Being in your late teens and heavily invested in music ventures –like playing with your band every Friday and Saturday night at local pubs, and hoping in a van to perform at spring and summer festivals between towns across the region, means that your girlfriend must also be a music enthusiast of sorts, otherwise you’re just a music geek with no social or romantic interests. When I was about 19 years old, I had a girlfriend whose passion was singing. Stella, as I will call her, had learned of a singing contest for a TV show, and the auditions they were holding to cast people in. It was for reality TV on a major nationwide network. The show aired on prime time with a Sunday night gala, with people from the audience voting to eliminate participants one after one, until only one was left standing as the winner. My girlfriend announced her intention to go to the audition, in a city about 8 hours away, and wanted me to accompany her. I encouraged her to go, “I’ll come with you, plus we can take an extra day to go around and explore the beautiful port city of Veracruz, it’ll be a lot of fun”, I suggested. 

Off we went on our little romantic getaway to wonderful Veracruz. It was an overnight bus ride. Mexicans preferred way to travel whenever the trip is longer than just a couple of hours. You don’t need to drive, and bus services are very competitive, often offering above average comfort, and an unforgettable travel experience. We shut our eyes about an hour after leaving town, and when we opened them again, we were already pulling over at the arrival gate at our destination. I call it smart travel, besides, if you manage to get some decent sleep, it kind of feels like teleporting. 

We walked outside of the bus terminal and waved ourselves into a cab to the theater where the casting was taking place; as we approached, our cabbie asked us what kind of event it was that we were attending, because some streets ahead were blocked and he would have to drop us two streets ahead of our destination. Right there and then we had our first reality check, one of a few we would have during the following hours. It was barely the break of day, but the number of people wandering around in the area was appalling! It looked like a scene out of The Walking Dead. 

We got out of the taxi and stretched our legs while the cabbie opened the trunk to extract our small pieces of luggage. We paid him in cash, and Stella and I made eye contact. No words were spoken, although I’m sure we could read each other’s thoughts: “What the heck is going on here, what’s all this commotion!”, followed by a sense of elation to realize we were going to partake in this adventure. Well, Stella was, at least as an auditioner; that’s what I told myself. Little did I know, all of it was soon about to change as the clock’s hands turned.  

We kept walking toward the theater, feeling like we were penetrating layer upon layer in a bottomless limbo of souls looking for the tail of a never-ending serpent. It was as if the Marquee of the theater announced Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar. Of course, neither of those two artists were on anybody’s playlist back then. We couldn’t believe our eyes; mixed feelings of demoralization and heightened alertness rushed up and down my body inside that sea of humanity. At last, we caught a glimpse of the magnificent Italian Neoclassical facade of an imposing building from the early 20^th century.  Here we are! Rejoiced my little internal voice. 

Curiosity was not letting us rest, so we walked around the block for the sake of taking in the wild and wicked dimension of what we had embarked upon. I calculated that the lineup could easily turn around the block two or three times. Sprawling from the entrance of the building, it spread across several blocks of the Historical Centre of the city of Veracruz, the Mexican city which according to history books, was the entryway for Hernan Cortez from the Gulf of Mexico into the capital of the Mexican Empire, The Great Tenochtitlan, back in 1519. Today Veracruz is the second most important naval and commercial port in Mexico, and is internationally known for its cultural, musical and gastronomical richness. The popular song La Bamba comes from the notes of the Jarana and the voices of copleros and soneros, still wandering the streets of the old port. And this is important to mention, as the rest of Mexico believes that every other person in Veracruz is born with a Jarana under their arm. 

The sight was overwhelming, people poured on all four lateral streets around the theater, surrounding it and crowding the streets like a disturbed anthill; as pointed out by the taxi driver, the transit was closed to all types of vehicles; it felt like walking inside a huge cabaret dressing room; we made our way through a jungle of musicians, singers and artists of all kinds trying to make their voices heard -literally. That’s when our second reality check hit us: we had neither a musical instrument, nor a backing track to accompany Stella in her audition. It was disconcerting. I wondered why she didn’t prepare better, and when I asked her –using white gloves not to obfuscate her, suspecting anxiety had already begun to settle in for her, – her answer was jumpy: “are you serious Chalo? I asked you to come with me yesterday at 3 pm, and by 9 pm we were already sitting on a bus, do you think I had any spare time to prepare?” 

After about two hours in the queue, we started making conversation with the people around us, for good measure and because it only felt natural to probe around and size up what kind of talent Stella was going to be tested up against. I kept my comments to myself, but it seemed like Veracruz produced the largest per-capita number of singers, songwriters and interpreters. She was a good singer, but what I witnessed there left me startled. You could hear people rehearsing their songs out there in the open, and the quality of their interpretations was top-notch! The whole vibe felt like being in a music bootcamp; it was intimidating, “I’m so glad I am not the one doing the audition”, I thought selfishly to myself.  

Then, as only chance could have it, we came across two of our friends from home: Pat and Dany. They were there for the same reason as us. Only they were duly prepared, unlike Stella. When my girlfriend explained how by surprise she had been taken when she heard about this event, so much so she couldn’t even prepare a backup track for her performance, Dany generously offered us his guitar for the audition. Then Pat asked, “Chalo you are doing the casting too, right?” -awkward silence for a bit too long – “Because you are so talented and coming all the way here to not take the chance, would be a terrible waste of an opportunity!”, she blurted. I heard her innocent and honest question unnuanced, but my brain took it as a command. What my twisted ego made of it was: “don’t be a wishy-washy pansy, grab the guitar and get up there, no excuses. Show what you got, be a man!” 

Let’s say that until that moment the idea of auditioning had not even occurred to me, after all I never considered myself a good singer, and the whole concept of this show was based on singing. So, I responded to Pat that I was there for my girl. “BS Chalo”, she refuted and together with Dany and Stella, they began working me up, until they left me with no quarter, and I gave up. “Why not, what’s there to lose?” I uttered half-heartedly, “I am already here anyway!”, and I began thinking about which song I would sing. 

Fast-forward a couple more hours of waiting in the scorching heat, – which was only made bearable by being among friends, – eating street food, drinking liters and liters of coconut water, tamarind and hibiscus “aguas frescas”, which are refreshing drinks made with fruit pulp, ice and sugar, until finally the time came to enter the theater, and then it hit me. I was standing before Stella, meaning I would have to go first! A rush of nerves and a kick of anxiety began to crawl up on me, as at this point, it was only a matter of minutes before my turn came to take over the stage. My friends reassured me, “Come on Chalo, if anything you’re the only one here with the most stage-hours”, alluding to the fact that I played in a band. Not a word of a lie there, it was just that I couldn’t dissociate from the fact that one was being scrutinized here, and your performance formally being judged. This was different; back home I slang my guitar on, and jumped on the stage, but I was never on my own. My band buddies were always there with me to take the blow together, and the general vibe was one of having fun, never did it feel as if we were being assessed. 

I am standing to one side of the stage, watching the remarkable performance of a girl singing a romantic bolero, cold sweat is seeping through my pores and making me shiver. In a frantic fashion, I am biting the inside of my right-hand side cheek and tapping my feet mindlessly, as a tinge of anxiety is making me mildly lightheaded and hyperactive. I am so nervous I feel a nonsensical urge to run away from there into oblivion and never be found again. Suddenly, the briefest round of applause I ever witnessed in my life goes off and pops my bubble, followed by a distorted voice on a bullhorn thanking the participant in the limelight, giving her directions on how to exit the stage, then calling on me. I couldn’t help thinking this must be akin walking down the aisle for a death row inmate. 

I am in shock, not knowing whether to step forward into the spotlight or feign dementia. I look back over my shoulder and all my friends are cheering me on…in slow motion. “WTF?” is my only thought. I think I’m going to snap. I am not sure what is more difficult at this juncture, running away and letting them down, or having to face humiliation when a barrage of stories is told about me back home, making me go down history lane as the twit who quit before even trying. The stakes are high for me. So, I decide to step up and take the challenge. I clench my eyes to bring myself back to my senses. There I am, standing in front of people I cannot even see due to the spotlights beaming right at my face. My friend’s guitar is dangling from my shoulder, I look as if I am ready for the kill, but instead I can’t even remember which song I chose to play. I take a deep breath, then I sigh, and start strumming some random chords while I dig up my brain for ideas. Eight introductory bars go by and then… words erupt out of my mouth! Absolute mumbo-jumbo, in autopilot, as it were. 

I keep going. My hands are a wet mess, and my fingers begin to sabotage each other in a jumbled mess of sweaty hands and stiff phalanges. At the same time, an internal check made me realize the first four verses go without a hiccup –but that was just my own perception. After playing an extended chord progression to buy myself some time, I realized I was still so blocked by my nerves I couldn’t remember the next paragraph, not even the first word. I blanked out. Even though I couldn’t see the jury, I could undoubtedly feel the weight of their presence, they’re glaring at me, shaking their heads in disapproval. You wouldn’t believe what happened next. 

In an unexpected turn of things, as if by sheer force of self-preservation, a higher power got into me, and made me remove the guitar from my neck, throw it to Dany – who was on the side of the stage with Stella and Pat waiting for their turn to audition, all three of them peeling their eyes big in wild bedazzlement at what they were seeing. Now without the guitar, I started singing the only paragraph that I could remember, again, A Capella. But that’s not it.  Now freed from the burden of the guitar, I start dancing. Turning, jumping, spinning and contorting to my own tune, feeling liberated and indestructible. I zeroed in, bathing in a feeling of empowerment and freedom. Unbeknownst to me, I had managed to transmute, like an alchemist, my nerves and feelings of insecurity into a state of deep bliss, and a complete disregard for what anybody thought about me. I was on my own, but in “the zone”.  

An incredible moment opened for me to relish on, even if deep down, I knew I was doomed anyway, and although the whole thing lasted only about 30 seconds, it had to come down crashing. That’s when the unintelligible voice resonated through the bullhorn again. Then, what I thought would end with two stage aids coming to pull me or shove me out of scene, dismissing me forever into the darkness of the backstage, gave way to something unexpected, a surprise of sorts. A shy standing ovation began to reverberate through all the corners of the theater, and continued to grow to an almost roar, complete with cheering, whistling and people screaming! “You’re a Champ!”, “You’re my hero!” and “I want you in my circus!”. Suddenly, my feet had a taste of the hard ground again, after a momentary suspension of time and space, and I knew it was the end. The magic vanished in a puff of smoke. To the baffled reaction of the jury, I turned around before getting off the stage; candidly walked across to the opposite end of it; picked up Dany’s guitar once again and started to play my girlfriend’s song.  

Stella made it through a couple of elimination cycles. The jury took a lunch break and so did we. During that time, we rushed out of the theater and booked a room at a nearby hostel. I dozed off for a little while, and when I opened my eyes, I realized that Stella was not in the room, it was late in the afternoon, almost sunset. The huge window of my third-floor bedroom was swung open, and the salty ocean breeze kept me in a warm stupor. Somebody was knocking at the door. I jumped out of bed and stumbled towards it. When I opened it, Stella was standing there, alone, taciturn and big-eyed, like a scolded puppy. She fell into my arms, and tears began to roll down her cheeks. “What’s going on babe?”, was my obvious inquiry. She had been eliminated and needed some TLC. That night, together with Pat and Dany we enjoyed Veracruz like it was our last night on earth. Stella and I laid back, and treated us to some nice eating, dancing and nightcrawling as two lovers who now had a bunch of new funny stories to tell. 

Looking back on this episode of my life, I realize how I easily tend to blow things out of proportion and sometimes take them out of context to the detriment of my emotional health, and the health of my relationships. This is especially true when stress and anxiety are twisting my nipples to relinquish the driver’s seat for them to take over –so to speak. My capacity to make sound decisions gets impaired. This has happened to me more often than I am comfortable recalling. Lucky for me, I also have a great capacity to bounce back from unfavorable situations, and often my sense of humor kicks in as a fantastic ally and saves the day. Except for that time when, many years later, with a different girlfriend, right after a session of couples therapy, I couldn’t regulate my emotions, and instead they compounded to a growling stinky behemoth, resulting in an instant breakup, which otherwise would have been a more manageable situation.  

Sadly, no sense of humor could save that relationship –even if we were both such quirky dork heads and making each other laugh was our default setting. It is in retrospect, after the last piece of fine China has been shattered, and there’s little to do to piece it back together, that I come to the blunt realization I need to modulate my impulses and achieve a healthy degree of emotional regulation. In cases like the latter, my failure was more due to not having the skills to create and maintain a safe attachment, rather than because of a lack of talent, interest or love. Today, whenever I catch myself sliding that emotional slippery slope, I use my new buzzword to keep me grounded and curb my hot-headedness: Fiasco.