regattón

Hey y'all,

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the type of music called regattón (not sure if that's anywhere near how it's even spelt), but it's quite popular, and I assume all parts of Latin America, and maybe Spain as well. It comes from Central America, I think. Nate and Peter were talking about it being popular in Argentina as well, so there you go. Anyway - there are two main songs that seem to always come up when we're talking about it, and always get stuck in my and other people's heads - one that says "lo que pasó, pasó, entre tú y yo" (what happened between you and me happened) and another about "a ella le gusta la gasolina, dale más gasolina" (she likes booze, give her more booze). Anyway - two mini-stories about regattón:

I was walking across the tracks from the center toward my house and there was a guy pushing another guy in a wheelchair, and they were both singing the gasolina song, which just made me crack up. The main place I hear the music is out in discos and bars, etc. while we're dancing. It's kind of bad, but it's kind of "Lt. Dan" humor, as far as the guy not being able to get up and dance at a disco to that kind of music - go ahead, hate me for my political incorrectness, or just plain mean-ness in laughing at someone else's misfortune.

The other story is that I was at my Chilean grandparents' house on Sunday afternoon, where I met a couple little cousins - ages 5 and 8-ish - Ignacio and Fernanda. Fernanda, who's 8, was singing and dancing around to the regattón songs, when we mentioned that everyone knows that music. Earlier, she and I had been translating names of various animals into English and Spanish. The first one was alligator, because I wasn't sure how cocodrilo was spelt. Anyway, she was pronouncing alligator like it would sound if it were a Spanish word ah-je-gah-tór - or something like that. Anyway, so she made up her own little regattón song about alligator and was dancing around singing, "alligator, alligator, coco, coco, alligator". Super-cute! She decided that one was better than the other regattón songs anyway.

Good times at la Tere and el Ceve's house.

And viva el regatón, however dirty it may be.