Goodbye to the soul of Añepa

La Orotava fired Pepe González today between surprise, sadness and resignation. Sick for months and withdrawn from public life, he left late at night. And his friends fired him at the Servisa funeral home in an emotional civil ceremony. There will be no masses in his honor, but social networks were filled with messages and words of affection and remembrance. Like those of the villero mayor, Francis Linareswho lamented the death “of the alma mater of the Añepa during decades”. Those of the socialist councilor Samuel Mesa: «We have lost a villero of those who leave their mark». Or those of the musician and friend Nathanael Ramos: “Not only La Orotava enjoyed you and your cultural and leisure work, the whole island of Tenerife and beyond. Nor do you belong to a single generation, because you gave us a space for several generations to meet, enjoy good music, a good atmosphere, painting, reflections (…). I wish that in every town on this planet there was a Pepe».

Or those of Assembly for La Orotava, who said that “Pepe will remain fixed in the villero collective imagination for his contribution to cultural diversification and the leisure offer of the municipality, since he took charge of the sadly disappeared Añepa Pub and Art Gallery. Today La Orotava is a little less Orotava”. Or those of Tony Tablewho always identified him «with Rick Blainefrom Casablanca (“Everyone comes to Rick’s cafe“), distributing safe-conducts of life, Pepe perpetuated the idea of ​​living life also at night so as not to feel alone. Añepa, the plastic arts, music and, all of us who felt that this was a place for the beginning of a beautiful friendship, we will be enormously grateful to him». Or those of Tata Zirga, who confessed that «I had never met a pirate until I met him. He taught me traps, music and stories that are given at six in the morning ». Or those of Oscar Rociowho recalled that “the place with the most freedom per square meter in the world could only be the fruit of the freest soul”.

In 2005 he received the Silver Medal of the City Council of La Orotava for its first 25 years of commitment to art and culture. On October 31, 2020, when the Pub Añepa closed Due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, Pepe explained that “we never wanted to be just a place where alcohol was sold, but much more: a space for art and culture; that meeting place that we all need. A society without these corners where you can share these moments is a worse society.

The Añepa Pub was always the place to go for a drink after dinner or at the closing of other bars and characters like Joaquín Sabina, Jorge Drexler, Juan Perro, Mikel Erentxun, Albert Pla or Los Chichos. It hosted innumerable concerts, especially jazz, and on its walls there were exhibitions of paintings by Yamil Omar, Rafa Pinillos, Rafols-Casamada or Pepe Hernándezalthough it was always, above all, an art room open to young artists.

The Pub Anepa It closed for good a year and a half ago. Pepe Gonzalez left this world on April 27, 2022. But several generations of villeros will never be able to forget, as they sing Nolo Hernández, Óscar Rocío, Yexza Lara, Fernando Ortí and Víctor Martínthe place “where would-be hit men chatted daily with the gutter meat”, “where poets and divas could see the stars from above” or, sometimes, “the site that helped us so much to not remember anything”. But since “only living things have an end” and “no one knows how much will be missed”, “those of us who work late will wander Los Rosales, now without consolation”. Because nobody thought that “that open door could close”, although many would prefer to think that, simply, “Pepe doesn’t hear them play”.