How an East Hollywood puppeteer found fame and happiness with a sad marionette named El Triste

Carias is invited everywhere with the marionette.. Lowrider shows. Parties. Music videos. You Tube talk shows. Even the occasional fishing trip. In one project or event after another, people keep asking Carias to bring El Triste.

How many Instagram followers do you have? El Triste has almost 33,000 - slightly more than Carias himself.

A bit taller than knee-high, El Triste is modeled as a clown, with white make-up, blue eye-shadow, and a red bulb nose. The rest of him is dressed like the gangsters in Carias’ old Westlake neighborhood: A black T-shirt and sweats and a little bling around the neck. Or jeans with a dark jacket and sneakers. And a pencil-line mustache and Van Dyke beard match Carias’ own look.

Carias (pronounced ku-RAY-yis) went to his first show at the Bob Baker theater when he was 13, the same year his family moved to Los Angeles from Tijuana.

He was soon volunteering and working at the theater, where he did lighting for five years and then became a performer and teacher. On the back of his hands are tattoos with marionette control bars, one of which displays Bob Baker's name.

Carias worked with Moncerrat Reyes of Lil G Dolls to create El Triste.

The first version of El Triste became so popular that Carias had the body reworked to move and walk better. Carias also recently worked with Reyes to create a lady companion for Triste, a happier counterpart named La Smiley.

Yet El Triste is still sad … and very popular.

Carais shared more thoughts on El Triste and his work in a brief Q&A:.

You’ve described Triste as a gangster. What does that mean about his day-to-day life? How does he live?

Triste is kind of based on myself. I was a troublemaker when I was younger. I was affiliated with the MacArthur Park gang, and I dressed like them. So it’s based on that.

The superpower Triste has is to take sadness from people. Happiness is all around. but when I get sad, I think of Triste, I think, “He’s so cool.” I have hung out with gangers - like the older OGs. But as soon as they see el Triste, they start acting like kids. They just become happy, which is funny.

You say El Triste isn’t really for shows, more for events?

Yeah. I built him as a display for what a marionette was. Bob Baker had so many marionettes that were so special. But I couldn’t always bring people into the theater.

I always had an idea for building a puppet. But it was a lot of work. And it was expensive. It cost about $2,000 to build one. I know how to build the skeleton. But there’s a whole process to build the face. These dolls [by Moncerrat Reyes] were built already.

What’s your next step? In other interviews, you’ve talked about taking drawing classes and working in the digital medium - primarily to build puppets.

I learned how to move the marionette but not how to make one. To make him, I have to draw him first, draw how he’s going to look. Better than telling you what I want to do, it’s better if I show drawings.

And if I come back to the theater, I want to do shows in Spanish. We always did shows in English.