MusicMonday—Mondo Bongo

I have been going to Zumba exercise class once a week at the YMCA since August.  I LOVE IT!  And, boy, is it exercise!  But it goes by so fast and is so totally enjoyable, you don’t mind that you’ve been working out hard for an hour.

 

If it were offered every day of the week, I’m telling you I’d go at least five.

You might have seen the infomercials on tv for Zumba.  It is hot dance moves set to hot international music, very Latin.  I am not kidding when I say hot.  I have sweaty legs by the end of the first song.  Legs, people.  You can imagine my head and chest.  I am literally dripping.  And I’ve got another 50 minutes to go.

I think part of the appeal is the encouragement you get to shake it and work it, which this little piece of clip art does not truly capture, but still I thought it would be fun to add.  Jazz it up a little here on the Monday bloggie.

Really, how many times in your life are you encouraged to put a bigger swing on the back porch?  From someone who has lived her life trying to get a place with a smaller back porch, it is so cool to hear.  Move it with freedom, girl, and move it big!

And then it also helps that your wonderful Zumba instructor wants to see you do your belly dance moves while you still have a pitiful, three c-section flop-over belly.

It’s like come as you are, have fun, do what the sexy, hot girls do.  That, my friends, is pretty liberating.  

I highly recommend it.

Plus, I have learned that all this hip action can help us ladies down the road by reducing our chances of broken hip bones.   Use them and you keep them strong and flexible.  I can see it now, this generation’s just gonna bounce when we hit the ground in our 90’s, right?

Plus, it burns like a quadrillion calories so it makes it  totally a little more ok for me to go straight for Mexican when Zumba gets out at 11:30 a.m. 

Our regular instructor is HeatherSparkPlug.  I don’t know, plug doesn’t sound very kind.  She is full of energy, but really she’s not waif-thin.  She is built sturdy we’ll say, but so in shape and so able to move her stuff.  Apparently the girl weighed 200+ pounds when she started Zumba.  And she said that’s all she did to get fit.  I was impressed.  I’d guess her now at 135-140, about my height, and looking very healthy, with kinda a scrappy street attitude that I find really motivating.  Man, she can move.  And not a tad bit timid about doing it.

When she leads Zumba, it is hard core. 

But every once in awhile, we have DeLisaSloMo as a sub.  She is totally different in style.  She has slow moves which initially was disappointing following my exposure to HeatherSparkPlug, but I have found the repetition is the work out and my legs are worn out by the end, even if I am barely upping the heart rate and the sweat-o-meter is only registering a five. 

So anywho, last Friday we had the slow-motion sub.  She brings her own different music whereas Heather Spark uses, I think, official Zumba music.  As we did our cool down, I noticed the last song and really liked it.  I couldn’t figure out the words, though. I thought it was saying something like “king of the rainbow.” 

I asked DeLisa then after class what that song was.  She didn’t know who it was by, but she thought it was called Mondo Bongo and told me it was from the Mr. and Mrs. Smith movie soundtrack.  You now, the movie that brought the world  Brangelina.   

I know we rented it sometime, but I really don’t recall this song or this scene where they dance to it.  It must have been when I did my usual cat-nap-during-regardless-if-it-is-a-good-or-bad-movie thing.  

With the coolness of my new fun and useful phone, I sat in the van, googled  Mr. and Mrs. Smith soundtrack and confirmed it was Mondo Bongo and it was by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros.  Cool name. 

I looked up the lyrics.  My “king of the rainbow” was actually:  “Latino caribo.”  So much more cool. 

I then found out that somewhat familiar name, Joe Strummer, was a founding member of and singer for the huge 70’s-80’s punk band The Clash.  He’s on the left here.  Very cool.

But he died in 2002 at the age of fifty from a congenital heart condition after being out walking his dogs.  Uncool.

And it turns out this song is from the 2001 album called, get this!,

  Global A Go-Go.  How cool is that?!

Enjoy.  It’s got a great sound.