old latrobe

That’s right – 33 steaks as of yesterday. And although I haven’t looked at the entries yet (as promised), I know that many of you will be disappointed, having expected a bit more meat out of me. But unlike the other big steak eaters (and you know who you are), I don’t have a ring on my finger and so can’t afford a larger one around my waist. But it ain’t over until the fat man sings and the great steak opera has at least thirteen more acts to go.

That said, I miss the obese, they make me look good (not a simple feat in the land of the beautiful). Luckily, the only fat man in the city works (for food, obviously) just across the street, enticing and ushering in tourists to a mediocre grill with day-long, mouth-watering cries of “grill for two... for three... for four... for five...” you get the picture, or do you:

My dear friend and two-time college roommate, Tim, flew down to outdrink me last week and finally get me out of the city for the first time in over a month. We took a first class executive sleeper bus to the Days Inn in Pinamar – a relatively posh beach resort four and half hours south of BA.

Since my arrival here, I had been frantically searching for my karaoke fix and like-minded exhibitionist ilk and coming up empty, but we found it in Pinamar. Turns out they don’t use the Japanese, but call it ‘cantobar’ instead and it's very popular. They give you the words on a piece of paper and the KJ (or CbJ) sings your backup, which is tricky, but somehow more fun. Even though everyone was already standing, I got a standing ovation along with a receiving line of hot fans after my performance. So much for I ain’t gonna play Sun(burn) City...

Back in BA, we went down to La Boca, a ‘working class’ hood just south of my own. After I paid 60 cents for the privilege of taking a foto of a mini-favela, a lone woman in a very out-of-place expensive blue silk dress ran up to us screaming (in English, mind you): “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but it’s very dangerous. You need to run. RUN RUN RUN out of here RUN.” She sure knew how to make us and herself less conspicuous. Of course, it being a ‘working class’ hood, most people were working at the time and there were few around to appreciate her rantings and ravings.

Thinking my previous entry about my neighborhood Carnaval an exaggeration, Tim insisted we check it out. A block away, we were water-ballooned and then promptly foamed from several angles / urchins. We lasted all of 20 seconds.

It seems that everyone under the age of 16 here is a criminal, at which point they either move on to more complex scams, like selling those free airplane socks or corporate embezzlement, or they just start having sex and forget about being complete jerks.

Carnaval ended last Sunday in grand fashion. The drums and foam had just begun in earnest when suddenly a biblically-proportioned storm kicked up, first blowing then washing away all of the garbage, human and otherwise, in whirlwinds of filth and filthy off to the more affluent northern neighborhoods. I couldn't have been more pleased. Miss you. Home soon.

the teachings of don guapo: a yanqui way of knowledge

Well, it’s official. I used the very last of my Czech toothpaste yesterday and in four minutes, I will have been here a month. I must actually ‘live’ here now because I’m already moving: out of my ridiculous ‘department’, which is a former roof-top storage shed or ‘quincho’ that they’ve decided to suddenly call a loft and accordingly raise the rent. I’m going all the way from San Telmo Hollywood (there go the property values!) to San Telmo Viejo – a total distance of three short blocks.

I’ve had some good times here with Frasier, Old Christine, Dr. House, Will and Grace, and what must have been the entire New York City police force after six seasons of Law and Order – but as much as I’m going to miss Stewie, Macchio (marathon career retrospective – what could I do?) and Shatner (especially Shatner - that guy cracks me up) dubbed or subtitled, I’ll be glad to see the other side of the door of this place and maybe see a little more of Buenos Aires in the daytime.

During commercial breaks, I’ve been missing Prague a bit, which begs the question: “What the hell’s the matter with this picture?”

Don’t get me wrong, I love it here: beautiful, friendly, fun and smart people, great food and drink, cheap smokes, comprehensible language, etc., but it’s been a month, so here’s what’s the matter with this picture:

The bitch list (c’mon, you knew it was comin’)

Crossing the street;

Waiting to cross the street;

Cars, buses (kinda enjoyed the novelty of riding around on an old bus for awhile, especially when you have to jump on and off while it’s still moving, OK, I guess I still like the buses), trucks and all of the above’s resulting pollution;

Incredible lack of alternators – almost all cars and buses, even taxis, ambulances and police cars go around with their lights off at night or, at best, very romantically dimmed. The theory behind this is that using lights somehow uses more gas, which doesn’t really cost anything here anyway thanks to Mr. Chavez. I’ve tried to explain how the engine via the alternator charges the battery, which powers the lights, without any increased gas usage. No one believes me and I’m starting not to believe me either;

Lack of proper banking system - having to go to 15 different banks (at 5 bucks a pop per withdrawl) to pay my rent;

The sun, the heat, the humidity – summer basically – turns out I don’t really care much for summer;

Little kids who ask me for money; older kids who ask me for money; older men who hardsell me on the homeless magazine and then think that gives them the right, duty, or god-sworn deathbed obligation to chew my ear off for an additional ten minutes while expectorating through missing teeth;

‘Pan francés’… kinda like ‘franczouský brambory’ or ‘spanish bird’ - when they don’t want credit for it, they blame it on another country. Contrast with pan casero which is homemade and absolutely delicious;

People who think I’m French; and/or think me inclined to prefer the aforementioned;

Hamburgers - although much better than in Prague, are strangely not as good as in the US. I think the meat may be too lean to make a good hamburger, but they only cost a dollar;

People constantly trying to get me to eat inedible parts of cow for no apparent reason:

“No thank you, I don’t eat garbage.”
---
“No really, I don’t care what you people do, that’s great, more edible parts for me. No really, I don’t mind. You eat the brains, innards, entrails and assholes, and I’ll stick to the steaks, thanks”
---
“Really, it’s cool, boludo.”

Completely non-absorbent napkins (like in Spain, but worse) - there exist three varieties: newspaper, cardboard and plastic-covered;

Elevated trashcans on the street that never seem to have a bottom attached to the bottom of the can – thus, IMHO, defeating the purpose of a trashcan while only drawing even more attention to the fact that people just don’t fucking care where they throw their trash;

Supplement to the above: the whole city has an average turd to square meter of sidewalk ratio as high as Prague 7’s;

Getting sprayed at Carnaval;

Vietnamese potravinies;

Bottle returns – the deposit on a liter bottle of Quilmes is anywhere between 50 and 75% of the total cost of the beer. You’re asked upon purchase if you’re returning any bottles. A negative response inevitably elicits a disappointed shrug and sigh, then a downward sideways wistful look and the beginning of a tear in the left eye of the clerk. They then inform you (wincing prior to the expected outrage) that you will have to pay a deposit on the bottle. They issue a receipt that is only redeemable at their store (along with the bottle). You can imagine that I haven’t taken very well to this system and am now overrun with a fortune’s worth of bottles. I only recently figured out a (scam) way around this and am slowly starting to regain some floor space in my apartment, but it requires a lot more drinking;

Really unbelievably fucking big-balled how’s that for cojones gringo you’re mine mothafuckah gimme them peanuts pigeons (see below). Where’s my mace?

And ‘Ryan’ from “The OC”.

That’s it. Everything else is absolutely fantastic! So, demons purged; and new apartment, renewed optimism:

I had the good fortune to run into my new neighbors, Eugenio and Laura, on my first trip over to the new place and I laid it on thick, really thick, like they like it down here. They said:

“Anything you need, let us know, OK?”

“Sure, same to you guys, I’m charmed, really charmed. Anything you need… wait a minute, I don’t really have anything… but I drink a lot. I usually have something to drink.”

“Great!”

So with a spring in my step, I bounced on back to my old neighborhood and made my rounds charming the asses off of everyone on my last night. For a month late and a peso short, I think I did pretty well. I got to see everybody, make a great last impression and spread the love (except the Vietnamese, long story short: they tried to screw me out of some bottle returns and I made a scene and don’t shop there any more, even if they are cheaper and open longer).

When I got back to my old ‘loft’, I finally caught my cacti blooming after a month of constant nursing (sunburn to prove it). Turns out they only come out at night… I guess we have a lot in common. I’ll be taking the last unopened bloom with me to the new place.

of carnavals and clubs

'Carnaval' began yesterday in my hood, so I decided to have a look, take in a little of the local culture and feel the love and vibe of community spirit, before hitting a club. What the hell, I said, it was all just outside my door, and thus, on the way.

Carnaval in my barrio, however, seems to only consist of arming all of the neighborhood street urchins, ne'er-do-wells, guttersnipes, brats and baby blackguards, orphans, pretend orphans, wannabe orphans, scamps, waifs, hooligans, hoods, hoodlums, hoodwinkers and wankers, rapscallions, scalawags, skullduggers, imps and punks, grovelling grifters, little rascals, rogues, teeny robbers, beggars and boppers (of whom there are literally thousands in a four-block radius - hence the highly-evolved pecking order) with industrial (or family-size - same difference) canisters of a high-pressure Barbasol / spray-on PAM type foam mixture that flies out of the can with deadly accuracy, speed and damage at the freshly primped and preened.

Oh yeah, there was some parading of half-baked dancers in half-baked costumes who also let fly as they glided and slided, fumbling and foaming on the slippery streets.

I escaped quickly in a taxi that had also just been bombarded by the filmy foamy menace. So much for my stroll and my shower.

More on the surprising lack of dancing ability in a country that prides itself on its dancing ability in a future post.

the song sorta remains the same

In honor of Groundhog Day, I thought I'd pay a little homage to all of the uncanny similarities between .cz and .ar - the shadows of things I haven't had the opportunity to miss. The Spocks and Kirks with beards, if you will:

čau = chao - although I've never seen it in print. This particular similarity has me saying 'tak čau' out of habit, which, of course, doesn't make any sense, but is usually excused as a tic or just a tak, which it is;

fernet - they love it here - turns out it's Italian, but comes from Brazil. I'd always thought it was Czech, go figure;

vietnamese potravinies - yup, that's right. And they can't pronounce the r's or l's here either. Can't count very well, strangely. I guess we get the second string down here. I love having to order my 'Mahlbolo Pox' every morning in order to be understood. They never even heard of New York - I guess NYC is now low-profile, 'under the vietnamese radar', so to speak;

smažený vepřový řizek - known here as a 'milanesa', the name derived from its true origins in Northern Italy. Often made from beef - no thanks;

fried cheese - well, it's grilled actually, and a lot better, but the idea of cheese as a full meal or vegetarian facsimile of one does exist in both countries;

meat rollups a la spanish bird - haven't tried one yet, don't plan to;

stella artois and segafredo - hard to believe, but those people are everywhere. Still not drinking either;

all of the shows you spend hours to download are actually just on television here, go figure;

cars;

flimsy ice trays;

clueless real estate agents;

silverware placed atop of napkin pile in precarious log cabin formation, making it impossible to get to aforementioned napkins until after desert course unless 23rd level magus intervenes to magically remove napkins without disturbing aforementioned log cabin; No, I'm kidding, they don't do that here - that would be silly.

That's it. Everything else is completely different. I will explore these differences in future posts, but wanted first to expose the profoundly rich tapestry of common underpinnings that knit both cultures together.

Miss you all, since you're not here, but don't worry. I'm quickly replacing all of you with younger, thinner, more tan, Spanish-speaking doppelgangers. As my memories of you inevitably fade, I'm getting a little sloppy with the necesity of accuracy in the namesakes, e.g. "Argentina Jiffy" is actually a pretty hot 20-year old female dental assistant, who just happens to eat a lot of American fast food. -m