francisco synthy goth-rock band TREASVRE.
After spending a bit of time with my family and old friends in my hometown, I then took a road trip up to Portland, Oregon. There, I spent two weeks working on various freelance writing projects in between quality time with old friends, watching my dog Bonham drag waterlogged tree-trunks twice his size around the riverbank, and soaking up the deceptively paradisiacal Pacific Northwestern summer.
The main impetus for the trip, however, was my best friend’s Liesl’s birthday, which we celebrated by barbecuing, subjecting friends and strangers alike to Foreigner singalongs, overanalyzing every corner of our lives, falling asleep to Arnold Schwarzenegger movies on VHS, toasting each other to a decade of best-friendship, and walking home from the bar arm in arm, cackling and high-fiving after getting hit on by 20-something boys. I even got to throw on my cowgirl best and DJ the western-themed birthday party she threw at her business, a beautiful artist hub and home-goods shop on NE Fremont called Breeze & Branch. It was as close to a perfect adventure as one can realistically hope for in this lifetime.
As I write this, Bonham and I are about to take off yet again for a road trip to Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming — partly to explore alone, partly to visit friends I haven’t seen in years, and partly to get some writing done for myself in addition to other people. And later in the summer, I’ll be heading out on a west coast tour with TREASVRE yet again, this time as their tour manager. (Though Merch Daddy™️ will be there, too.)
Reality will catch up with me eventually, but after locking myself in a school cave for a year, and the pandemic turning everything upside down before that, it feels good to just live. My credit card bill is not happy, but I am.
Livin’ la vida loca, indeed.
Anyway, the funny thing about the mention of Ricky Martin’s 1999 smash hit in reference to the current state of my life is that, for some bizarre reason, that song has been following me around lately.
It started the same way many musical rabbit holes in my life often do: through a conversation with my other best friend Evan (the drummer of TREASVRE, and my partner in extremely nerdy crime since we were 19) that goes wildly off the rails. This can start out of nowhere, through any medium of communication imaginable, but this particular one occurred at his San Francisco apartment, one particularly hungover morning a couple of months ago after they played a delightfully raucous free show at a bar in Pacifica. I woke up on his couch, flanked by two sleeping cats, and immediately cursed myself for accepting the last drink of the night: a nearly overflowing bucket-glass of tequila, which was gifted to me by the bartender who was screaming my praises for playing Don Henley on the jukebox.
Evan’s wife Sam (also in TREASVRE, on bass/vocals) emerged from their bedroom, in a far more animated state than I, to hug me goodbye before leaving on her motorcycle and heading to the East Bay where she works as an incredibly talented tattoo artist. A few minutes later, Evan appeared in the doorway, donning a unique sculpture of bedhead and oversized sweatpants, and slowly trudged across the room before flopping himself sideways onto the couch. He looked at me with an expression that said, “Welp, I made it!” and we both erupted in laughter at the state of ourselves while both cats descended upon him, thrilled to have regained access to their favored chair.
Evan grabbed the remote and silently opened YouTube on the TV. “PHIL COLLINS” appeared in the search bar, kicking off an hour of back-to-back hits from one of our longtime shared favorite artists as we applauded his over-the-top acting and the wildly unnecessary drama of the plot lines.
“Just livin’ la vida loca,” Evan joked.
“Let’s watch that video!” I yelled, much louder than the situation called for. “I haven’t seen it since the nineties, I think.”
I marveled at how the mere mention of the song sent the entire track flowing through my mind, note for note. Brainwashed as a child by Ricky Martin, I thought. Could be worse!
Evan obliged, and we descended into a pre-9/11 pop circus, hypnotized by pleather, fake rain, and salsa-inspired choreography.
“She'll make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain
She'll make you live her crazy life, but she'll take away your pain
Like a bullet to your brain!”
I recalled the widespread rumor that the lyrics were a thinly-disguised ode to crystal meth. To my knowledge, that has never actually been confirmed, and it seems just as logical that it’s about a relationship with a crazy fun, toxic, hot person.
Shitty withdrawals, either way.
It is true, however, that the track’s runaway success, topping the charts in over 20 countries and hitting number one in America, paved the way for other Spanish-speaking singers like Shakira and Enrique Iglesias to start singing in English and marketing their music more heavily in the U.S.
Evan pulled up the Wikipedia page for the song on his phone, scrolling slowly with a look of intense focus.
“Holy shit!” he said suddenly. “The dude who wrote this song also wrote ‘I Was Made For Loving You’ AND ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’!”
I grabbed his phone, which was open to the songwriter Desmond Child’s list of credits. To call the guy “prolific” would be a profound understatement: The hits credited to his name included banger after banger, like Joan Jett & The Blackhearts’ “I Hate Myself For Loving You", Aerosmith’s “(Dude) Looks Like A Lady”, and Sisqo’s melodramatic ode to the booty, “Thong Song” – among countless others.
I couldn’t believe one man could possibly be behind so many timeless ear-worms that spanned not only several genres but also multiple decades, but it was the KISS and Bon Jovi tracks that Evan initially mentioned that I found especially coincidental: TREASVRE had performed a cover of “I Was Made For Loving You” when I visited San Francisco from Los Angeles last year and finally got to see the band live for the first time. They were playing to an absolutely packed room at Amado’s in the Mission, and I remember thinking, “You know, this song isn’t their normal style at all — but somehow it works.”
Then, when TREASVRE played a show in Roseville, California earlier this year, the venue randomly played the song between sets, causing all six of us to find each other in the crowd and immediately start dancing. A friend of mine in the crowd who witnessed the whole thing texted me to say, “This is the only good KISS song.”
I don’t know enough about KISS to say for sure, but I’m at least inclined to say it’s my favorite.
Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer”, however, has roots for me and Evan dating back much further, as it somehow became the official song of our friendship back in 2008 or so when we were 19. Neither of us remembers how we decided this, exactly (which just makes it even funnier), and this led to years of random calls to one another, at all hours of the day, just to hold the phone up to whatever speaker happened to be blasting the song. (Eventually, Evan started screening my calls, checking his voicemail for a warbled mess resembling “WOOOAAAAAH WE’RE HALFWAY THERE!” before calling me back.)
A few days later, I found myself in a grocery store in my hometown, at the extremely non grocery-store hour of 7 a.m. I was half asleep, motivated only by my need to purchase almond milk for my coffee — a habit I have adopted merely as a means to cool the beverage to a chuggable temperature the second it is brewed. As I walked past a hundred different variations of cookie and chip to get to the refrigerated section, I heard the unmistakable horn intro of “Livin’ La Vida Loca” playing on the store speakers, sounding tinny and far away like stereotypical supermarket movie scenes with elevator music playing softly in the background. Except this time, it was Ricky Martin serenading me about some lady’s devil-red lips.
You’ve gotta be kidding me, I thought, giggling at the peppy party jam soundtracking my zombified, pre-caffeine errand. Is 7 a.m. too early for Ricky Martin, or is it the perfect time because it just might be better than coffee? And for that matter, oh my god: Nineties hits are grocery store music now?
I stopped myself, realizing how hilarious it was that I was suddenly having a pop-music induced existential crisis in the middle of the grocery aisle. I grabbed the almond milk, paid the checker, and got out of there as fast as I could.
When I got to the car, I promptly texted Evan to tell him about it.
“I just heard ‘Livin' La Vida Loca’ in the grocery store. I can’t decide if it’s too early for that song, or if it’s the perfect time because it wakes you up?? Also, we are old.”
“Livin’ La Vida Local Grocery Store,” Evan responded, mere seconds later.
I pressed down on his message, awarding it with a well-deserved HAHA. Reading it in his deadpan voice made it even funnier.
Now that I’m almost done writing this, I’m realizing that the song has been playing on a loop in my mind for the past hour, existing in my consciousness as vividly and easily conjurable as an image of my own mother’s face. “Livin’ La Vida Loca” truly must hold the blueprint that the fabled Swedish songwriters and AI alike will be chasing forever, yet it was written 24 years ago by Certified-Banger Scientist Desmond Child, and performed iconically by an angelic, gay Puerto Rican.
Thanks, Desmond. Wherever you are. And bless you forever, Ricky Martin.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta get back to livin’ my vida loca.
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