Wishing you a Happy New Year. 2007 brought big changes, personally, like a new country. If you'd told me last NYE that 2007 would have me changing careers, countries, and living with a boyfriend, well, it would have been a lot to take in. A new year is no joke - anything can take place. 2007 took out a generation of my family with the passing of grandma, Sylvia Alden. It brought news that one of my closest friends will shortly be the mother of Manny Jr, what! A fact I still haven't quite accepted is that I no longer live in New York City - urban love of my life. Say it ain't so, yo. Next visit is looking like July/August, hope you can wait papi (I'm talking to NYC here. The city has a fresh-from-the-barbershop look, doo-rag with the oversized-Yankees-cap-to-the-side, and shiny kicks. The city I heart looks like a straphanging NY male :) KnowI'msayin?) Here is a recap of Halloween, NYC Marathon, Crown Point Festival, 205 Club record release, and just good times in the city of how-much-work-and-play-can-you-jam-pack-into-one-week. Mindy is a b fuzzy Crown Point shot - Tisra is channeling Dorothy with the red pumps the wop? Sydney's dad Emz performing at the marathon in Am App girlfriends! Roberto pimping , Melinda getting her muppet on Nikki and me at Adam's bday Adam, hair and friends spot had great mojitos Micah, Zaheda, and Colt 45 Micah so saxy at 205 Fairfax High represent thanks to the ladies for the Redheadphone love Derrin Maxwell and the N9's (Moist Paula on the left hand side) The ladies love Danny and Micah (Apollo Heights now on tour on the west coast www.myspace.com/apolloheights) and Emz thinks I don't take performing seriously. That's some serious color. ladies brunch means a lot to me
One reason NYC is great? You can't get married by proxy. In Montana two people can get married without ever entering the state. Two people stand in for you, sign for you, and you are married to somebody you never said "I do" to. Look out - you might be married and not even know. http://www.marriagebyproxy.com/ NYC is great because it's not exactly American but it makes the country go. spontaneous party in the L station
This is an instructional video on time management in the blogosphere - feeds. For those who haven't started ordering in yet, and still haul tush to the blog mall - dealing with traffic and looking for a parking space, this video will teach you how to bring it all home so you never, ever, never leave your screen. Ever.
I thought I was all smart, getting rid of cable, putting the TV up in the loft where it's hard to get to. Now the internet has a good grip over my cerebro and it's squishing it, massaging, playing a couple of rounds of hoops with my skull when it needs to stretch its legs. This video is for all you well-adjusted web users.
This city has a disproportionate amount of Barcelona. For a place so far from Western Europe, it's got a lot of Catalan and Basque - as well as Napeolitan, Calabrian, and French bistro. If you've been to Barcelona you know what I mean - it's not exactly Spanish, it's got a Boho-edge-of-Europe, port-city feel to it. So does Buenos Aires, and the two cities seem to be connected. What's popular in Barcelona does well here too - mullet/rat tail haircut concoctions, tapas with no condiments, anarchy wishes and revolutionary dreams, and the music and Euro/gypsy, campfire-jam spectacle of Manu Chao and Tonino Carotone. I'm not hating, nada que ver - definitely celebrating. This is my type of reggae-hippy, eurotrash party. If you're going to have hippies, I hope you'll please serve them in this variety. In fact, the silliness and light-hearted good times of these dreadheads just strips the hippy moniker from the whole thing. The American hippy subculture takes itself seriously. This brand of anti-establishment includes faux, soft-porn videos in costume and with mannequins, a personal style that combines soccer gear with indigenous beanies or leather blazers. There are orchestras and Tango dancing in a theater space that ends in a hand-holding sing-a-long. Adults with gray hair in suits embracing total chaos with cheers? It's a beautiful world, that of Tonino and Manu. Enough to inspire my rant over how much fun I find this video. That's okay, Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello finds it inspiring too - and look where it got him? Playing with Madonna and making some enz off his gypsy/anarchy mantras. A rat-tail 'do with an AmEx platinum card - it's an ever-changing playground of a world.
I'm in the middle of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, great reading from a participant in the mess that is American foreign policy. He was there when Iranian self determination was sabotaged by our great nation. Howard Zinn is a fan and I am too. I'm trying to read Las Venas Abiertas De America Latin, by Eduardo Galeano, but there's still so much vocabulary to learn I quit after a couple of pages each time I pick it up. An average native speaker of a language has an arsenal of 12,000 words at his disposal. Even Dubbya knows a few thousand possibly. I'm fluent by some standards now but far from the target number. So Las Venas will have to wait a bit while I practice with tabloid lit - Argentina's version of In Touch is a great teacher.
There's a lot of middle eastern influence here too - Syria and Lebanon represent in Buenos Aires. And there are Heebs - everywhere. It's a comfortable place to be a white minority but no other continents have historically been invited to the immigration fiesta. I miss black people very much. I get excited when I see a lone face in a crowd - it's weird seeing so few people of African or Asian decent. There is a growing community of Chinese many of whom came by way of Peru. Blacks in BA are from Africa, with the occasional US, French, Brazilian or British tourists. Everyone seems to be a new immigrant or a tourist - even Europe isn't this European.
You're probably wondering if there are any Latinos in this Latin American country. I'm still trying to figure out the big picture. Apparently, Buenos Aires has the least number of ethnically indigenous people in Argentina because it is the port and the capitol and has always been the center of immigration. Immigration here means European immigrants, or traditionally it has meant people coming from Europe - most recently from Eastern Europe. Though, of course, that fact has changed in the last few years as the Eastern Block's economic situation has undergone a dramatic change for the better.
The bulk of the visible Portenos trace their roots to when, in the 19th and 20th centuries, large numbers of Spanish and Italians came to Argentina for a new life. In the mid 1800's there was expansion into the Pampas, the middle of the country that is the nation's bread basket. For years the colonizers had been losing the battle over indigenous lands in the Pampas but that changed with one general's savage defeat of native fighters in a famous battle. He murdered or expelled 100% of the people in the area and that explains why so many people have remained ethnically European in this area of the country. There's recent immigration from Peru and Bolivia and there are native Argentines in the North and some in the South of the country, but here in the city there are few from what I can tell. Racial identity isn't a popular subject so I do my best to get an accurate perspective of my new home. One thing is certain, Argentines don't call themselves Latino. They do call themselves Latino Americano and view the name Latino to be a "Yanqui" construction. They call Americans Yanquis because they view all inhabitants of the Americas to be American. The few that do identify as Latino also identify with hip hop culture and the emcees here adopt a Puerto Rican accent when they rhyme. I guess it makes for a complex and interesting place to examine ethnic identity.
There were African-Argentines here once - people stolen from Africa and forced into slavery like in all the other colonies of the Americas. The story goes that in the mid 19th century, the government mandated military inscription for all black males in the war against Paraguay. When the war ended, no one was allowed back home. The women intermarried and the country has been white and aborigine ever since.
So I count the faces I hope to see increase in number. The population yearns for more global influence, as does the food. There's no spice, like I've told you before - no spice! Pepper is a special request in a restaurant. In this culture there is singing and dancing and warmth all over, despite the blandness of flavor. There's plenty of sausage and wine, como Barcelona.
Writing works for me because I talk so much. I can't help it, always have been a big mouth. And the thing about talking so much is it makes demands on the listener. If you don't listen, you're rejecting the speaker. But with writing, I can talk through the keyboard or pen and then the reader decides to listen on his/her terms - when, how long, where. It's a more considerate form of communication. And it takes it back to the old school, pre-phone and tv when people read when they were ready to take something in. Aight, so I've made my peace with writing, embraced it, now I'm computer bound and, like the rest of the First World, my eyeballs are bugging out of my head from following this digital line. I will pay my bills with words. It makes sense for a blabberhead like myself. I'm a lucky yapper. But here I'll write to you all for when you feel like entering the evezone and hanging out with me and Kasha here, down South. This week was working in Spanish at a real estate agency downtown, getting hired at a bilingual middle school in Belgrano where the unpoor people are, going to my first Argentine wedding with Maxi, saying goodbye to my favorite Italian chica, working on rewriting a TV pilot script for an Anglophile audience, doing voice overs, and writing piles of articles for a website out of Atlanta, Georgia. Sounds like a lot when you write it out like that, but life really is slow mo outside of NYC. Argentine wedding Adele's last night of Tango before heading back to Italy
Tonino Carotone My friend Vicky and I went to see Tonino Carotone at Niceto in Palermo Hollywood. Tonino is the great '60's Italian ballad singer and entertainer extraordinaire. Except that he's actually from Barcelona and was born after the sixties. This video gives you the idea - "Me Cago en la Amor," which translates as "I take a dump on love" more or less. With lyrics like, "It's a difficult world. Why should I believe in love when she abandons me right when I'm at my best? Between you and I, it's not the couple's fault, it's Love. I don't want to suffer but here I am suffering and I take a dump on Love." (Writer's note: I do not want to "take a dump on love." I don't currently identify with Tonino's lyrics in the least. But I like him - he's funny.)
Kasha went all Requiem For a Dream on this new cat food that isn't good for her. It's her meth. She doesn't want to eat anything else now and it's garbage so we're duking it out over the crackfood. Max is recording a new record with his band and got offered an additional radio show at one of the two stations where he works. So he'll be even more busy than he already was. Dude sleeps 4 hours a night mostly. He hooked us both up to deejay different nights at this great spot near our hood. I wrote about it a couple weeks ago.
They're doing a series on music eras and Max chose blaxploitation, songs from the films. I think I'll do blue grass from the thirties first, since I got to rip some great old recordings from a friend while I was staying in Greenpoint last month. He had a compilation box set of songs about tragic disasters in US history - drought, the Depression, the Titanic. The next release in the series will be the Evangelistic backlash - "The Gospel According to Terrorism" - and will cover the hostage crisis of the US economy in the hands of the Christian Right. Mostly Sage Francis and Lupe Fiasco tracks. Did I tell you how crazy it was when I deejayed at this bar I like two weeks ago? It was so hectic I didn't think about taking them up on the offer to be their resident Tuesdays. Too much drug pushage - on me, I mean - and madness nonstop with my computer subjected to full cocktails hovered over the keys in the hands of drunk, attention ravaged, mercafiends. Not a good look for the cash-poor girl and her gimpy computer (I dropped it off the bed back in the basement in NYC and it's been gimpy ever since with the screen falling to the left. Just like my back, lol). We had our housewarming party last weekend and it was cool. Guy that created Gawker was here visiting Buenos Aires and he and a couple of other New York City media rockstars came by for an Argentine houseparty experience. It was the most mellow party I've ever been responsible for but it was nice. Still so weird getting used to being an adult. I'm making up for it by making 21 year-old girl friends left and right though. I like them, and they probably have a higher tolerance for someone who hasn't mastered the language yet or something. Plus they're so cute! Hey, I figured out I had limited comments to blogspot users for some reason. Now it's open - if you get the urge to holleratchergirl. News is I may have a real job with real income for the first time in too long to admit. As web editor on a US salary, I'll be a person again, as far as capitalism is concerned. Unlike most of the people dealing with the horribly backward economy here. Which is a rant for another day.
La Mona Jimenez is to Argentine cumbia what James Brown is to funk - so they say. Wednesday night I went to Luna Park for the first time(where Evita is fabled to have met Juan Peron) and witnessed the man, the myth, in action.
Luna Park is a stadium venue and it was full of sweaty folks dancing, jumping and yelling for La Mona. La Mona is a man in his fifties who struts his way across the stage accompanied by a band of over ten musicians including horns, drums, bass, guitar, percussion, and accordion. His name is a play on el mono - Spanish for "the monkey." He's pretty wild looking; with a mane that looked like a Geri-curl and three costume changes - each of them more Captain Eo than the next. La Mona did have some soul happening, despite the cumbia/quarteto strut, but I saw more Neil Diamond going on than James Brown. This photo is pure Ricardo Simmons:
La Mona put on a great show with special guests, crowd surfing, dancing with chicas from the crowd, TV cameras and all. The show gave me new insight as to how Ricky Martin stays popular as a mainstream sex symbol in Argentina - the whole show wasn't very hetero and the audience ate it up. The crowd was great - mostly on the grimier side and singing along and dancing with La Mona. Outside of Palermo you see the plebian side of this city and it's cool. The crowd didn't feel unlike that of a soccer game at the Sports Arena in South Central LA. (For more La Mona coverage peep me at www.argentinastravel.com) Friday night La Chicana played at El Tasso. It was a gorgeous, dinner theater set up at a tango venue where the band plays when its not on tour. They're my favorite - a live, modern, female-fronted tango band. Dolores sings and her husband plays fancy acoustic guitar. They're accompanied by accordion, percussion, violin, and bass. The singer is in her mid-forties, gorgeous, and sounds great. The couple have excellent chemistry on stage - she's saucy and smart and he's smitten and sarcastic. The lyrics tell stories of love, life, and struggle with a nostalgic tone. There's even a tango written for their dogs.
There was a rumor that Manu Chao was going to play a free concert near San Telmo. We made our way to the spot - a psychiatric hospital on the industrial side of the town center. We walked back past the main ward and other buildings to an outdoor ampitheater and smaller buildings that resembled summer camp. There was Manu surrounded by patients - doing a live radio broadcast with the inhabitants of the compound. It was a big turnout full of dreadlocks and super Manu fans as well as residents of the hospital. It went on for hours while patients performed spoken word, sang songs, performed stand-up, and freestyled. Manu played between bits. The show culminated in a video with a full band including horns and percussion. It was an inspiring show and the rain held off just until it was finished. We made our way back to San Telmo and caught a parade of drumlines and dancers two blocks from our house, all along the park. There were drumlines/marching bands representing different neighborhoods with dancers in costume and off the street. I finally got to see some indigenous drums and dancers up close and enjoy the local flavor.
Snoop Dogg and B-Real of Cypress Hill were here for Personal Fest, Buenos Aires' Coachella (not even close but not a bad festival for a place where you have to use a match to light your stove). Snoop made it happen and made me so proud! His Uncle Junebug was the other star of the show, dancing his way down the outdoor stage runway, so fresh. Tego Calderon played too and I got to have an NYC reggaeton moment. His dancers were hotter than Uncle Junebug and you wouldn't know if from the pic but that's saying something, yo. For more on the show and the rest of the musical happenings click: www.argentinastravel.com and scroll through this past week. Peep the Argentinas Travel Guide for the low down on the city - beyond personal thoughts and cat photos!
This weekend is the house warming party - I'll try to get plenty of pix for you folks. Next up is a retrospect of the visit and shows in NYC...
Wishing you a Happy New Year. 2007 brought big changes, personally, like a new country. If you'd told me last NYE that 2007 would have me changing careers, countries, and living with a boyfriend, well, it would have been a lot to take in. 
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