rock granny
The morning that Angeles Rodriguez appeared in the studio music owl , the day that louis ortega rescued the girl hit by a tram, the moment when Juan Carlos decided to 'release' the statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree , the first afternoon that Emilio and Jose Alcazar they stood in front of number 25 of the street Gran Via . The day that the dog Paco liked the Marquis of Bogaraya.
They all have something in common: a moment, an instant, a single simple gesture that was enough to make their lives came out of the dark side of the moon Madrid . They became popular characters, anonymous individuals who became known , but that never came to transcend in a massive way nor did they completely abandon that condition of everyday characters. Because they never meant to, actually.
Rock granny statue detail
This is the story of some of the popular characters who left their mark on the capital, the story of La Abuela Roquera, Muelle, the Gran Vía Heavies, Pirulo and Perro Paco.
ÁNGELES, THE GRANDMOTHER WHO INTRODUCED THE ISIDISI
Ángeles Rodríguez wanted to have fun, that's why she appeared that night, along with her grandson, in the studio of one of the best known programs of Madrid's Movida, the Musical Owl.
"She just wanted to have a good time and the Owl gave her what she needed," she recalls for Traveler.es the director of the program, Paco Pérez Bryan.
"She was no longer an 80-year-old lady whom she liked Marifé de Triana and Niña de los Peines. What she was going through is that she wanted to live the last part of her life to the fullest and listening to rock music was her passport to having fun ".
That night in which Ángeles Rodríguez said to Pérez Bryan's face "Paquito, let's see if you can take me out one day ", one of the most unique popular characters of Madrid : Grandma Rocker. Nevertheless, this appellation did not appear until several years later , when the heavyies appeared on the scene.
rock grandma
In the first phase of her she was known as the Grandmother of the Owl , one more character of the program, the one that presented the isidisi . She hardly missed any of the parties, "She was incombustible" recalls Pérez Bryan , who, together with other members of his team, I took her to Leño or Tequila concerts and he would take her out to party at the end of the program at two in the morning.
From the street to the dressing room, from the dressing room to the concert and from the concert to the party, the nightlife of Angeles was gaining ground over the daytime. And in that hustle and bustle of life they appeared new actors for your movie , among them, Mariano García, director of the heavy music radio program DiscoCross.
Mariano García was the main cause of the photo for which Ángeles went down in history. It all happened in Julio Moya's photographic studio, in the Salamanca district of Madrid . The photographer was taking several shots for the new album by Spanish heavy metal band Panzer.
According to its singer, Carlos Pina, "We had already had a few shots when they entered the studio. Mariano's idea was for Ángeles to appear on the album cover. We put my jacket and my cap and that's when she raised her hand with the sign of the horns."
That was the definitive baptism of Angeles as the Rock Grandma. Angeles began to move away from the Owl and to frequent heavier environments. "She appeared in the dressing room while we were changing" Pine says.
Tribute to Rock Grandma in Madrid
"After the concert she would come back and she would tell us if she had sounded good or bad... That made us quite funny because the woman was already a little deaf at that time ". It was her ears that, precisely, took her away from concert venues at the end of the 80s.
Angeles' metronome slowed down her tempo until, in the winter of 1993 and with the same age as the 20th century, she stopped definitively. "When I found out about her death, the first song I It came to my memory of her it was Together with you, a song that we once played with her on stage ", explains Carlos Pina with a certain melancholy.
From Angeles of her are the memories of those who knew her, some images from Youtube and, above all, she is: the statue that stands on Peña Gorbea street, in the Vallecas neighborhood, immortalizing those raised horns and Carlos Pina's jacket that he wore for the cover of Panzer.
LUIS ORTEGA CRUZ, EL PIRULO, THE KING OF STICKERS
**Luis Ortega Cruz lives in a vase in the Retiro Park **. Next to him are his children: those of yesterday, those of today and those of tomorrow, as the bronze plaque that accompanies it tells. He has enough for everyone: it's Pirulo , one of the greatest popular characters who have set foot in the capital.
When Pirulo rose to fame he had already been known for 14 years: his three-table stall, where he traded cards and sold balloons and trinkets , had become a classic of the Retiro. One hard four easy used to be the formula, followed by the "Yes, no, yes, yes."
It was next to the Retiro, in 1956, when the Pirulo went down in the history of the city: girl crossing without looking, a tram that can't stop... Everyone left her for dead, they even covered her with a blanket. But there was Pirulo, with his superhero cape and his X-ray look: he picked her up, took her to a nearby hospital and the girl, Paloma, was saved.
But this was only the Pirulo's most visible heroic act. Behind this gesture, the superhero carried out other more detailed tasks: weekly columns for Pueblo newspaper , claiming aid for families with economic difficulties; assistance in children's dining rooms ; participation in solidarity initiatives in marginal neighborhoods of the capital and even direct messages to the authorities.
" In May 1976 I had a special audience at the Zarzuela Palace , where I brought a report on the abandonment of the youth of my town", **wrote Pirulo in 1985 for the newspaper El País** in an article about the UVA (Veinical Absorption Unit) of Hortaleza.
One of the two graffiti that remain of Muelle (on Montera street)
His social struggle also included the Retiro Park itself, deeply deteriorated in the 1970s: in 1980 he was one of the founders of the Amigos del Retiro Association. Retirement. It could not be another place that housed the symbol dedicated to him by the city in 1988, the year in which Pirulo left the trading cards to retire.
A plaque appeared in the middle of the park, a plaque from all the children who knew him and also from those who will not know him when they pass by the French vase that guards the memory of Luis Ortega Cruz.
JUAN CARLOS ARGÜELLO, PUERLE: THE PRICE OF BEING A PIONEER
The prosecutor looks at him and asks why. the graffiti of the arrow and the spring: "What does that mean?". Juan Carlos answers: "A dock." "I already know that," says the prosecutor, "but what does it mean?" At this point, Pier scratches his head and says again, "Pier, only Pier." Dock only.
There are times when two headlines can explain a life. Newspaper El País, March 1987: ** Fine of 2,500 pesetas to Muelle for painting the pedestal of the bear and the strawberry tree ** . Same newspaper, June 2016: _ The graffiti artist Muelle will have a street in Latina _.
Square in Camp in honor of the graffiti artist
in 29 years Juan Carlos Argüello went from being persecuted and criminalized to being protected and restored. The 29 years that the best-known graffiti artist of the 80s remained alive.
Juan Carlos Argüello had the luck and the misfortune to be a pioneer. A pioneer in his land, well while in other parts of the world, graffiti had been making people talk for some time, in Spain a signature in the public space was something from another world. Until Muelle arrived and decided to expand his name.
First it was his neighborhood, Camp, in the south of Madrid ; then all the others, focusing mainly on the center of the capital. From his hand a style was born, that of the archers: graffiti artists who began to imitate the forms of Argüello, ending his signature with a showy arrow pointing the way out for those who didn't like what they saw on the wall.
One of these archers was Typhoon that, later, would become famous for another kind of art: Goya award winner Daniel Guzmán . "I remember that it was quite an experience when he went up to his house to I will paint a t-shirt "explains the actor in an interview for eldiario.es .
For Argüello, his signature was nothing more than that: a word, a name. " Dock is the word dock, a name that is not attached to any other object and whose purpose is only the dissemination of the name itself, which is all for the good of him ", he wrote in 1988 journalist and art critic Fietta Jarque.
Kiosk in the Campamento neighborhood with a phrase from Muelle
The intrigue was what moved Argüello: sign at night, in the shadows, that the next morning people would be surprised by the presence of a new firm in the least expected place.
It was this longing that finally unmasked him: in February 1987 , a few hours after the statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree had been placed in its new location -the recently remodeled Puerta del Sol-, Argüello was discovered by a watchman while he wrote his signature on the pedestal.
2,500 pesetas It was the sentence that the prosecutor gave him. "This of mine is a cultural activity" , was what he said in his defense.
Signature after signature and fine after fine, Argüello gave more depth and richness to his style until, in 1991, he turned away from graffiti as he felt his message was wearing thin , as happened with his life, two years later, a victim of liver cancer.
After his disappearance, Muelle's presence in the city faded. The municipal authorities used his message to show the excellence of Madrid in the 80s while with the other hand they were erasing all his legacy.
Today, Muelle's surviving graffiti can be counted on one hand , rising to the headlines the discoveries of new hidden signatures, with restorers who return the color to the most famous signature that has remained from his legacy and leaving a memory in the form of a square in the neighborhood that saw him practice his first doodles.
Closure of a store, in Camp
EMILIO AND JOSÉ ALCARAZ, THE HEAVIES OF GRAN VÍA
Their names are Emilio and José Alcaraz, they are twin brothers and they are very clear that "Gran Vía street used to be cooler".
They carry 17 years manifesting silently and without missing a single day to his appointment in front of number 25, challenging with his leather jackets the buyers who come out of the clothing store that occupies the space left by Madrid Rock after its closure due to cessation of business.
It is their personal struggle against capitalism that "has destroyed the true spirit of the street", as they constantly repeat to all the media and onlookers who come to ask them. For the Alcaraz, the spirit of the Gran Vía existed until the beginning of the first decade of the 2000s , when "There were second-hand stores, vinyl stores, movie theaters…" , as told in a interview for the newspaper El País.
With tight jeans, high boots, bullet belts, Lynynd Skynyrd, Van Halen or Atleti t-shirts, leather jackets full of plates and patches, whitish hair and skin covered in tattoos, the twins have become a symbol of Madrid.
The Alcaraz brothers
They have earned this fame thanks to perseverance: from "7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., rain, shine or snow" they occupy their street office , which they do not have very far from home, in the neighborhood of Chamberí, the same one that saw them born in 1966.
During the 17 years that they have been inhabiting the Gran Vía they have experienced demonstrations, traffic jams, Christmas parties, heat waves, snowfall and public works. Works like the last one that the Madrid street experienced and that took away a very precious element: the fence on which they rested from time to time.
the years go by , but the Alcaraz brothers are still in the same place, like a time-lapse video where the world moves at a frenetic pace while the subject remains unchanged.
PACO, THE DOG INFLUENCER OF THE XIX CENTURY
Today hardly anyone remembers it, but what happened to Paco the dog was the best example of being in the right place at the right time. It happened in a Madrid of cobblestones and earth , of men dressed in bowler hats and horse-drawn carriages.
It was the beginning of the 1980s and the capital was filling up with stray dogs, quite feared by the people due to the transmission of diseases.
For many of those dogs there was only one destiny, to be given black pudding. The method was simple: the pieces of food were injected with strychnine, a poison that killed the animal in a matter of minutes. In this way, the Madrid population of dogs decreased -and the well-known popular phrase arose-.
Being a street dog in Madrid was a real risk , but there was one that not only got rid of blood sausages but also became a phenomenon of its time.
There are several versions of the story, but the key to all of them is the same: a blight black dog managed to enter the Fornos cafe, one of the most distinguished of the time , and chance led him to sniff under the table where Gonzalo de Saavedra, Marquis of Bogaraya (son of the Duke of Rivas, author of Don Álvaro or the force of fate) ate.
Two things could have happened at that time: the cafe staff had broomed the dog away, or the marquis would have thrown food at him . This second occurred and the dog began to make flourishes of thanks.
The dog fell in favor with the Marquis, that he baptized him Francis (for the saint of that day, Saint Francis of Assisi) or, more familiarly, Paco.
Paco began to be a Fornos regular. Every time the Marquis went to lunch, the dog appeared there waiting to receive his share, which was multiplied by the generosity of the rest of the diners.
'The beautiful and new song of the famous dog Paco'
Paco's fame increased at the same rate as Doors opened for him: theaters, circuses, bullrings... Paco's little shadow appeared everywhere the Marquis went until he became popular on his own.
Musical themes began to be created in his honor as The beautiful and new song of the famous dog Paco and he was the protagonist of numerous journalistic chronicles, such as those of the newspaper The Impartial or the magazine Spanish and American illustration where it was written that Paco was "the most interesting figure of this Court, the favorite hero of the people of Madrid".
Leopoldo Alas Clarin made him a character in one of his moral tales . Paco's companies were expanding to different environments, ** including artists and bullfighters (such as the mythical Frascuelo and Lagartijo) **, whom he accompanied to bullfights.
It was there that Paco acquired the greatest prominence: through his reactions, barking or even jumping into the ring , the dog gave his verdict on the quality of the task before the attention of bullfighting critics, who used his reactions to issue some of his judgments.
"The bullfights are eagerly awaited to see what attitudes the dog Paco will take in them," journalist Pedro Bofill wrote in the newspaper El Globo . It was, precisely, a bullfight that ended his life. That day he was fighting an inexperienced novillero, who was doing a fairly mediocre job in the eyes of the public.
Between the whistles and protests, Paco jumped into the ring. In this point, some versions say that Paco began to rebuke the novillero by barking , in others that he got entangled between his legs until he tripped.
In any case, the end was the same: the novillero, wounded in his pride, struck a blow at Paco to the surprise of the rest of the spectators. Seriously injured, Paco was transferred while the novillero was escorted to avoid a lynching.
The assistance was in vain: Paco died a few hours later. The death of the animal was mourned and most of the newspapers dedicated obituaries to it. Days later, an autobiographical book by the dog Paco appeared, by an anonymous author -and attributed, among others, to King Alfonso XII-.
According to some versions, his corpse was dissected by an acquaintance taxidermist of the time, Ángel Severini , and exhibited for several years in a bullfighting museum on Calle Alcalá. When the museum closed, Paco's remains were buried in an anonymous grave in the space now occupied by the Retiro Park.
More than a century later, today no one knows where that grave is and very few remember the story of Paco, the dog that escaped death by blood sausage and became a 19th-century influencer.