Maria tentatively spoke up. “Mama, her voice sounds kind of funny,” she said nodding toward the stereo. The voice she heard belongs to a pop singer without much range, a young woman who once melted down publicly and is attempting to come back. The voice on her latest single is most definitely not completely human. [...]

We get into the car. It’s about 100 degrees and humid. Maria says: “Ay, carajo, it’s hot!” Guat? And then, I realize. We’ve been listening to the soundtrack from the musical, In the Heights — love and hope in Latino Washington Heights.  The line my kid so expertly and correctly gave me from the back seat [...]

When la Nena and I are in the car together, the radio is usually stuck on the XM Kid’s Place Live Channel. I like the station. They play Indie kid songs and rarely do any of the songs make me want to plug my ears. Exceptions being Happy Noodle vs Sad Noodle and anything, I [...]

The casa is muy loud these days. My parents and the pastelitos are here. That’s good, but it also means the decible level has peaked.  My mother brought her Rat Pack Christmas CD. To compete for airtime with Mami’s old men, I put together an IMix of holiday music that won’t make me want to [...]

Please, oh please, do yourself a bilingual little flavor and get Dan Zane’s latest album: Nueva York. Downloaded it last night and we’re bailando today. From his web site: “This CD is the sound of my band and I working with our Latino friends here in Nueva York. While the conversations about who should and [...]

La Vaca Lechera on YouTube.(I’m the woman eating out of the condensed milk can.)

I moved to Nashville in 1991 to work as a general assignment reporter on the Metro desk. My reporter friends in Jersey, where I had been working and dying, teased me that I was going South to cover the rhinestone beat and Elvis sightings. None of that, but I did once write about a naked [...]

So, I am over here measuring and weighing packaging boxes, measuring the depth of a bib (yes, they want to know these things) and filling out more paperwork than required for a multi-million dollar real estate transaction. But, whatever. I’ll tattoo their logo on my bottom if they ask, as I am insanely happy that [...]

In the seventh month of pregnancy, my editor gave me a touching gift: The CD Cuban Lullaby. I had never seen it before and when I glanced at the song titles, nothing struck me as familiar. But that evening, as I waited in the drug store’s drive-through lane for horse pill-sized pre-natals, I slid the [...]

There was a great story in the paper Saturday morning about Kid Music that Won’t Force You to Stick Sharp Pencils in Your Ears. The story heavily quotes Dan Zanes, formerly of the Del Fuegos, who has found success as a kiddie entertainer. His song, Queremos Bailar, is a hit around here and I have [...]