So Much Latino Culture, So Little Time

I’m culturally exhausted. Week after week, it’s been an unrelenting lineup of artistic activities. Up until all hours. Commuting to engagements from Costa Mesa to Universal City--concerts, dances, art exhibits, film festivals.

How is one man expected to keep up with this much festivity?

Esta muy hot!

That’s actually the Spanglish slogan of a cool, easy-to-read Web site with a calendar of events for Los Angeles and Orange counties: www.LatinoLA.com. Go there and see for yourself how the SoCal scene is very hot indeed for Latino arts and entertainment.

“With the millennium upon us, we’re headed into a giant pachanga, I guess,” says Abelardo de la Pena Jr., El Editor of LatinoLA, using a playful term for a rowdy celebration.

Abelardo says he can’t keep up with it, either. His Web site started last year as a modest list of events compiled in chronological order and e-mailed to a couple dozen friends. The site particularly promotes those grass-roots happenings that wouldn’t get much publicity otherwise--a Oaxacan festival, an exhibit of classic Mexican calendar art, a reception, called Invisible in Venice, for unheralded local artists.

“And now it has just exploded,” says Abelardo, 45, born and raised in Wilmington. “People have always come to this part of the country to live out their dreams, and why should Latinos be any different?”

When I first moved to L.A. in the mid-1970s, Mexican superstar Vicente Fernandez was still working downtown’s Million Dollar Theater. It was a big deal when Spanish singer Julio Iglesias, before his crossover duets, played the Shrine Auditorium for the first time. We thought that was moving uptown.

Today, Latinos are on the verge of becoming a demographic majority. As a whole, we make more money than before and can afford the pricey tickets of major venues. We’re no longer begging for a decent place to perform.

We’re becoming the main event.

Just in recent weeks:

I’ve danced to the progressive salsa of Havana’s Los Van Van and Bamboleo, enjoyed the eye-opening exhibit of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, caught the impressive English-language debut of Nuyorican Marc Anthony singing his heart out at the Mayan nightclub, and attended an Orange County performance by Mexico City’s lively Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico.

As comedian Jim Carrey once said: Somebody stop me!

Sunday at the Universal Amphitheatre: A torrential performance by Mexican singer Juan Gabriel at the top of his form.

Saturday at the Hollywood Bowl: A dancing-in-the-aisles salsa concert with longhaired newcomer Elvis Crespo and trusty regulars Celia Cruz and Oscar D’Leon.

Friday at Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre: The red-carpet opening of the Latino International Film Festival, carried live on the Internet, with the debut of Mexico’s “Sexo, pudor, y lagrimas,” translated as “Sex, Shame and Tears.”

(Memo to Mexican filmmakers: Please, no more movies about whiny, self-absorbed and immoral adults behaving like bourgeois brats. We see plenty of those up here already.)

Good or bad, the films screening through Oct. 10 would likely never be shown here if not for the festival, now in its third year under the guidance of actor Edward James Olmos.

“The arts serve as a tremendous backbone of any culture,” said Olmos, a linchpin for Latino culture in L.A. and mastermind of “Americanos,” a sweeping portrait of Latinos presented as a book, CD, documentary and live concert.

Art is the act of communicating and can heal dangerous social rifts, said the Mexican-American actor. But Latino artists deserve a forum, he added, “without me having to pull them forward.”

Good thing he does. Culture shouldn’t be limited to what sells. That’s why actor Andy Garcia, a friend and collaborator of Olmos, put his time and money into a documentary about exiled Cuban bass player Israel Lopez, nicknamed Cachao.

Here was a musical icon relegated to playing bar mitzvahs, said Garcia, a member of the film festival committee. The Havana-born actor says he felt compelled to save the musician’s work from oblivion, to document it for the world without making money.

“You get paid in something that has greater worth--knowing in your heart that you’ve created something for our society and our cultural heritage that wasn’t there a month ago,” Garcia told me last week.

In Los Angeles, the public can see Garcia’s 1993 musical documentary, “Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos,” on Thursday during the festival and later enjoy a live performance by Cachao on Oct. 16 at the Universal Amphitheatre.

Excuse me. I’ve got to get some sleep.

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com