There’s no seemingly logical reason why twentysomething Mexicans in Orange County would blast Chalino’s music. Even if you don’t know Spanish, the productions feel like an invitation to duel. The lyrics are three-minute rural operas about men who kill or die for revenge or respect-and usually a combo of all four. The drums snap with menace accordions overdose on notes. And not just because the song still echoes even 100 feet away once you hear Chalino, he’s impossible to forget. The SUV speeds off, but the voice of Rosalino “Chalino” ánchez remains. “Because I’m of the men/That when I lose, I don’t cry.” “And if I lose, oh, well,” the singer brags. Next follows one of the baddest singing voices ever put on tape, a howl that sounds like an air-raid siren filtered through sandpaper, that makes Tom Waits sound like Marvin Gaye. It’s the opening notes to “ Baraja de Oro” (“Golden Deck of Cards”), a conjunto norteño classic written more than 45 years ago that compares women to poker and gets more macho from there. Accordion trills rush from the Escalade’s speakers and rattle the windows of my pathetic Camry, idling in the next lane. They type away on smartphones while clowning on one another in English-a scene as far away from their Mexican roots as a taco salad.Įxcept for the music. Four young Mexican men inside, all buzz cuts and oversized white T-shirts and tattoos, look as if they’re two days out from a stint at Theo Lacy. The gleaming black Cadillac Escalade trembles at the intersection of Beach Boulevard and Cerritos Avenue in Stanton.
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