This is a written version of what I said at my compadre Hugo El Gordo Cadelagos Celebration of Life saturday. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I’m not going to do what most people do in events such as this. Not gonna say how great he was. He was defective. But I love him anyway. So, what follows is a love story. We met in 1980. It was a very strange way to meet. But it was meant to be. It was July. I had come to Houston because I had been fired from my radio job in Miami. And, seemingly, I was not going to find another job there. I had an uncle living in Houston. Through him I had met a gentleman who had just purchased radio station KLAT, La Tremenda. We talked; we agreed; I had a job! I flew back to Florida, got a U-haul, the wife, the kids, the dogs and headed to Texas. The only problem was that there had been a misunderstanding and when I arrived there was no job. My uncle had drawn me a map so that I would have no difficulty getting to the station and back to the apartment we had rented in the southwest part of Houston near where he lived. Obviously I was devastated. I had no job, very little money and was in deep shit. I also got lost and had no idea where I was. I decided to snap out of the incoming depression and stopped feeling sorry and beaten. I started looking for a gas station and a phone booth. Needed to call my uncle for directions. Turned on the radio to see what other Spanish stations there were. Found one. Heard two guys on the radio as I had never heard anyone on the radio before. You have to understand something. I was a singer who worked on the radio because singing wasn’t making me any money and I had a wife and two kids. But I came from a “serious” old fashioned style of radio. What I was listening to that very hot July morning were two guys having fun talking to each other and the audience and playing great music. I was a radio guy. I was an unemployed radio guy. I needed a job. Why not? I found the gas station. An Exxon. There was one those phone booths that was not a booth. It was a phone attached to a pole. I waited until those two guys gave the phone number again. They did. I called. Of course, it was on-the-air. I asked for the office number so that I could talk to the Program Director. The one with the booming baritone voice asked me if I were going to complain about them. I said I was an unemployed radio guy looking for a job. He laughed. The other guy started making strange noises. They were mocking me; using me as material for the routine. I said I was serious. The baritone asked me about my experience. It was actually a job interview on the air. Finally they went to a commercial break and a song and we talked some more off the air. All this would be simply unbelievable if it were not the absolute truth. The baritone told me he was the station boss. He said he’d like to have me come and talk. I started to feel lucky again. There was a chance. So, I told him I had just arrived in Houston. Told him about the “misunderstanding” with KLAT. He seemed to like that. Always thinking, always scheming, always promoting. I said I didn’t know my way around Houston. So he asked me where I was. I told him I was near an Expressway (in Miami there are no freeways, they are called expressways). He laughed and explained the difference. Anyway I told him I was at such-and-such freeway and a street called Buffalo Springfield (it was Buffalo Speedway). I was thinking 60’s music. He corrected me about the name of the street but suddenly became very curious about my location. I told him I was at an Exxon gas station. There was suddenly silence on the line. I thought we had been disconnected. He finally came back on and said, “fine, come on up to the fourth floor, I’ll meet you at the elevator.” I said fine, but asked for the address and directions to get to the station. He again repeated that I should go to the fourth floor. I still did not understand. He asked me if I had a blue coat on. I told him, yes I was wearing a blue coat. He told me to turn around and look up to a window on the fourth floor of the building behind the gas station. There he was, waving at me and laughing, that beautiful big laugh of his. I swear to you, that’s how we met. True story. Weird, but true. We talked for a while. Went to lunch. Right after lunch I was a job. I had been making $1200.00 a month in Miami. I would have accepted anything he offered. He said I would be paid $1500.00 per month. I was able to suppress the sobbing. I wanted to cry. Actually, I asked to go to the bathroom and did cry and sob. There was a God. And there was also Hugo. And that’s how I became part of something beautiful: Hugo y Miguel…….y Rolando. We were a lot alike. We loved the Beatles and we had big dreams. In a way we became a couple, a married couple. A dysfunctional marriage. We fought, we made up. But we still had the Beatles and the dreams. He was a genius, a visionary. He was way ahead of the rest. He invented me. I developed professionally because he got to the point where he knew me better than I did myself. Everyone who came later owes him something. Everything that anyone is doing on radio now, he had already done. But I will let others talk about that. I want to talk about the dreamer. And, yes! He was a dreamer. We were dreamers. The world has always needed dreamers. The world needs people like my compadre. And he was still dreaming. We were still dreaming. Every Saturday for the past year or so, we chatted on Facebook, privately mostly, while I did my internet music show. Sometimes he would call on the air and engage in conversation, mostly about music and our past on the radio. Some months ago we started planning our “big comeback.” He always said we had not yet done everything we could do. You see, you have to understand something, we were good, we were damn good. Oh! We probably knew nothing would come of those plans. The business has changed. Drastically. But, it was the dream that was important. Hugo was real, genuine. He was so unique that perhaps his life story should be made into a book or a movie. He was such a character that only an imaginative writer could create. Yet, he was real, all too real. Some wish they’d never met him. But think of all the fun and all the laughs they would have missed. Some who did meet him will try hard to forget him. Yeah! Good luck with that. And those who never really knew him, well, either they are quite lucky or missed on a really great adventure. I suppose it’s a matter of perspective. I personally never met anyone like him. I never will meet another like him. It’s simply impossible. This planet could not deal with two of him. I thought I was the greatest thing God ever created until he convinced me I was wrong. He was! And we argued a lot about that for more than thirty years. I’m not going to lie. He pissed me off a lot. Hell! He probably pissed off everyone he ever knew. Especially his family. But love is the great equalizer. Love hides a lot of crap. Love allows us to make excuses. And I love him. And he loves me. He could love. He had so much love inside. He was not a great person. As I said, he was defective. He was just a guy, He was Hugo. El Gordo. He was an artist. And as all artists, often misunderstood. He was a son, a brother, a dad, a granddad. Not the best husband. He was just…well, he was just Hugo. I thank God for that strange day when we met. It had to be fate, destiny. And it’s prove that God is also an artist with a hell of a sense of humor. I will not miss him. You can’t miss someone who is in your heart; who is with you at all times. So, think of him as you will. I choose to think of him as I knew him. He always made me laugh. And he will continue to make me laugh. I’m better because of him. My life is better because he’s in it. However, the world is now incomplete without him. I’ll have to dream all alone. The problem with the world is that there aren’t enough dreamers. There are far too many lawyers and accountants and engineers and salesmen (sorry, Alex). So! We didn’t accomplish much in the eyes of some. That’s fine. We know what we did. And I know what he did. He is the greatest. But I reserve the right to argue with him about that. Some will say he was just a dreamer, but he was not the only one. But he was the best dreamer and it was and it is the dream that’s important. I hope someday you might want to join him…and the world will be better. I have chosen to join him in the dream. Alex, Andy, David, grandkids, Martha and my dear comadre Fran, thanks for sharing him.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 20:28:36 +0000
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