Ramblings of a lovestruck clown

Un Detalle

2006-06-02T14:39:00.001-03:00

Como un grano de sal que queda en una herida y no la deja cerrar. Como un grano de arena que cristaliza el dolor y no lo deja disipar. Tenes al cuello algo mío, algo que te regalé. No lo sacas ni un día, y yo no entiendo. Yo nunca podría tener algo pegado a mi piel que me regaló alguien que desprecio. Nunca podría guardar algo que alguien de lo cual no me importa nada me donó. Casi seria mejor si ni te acordas que te lo regalé yo y te lo pones porque brilla, como un pájaro que guarda un anillo de plata en su rama, sin preocuparse de su sentido.

Un pequeño detalle que me lastima, que me obsesiona. Un detalle que lucho para ignorar, que me esfuerzo a no tomar en serio. Un detalle de lo cual quiero preguntarte, y que no hago porque se que tu respuesta seria …. “si no quieres que me lo ponga, me lo saco y listo..”

Un Detalle

2006-06-02T14:39:00.000-03:00

Tiziano Terzani

2006-06-01T18:50:00.000-03:00

“… es aquí donde la naturaleza es una grande, grande, profesora. Si paras un rato y te pones a observar las hojas de eso árbol que tiemblan así misteriosamente y con amor en el viento, ves que mi condición, la condición de este cuerpo mió que me da tantos problemas, es totalmente irrelevante. La naturaleza esta allá, majestosamente destacada, no se conmueve, no se excita. Entonces, porque no aprender de esta lección, evitar conmoverse, evitar excitarse.
Es así, es así. Dejas que todo pase sin que sea una tragedia. Porque no lo es. Para nadie. Seguramente no lo es para ese árbol, por estos campos, por esos pequeños flores amarillos que nadie nota. Pero ellos, majestosamente, cada día crecen y cambian.
Mírate alrededor, el rió, esos bosques, esa naturaleza bellísima cuya manera de ser es renovarse cada año, con un completo destaque de lo que pasa a los hombres. Las crónicas, las bombas, Pol Pot, Mao, la América y el terrorismo, no le importa nada. Es todo algo de efímero. Todos estas civilizaciones barridas, vía. La esfinge que sale de la arena y mira el mundo, y ya no hay mas nada. Todo será así…….

….. es la cosa mas bella, este entendimiento que todo es impermanente. Es aceptar que no hay felicidad sin sufrimiento, que no hay placer sin displacer. Entonces te cansas, te alejas, no con indiferencia hacia a los demás, que podes también amar, pero sin ser sus esclavo, porque también la vida de los que queres pasa. Pasa”

Tiziano Terzani

Te extraño

2006-05-17T15:24:00.000-03:00

It is incredible how much you can miss someone. Someone you have grown used to, someone who has shared your life and suddenly dissapears. Actually, in this case, not so suddenly. Day by day slowly growing ever more distant until one day you are left only with memories, echoes, shadows.
It is incredible how it actually hurts physically, how your body screams in protest due to this deprivation. It is like, in high summer, when palgued by thirst, one can only think of a glass of cold, fresh water. The image thrusts itself in to your mind, driving you insane.
It is like a drug in a way. Your body, used to having a certain person near, finds itself craving madly for that person. You pass the first couple of days fine, as though in shock, and then it hits you.... la extraño. I miss her so bloody much

Prison 4

2006-01-17T12:47:00.000-03:00

My memories of the trial are quite vague. I remember the judge, a distinguished woman in her late fifties, her hair just starting to turn grey. I remember my lawyer, brilliant example of incompetence and dishonesty. I remember the family of the bastard I killed. I remember his mother’s eyes, hot pokers which bored in to the back of my head day after day, burning with an all consuming hate, smoldering with an intense desire to see me punished, to see me pay.

“Is there anything else you would like to add before we adjourn to discuss the case” asks the judge almost kindly

I stare ahead and shake my head

“You understand this is your last chance?” she repeats almost tenderly

I nod and try to smile at her.

“Está bien, Manuel, take him away”

Manuel is surprisingly gentle for such a big man. One of his big hairy hands wraps itself tenderly around my forearm and leads me away. We walk past the accusing glares of “his” family, the tears, the hate that permeates the courtroom like a bitter fog. A young man with an orange shirt, obviously a cousin or a friend, spits on the floor as I pass. A younger girl insults me, her lips curled up in an animalesque snarl.

My captor leads me past the crowds, through a narrow passage way and tells me to stop in front of an oak door. He takes out a bunch of large angular keys and opens the door with the faintest sound of creaking hinges. We both enter a small, sparsely furnished room, similar to any room anywhere. Manuel points the only chair, an old rickety thing with a straw back and crooked legs, and tells me to sit. Satisfied by the fact that I comply, he leans against the wall, takes a deep breath and takes out a packet of Marlboros. The acrid smell of cigarette smoke drifts towards me.

“Do you want to smoke?” asks Manuel

I look at him. He is truly a big man, probably close to two meters tall, with huge bulging shoulders and an even larger barrel chest. His large course hands and scarred cheeks contrast sharply with a pair of small but apparently kind and patient eyes. I take the cigarette he is offering and thank him. He lights it with an old silver lighter and I start to take long desperate pulls. I drag the smoke in to my lungs and enjoy the feeling. My hands shake.

“Don’t worry, chico, they wont take long” he continues. “Give it an hour or so and they will come call us”

“You are not from here, are you? Brasilero? he asks

I tell him I am Italian. I am from Rome.

“Ah, un Tano! My grandfather was Italian” he starts. “Came from Genoa without anything to his name, only three silver pieces hidden in his belt”

How interesting I reply. In effect nearly every single Argentinean has at least one Italian grandfather, all of which got here with nothing to their name.
Manuel starts telling me some stupid anecdote about his grandfather but I stop listening. His voice drones on but the sound doesn’t bother me. It is quite a low melodious voice and he utters every sentence with an obstinate slowness which proves calming and soothing.
I try not thinking about my situation. I try not thinking about whether they will send me to jail. And yet I can’t stop myself. I know I have to call my parents back in Italy. They still have no idea that their son is in an Argentinean court awaiting judgment. They are still blissfully unaware of the drama that soon will seek them out.

“And that is why we always had an Italian flag above the fire place” finishes Manuel

I pull myself out of my reverie and turn my head so that I can see my guard. I open my mouth to spit out some reply. Resentment fills my mouth with its acrid twang and I want to hurt the stupid man with my words. I want to scream at him, shout at him that I couldn’t give a fuck about his damned grandfather. That my life is about to end and that I hate him, I hate all of them, all of them who are going to be able to keep living their lives as always. All those people who will still be able to feel the wind in their faces, to take in the scent of cut grass, to watch the pretty girls walk to and through on Calle Florida. I open my mouth and stop. Someone has turned the keys and the big oak door is slowly opening.

Prison 3

2006-01-17T12:45:00.000-03:00

I must have dozed off for a couple of minutes but is hard to tell. They have taken away my watch along with every other single item I had on me this morning. The scant light that enters via the grate is refracted and insipid and gives me no clue as to what time it is.
I am starting to feel quite hungry but burry the sensation quickly as I have no idea if and when they will feed me. I desperately want a cigarette but they have been taken from me as well. I get angry. I kick the door hard and am greeted by a dull metal thud. I throw myself against the door and still it barely moves. I punch the warm metal plate repeatedly, first with my open palms and then with my clenched fists. The skin on my knuckles start to split and pearls of crimson blood spatter on the smooth surface and run down my wrists. I make no noise, simply stand there, legs apart, pounding the metal door with my bloodied fists over and over again consumed by a bleak and resentful anger.

Prison (explained)

2006-01-17T12:43:00.000-03:00

Well, as you can see, I have (once again) started writing a novel. I decided to download bits on to my blog so as to have an extra incentive to write every day. Any advice is welcome seeing as the book aint too good up to now! If you get bored of eading it, dont worry, I doubt I will last too long

Prison 2

2006-01-16T15:46:00.000-03:00

Buenos Aires was beautiful in the summer heat. Scantily clad girls would roam the streets of the micro centro, their beautiful long tanned legs eating up the distances with disinterested boredom. The stifling humid heat would envelop the passing crowds, embracing them with its languid caress, making them skittish and lazy at the same time.
Every day, come lunchtime, I would escape from my air-conditioned office and brave the multitudes in the hopes of finding a little table or, at least a quite corner, where to eat.
That Monday I had taken with me my assistant, Bernardo, who was trying to convince me, once again, that it wasn’t simply too hot to eat pizza.

“How about pizza?” he starts. “Dale, we haven’t been in ages” he insists

I do not answer but instead give him a look which aims to portray exasperation. Bernardo would eat pizza every single day if it wasn’t for me. Even simply mentioning the stuff makes him start to glow with an unnatural radiance, his voice slightly cracking with emotion.

“Fair enough, what would you like to eat then?” he continues slightly abashed

Once again I do not answer but instead, haven taken pity on his puppy dog look, head for Pizza Express, fine establishment on the corner with Calle Peron.
We order some food and sit down at a rickety plastic table where Bernardo starts wolfing down his double Faena with ham. I use my plastic fork to chase my slice of pizza around the plate and, disenchanted, try some. The pizza isn’t actually that bad, rubbery and a touch thick for my Italian palate, but definitely not the worst in town. However today my heart isn’t in it and I quickly push my plate aside and light a cigarette.
I watch Bernardo eating for a while. His big dark eyes, swimming with concentration, he eats his food methodically as though afraid a little crumble might escape him. He chews slowly every morsel and swallows with evident pleasure.

I ask him about his weekend

“Mmm, yeah, it wasn’t bad. Took out Laila for dinner on Friday, you know that place on Honduras, and on Saturday went out with the chicos to Mint. You?”

I tell him that I went out with a girl called Lara.

“Haha, the daughter of that rich industrialist? You said she was quite pretty no?”

I smile at him. Lara is blonde, bright green eyes sparkle above pretty red lips and her accent is tender and reminds me of home. Lara is also Italian.

“Che, and the other?”

Soraya, the “other one” Bernnie is talking about is not Italian. She is from Entrerios, a province north of Buenos Aires. I tell him I did not see the other one.

“Pity, stunning girl she is”

I wait until he has finished his pizza and then we get up and walk outside. We push and dodge and finally make it to the entrance of our building. I take a deep breath and step out of the burning heat and in to the cooler shadows of the marble lobby

Prison 1

2006-01-16T15:44:00.000-03:00

The heavy metal door slams shut with a click. I stand there, hesitant, not really believing this is it. I keep thinking that somehow the door will open once again and they will let me out, that they will tell me it has all been a cruel joke and that I can leave. I stand there, immobile, in front of the metal door, for a full twenty minutes before I finally accept the fact that it won’t open any time soon.
I look around my cell, which up to now I have not really taken in. It is a concrete box, slightly over four by six, empty apart from two benches, a toilet and a sink. A small grated window, high above on the furthest wall, lets a little stale light in. I realize that the two benches are actually beds, choose one and lie down. I stare at the grey ceiling and force myself not to think about anything for a while.
I wonder whether the other bed will be left empty or whether I will be force to share the narrow confines of this cell with another unlucky soul.
I get up and walk around the cell. I pace to and through, following the course walls around and around, feeling ever more anxious and frustrated. I think of the lonely panther I used to watch in the zoo in villa Borghese, and wonder whether I too will develop that haunted feeling in my eyes, that nostalgic gait which seemed to overflow with repressed sorrow and desperation.
I lie down once again on my hard bench and, staring at the crumbling ceiling, begin to think.

Crimson room

2006-01-13T17:26:00.000-03:00

By the way on this blog (http://coffeestoned.com/) I found a very amusing game where you have to get out of a red room using clues. It is driving me crazy seeing as I cant get out. If anyone wants to try …. Crimson room

Two books

2006-01-13T15:30:00.000-03:00

I have been reading quite a bit recently and, in particular, read two very pleasant books recently.

The first on is by Baricco, a rather famous Italian contempory writer author of Oceano Mare and Seta amongst others. I cant actually remember what the book is called (hehe) buut it is his most recent one. The story is about a child called Ultimo (the last one) who grows up with the passion for car racing and is similar to Bariccos earlier works as it is simply writen yet quite deep and emational. It contains some very nice lines.

The second book is called "City of K Trilogy" and was written by a Hungarian called Agoto Kristoff. It is the story of a pair of twins somewhere in eastern europe which, during the war, go and live with their grandmother in the countryside. Full of twists and surprises this bok is definately worth reading

Nothing much to say

2006-01-12T16:14:00.000-03:00

Today I read an article which stated that when they wake up, humans experience a state similar to that felt when drunk. Their brains work much more slowly and important decisions should not be taken. This state should last between 15 and 30 minutes. I obviously was not included in the study or else they would have noticed this state of torpor lasts until just before eight o’clock in the evening by which time it is replaced by a state of traditional drunkenness!

On other matters, my horoscopes (metal monkey and Scorpio) both seem to imply that I will be getting laid either tonight or Friday night. Haven’t found out which stunning girl will have the pleasure but will be sure to let you know.

Calle Florida

2006-01-10T15:37:00.000-03:00

Mil caras que aparecen y desaparecen. Mil ojos, profundos o vacíos. Mil miradas llenas de odio, de amor, de indiferencia. Mil pies con dedos largos y finos, mil pies gordos y sucios. Mil bocas rojas que besan, que sonríen, que gritan. Mil manos tiernas que acarician, que golpean, que fuman sus cigarrillos. Mil pechos, grandes y pequeños, llenos y cayentes. Mil olores, mil idiomas, mil miedos, mil esperanzas.

Mil personas que cruzan sus vidas con la mía por un instante. Mil historias que nunca voy a conocer. Mil caras que nunca voy a extrañar, mil ojos en los cual no me voy a perder, mil labios que nunca me van a besar, mil dedos que no se van a perder acariciando mi piel. Mil amigos que nunca voy a conocer.

Mil caminos que se cruzan por un instante y ya se van.

Quick departures

2006-01-10T11:30:00.000-03:00

The day I left for Italy was quite a funny day. At the time I didn’t know yet I was going to leave and was trying to cope with a blinding hangover. After a day at the office I got home and all I wanted was to go to sleep. However a friend called who wanted to go out for dinner so I accepted to meet her at my house at ten. I showered, shaved and was ready at ten to ten. Seeing as I had a bit of time I decided to check at what time my flight, two days later, would leave.
I take out the ticket and suddenly realize that the plane leaves the same day at 11:30. I look at my watch and panic. I manage to grab my passport and ticket, put on a coat, run downstairs and jump in to a taxi. What follows seems a scene out of that film "taxi" in which I tell the driver that if he can get me to the airport in time I will give him a huge tip. I get to the airport and for the first time in my life thank the gods that my flight is delayed.
Fourteen hours later I get to Rome with no money, no cell phone, no telephone numbers and no one there to pick me up. I manage to beg a couple of euros off my fellow passengers and start calling around. Obviously no one is home and I cant get in touch with anyone. After a couple of hours I manage to get home, ring on the doorbell, and I am greeted by my whole family, luggage in hand ready to leave for the countryside. Half an hour later and I would have been forced to sleep in the street!

I am back

2006-01-09T17:28:00.000-03:00

I am back. Spent two weeks in Rome for xmas and new year. Got back with a cold and a fever (bloody awful flight!! 14 hours of torture) to a sweltering 30 degree heat. I feel as though I was in hell. Anyway, happy 2006!

Stupid bloody xmas shopping!

2005-12-20T16:12:00.000-03:00

I bloody hate Christmas!! It seems such a stupid and meaningless holiday.

Apart from the fact that the whole thing is based on a blatant lie. It used to be a holiday about the middle of winter, the period in which the days finally stopped getting shorter and started to lengthen. It was a celebration of life commencing anew, about hope and the beginning of the end of the cold, hard days of winter. It was a holiday about the smell of snow, deep forests and a yearning for spring.

Then the bloody Christians came along and decided to steal it. In brilliant tradition they thought that if they just changed the details and left most of it the same, people would simply swallow the whole thing and forget the point. And, of course, they were right. People started thinking Christmas was actually a celebration of Christ’s birthday (which should actually be some time in august if the dates in the bible aren’t simply made up). The masses celebrated the Virgin Mary’s “miraculous conception” (yeah bollocks! She was sleeping around with the milkman, Josef! Deal with it!) and how the three bloody mages brought him gifts. Once again typical of the church which would rather die than give something away for free and would much rather receive. It got turned in to a sordid religious ordeal were people repeated meaningless platitudes about love and respect (while at the same time burning witches on the stake and persecuting any who complained!).

Then, bloody consumerist capitalism turns up and the whole thing definitely goes pear shaped. It becomes the celebration of expensive gifts. We are made to buy stupid, overpriced gifts for the people we care about. Now, I have nothing against buying gifts but it has to be a spontaneous desire to surprise someone with something interesting or useful or pretty not a dreary trawling of shops looking for something, oh please just anything, which they might like. All those bloody shoppers and stupid decorations (here in the southern hemisphere it is summer and bloody hot, what the fuck are reindeers and fat men in red ski suits doing on the street?) just make me feel even more pissed off with the whole affair.
Anyway, as you can see, I have been doing some Christmas shopping recently and it has made me a bit nervous. Give me an august week of hot languid days sleeping on the beach over this any time.

Greek civil servants and missed opportunities

2005-12-19T14:07:00.000-03:00

Well, on Friday I left Nancy, I took her out for dinner and explained that it would be better if we were only friends. She took it quite well (too well for my manly pride! Jeje) and we decided to stay friends.
I then had the pleasure of going out alone with four girls. I called several friends who all refused to join me for various reasons and thus had to sacrifice myself and go out with all four. Ended up drinking seven negroni (which is always a very very bad idea) but managed to get home without too much embarrassment.
On Sunday someone kept calling me but I did not recognize the number so didn’t answer. I kept wondering why Cristela wasn’t calling me. Obviously it turns out that it was her who wanted to come over and I, the fool, didn’t answer.
I am sorry about today’s dreadful post but had a couple of spliffs yesterday (a friend came over in the evening) and today I am as slow as a Greek civil servant.

Carta a un amor imaginario

2005-12-15T17:47:00.000-03:00

Caro amore,

Ya son años que te busco, anos que recorro el mundo mirando en todos lados para ver si estas. A veces me pregunto que olor vas a tener, cual va a ser el color de tus ojos, que idioma vas a hablar.

Ayer te soñé. Tenías un pequeño vestido azul que te llegaba a las rodillas todo lleno de pequeños flores blancos. Te reías y aunque si yo no sabia porque me reía con vos. Tus dientes blancos, tan pequeños y delicados, contrastaban con el rojo vivo de tus labios y te veía tan hermosa que me hacia mal al corazón.

El otro día miraba una chica que tenia que tener diez años o algo así. Caminaba con sus zapatos nuevos rojos y se veía tan fiera y orgulloso. Yo estaba sentado y al improviso ella se dio vuelta, me miro y me saludo con su manita. Me acuerdo que pensé que me gustaría que nuestra hija se vea así, tan dulce y llena de alegría.

Sabes, a veces, me siento tan cansado de buscarte. Quiero encontrarte ya, tenerte en mis brazos y nunca dejar que te vayas más. Mis piernas están hartas de caminar, mis ojos queman por tanto mirar, mi alma podrida de esta soledad.

Amor, apurarte a dejarte encontrar. Esta noche, si puedo, te voy a soñar otra vez.

How good it is to sleep!

2005-12-15T12:27:00.000-03:00

Today I woke up in such a good mood!! Last night I switched off my cell phone and went to sleep early and alone. Today I woke up smiling like a pedophile in a kindergarten swimming competition, had a shower singing opera and walked out of the house. As I strolled down the street, whistling, birds and little furry animals frolicked around me and rested on my shoulders. Strangers smiled at me and greeted me with warm packs on the back and shouts of “good morning, my sir!”. In the subway, pregnant women and war cripples gladly left me their seat. I got to the office walking past smiling beggars and dancing homeless children and sat down to a rich and frothy machine coffee. How beautiful is life when you sleep well!

COMPOSICION ESCOLAR DE UN ALUMNO DE EGB2. PUBLICADA POR EL DIARIO

2005-12-14T17:15:00.000-03:00

La maestra nos dio como tarea hacer una redacción con este título. Yo> > descubrí que la Justicia Social es la mejor ayuda para los pobres y> > permite a las personas vivir sin trabajar. No me resultó muy difícil> > por que es el caso de mi familia y otros vecinos.> > En casa estamos todos muy contentos, el único que está enojado es mi> > abuelo que protesta por que cree que asi no se levantará el país. El> > sale a cortar pasto en los otros barrios, limpia jardines y arregla bicicletas> > Dice que eso es ganarse la vida, pero mis padres se ríen y piensan que> > el está "fuera de onda".> > Antes vivíamos en la casa de mi abuelo, que es grande pero algo vieja.> > Papá se ocupaba de mecánico y mi mamá vivía quejándose, porque además> > de trabajar para su patrona, también tenía que lavar las ropas y las camisas engrasadas de papá.> > Mi hermana cocinaba, mi hermano era cadete y yo hacía los mandados.> > Siempre íbamos a la escuela porque mi abuelo le dijo a mi papá que si> > no nos mandaba, teníamos que irnos de su casa.> > Ocurrió que una tarde llegaron unas señoras que parecían maestras, pero> > no eran. Mi papá no quiso atenderlas y hablaron con mi mamá. Le dejaron> > unos papeles. Durante la cena mi mamá dijo que el tema era la Justicia> > Social y contó lo lindo que sería porque nos darían una vivienda nueva y gratis.> > Mi papá se rió y mi abuelo se quedó muy pensativo. Al final papá fue a firmar los papeles.> > ¡ Y era cierto! Cuando inauguraron el barrio nos fueron a buscar en un> > colectivo. Conocimos al Gobernador y otros altos funcionarios. La casita> > es increíble: tiene baño, cocina, canillas con agua y focos por todas> > partes. Aplaudimos tanto porque también dijeron que no tendríamos que> > pagar impuestos ni agua ni luz.> > Otro día volvieron las mujeres con más papales. Mi mamá se ocupó de> > sacar fotocopias de todos los documentos de la familia. Al tiempo las señoras> > le vinieron a mostrar la lista y le dijeron que tenía que ir a cobrar como> > Jefa de Hogar. También llegaron unos muchachos y le mostraron otra lista> > para ir a retirar las mercaderías de los galpones. Después mi papá se fue> > a una reunión del barrio y consiguieron un comedor donde vamos todos> > los chicos y también traemos una ollita a nombre de mi abuelo, pero el no> > sabe nada, que si no arma un lío bárbaro. Ayer inauguraron una sala para> > tener remedios gratis.> > Mi mamá está muy contenta, ya no tiene que ir a lavar la ropa y mi papá> > ya no le trae camisas engrasadas por que aceptó ser el "referente" del> > barrio y cobra un plan. Le prometieron que si ganamos la intendencia lo> > pasarán a "contrato seguro". Tiene que repartir los papeles, hacer las listas y> > ayudar en los actos. Mi hermano mayor se hizo piquetero, le dan ropa y le> >pagan doble cuando hace turno noche; cuando sea mayor de edad también le darán un plan.> > Mi hermana y yo cobramos la beca escolar, aunque este año fuimos poco a la> > escuela por los paros y por que faltamos por las manifestaciones.> > Sol mi abuelo no aceptó el beneficio de la Justicia Social y sigue viviendo solo> > en la casa vieja. Mi papá dice que es por que está "fuera de onda" y es un viejo amargado.> > Cuando sea algo mayor, voy a ser piquetero, después me gustaría ser> > "referente del barrio" y ayudar a los pobres para que todos gocen de la> > Justicia Social y no tengan que andar trabajando por unas miserables> > monedas, como dice mi papá.

Crack (my bones, not the drug)

2005-12-12T16:44:00.000-03:00

I have just come back form the office Chiropractic (one of the little perks they have supplied us with). The whole experience was quite strange. In a little office on the second floor there is a man in a white coat and with a funny accent (apparently he comes from Santiago del estero), a strange machine which reminded me of a medieval torture instrument and a funny smell of fear and surprise.
The man puts me on the machine and starts asking me thousands of questions one after the other. Every couple of questions, crack!, he twists your neck or back. After about five minutes (and three hundred questions) he was finished and let me leave, bewildered but relaxed.

El Tano Pensador

2005-12-12T11:41:00.000-03:00

I realised I have never put a photo of me so here goes...
I was messing around with nancy´s camera yesterday and she sent me this photo this morning.

Monday night at the cocco

2005-12-06T12:15:00.000-03:00

Last night was definitely a night worth writing about. Two friends of my cousins from Italy are in town and I have been officially told I have to make sure they have a good time. I met them last night and they informed me that what they really wanted was to go to a night club and get some girls. I, thus, decided to bring them to the Cocodrilo (see link).

We got to the nightclub around midnight and even though it was a Monday night the place was surprisingly full. I grabbed three good looking girls and invited them to our table. One was supposed to be mine and the other two were for the Italians. We spent an hour or so chatting, I took care of the “negotiations” and we were ready to head off home. It was then that, suddenly, one of the Italians informed us that he actually wasn’t in the mood and that he was going to go home. This meant that we were two blokes stuck with three girls.

Obviously I decide to sacrifice myself and decided to bring two girls home with me. Thus we set off, me a blonde and a brunette and arrived home a little later.
I won’t go in to details but I can tell you that the sight of two stunning girls in my mirror was very pleasant.

Got to the office this morning, exhausted but quite happy. All I have to do now is manage to survive several meetings and then I will be able to go home and rest.

It is the little things in life which make you smile and feel contented.

Field Day

2005-12-05T12:27:00.000-03:00

Well, I have managed to recuperate enough to manage to write about the Thursday so here goes…

My day started the instant my alarm started screaming at 5:30 in the bloody morning. I got up to shower and immediately regretted those beers the night before, but decided to soldier on and washed and dressed got to the office at 7 as planned to catch the buses that would bring us to the country club. Of course the same people who had made us promise not to be late informed us that the buses would leave at 8.

I got to Hurlingham (very Argentinean name!) at ten to nine and rushed to the football fields were I had foolishly agreed to play football the night before. What followed was a grave disgrace for myself, my country and football in general. I managed to last about twenty minutes (a couple of runs down the wing, a dirty foul and a missed shot) and then shattered in to a million wheezing pieces and was forced to sit down for a rest.

The county club was huge with golf courses, tennis courts and dozens of games and sports. I strolled around for a while saying hello to the 1,600 colleagues which had come (how many girls I had never seen before!). By eleven I was getting bored and so decided to take advantage of the open bar and ordered a rum and peach. This, I think, was my first mistake.

I kept drinking steadily until we were called for lunch in the main tent. The sight of one and a half thousand people sitting down to lunch was impressive but not as impressive as the huge amounts of wine and champagne put out for us. The firm had hired a famous Argentinean comedian which gave out prizes and made jokes but, seeing as I didn’t have the slightest idea who he was, I concentrated on putting a big dent in the wine stocks.

After lunch, I had planned to sit underneath a tree and sleep, but was informed that a famous rock band called kapanga would be playing and which actually proved to be really good. I found myself in the middle of about five hundred sweating colleagues going mad dancing out of control. Half an hour later I had lost my shirt, was soaked in champagne and realized I was screaming unknown Argentinean lyrics at the top of my voice.

The day continued thus, I spent the afternoon drinking rum and chasing pretty young secretaries. I foolishly forgot to put any cream on and avoided the shade so that by the end of the day not only was I stinking drunk, I had also a severe sun stroke.

I got home around ten ready to crawl in to bed but was interrupted by a phone call from Nancy who had just passed an exam and wanted to celebrate. I met her downstairs, we entered a bar and was forced to order more rum! Urgh. Don’t think I will be touching the stuff again any time soon!

Urgh

2005-12-02T13:35:00.000-03:00

My feet hurt, my legs hurt, my thighs hurt, my arms hurt, my face hurts, my hair hurts.
My muscles hurt, my skin hurts, my lungs hurt, my head hurts, me eyes hurt. Urgggh..

My little sister

2005-11-30T17:05:00.000-03:00

Seeing as this week I am submerged with work I will post a foto of my little sis so that you will forgive me for not writing. Tommorrow we have the annual company pic nic which should be a good accasion to write about funny stuff so, I promise that Friday will post something interesting!

Clarification

2005-11-30T11:17:00.000-03:00

Just thought I should point out that the previous post is not my work but was recieved via email.

As "party animal" points out:

excellent piece by Argentinean blogger Hernan Casciari... orsai.bitacoras.com by Party Animalpartyanimal2005.blogspot.com

Funny stuff in spanish

2005-11-29T16:27:00.000-03:00

La verdadera edad de los paises Una lectora sagaz me dice en el comentario 227 del articulo llamadoEspana,deci alpiste, que Argentina no es mejor ni peor queEspana, solo mas joven Me gusto esa teoria y entonces invente un truco para descubrir la edad de los paises basandome en el sistema perro.Desde chicos nos explicaron que para saber si un perro es joven oviejo habia que multiplicar su edad biologica por 7. Con los paises,entonces, hay que dividir su edad por 14 para saber sucorrespondencia humana. ?Confuso? En este articulo pongo algunosejemplos reveladores.Argentina nacio en 1816. Tiene ciento ochenta y nueve anos. Si lodividimos por 14, Argentina tiene trece anos y cuatro meses. O sea,esta en la edad del pavo. Argentina es rebelde, es pajera, no tienememoria, contesta sin pensar y esta llena de acne. Por eso le dicenel granero del mundo. Casi todos los paises de America Latina tienen la misma edad y,comopasa siempre en esos casos, hay pandillas. La pandilla del Mercosurson cuatro adolescentes que tienen un conjunto de rock. Ensayan enun garage: hacen mucho ruido y jamas sacaron un disco.Venezuela,que ya tiene tetitas, esta a punto de unirse para hacer los coros.En realidad quiere coger con Brasil, que tiene catorce y la porongagrande. Son chicos; un dia van a crecer.Mexico tambien es adolescente, pero con ascendente indio. Por esose rie poco y no fuma inofensivo porro como el resto de sus amiguitos.Fuma peyote y se junta con Estados Unidos, que es un retrasadomental de 17 que se dedica a matar a chicos hambrientos de seisanitos en otros continentes. En el otro extremo, por ejemplo, esta la China milenaria: sidividimos sus 1.200 anos entre 14, nos da una senora de ochenta ycinco, conservadora, con olor a pis de gato, que se la pasacomiendo arroz porque no tiene para comprarse la dentadura postiza. Tiene un nieto de ocho, Taiwan, que le hace la vida imposible. Estadivorciada hace rato de Japon, que es un viejo cascarrabias al quetodavia se le para la chota. Japon se junto con Filipinas, que esjovencita, es boluda y siempre esta dispuesta a cualquier aberraciona cambio de dinero. Despues estan los paises que acaban de cumplir la mayoria de edad ysalen a pasear en el BMW del padre. Por ejemplo Australia y Canada.Estos son tipicos paises que crecieron al amparo papa Inglaterra yde mama Francia, con una educacion estricta y concheta, y ahora sehacen los locos. Australia es una pendeja de 18 anos y dos meses quehace topless y coge con Sudafrica; Canada es un chico gay emancipado que en cualquier momento adopta al bebe Groenlandia y forman una de estas familias alternativas que estan de moda.Francia es una separada de 36 anos, mas puta que las gallinas, peromuy respetada en el ambito profesional. Es amante esporadica deAlemania, un camionero rico que esta casado con Austria. Austriasabe que es cornuda,pero no le importa. Francia tiene un hijo,Monaco, que tiene seis anos y va camino de ser puto o bailarin, olas dos cosas.Italia es viuda desde hace mucho tiempo. Vive cuidando a San Marinoy a Vaticano, dos hijos catolicos identicos a los mellizos de losFlanders. Italia estuvo casada en segundas nupcias con Alemaniaduraron poco: tuvieron a Suiza) pero ahora no quiere saber nadacon los hombres. A Italia le gustaria ser una mujer como Belgica,abogada, independiente, que usa pantalon y habla de tu a tu depolitica con los hombres. (Belgica tambien fantasea a veces consaber preparar spaghettis.)Espana es la mujer mas linda de Europa (posiblemente Francia lehaga sombra, pero pierde en espontaneidad por usar tanto perfume).Espana anda mucho en tetas y va casi siempre borracha. Generalmente se deja coger por Inglaterra y despues hace la denuncia. Espana tiene hijos por todas partes (casi todos de trece anos) que viven lejos. Los quiere mucho, pero le molesta que los hijos, cuando tienen hambre, pasen alguna temporada en su casa y le abran la heladera.Otro que tiene hijos desperdigados es Inglaterra. Gran Bretana saleen barco a la noche, se culea pendejas y a los nueve meses apareceuna isla nueva en alguna parte del mundo. Pero no se desentiende:en general las islas vivien con la madre, pero Inglaterra les da decomer. Escocia e Irlanda, los hermanos de Inglaterra que viven enel piso de arriba, se pasan la vida borrachos, y ni siquiera sabenjugar al futbol. Son la verguenza de la familia.Suecia y Noruega son dos lesbianas de 39, casi 40, que estan buenasde cuerpo a pesar de la edad y no le dan bola a nadie. Cogen ylaburan: son licenciadas en algo. A veces hacen trio con Holanda(cuando necesitan porro), y a veces le histeriquean a Finlandia,que es un tipo de 30 anos medio androgino que vive solo en un atico sin amueblar, y se la pasa hablando por el movil con Corea.Corea (la del sur) vive pendiente de su hermana esquizoide. Sonmellizas,pero la del norte tomo liquido amniotico cuando salio delutero y quedo estupida. Se paso la infancia usando pistolas yahora,que vive sola, es capaz de cualquier cosa. Estados Unidos, elretrasadito de 17, la vigila mucho, no por miedo, sino porquequiere sus pistolas.Israel es un intelectual de sesenta y dos anos que tuvo una vida demierda. Hace unos anos, el camionero Alemania (que iba por la rutamientras Austria le chupaba la pija) no vio que pasaba Israel y selo llevo por delante.Desde ese dia, Israel se puso como loco. Ahora, en vez de leerlibros, se la pasa en la terraza tirandole cascotes a Palestina,quees una chica que esta lavando la ropa en la casa de al lado.Iran e Irak eran dos primos de 16 que robaban motos y vendian losrepuestos, hasta que un dia le robaron un respuesto a la motonetade Estados Unidos, y se les acabo el negocio. Ahora se estan comiendo los mocos. El mundo estaba bien asi, es decir, como estaba. Hasta que un diaRusia se junto (sin casarse) con la Perestroika y tuvieron docena ymedia de hijos.Todos raros, algunos mogolicos,otros esquizofrenicos. Hace una semana, y gracias a un despelote con tiros y muertos, loshabitantes serios del mundo descubrimos que hay un pais que sellamaKabardino-Balkaria. Un pais con bandera, presidente, himno, flora, fauna,?y hasta gente! A mi me da un poco de miedo que nos aparezcan paises de corta edad, asi, de repente. Que nos enteremos de costado, y que inclusotengamos que ponercara de que ya sabiamos, para no quedar comoignorantes. ?Por que siguen naciendo paises nuevos -me pregunto yo- si los que hay todavia no funcionan?

Stupid, humid heat

2005-11-28T16:55:00.000-03:00

I cant be bothered to write anything today. The hot, humid, air is killing me. I cant breathe, I cant think. All I can hope is that tonight the rain will sweep away this dreadful heat

Alopecia areata

2005-11-24T14:05:00.000-03:00

Yesterday I was talking to a friend and we started chatting about crying. He told me that at times, when he is really tired and sad, he cries. I can’t really say this surprised me as I know most men cry at times but I couldn’t really relate. The last time I cried I was thirteen and I can remember it as though it was yesterday. I remember deciding that I would never cry again.

As a child I had a brief experience with a disease called alopecia. Basically what happens, at least in my case, was that come autumn my hair would start falling off in little tufts until it was all gone. By spring time my hair would start growing back. In other words nature mistook me for a deciduous tree!

This disease hit me more or less when I was six and lasted several years. I would get to the end of summer and start worrying about my hair falling off. Everyday I would pick off a few hairs off my pillow until they became tufts and then chunks. Every year I would get to a point where it was so ugly that I would grab a razor and simply shave it all off. Then one autumn, when I was eleven, my hair did not fall off. All winter I kept my hair. The next year was the same, the one after as well. I thought that it had all finished and then, suddenly, one autumn it started falling again. I remember sitting in the bathroom, my father standing up behind me cutting my hair.

I have this memory of watching myself in the mirror. I stare at the strange child as he tries not to cry, my father standing behind him. I see his pitch black hair falling gently passing his face, rebounding on his chest and slowly drifting to the floor. I see more and more locks falling until his head remains bare. I sit and stare at the weeping child whose head is now a perfect dome, his children’s eyes contrasting sharply with the shiny skin above. I look past the child and stare at my father’s reflection. He stands razor in hand, his eyes betraying the sadness he feels. I try to recollect what I said at the time yet I fail. All I remember is this mute scene played out in an old rusty mirror. No emotions, no sensations, no thoughts

What I do remember is that what made me sad wasn’t really losing my hair but the fact that my father’s face seemed so worried and sad. I remember feeling so bloody sorry for him, as though every one of my tears was stabbing him in the heart. I remember that I stopped crying, dried my tears and promised myself never to cry again. Up until today I have yet not broken my promise.

The writer

2005-11-23T16:21:00.000-03:00

The writer sits at his desk, smoking. The swirls of cigarette smoke rise and create pictures and patterns in the stale air of his bedroom. The writer is not a beautiful man. His hair is matted and oily. His fingers stained and crooked. His long neck ends in a narrow chin, his cheeks are pockmarked and hollow. Deep worried furrows line his beady eyes

The writer is not an athletic man. His skinny legs are hairless and white. His rachitic chests heaves as he concentrates. Long pale arms sprout from his sleeveless shirt.

The writer sits in his bedroom and writes. His room is a small room, cramped and scarcely furnished. The writer does not notice how spartan his room is, all he cares about are his pen and the endless reams of white paper which he consumes.

The writer sits and dreams, putting to paper all he thinks. His beautiful supple fingers hold his pen with love and with it he strokes the brilliant white paper. With passion he fills reams with tidy swirling letters, endless and powerful. His eyes light up with a quasi religious gleam and he carries on writing. His memories, his dreams, his fears fill the empty pages and start to live.

The writer is not an average person. Insanity drenches his spirit in waves. The horror and beauty of the world touch him, stroking his brain with icy fingers. His demons scream, his angels sing, his monsters howl and yet by writing he chains them up and makes them less real.

The writer is not a good looking man, the writer is not an athletic man, the writer is not an average man, the writer is not a happy man. And yet the writer writes and what he writes is as beautiful and strong as any man.

I do not beleive in eternity

2005-11-22T17:51:00.000-03:00

I do not believe in god. I do not believe in life after death. I do not believe there is a purpose to life, which is as irrelevant as it is meaningless. I do not believe in anything.

I believe only in the swirling patterns that rack my brain, in the swirling thoughts which haunt me.

Indian food and a blowjob

2005-11-22T14:58:00.000-03:00

Yesterday was a strange day indeed, though certainly pleasurable. I left the office quite late and met my father for dinner. We decided to try an Indian restaurant (Bengal on Juncal) and when we got there it was totally empty. We sat down and almost immediately realized why it was so empty. The air conditioning had broken down and it was a warmish fifty degrees Celsius inside. We ordered starters, chicken curry and lamb. Every plate that was brought to us was ever hotter and spicier. As I ate I watched my father. His red face was sweating profusely, shiny beads of sweat forming on his forehead. As he kept eating the beads would swell and turn in to drops which would slide down his nose, throwing themselves off like lemmings. I couldn’t see my own face but considering that hot flushes that were ravaging me worse than a menopausal Congolese woman, I must have been sweating quite generously as well. We finished eating and after wishing my father good night, I headed home and called Nancy.

She came over around eleven and we watched a bit of TV. By the time we got bored of TV and decided to go to the bed, I was feeling quite horny indeed! Unfortunately, Nancy told me, to my great dismay that she was having her period and that thus we couldn’t have sex. Thankfully, I promptly remembered the article about fellatio and, extremely worried about her health, decided to convince her to try. The first word hadn’t yet left my mouth when she, spontaneously, decided to take matter in her own hands (actually hands is not the right word!). I lied there watching her and myself in the mirror and felt surprisingly satisfied. Sometimes it is the little things in life which put you in a good mood.

Fabrizio de André

2005-11-22T12:15:00.000-03:00

Yesterday I was given as a gift a CD of an old Italian songwriter I used to love as a child. Here is a good translation of one of his songs in to Spanish which I found recently. He is definitely one of the greatest poets / singers of the last century.

La guerra de Piero

Duermes sepultado en un campo de trigo,
no es la rosa no es el tulipán
los que te velan en la sombra de las zanjas
solamente son mil amapolas rojas.

A lo largo de las riveras de mi torrente
quiero que desciendan los lucios plateados,
no más los cadáveres de soldados
llevados en brazos de la corriente.

Así decías y era invierno
y como los demás hacia el infierno
te vas triste como quien debe
el viento te escupa en la cara la nieve.

Párate Piero, párate ahora,
deja que el viento te pase un poco encima,
de los hombres muertos en batalla tu llevas la voz,
quién dio la vida recibió a cambio una cruz .

Pero tu no lo oíste y el tiempo pasaba,
con las estaciones al paso de giava
y llegaste a cruzar la frontera
un hermoso día de primavera.

Y mientras marchabas con el alma en los hombros
viste un hombre en el fondo del valle
que tenia tu mismo,idéntico,humor
solamente el uniforme de otro color.

Dispárale Piero, dispárale ahora,
y después de un golpe dispárale otra vez,
hasta que tu no lo veras exánime
caer en tierra a cubrir su sangre.

Y si disparo en la frente o en el corazón
solamente el tiempo tendrá para morir,
pero el tiempo a mi quedara para ver
ver los ojos de un hombre que muere.

Y mientras le prestas tu atención
él se da la vuelta, te ve y tiene miedo
y abrazada la artillería
no te devuelve la gentileza.

Caíste en tierra sin un lamento
y te diste la cuenta en un solo momento
que el tiempo no te habría bastado
para pedir perdón por cada pecado,
caíste al suelo sin un lamento
y te diste la cuenta en un solo momento
de que tu vida terminaba en ese día
y no habría sido retorno.

Ninetta mia, morir en mayo,
necesita mucho, demasiado coraje,
Ninetta bella, directo al Infierno
habría preferido irme in Invierno.

Y mientras el trigo te escuchaba
entre las manos apretabas el fusil,
entre la boca apretabas palabras
demasiado heladas para derretirse al sol.

Duermes sepultado en un campo de trigo,
no es la rosa no es el tulipán
los que te velan en la sombra de los hoyos
solamente son mil amapolas rojas.

CNN article on fellatio

2005-11-18T13:02:00.000-03:00

Study: Fellatio may significantly decrease the risk of breast cancer in women

Thursday, October 2, 2003 Posted: 9:19 AM EDT (1319 GMT)

(AP) -- Women who perform the act of fellatio and swallow semen on a regular basis, one to two
times a week, may reduce their risk of breast cancer by up to 40 percent, a North Carolina State
University study found.
Doctors had never suspected a link between the act of fellatio and breast cancer, but new research being performed at North Carolina State University is starting to suggest that there could be an important link between the two.
In a study of over 15,000 women suspected of having performed regular
fellatio and swallowed the ejaculatory fluid, over the past ten years, the researchers
found that those actually having performed the act regularly, one to two times a week,
had a lower occurance of breast cancer than those who had not. There was no increased risk, however, for those who did not regularly perform. "I think it removes the last shade of doubt
that fellatio is actually a healthy act," said Dr. A.J. Kramer of Johns Hopkins School
of Medicine, who was not involved in the research. "I am surprised by these
findings, but am also excited that the researchers may have discovered a
relatively easy way to lower the occurance of breast cancer in women."
The University researchers stressed that, though breast cancer is relatively
uncommon, any steps taken to reduce the risk would be a wise decision.
"Only with regular occurance will your chances be reduced, so I encourage all
women out there to make fellatio an important part of their daily routine," said
Dr. Helena Shifteer, one of the researchers at the University. "Since the
emergence of the research, I try to fellate at least once every other night to reduce
my chances."

Pax Americana

2005-11-17T18:52:00.000-03:00

Haiku Poems

2005-11-17T18:32:00.000-03:00

Four Haiku Poems (can you spot which are mine?)

Pressing Sushi;

After a while,

A lonely feeling

In my empty house
The olives need harvesting;
Yet I am still here

A sudden shower falls -

and naked I am riding

on a naked horse!

Rain slides down my face
Mixing with two salty tears -
A bird starts singing

P.s haiku is a Japanese form of poetry consisiting of three lines consisting of 5 /7 / 5 syllabuls

Birthday

2005-11-16T12:06:00.000-03:00

Well, today I started my second quarter of a century. It is strange how fast time passes. It seems only yesterday that I left home as an innocent eighteen year old.

So far my birthday has been particularly good. Nancy came over last night and at midnight she surprised me by taking out presents (two!) and a bottle of champagne. To be honest, I was actually, quite moved. The last time I got a birthday present was when I was eighteen and I had kind of got used to my birthdays passing by without too much fuss.

We, then, proceeded to put on an involuntary red light show for my neighbors (I really must remember to close those bloody curtains) and, in the end, Nancy decided to spend the night.

I woke up this morning tired but happy and left for work. At the office everyone was also extremely nice and will be going to lunch with all the “chicos” in a while

So far this had been a particularly good birthday. Lets hope the day continues as it has started.

A little warmth

2005-11-15T16:50:00.000-03:00

Just got off the phone with Nancy. She is going to class until ten and then she will come over to “watch a movie”. It seems strange but I seem to get along with her very well even though I have known her so little. I guess the fact that she is a few years older (she is 28) helps a lot. I have always had a better feeling with slightly more mature girls. I think it probably has to do with the fact that they are already bored of all the little games and lies which younger girls are so fond of.
It feels quite nice having someone who wants to see you, someone for whom your happiness is actually important. Furthermore tomorrow is my birthday and it would be nice having someone who cares. I was actually thinking today that the last time I got a birthday present I was eighteen and still living at home!

Moving on

2005-11-15T14:59:00.000-03:00

Slowly, awkwardly, gently
I try to forget
Hopefully, softly, passionately
I try to forgive
Angrily, desperately, savagely
I try to move on

And yet
It is so difficult

New Horizons

2005-11-14T11:56:00.000-03:00

Well, this weekend proved to be quite successful. On Saturday night I decided that, seeing as the whole Cristela thing is dead, I had better start putting some effort in to getting girls in to bed again. I called an Italian girl who is a friend and a girl I met on msn who seemed quite nice and we decided to go for dinner.
The girl, Nancy, proved to be quite cute and very nice. An Argentinean but with English parents, she looked very northern, with clear blue eyes and a freckled smile.
After dinner we went to a bar in Recoleta and chatted about bullshit for a while. After a while the Italian girl’s neighbor, an Argentinean, joined us.
By two o’clock the Italian was quite tired and thus her and the neighbor left and went home, which left me and Nancy.
I decided to kiss her and before I knew it we were going strong. Seeing as the bar was a very public place I asked her if she wanted to come back to my house, which she refused. I asked again and this time she accepted.
In the end she left my place around seven o’clock in the morning. The sun was out and birds were singing and I was a little closer to forgetting about Cristela.
I wouldn’t even mind seeing Nancy again sometime this week.

Italians and Politics

2005-11-11T14:25:00.000-03:00

In Italy, everything is political. So much so that by asking a few simple questions an Italian will know what political orientation another has. Italian Schools, night clubs and football teams are all either right wing or left wing. Normally in football each city has two teams, one called in the same way as the city which is historically working class and another which tends to be more right wing (thus Roma, Milan, Genoa, Torino etc are left wing and Juve, Inter, Lazio, Sampdoria etc are right wing). Music, obviously, is also very politicized. One example is the fuss made about a recent pop song called “Camisa Negra” (the black shirts were Mussolini’s bully boys) which is greeted by boos or fascist salutes in many Italian clubs. Below is a typical left wing song with an approximate English translation (which, however, obviously doesn’t rhyme).

Alle volte mi ritrovo con la testa fra le mani
e penso, penso e rifletto: in Italia c’è un conflitto
una guerra che fa più di mille morti all’anno
tra lavoro e mala sanità, e dimmi tu
se questa qua non è pulizia etnica cos’è come si chiama?
Quando uno che c’ha i soldi può avere tutto
e uno che ne ha di meno non ha diritto
nemmeno a un letto in un ospedale quando sta male e se vuol farsi curare deve pagare
solo che coi soldi che gli danno quelli del lavoro interinale
c’è l’affitto da pagare, il bambino da mantenere
e cosa cazzo vuoi pagare un dottore
quando non sai nemmeno se tra due mesi
c’ avrai ancora un fottuto lavoro
perché il lavoro interinale non è altro che
una prestazione occasionale di lavoro manuale
non qualificato, esattamente il caso in cui
il rischio d’incidente sul lavoro è quintuplicato
e tutto questo non è capitato
ma è stato pensato, progettato e realizzato
dal padronato in combutta con l’apparato decisionale dello stato
per il quale la vita di un proletario non vale non dico niente
ma sicuramente non vale il costo di un’assunzione regolare
con tanto di corso di formazione professionale;
è evidente il disegno criminale o no?
o sono io che sono pazzo?

Sometimes I find myself with my head in my hands
And I think, I sit and think: in Italy there is a conflict
A war that causes more than a thousand deaths a year
Between work and public health, you tell me
If this is not ethnic cleansing
Then what is it?
When one who has money can have anything
And one who has none doesn’t even have the right
To have a bed in a hospital when he is ill
And if he wants help he must pay
Except that with the money he gets from his part time job
There is the rent to pay, the baby to feed
And how the fuck are you going to pay a doctor
When you don’t even know if in two months
You will still have a fucking job
Because part time work is nothing but
An occasional offer of un-trained manual work
Exactly the scenario in which
The risk of a workplace accident is five times higher
And all this didn’t just happen
But it was thought out, planned and carried out
From the owners together with the state
For whom the life of a proletariat isn’t exactly worth nothing
But surely it is not worth the cost of a regular hiring
And a professional formation course
Is the criminal intent evident or not?
Or am I simply crazy?

I nearly died last night

2005-11-11T13:22:00.000-03:00

I nearly died last night.

It was just past eight in the evening and I was walking around Recoletta. Molten head lights and chatting voices mixed in the springtime air like streams. Scents glided past like currents: the hungry smell of roasting meat, the inviting perfume of giggling girls, the acrid stench of a pool of vomit. I strolled the cobbled streets aimlessly, watching the crowds. Next to me rose the cemetery’s brick wall, straight and towering. Suddenly I half see something move above me and look up in surprise. I am just in time to see a brick drop through the sky, graze the point of my nose and smash on to the floor in an explosion of shards. I stare at the several kilos of brick pieces littering the street and realize that if it had hit me; bits of my brain would be mixed with the debris and my blood would be staining an Argentinean street.

Then again, if the brick had actually hit me, I would surely not even have ever known.

Life is strange in that way. One worries about not smoking, about eating healthily, about not going in dangerous places (well, I don’t but some people do..), and then you find your life truncated by a wobbly brick!

Two drunken poems

2005-11-10T17:35:00.000-03:00

Searching for a taxi

Walking the humid streets
Desperately searching
Dragging my tired legs forward
My shirt sticks to my back
My suit heavy and coarse
I turn, hopeful and expectant
But the headlights roar past
Roaming the night lit streets
No taxi in sight

Ode to a pint of beer

Golden liquid, bubbles rising gently
A drop slides down the misty side
My lips kiss the soft white foam
And I swallow a first bitter gulp
I swallow again and the golden brew
Slides down my parched throat
Soothing and cold, filling and sweet
It hits my gut like a velvet punch
Expanding my throat in icy delight
I put it down and wait
Another gulp, then two
Another pause, another sip
Until all that remains is an empty glass

Is it love or Streptoccocus?

2005-11-10T13:16:00.000-03:00

The last ten days have been particular to say the least. It all started mid way through last week and finally came to an end today. Like usual I was particularly stressed and frustrated trying to chase down Cristela (which was having none of it) and kept feeling very tired and miserable. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t work. I kept telling myself that love is such a bitter and sadist bitch and was feeling sorry for myself in a way that only a melodramatic love-struck imbecile can feel. Every day I kept feeling worse and worse.
Some colleagues at the office convinced me, on Monday, to go see a doctor so pessimistic and down trodden I left for the hospital. I spent the whole afternoon there while they took blood samples and carried out various tests. I was convinced that the doctor was going to tell me it was simply stress and send me home, instead I was informed by a smiling doctor that I had a severe bacterial infection and that he couldn’t believe I was walking around. He prescribed antibiotics and three full days rest.
Today got back in to the office and felt great. What I thought was love turned out to be simply an invasion of streptococcus! I guess sometimes I should forget my rampant melodrama and remember to keep a touch of realism.
Good news is that I have lost five kilos in ten days (could try marketing streptococcus based pills for the morbidly obese) and that I have definitely decided to abandon the whole Cristela thing.
At least, I am, once again, healthy, hungry and free!

Latest Ladies kitchen Accesory

2005-11-03T16:29:00.000-03:00

CIA torture camps in Eastern Europe

2005-11-03T12:39:00.000-03:00

Today we received the happy news that the CIA has set up torture camps in eastern Europe were they can keep Muslim prisoners without worrying about international law. Several newspapers carried this item, including this article in the Guardian and one on the Italian daily, Il Corriere.
The European commission is set to investigate these claims that the CIA is holding al-Qaida captives at Soviet era compounds in Eastern Europe seeing as the secret jails would violate European human rights law prohibiting unlawful detention.
Poland and Romania are thought the most likely locations in Europe while Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria have denied involvement. The Czech interior minister, Frantiszek Bublan, said the US had approached Prague to build a camp but the request was turned down.
As usual I am not even surprised by how barbaric and immoral US foreign policy has become nor by how weak and degrading our foreign policy is

An October day - Times Square, Hong Kong

2005-11-03T12:33:00.000-03:00

The rays of sun languidly drift down through the hazy clouds and fall upon the exposed surfaces of Times Square like a blanket of dust gently settling after a commotion. These rays no longer carry the menace of strangling heat. No longer do they strike with untold hate the panting bodies of businessmen wrapped in a stifling cocoon of gray and blue. Yet, even now, as October turns into November, they do not totally forget their memories of scorched earth and sweating flesh. They strike the ground languidly and bounce off seemingly disinterested in the whole affair.
The large Sony made screen, which towers over the square keeps showing images of the first Chinese space mission over and over again. An incessant set of images; the rocket blasting away, red communist flags proudly fluttering and a beaming president chase themselves on and off the screen. There is no sound. The cheering masses on screen seemingly muted by the power of broadcast. The real masses, bored by this endless repetition, pass by unperturbed without even glancing at the screen.
An old lady pushes me to get past and this jolts me. I stop gazing at the screen and instead start following this unlikely assailant with my eyes. She is a typical Hong Kong middle-aged woman. Minute but seemingly made of gnarled wood, sandpapered to a surprising smoothness, her light mahogany skin appears anything but creased. I get pushed aside again by the moving crowd and this time I turn around clamping down a rising sense of irritation and find myself suddenly staring straight in to the eyes of a pumpkin. It takes me a second to understand what I am seeing and yet another second to recover from my surprise. I take a step back and silently look at the five foot pumpkin man in front of me. I glance around and spy several more of these walking visions. My head starts to throb, I desperately want to close my eyes and fall asleep.

Puppy love

2005-11-02T17:11:00.000-03:00

A couple of words, one sweet comment, a stolen glance
A couple of questions, a sudden laugh, a squeal of delight
It is the little things which make me crave for you
Stupid insignificant details which to me are joy
I wait like a puppy for any sign of recognition
To then explode in to a festival of ecstatic bliss

A busy no, one bad joke, a stolen glare
A couple of questions, a sudden frown, a sigh of boredom
It is the little things which make me crave you
Petty, irrelevant things which to me are pain
I wait like a puppy for a sign of love
To then deflate in to a tragedy of dejection

Monkey and a steam bath

2005-11-02T16:33:00.000-03:00

For the series, Things which you should do..... monkey takes a steam bath

A train carriage in China

2005-11-01T15:03:00.000-03:00

Sometimes it is the strangest things which make you feel as though you fit in. I remember an instance when I used to live in China which describes what I mean. A (Chinese) friend and I decided to take advantage of the long weekend and travel to the southern city of Nanjing for a touch of sight seeing. Unfortunately we decide to go quite late and by the time we bought the tickets the only ones left were in the standing up compartment. This compartment is actually quite similar to a cattle container and is packed with an incredible amount of people. It is basically like a rush hour metro train except that you travel thus for several hours.
So, I get on the train a couple of minutes early, push my way towards a corner and look around. The first thing I notice is that I am totally surrounded by Chinese farmers; I am the only white person in the whole carriage. The second thing I notice is that every single person is staring at me in total silence. Actually staring is not the right word, glaring at me would be better. Everyone is looking at me as though I am some sort of monster.
After several minutes of this psychological stand off, I watch a little child walk up to me, point and say the Chinese word for American. The mother hastily grabs him and starts dragging him away and so I decide to use an ace. I manage to say, in a very barbaric Chinese: “I am not American. I am a European. I spit on America!”. As soon as the words leave my mouth a complete silence descends upon the assembled passengers. Every single one of them stares at me and I can tell they are trying to work out what the hell the foreign devil has just said in their heads.
Then, suddenly, the whole carriage, starts applauding. I am a bit frightened by the site of three hundred farmers suddenly erupt and start clapping their hands and cheering but I smile sheepishly at them. People start smacking me on the back and shaking my hand as though I was some sort of celebrity. The mother even lets her child come and play with me (well actually he was trying to pull my beard but fair enough) and people offer me drinks and un-identifiable bits of food. I, thus spent, three hours in a packed train, surrounded by beaming farmers, trying to swallow strange local culinary rarities instead of skulking in corner too scared to move.

Thing you should not be doing

2005-10-31T15:35:00.000-03:00

For the series, Things you should probably not be doing....... feed the crocs

Pirates and flying hair

2005-10-31T15:31:00.000-03:00

To be honest not much in the mood for writing. Not much in the mood for anything recently. Can’t work, can’t eat, can’t sleep. Have thrown myself in to a pseudo catatonic state in which I don’t care about anything. Even two normally hysterical things today didn’t really make me feel any better.
First of all I saw an old man today loose his wig. He walked incautiously underneath the train’s air-vent and his hair just flew off and skidded to a stop scant meters from my foot. I was feeling so apathetic that I didn’t even laugh at him.
Then I get to the office and am greeted by my boss in a pirate outfit. Well, he didn’t actually have a wooden leg and a parrot on his shoulder. He was, however, sporting a large patch on his left eye. Apparently he had a little accident involving his wife, a fork, and a chair which nearly caused him to loose his eye. On Friday, tired and distracted he sat down to dinner too quickly and got stabbed by his wife who was walking past with a fork in her hand. I must admit that the mental image of my boss running around in circles, screaming hysterically and with a fork sticking out of his eye, did make me briefly smile. However, scant minutes later I had already stopped laughing while normally I would have had to have a quit lie down just so as to stop laughing.

Evolutionary mystery

2005-10-28T15:11:00.000-03:00

Seeing as this stupid site is not letting me upload any photos anymore I will leave you with an evolutionary question I have never manage to figure out: Why is yawning contagious? In what evolutionary context did it develop?

A definition of identity

2005-10-28T14:35:00.000-03:00

One can divide, in my opinion, Identity in two distinct categories: inherent traits and learned, or acquired, moral and psychological “beliefs”. First and foremost, given the fact that every baby is unique and clearly distinct to all other babies, it is reasonable to presume that any event this baby will experience will be interpreted in a unique way. While every child bitten by a dog will pull back his hand in pain, not all will develop a lasting fear of dogs. Our DNA, our own, distinct, physical and mental characteristics will shape all thought and emotion we can experience. We can not sense ultrasounds like dolphins, we can barely sense smell, we are inevitably trapped by our senses and cognitive process in forming a version of reality we can comprehend. This is true not only in inter-species comparisons but even amongst individual humans. Even in babies can one see differences in behaviour, different fascinations, different needs, different ways of reacting to events. From the second we are born there is already a framework of limitations which our cognitive process has to work with. It is not anything in the mind, yet, which differs but the mind in itself.

The second aspect of personality, which is as important as the first, does not share its static nature. If one considers the former as symbolising a container, this second category represents all that goes in it. Every single event, every thought or emotion, every impulse that passes through our brain shapes identity. At birth, Identity looses its static nature and is expanded by a continuous and random accumulation of events. We develop tastes and opinions encouraged by past experiences. We develop passions and fears due to events and emotions we encounter. We develop a personality based on the totality of events we experience and of the reaction that follows them. These acquired truths are fundamental in shaping what we call personality. The initially empty container of our mind gets gradually filled with information that allows us, forces us, to continually re-evaluate our beliefs, our emotions. We develop preconceptions and moral obligations which affect our reaction to any given event, we slowly construct an identity which shapes all we do, all we feel.

This gathering of information is predominantly active when we are young. As we age our mind becomes less receptive to change and our identity gradually becomes more static, it is harder for events to dramatically alter our way of thinking. This concept is portrayed effectively in many novels of which one stands out. In Milan Kundera’s work, “ The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, the author uses a musical comparison to illustrate this concept beautifully:

“ While people are fairly young and the musical composition of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and exchange motifs, but if they meet when they are older.. their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them.”

Even though age weakens our ability to shape our identity, it never really becomes totally static. Even when we are old and our personality is well defined we can still experience events which, if strong enough, can cause us to dramatically shift our identity. We are continuously in danger of suddenly realising that all we believed no longer rings true, we are forever liable to see all our convictions destroyed by a single, revealing thought.

Mischevious demons

2005-10-26T11:07:00.000-03:00

I woke up with the strange feeling that something horrible is going to happen to me today. Something so horrible and contorted that it will leave me gasping for breath, shocked and hurt. I keep catching myself glancing nervously behind my back. I keep wincing every time someone speaks to me or asks me a question. I feel as though I have a host of chuckling demons on my shoulders, a crowd of sniggering ghosts crawling up my back. They know what is going to happen and it makes them joyful and mischievous. The fact that I haven’t the slightest clue makes it even more deliciously amusing for them. All I am hoping for now is that whatever happens, it happens soon so that at least this unpleasant sensation leaves me alone.

Tommy and the Yanks

2005-10-26T10:40:00.000-03:00

I remember Tommy telling me, as a teenager, that he would have liked to die on a rainy day. He said he would have felt better leaving the world if the day was wet and cold. In the end, they killed him on such a beautiful April morning, on the first real day of spring. It is all I remember thinking while I watched, mesmerized, as his head slowly exploded, droplets of blood taking flight like a flock of startled birds. It is all I remember thinking, while he keeled over as though in slow motion. It is all I remember thinking as he lay in my arms, dead yet still warm, gone yet still familiar. He would have liked to die on a rainy day.Once I got home, it took me a while to clean the dried blood which had caked to my skin. The clothes I was wearing I had to throw away as they were beyond recovery. I would have never imagined how much blood could rush forth from a human body. To me, the flow of blood seemed endless, a majestic crimson river which streamed forth from unknown depths. Of course I was not able to do anything about Tommy’s lifeless body. I had to leave it there on the cobbled street like carrion left to the birds. I am sure the Americans will take care of it. They will dump it in one of the many communal graves that seem to be cropping up like mushrooms recently. They will take my best friends body and throw it in a nameless pit next to thousands of other fellow Europeans they have slaughtered since the invasion began exactly six months ago.

Early morning cheek

2005-10-25T11:36:00.000-03:00

Today woke up and, like usual, shocked the family which lives across the street. From their balcony they can see straight in to my house and so far I have surprised them by walking out of the shower naked several times, by having sex in plain site once and by dancing drunkenly and lewdly all by myself on one occasion. This morning was a classic, naked out of the shower episode. I strolled butt naked and dripping towards my window, lifted my eyes and smiled at the assembled family staring at me in horror. Three generations of neighbors were given an early morning show of full frontal nudity. These are the kind of mornings that make you walk out of the house happy and fulfilled!

Another day, another subte catastrophe

2005-10-21T11:26:00.000-03:00

Last night I left the office a little late and, like usual, took the subte to get back home. Strangely it was relatively empty and even managed to find a seat. I am sitting quietly reading the evening paper when I notice the girl sitting next to me, look up and move as though to get up for someone. I glance up and see a heavily pregnant woman heading towards us. I put my hand on the girl’s arm and tell her not too worry, that I will get up and leave the woman my seat. I look at the woman, smile and ask her if she would like my place. She looks at me a bit puzzled so I explain that seeing as she is pregnant I would be more than happy to leave her my seat. The woman gives me a killer look and starts shouting at me and insulting me. She asks me, screaming, how dare I think she is pregnant! A teenager next to me starts laughing so hard that he has difficulty breathing, the rest of the passengers avoid my glance and look embarrassed. Turns out the pregnant woman is actually just fat! Hehe. Embarrassed and fearful I get off the train a station early and walk home.

A dangerous game

2005-10-20T20:18:00.000-03:00

I have started talking to Cristela again. I have swallowed my pride and dignity and have approached her again. The last few days I have spent hours chatting to her on messenger, loosing myself once again to her spell. I know it might be a big mistake, I understand that I will probably get hurt once again but I cannot stop myself. The thing is that I am totally fascinated. She is like a small localized hurricane, deadly and destructive but beautiful and amazing.
It had been years since I had experienced such strong feelings for a person or, for that matter, for anything. I had locked myself up in my armor of indifference and sarcasm, and had slowly stopped caring about anything. When I talk to Cristela I feel alive. I feel as though my veins are flowing with fire, as though electricity was sparkling off my bare skin.
The way I see it is that the worst that can happen is that she will end up tearing my heart out and smashing it in to a million pieces. I will scream, insult the world and curse my stupidity. The pain will claw at my soul like a million fangs, shredding it to bloody strips. And yet, with time the pain will subside, the anger will loose its edge, the anguish will disappear. On the other hand, if I do nothing, the boredom will make me every day ever more cynical. The grey and useless hours will slowly wear me down and I will find myself frustrated and unhappy with nothing to look forward to.
Furthermore, I believe that deep down she feels something strong for me too. She is scared and weary and maybe even she does not realize it yet but I can see in her eyes that there is something. I see it in the way she looks at me, in the things she says, in the questions she asks. She is like an impenetrable fortress, and I feel like a foolhardy knight madly storming her walls. I am willing to risk pain and torture as long a glitter of hope still basks the dreary battlefield with its golden light. :)

A little vision of hell.

2005-10-19T15:00:00.000-03:00

Today was one of those days were the upcoming summer decides to try and asphyxiate everyone with its warm and damp embrace. I walked out of my house this morning in my suit and tie and by the time I got to the first corner I was already drenched in sweat. I walked to the subte station and waited for a drain, which arrived packed to capacity. I used my shoulder as a lever and managed to push and shove until I managed to get most of my body in to the carriage. I thought it couldn’t get any fuller until another three people managed to jam themselves in behind me. As the doors closed I heard a collective gasp and the train started moving. The heat was getting stronger and stronger every minute. I felt like a sardine in a sauna. Beads of sweat kept running down my forehead and launching themselves off my nose like a bungee jumper causing me an unpleasant tickling sensation. I would have liked to wipe my forehead but both my arms were inexorably blocked by the press. One of my arms was especially bothering me as it was glued to the backside of a particularly fat and ugly middle aged woman. She seemed quite pleased about it but I was trying to ignore the unpleasantly soft and damp flesh pressed against my skin. Fortunately I totally forgot about the hand the instant that the even fatter man behind me shifted his weight and embraced me from behind. I could feel his tremendously flabby gut surround my back and, what I can only hope was his wallet, press against by ass. The drops freefalling off my nose gradually turned in to a mountain stream and then in to a full blown rushing river, my twisted leg started cramping painfully due to the fact that it was supporting at least half a dozen panting bodies and the smell of unwashed humanity was starting to make my eyes water. As a small child started to wail uncontrollably further down the carriage, the train suddenly braked and a wall of alarmed people smashed me against te plastic side doors. I remember thinking in that instant: “give me an eternity of fire and brimstone any day over an eternity of this.”

Boa in the toilet

2005-10-18T15:24:00.000-03:00

On the news today I read an interesting story about a boa which apparently has been living for months in the drains of a building in Manchester, UK. The three meter long snake had been repeatedly seen by terrorized inhabitants of the building in the Manchester neighborhood where I actually lived for two years. The police and RSPCA were skeptical at first but when someone actually managed to catch it and trap it in a bucket they were forced to admit the truth. The snake had apparently been abandoned by an exotic pet owner had had survived by eating rats it caught in the sewers. All I can hope is that the snake could tell the difference between a small fuzzy part of the body and rat.

On the new girl at the office.

2005-10-18T12:01:00.000-03:00

Well, as they say, fate closes a window and opens a new door. With my brief and melodramatic story with the receptionist officially over I have had a stroke of luck. The desk in front of me at the office which had stayed mysteriously empty got finally filled up. The new girl, because of course if it wasn’t a girl I wouldn’t be so happy, is very nice. She is slightly younger than me, studies veterinary sciences and works part time at the local zoo. I have already found out she doesn’t have a boyfriend and that she is a very friendly girl. The only problem, and I wish all my problems were this pleasant, is that she has a very pronounced breast and wears very low cut tops. I am finding it very difficult concentrating on my work and keep finding that my eyes get drawn away from the computer screen. Hehe.

Ed é subito sera

2005-10-17T15:42:00.000-03:00

One of my favourite poems (Ed é subito sera di Quasimodo) and a bad translation in to english and spanish

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
Trafitto da un raggio di sole
Ed é subito sera

Everyone is alone on the heart of the World
Pierced by a ray of sun
And it is already evening

Todos estamos solos sobre el corazón de la tierra
Guinchado da un rayo de sol
Y ya es sera

The lawyer, the philantropist and the priest..

2005-10-17T15:22:00.000-03:00

There were a lawyer, a priest and a philanthropist on the Titanic. The ship hits the iceberg and starts to sink. The philanthropist shouts: “Save the women and the children!”, the lawyer shouts “Fuck the children!” and the priest innocently asks: “Will we have the time?”

The Scream

2005-10-17T15:06:00.000-03:00

I seem to have a slight problem with all this living stuff. I keep getting the sensation that life is a strange joke that I do not understand. I laugh, because everyone else is doing it but I still get that feeling of being left out, that confusing feeling that I am the only one who doesn’t get the joke.
It is not that life is that unpleasant. It is, most of time, quite interesting and varied. I cannot complain that I have had a bad life either. I have always had enough money, enough food and a nice place to sleep. I am even a moderately good looking and healthy bloke. I am certainly not stupid and have even been called charming on occasion.
Simply, I always have this feeling in the back of my head that something isn’t quite right. A strange bitter after taste that turns even the most innocent occurrence somewhat sad and pointless. However hard I try I fail to identify a point to it all. It all seems so ridiculous and irrelevant.
I can spend fascinating hours analyzing a single marvelous thought, I can loose myself in the stunning beauty of sunshine coming through a window and refracting through the dust, I can feel utterly awed by a book, a tune or a word. I am also quite capable of enjoying mundane things like a friendly conversation, a joke or couple of beers. And yet when it comes to all that lies in between I am lost.
I often get this feeling that I am somehow wasting my life. That all the things I do, all my petty concerns, are in effect completely irrelevant. I catch myself fantasizing about doing something so pointless and brave, like running full speed in to a battle, like standing in front of an invading tank, like sacrificing my life for some half baked cause.
If you think about it, our lives compared to the lives of all the people in the world, all the people who have ever lived, all the people who will ever live, are nothing. Our lives compared to the millions of years that our planet has been in existence, compared to all the millions of planets in our galaxy, compared to all the galaxies in the universe, are practically irrelevant.
I get this feeling that not only is my life irrelevant but, also, that life in general is quite pointless. I have to come to think that modern society worsens this feeling. We have been granted freedom but at the expense of its meaning. We no longer have to fight in order to survive, our only purpose being to consume. I think that I would quite like to go live in the country side and live as a hermit alone and living off the land. I would like to see if by living in close contact with nature maybe I might gain a slightly healthier perspective on life. Maybe if I had something real on which to worry, like weather the storm will ruin my harvest, I might stop worrying on that which I have no answer for. Like Kundera says in his book “The unbearable lightness of being”:

“The absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar in to the heights, take leave of earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.”

The Shamoons

2005-10-17T11:03:00.000-03:00

Women are from Mars and Men are from Venus

2005-10-13T16:22:00.000-03:00

I was talking to an older man yesterday and he told me something about men and women which I realized is quite true. He told me how, if he took everything his wife said to him every morning before he left for work, he would have had to divorce her years ago. He explained how a simple acid comment from his wife would rebound in his head all day in the office. He would sit and think about it incessantly, turning it over and over, examining it until distorted and mangled it would begin to haunt him. He would sit and play out in his head the scene of him coming back home. He would plan what he would say, his wife’s reaction, his triumphant response. He would act it all out in his head and prepare a plan.
Once he actually got home and opened his front door he would be greeted by his smiling wife who would innocently ask him how his day had gone and warmly tell him that dinner would be ready in a minute or two. When he actually built up the courage to confront her on her comment she would look at him sweetly and ask him what the hell he was going on about. She would have totally forgotten the comment!
I guess what he meant to portray was the difference in how men and women express themselves. Women simply say what ever comes through their mind and, once they have said, promptly forget it and move on. Men, on the other hand, will drive themselves crazy by obsessing on a single word, a single comment. I do not actually agree with the common thought that men are insensitive and distract while women are deep and emotional. If anything we tend to be far more fragile and prone to melodramatic thought. One could say that men are from Venus and women from Mars.

The stupid bitch

2005-10-12T13:11:00.000-03:00

On another note, my brief romance with one of the office receptionists has definitely died. I have deleted her number from my phone, taken her name of messenger and I do not even want to hear her name ever again. After weeks of being treated harshly I was getting quite tired and pissed off and last night was the straw the broke the camel’s back. We had arranged to meet for lunch but seeing as she cancelled scant minutes before the arranged time, I told her to meet me at home after dinner. She told me that she would come but that seeing as she didn’t want to stay up too late she asked me if we could met up quite early. We agreed on ten. I was supposed to go to dinner with my father, which is alone in the city and knows no one, and then I would have rushed back home.
Later in the afternoon I realized that not only would I have to work late but that my father couldn’t make it until much later. This would have not given me enough time to get back home by eight so I told him that we would have to cancel our dinner and meet the following day. I did not like doing this but I had promise Cristela I would be home bu ten. I also had to blow off a friend who was having his birthday party but I was so happy I was going to see Cristela that I did not mind.
I get home at 9:30 and call her. Seeing as she doesn’t answer I send her a message on her cell telling her I am at home and that she should call me. By 10:30 she still hasn’t called so I send her another message. I wait some more, try calling her but all to no avail. I send her another message asking her if there is a problem and that if she wasn’t going to come she should tell me. Immediately I get a message saying literally: “I am not coming”. No excuses, no apology, nothing. I call for an explanation and she simply hangs up in my face. I try calling a few more times until I get a message telling me that I should stop hassling her and that she might come the next day! Hehe.
The thing that pisses me off most is how I managed to judge her so wrongly. To think I had actually fallen in love with the stupid bitch! Oh, well, here now it is spring and hunting season is officially open.

p.s I promise that tommarrow I will write a more intelligent post but today the pain racking my face is just too distracting to concentrate

Santiago

2005-10-12T12:55:00.000-03:00

I am sorry I haven’t had the time to write anything in such a long time. I have had a couple of strange and exhausting days and only today have I had a moment to sit down and write. Last time I wrote I was about to leave for Chile with my father for the long weekend. We arrived in Santiago on Saturday and spent the day walking around the city and visiting the sites. Particularly beautiful were the Cerro de los Inamorados (lover’s hill), the Cerro de la Virgin (virgin’s hill) and la Moneda (House of government). The first two are hills which spring up in the middle of the city adding a bit of green to the monotonous grey of Santiago. Lover’s hill is full of young couples who walk around holding hands and kissing. The virgin’s hill, to my disappointment, was not full of virgins but, instead, has a statue of the (supposedly) virgin Mary on its summit. La Moneda, apart from being quite beautiful, also has historic value as it is where Salvador Allende committed suicide as the military staged a coup and bombed the capital. He said he would never let them drag him out of the Moneda alive, and he stuck to his word. Apparently he shot himself in the head with a rifle presented to him by his friend Fidel Castro.
On Sunday we visited the coast which although quite beautiful is nothing special. The only particularity worthy of note are the enormous sea lions which live in harmony with fisherman and tourists in the port of San Antonio.
On the last day, Monday, we decided to rent a car and drive up in to the Andes. These extraordinary mountains which start just a few kilometers from the edge of Santiago are truly beautiful. Their majestic peaks pierce the sky as though trying to touch the heavens. We sat and had lunch basking in the blinding sun and watched skiers slide blissfully down the snowy slopes. The only problem is that I forgot to put on any cream and once I got down I realized that the mountain sun had cooked my face to a crispy state. Though I have been applying tons of cream, my face has been giving off a surprisingly pleasant smell of roast meat and my skin is protesting by plaguing me with excruciating pain.

Office blowjob

2005-10-07T16:25:00.000-03:00

Well, been very busy and as you can see have not had much time to post. My father is in town and so have had quite a heavy week of taking him out to dinner (Some nice places were el Club Sirio and a French restaurant on Marcelo T. Alvear). Tomorrow will have to wake up early seeing as we are taking advantage of the long weekend (Monday is Columbus day – the day we celebrate the beginning of the massacre of millions of American Indians) and we are leaving for Santiago de Chile. Will let you all know how our holiday turns out and will try to rememeber some good tips for anyone heading out there.

Will leave you all with a bit of very juicy gossip. In the office were I work, apparently on of the senior partners had a “very special relationship” with his secretary. The other day they evidently forgot to lock the door and were surprised by a startled assistant. The strange (and very unlucky) thing is that in the exact moment when the door was opened a security camera from outside the office took a picture of what was happening! So, not only did the partner get caught, he also got caught on camera. Hehe. Obviously the story has been racing around the office like wildfire and very probably some heads will roll. All I am waiting for is for the pictures to start circulating. She was a very cute secretary!!

The bastards!

2005-10-06T18:34:00.000-03:00

I have just realized that the TTLB has just downgraded me from a Slimy Invertebrate to an Inignificant Microbe. The bastards!!!!

Interesting article on our move towards an Orwellian reality

2005-10-05T12:00:00.000-03:00

I am extremely worried with how thing seem to be developing. We sit and watch as our democratic liberties are torn apart and we head towards another dark age of oppression and Orwellian state control. Especially in the US (with dictatorial laws like the Patriot Act) but also in Europe, politicians are using the people´s fear of terrorism and blatant racism caused by immigration to pass laws which are shameful and dangerous.

This article by George Monbiot form the Guardian brilliantly portrays the situation in the UK.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1584140,00.html

La Tigre e la Neva di Roberto Benigni

2005-10-04T15:41:00.000-03:00

On a shallower note I would like to comment on the pleasant fact that Roberto Benigni (Il Mostro, Johnny Stecchino, La Vita é Bella etc..) is about to release his new film: La Tigre e la Neve (The tiger and the snow)

The film is the story about a hopelessly lovestruck Benigni who travels to modern day Iraq to find the woman he loves who has been injured while interviewing an Iraqi poet on who she is writing a biography. All this as “Allied” soldiers patrol the streets and the Iraqi resistance blow up innocent civilians.

“With Art and films one cannot save the world: they are only useful in order to distract and bring a little pleasure. I only wanted to tell the story of a small man who, with his fly swatter and his barber stool (the only “weapons” the main character brings with him to Iraq) fights his war for love, as around him soldiers fight theirs”

hoÞ geldInIz (welcome) Turkey

2005-10-04T15:29:00.000-03:00

I am happy to report that a deal has been struck with Turkey that allows to join the EU as a full member sometime in the next decade. I had been waiting for this announcement and had been quite worried about the outcome. I think it would have been unpardonable if Europe had rebuffed this proud and historic country which played an important part of European history. If you think about it the capital of the eastern Roman Empire was in Constantinople (Istanbul)! Also I find it very positive that Europe will have a Muslim country in its midst. Maybe it will help break the icy vice with which the Christian church daily oppresses the European masses.

Thus: hoÞ geldInIz (welcome) Turkey

Childhood Madness

2005-10-03T18:36:00.000-03:00

I am walking down the street towards my house. I had to stay behind after school in detention so I am late. The last rays of sun pierce the twilight wrapped around me and the wind is starting to pick up. The street is empty and the only other movement is the last of the autumn leaves dancing around in the wind. I want to get home before the darkness envelops everything and I start to walk a little faster. The wind starts to howl a little louder and a shiver runs down my back like a trickle of icy water. The strap on my school bag digs in to my shoulder painfully reminding me of all the homework I will avoid doing tonight. I start walking even faster as a first raindrop hits the pavement and explodes in a festival of liquid shrapnel. I spot my house in the distance as several other raindrops follow their brother in a futile attempt to storm the approaching earth. As the world around me turns in to a watery version of the Normandy landings I walk up in to my driveway. My arm extends, fingertips looking for the door and, already looking forward to a warm shower and a change of clothes, I glance one last time behind me in to the swirling rain. My arm freezes, fingertips dying in mid bloom, and I stop, raindrops flowing down my face, to watch.I stare, riveted, at the spectacle of millions of raindrops swirling and falling from the dark heavens above. The wind whips them up, throwing them across the skies like confetti. Patterns arise from the confusion and, like birds flocking in the skies, the water dances through the darkness above. The beauty of the dance smothers me and I can no longer move, no longer breath. Awe explodes in to my head with blinding pain and I feel as though I will loose myself in the chasm of grace that has opened itself up in front of me. Lightning tears the skies in half and the whole magnificence of the scene comes to light. Water streams down my face and back, shivers raping my body with convulsions. I feel dizzy and struggle to stay upright and then, suddenly, I blink and everything goes back to normal. The rain outside no longer looks beautiful but simply wet and cold. I notice I am shivering and my clothes and bag are soaked. I turn round, wrench my front door open and, taking a step, embrace the loving warmth inside

Sivio Berlusconi and spanking?

2005-10-03T16:43:00.000-03:00

On a happier note.... apparently our venerable Prime Minister (the right bastardly Silvio Berlusconi) enjoys a touch of spanking evreynow and again!

http://italyfalling.blogspot.com/2005/08/being-waitress-at-berlusconis.html

All I know is that I would pay good money to give him a proper spanking! hehe

Borrachos del Tablon - Chant

2005-10-03T14:09:00.000-03:00

Here follows a tipical Borrachos del Tablón chant with a (very approximate) translation:

River a todas partes siempre te sigo,
fumando porro tomando vino,
de la cabeza vengo a alentar.
Quiero correr al Rojo en Avellaneda,
robarle a Racing otra bandera
y un campeonato pa' festejar.
Vamo' a coparle la Bombonera
quemar los ranchos de la Rivera
vamo' a coparles Avellaneda
correr al Rojo y a la Academia.
Correr al Cuervo y a los Quemeros
son todos putos no tienen huevos.
Siempre borracho yo, vengo alentar...
siempre borracho yo, vengo a alentar

River, I follow you everywhere,
Smoking weed and drinking wine
I have come to show my support
I want to chase the reds in Avellaneda
Steal another flag from Racing
And win a championship to celebrate
Go and burn the Bonbonera
Burn the bastards from la Rivera
Lets go burn Avellaneda
Chase the Reds and Academia
Chase the Cuervo and the Quemeros
There all bitches with no balls
Im always drunk and supporting
Im always drunk and supporting

A day at the Monumental

2005-10-03T13:40:00.000-03:00

Yesterday accepted an invitation from a good friend and accompanied him to the Monumental to watch River – Independiente. This football game is one of Argentina’s classicos, in other words a game between two of the great historic clubs of the capital city, and thus was packed to the rafters. We decided to watch the game from the “populare” which is the cheapest section of the stadium but also that with the loudest and warmest support. Seeing as it was a beautiful day we got there a couple of hours early and after having paid 15 pesos for my ticket we took a seat right in the middle of the southern stand.
We smoked ourselves a spliff, basking in the midday sun and watched the fans come trickling in. The problem was that the fans would not stop coming and by the time the match was about to start the whole stand was totally packed. Now, for you Anglo-Saxons out there, you might not fully understand what a really packed stadium looks like. First of all there are no seats. You just stand on the stone steps that make up the stadium which are incredibly steep and narrow. Furthermore we were right in the middle of River´s barrabravas (the more “fanatical” supporters): Los Borrachos del Tablón.
Normally the whole ninety minutes are spent jumping up and down, singing and hurling abuse at the opposite stand where the visitant fans are placed. Every time a goal is scored (and in this game river scored three) the stand explodes into a festival of joy and passion and often people fall down and crash several meters down the stand taking any one on their path down with them.
Anyway after two exhausting but exhilarating hours the game ended (3-1) and we started the slow and arduous process of actually leaving the stadium and getting home.
In two weeks it is River-Boca (the greatest classico of all) so don’t have to wait too long.

Artemedio´s Deadly Sins

2005-09-29T17:28:00.000-03:00

From a Mexican artist called Artemio Rodríguez, which I discovered on my good friend from Chile’s blog

Part of an old essay I found on my pc disk...

2005-09-29T17:19:00.000-03:00

Historically it was religion which served as the medium by which people were formed. Christianity, Islam and most other religions were set up in order to shape their follower’s minds in a homogeneous way, in order to outline a behaviour, an identity which would coincide with that of their society. Commandments such as “Do Not Kill” or “Do Not Steal” are obvious attempts to create a society were every day interactions can occur. Modern religions, and before that ancient gods and beliefs, were the tools that allowed us to shape every generation’s identity in order to drag mankind out of the forest and in to the cities. The Bible, the Koran, the ancient Egyptian scriptures were all there to educate, to shape. They allowed peasants to live tiring lives by giving them hope of paradise, they gave the slaves the motivation to build the pyramids, they were the balm that soothed the minds of the poor and the oppressed throughout time. They were the fundamental force behind the creation of a collective societal identity.

To a certain extent, nowadays, religion has been replaced by science and culture, at least in the western world. It is no longer priests, religious tomes and temples which shape our identity, but politicians, movies and schools. With the advent of modern science we have begun to understand that our existence cannot be explained solely with gods and myths. We can no longer believe that a pharaoh is a god on earth because we have proved all men equal, we can no longer gaze at heaven because we now know it is only space. Our whole civilisation’s existential paradigm has been given a severe blow.

However, the way in which we attempt to impose a collective identity has remained quite unchanged. Whatever society has chosen to believe, society must imprint in it’s young. It is crucial for society as we know it, to impose its own understanding of life to its members, especially when young, in order to retain its significance. It is impossible to control men if they are bitterly opposed to what they are doing. Only by shaping our minds at an early age can society be sure that we will do what it needs. By making us believe that what it stands for is some absolute moral righteousness, we are cheated in to believing that if we rebel we are going against the cause of good.

The perfect tool for this modern brainwashing, is education. From an early age, when our minds are still malleable, we spend most of our time in school. We are consistently pushed towards a shared identity, day after day, forced to understand a vision of life society has chosen. If we do not comply, or do so too slowly, we are punished or penalised. Only once we agree with a set of predetermined moral obligations are we allowed to discuss and argue on minor issues. Month after month, year after year, our minds are force fed rules, beliefs, attitudes. We are told what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad. By the time we leave school, our minds are so packed with information, so brainwashed by ideas that it will be too late for us to develop an identity which is incongruous to society’s will. By the time we need to enter the world of work, we are perfect little clogs in society’s machinery, or at least that is the plan.

Harry Pothead

2005-09-29T11:57:00.000-03:00

Yesterday was feeling quite ill so took a day off from work and spent the afternoon at home. I took advantage of this fact to start reading the latest Harry Potter book which I had previously downloaded from the web (I aint going to spend 30 euros on a Harry potter book after all). It was relatively pleasurable, though it is getting quite repetitive, but one there was one thing that left me a little confused.
In theory, in the latest book, Harry is in his second to last year of school and thus he must be at least sixteen or seventeen. Strangely, however, there seem to be a few things lacking in his life which, in contrast, characterized my late teens: sex, drugs and hard house.
There is a total lack of any kind of sexual activity in Hogsworth. No one seems to be getting laid or even getting close. I mean, it would be more interesting if Harry and Ron spit roast Hermione or if the little elf thing starts a bondage club with the some of the crazier students. If you also add magic to the mix some very interesting things could happen. Imagine what pleasure Hermione might be able to experience with a special enchanted dildo, for example.
Furthermore, the kids at the magic school do not seem to be as interested in drugs and alcohol as the kids in my school were. Harry could use his wand to make a stunning blonde appear and then turn her in to a spliff once he has had his fun. Or imagine the popularity of the enchanted never ending beer bottle!
In conclusion Rowling should have thought longer about what teenage kids are really interested in and have written the book accordingly to make it more realistically. Lacking that you can always check this out instead.

Leg Tattoo

2005-09-28T13:47:00.000-03:00

By the way... A few months ago I gt a new tattoo done on my thigh. Yesterday my sister sent me a photo of it she took a few days after I got it done. Six hours of work, 400 pesos and this is the result.

Strange sign

2005-09-27T17:53:00.000-03:00

I got this sign sent to me today. It translates as: Italy - Police Arrest Mother, Uncles, Grandparents: All Depraved. Havent managed to find out the story behind it though. If anyone has any clue let me know.

Chorros de Mierda!

2005-09-27T15:44:00.000-03:00

Reading the Guardian today (like every morning) came upon this article:

The world's richest art institution knowingly bought scores of archeological treasures looted from Italy, it has been alleged.
Despite being warned as far back as 1985 that dealers were selling stolen goods, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles continued to buy them. The practice continued for so long that, according to the museum's internal review, almost half the masterpieces in its antiquities collection are likely to have been acquired illegally.
Getty officials spent $10.2m (£5.7m) in 1985 to acquire three objects taken from ruins near Naples, despite being warned that the purchase was in clear defiance of Italy's "cultural patrimony" laws, which state that all artifacts discovered after 1902 are government property;
That the museum purchased an ancient urn for $42,000 despite being told that the Italian police were looking for it;
That it spent $18m in 1988 on a statue of Aphrodite dating back to 400BC which was probably the centerpiece of a Greek temple in southern Italy, even though officials were suspicious of the dealer's explanation about where it came from.

Bloody Bastards!! And I bet that nothing will happen to them like usual. Like the time two US pilots killed a dozen people while trying to fly their jet plane beneath the cable of ski lift because of a bet, the time the two Texan girls got drunk and set on fire a Roman Hotel (killing a few) and the last episode when US soldiers tried to murder our recently released hostage because she looked suspiciously like a Muslim!

Back to the……Middle Ages

2005-09-26T17:23:00.000-03:00

Supporters of the theory of evolution battle with proponents of "intelligent design" in a US court today in what is considered a crucial cultural duel for American education.
A group of parents in the small town of Dover, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is seeking to overturn a decision by the local school board insisting that intelligent design - the claim that complex organisms have been designed rather than evolved in response to natural selection - must be included in the curriculum
This is totally preposterous. I might as well argue that humans were created by a huge blue bunny that lives in the sky and thus we should venerate carrots or that we were created by a flying spaghetti monster (see post)
It seems to me that recently we are definitely going backwards and entering another dark age. Fundamentalist religion is once again raising its ugly head and threatening the well being of all us atheists. From suicide bombers sprouting like mushrooms in Muslim countries to wacko creationists declaring war on the world in the US, the world seems every day filled evermore with insane religious freaks. All we need now is people to start burning books and killing people on the stake and Torquemada would feel right at home.
Its like all that bollocks when the last pope died. We are talking about a man who says condoms don’t work, premarital sex is a deadly sin and that homosexuals will burn in hell and yet, they made it out as those he was some sort of saint. The current one is even worse! Last week he was on TV pontificating about how we should give more money to the poor and at the same time he had on his fingers enough gold rings to feed half of Africa. The day he sells his diamond encrusted throne and his half a million euro pope mobile I will start listening to what he says.
It is time the atheist hordes arise and overthrow our religious overlords. Long live our secular creed and thank god I am an atheist!

Poem about a Storm

2005-09-26T15:45:00.000-03:00

Grumble, thunder, flash
Pause, grumble, splash

Shred, melodrama, patter, sun

Update on my resolution

2005-09-26T11:31:00.000-03:00

Well, I promised you an update on last week’s resolution and here it is. All things considered I have achieved only a partial success but am still quite satisfied with the result.

Possibility 1 (The American Chick): Let’s start off with my only true success. Friday I went out with the Betty Boop look alike and shamefully tried to get her in to bed all evening. We went out for a meal where I did my best to make her drink as much red wine as possible while complementing her on her looks / intelligence all night. After a couple more drinks in a nearby bar I proposed we go back to my flat for a drink. She actually replied that she didn’t want to drink anymore but that she was happy to go back to my house to fuck (her words!). This took me a little by surprise but then again, who am I to argue?

Possibility 2 (The Receptionist): Well, this was a bit of a difficult one seeing as I actually quite like the girl and am looking for more of a relationship thing. Invited her out for lunch on Sunday. It was a beautiful sunny day and we went to la Recoletta and sat outside, chatting and drinking beer. Later we sat down on the grass and I kissed her. She seemed quite pleased so I continued and even brought her back to my flat. However, I had promised myself to take things slowly with her and thus, apart from some kissing and fondling, nothing happened.

Possibility 3 (The Older Bar Girl): This was my only failure. Actually it was more of a “no contest” seeing as I realized I have lost her number and thus was not able to call her. Oh well, not much of a loss anyway.

A night out in Wan Chai

2005-09-22T16:55:00.000-03:00

Wan Chai is heaving. Countless people jostle past me, cars honk their horns in frustration while an old man sits smirking on a nearby wall. I smile warm-heartedly at him and he smiles back, his leathery face erupting in to a wide, toothless grin. I notice that Greg has left me behind so I start pushing and cursing until I catch up. We are headed for a nightclub called the Venus, which is a typical whore packed club where the drinks are not too expensive. We stop off to buy a couple of small chicken kebabs from an old woman standing behind a rusty grill and start walking again as we eat them. We finally get to the club and walk in. Clouds of acrid smoke drift to and fro, swirling around the room like phantoms. The noise of drunken chit chatter envelops me and I have to shove a few people aside to get to the bar. Greg orders some purple colored cocktail for himself and I settle for a pint of Stella. We look around trying to spot some cute girls but we are not in a hurry. Between Greg and I, we know most of the hookers here at least by sight. We find two stools and quickly pounce on them. We sit for a while chatting about Greg’s restaurant, Bush and the cold weather.
Slowly hookers start coming up to us to say hello and I chat for a while to one of the main mama sans. I seem to remember her name is Mali or something very similar. A mama san is basically the civilized version of a female pimp. Often, the more successful hookers, once they become a bit too old, decide to become mama sans. They approach the shier clients and propose various girls, negotiate prices and generally make sure that everything works out fine. They are more often than not very interesting people, open minded and engaging. We chat for a while longer, both laughing often and sincerely. In the end she tells me she has to abandon me in order to do some serious work. I smile at her, give her a peck on the cheek and tell her to call me if she does not find any customers tonight. She laughs, kisses me back and assures me she will call. Often, if a girl finds no work for the night, she will spend the night at a male friend’s house for free. This way, the girl gets to sleep in the city, avoiding the tiring trip back to Kowloon or Mong Kok and the male gets a free night of sex. It is exactly this kind of arrangement that Greg and I are planning to take advantage of tonight.
Several hours later I find myself quite drunk with four cute Thai girls in my arms. I know three of them from before but the fourth, which they tell me has just arrived to Hong Kong, is obviously unfamiliar. I have bought them all a couple of drinks and I sit on a stool, two girls in each arm, recounting some funny story. Every now and again I gently fondle a breast, stroke a leg or nibble on a perfumed lobe. I get plenty of jealous looks from older British men who are having difficulties finding girls but I mostly ignore them. To only one, who makes a particularly funny joke, do I smile and reply. I am having fun but I am getting quite tired. It is only three so the likelihood of convincing a girl to come home with me for free is unlikely. I weigh my possibilities in my mind. I can either call it a night and just go home and sleep. I can wait until five or six, when I will be more likely to get a free girl or, I can decide to be a little less stingy and fork out enough money to bring home one of the girls right now.
I pull the cutest girl, one of the three I know, closer and start whispering in her ear. I ask her to come back to my house. She giggles and asks for a thousand for two hours. I laugh uproariously and offer three hundred for all night. We argue for a while and finally settle on five hundred for all night. The other three girls leave, looking for someone else. I notice the Brit who made the funny joke earlier and I motion to the girls to go to him. They look at whom I am pointing to, smile at me one last time and then ambush him on the way to the toilets. I laugh as I seem him jump, clearly surprised, and then burst in to a toothy grin.
I turn back to the girl I have chosen and ask her real name. She tells me she is called Sumalee, which apparently means little flower. I buy her a last drink and we sit and chat as she finishes it off. I wonder where Greg is. I realize it is at least an hour that I have not seen him. When Sumalee finishes her drink we decide to leave. We get our coats and walk out in to the cold December night. I start flagging down a taxi but she tells me she would like to eat something first. We walk to one of the many stands that litter the streets of Wan Chai. I buy her something that looks like a glazed pineapple on a stick. She offers me a bite, which I courteously refuse. I watch her eat and am amazed by the dainty way she does this. She looks at me and suddenly I feel a burst of friendliness grasp me. I give her a big sloppy kiss on the cheek and we both laugh loudly. The old woman behind the smoking grill looks at us with a raised eyebrow but then she too laughs along with us.

Drinking at la Recoleta

2005-09-22T15:16:00.000-03:00

Yesterday I was feeling a little melancholic (as you can see form the posts) and, thus, decided to try a trick which has often worked in the past. I decided to go to la Recoleta and get drunk by my self. I do not know why or how this trick works. One would think that getting extremely drunk by oneself would be a recipe for disaster, an invitation to fall in to drunken self pity and depression. And yet, for me, it works.
La Recoletta, one of Buenos Aires´ trendiest bar areas, was heaving last night. Thousands of students were taking advantage of the fact that it was national students´ day and there were no classes. Furthermore, yesterday was the first day of spring in the southern hemisphere and people were crowding the narrow streets enjoying the mild weather. It thus took me a while to find a suitably empty bar were I could sit and drink myself stupid in total comfort. The melancholic tones of tango music were wafting trough the air from a set of speakers, mingling with the exited tones of a football match coming from a beaten up TV in the furthest corner. I sat down, gently nursing my pint of beer, watching the crowds pass by. Streams of people going by like flocks of birds, molten lights bathing the streets with their warm glow, gentle notes wafting through the air like shifting smoke. I watched it all while getting progressively ever drunker and thinking about life until, finally, drunk and tired I went home to sleep.

A Very Short Poem

2005-09-21T17:17:00.000-03:00

Questions racing madly through my mind

Seeking answers they will not find

Doubt growing menacing and dark

Like the shadow of a circling shark

On the difficulty of writing blogs

2005-09-21T14:53:00.000-03:00

Sitting down to write a post is a strange feeling indeed. One would like to write something beautiful or at least meaningful, something which people will read and say “How interesting!” or “How deep”. At the same time, however, one tries to write something which is also personal, somehow unique and inventive.
When I get home at night and finally take off my suit and tie, sometimes I sit on my couch listening to music and millions of thoughts chase themselves through my mind. Hundreds of brilliant ideas for new posts flash in to my head and explode in a symphony of wit, charm and originality. I sit there and think about how I can describe an event, gradually changing each line to make it sound better. This is particularly true on those evenings when I treat myself to a spliff. My imagination runs wild and I promise myself that come next morning I will put all these wonderful thoughts on my blog.Yet, when I actually sit down to write, my mind goes blank. All my exiting ideas disappear as though they were rain drops in the midday sun. The few thoughts I come up with are bland and recycled, my ideas boring and shallow. Even as I start to write, those few surviving ideas get mangled beyond recognition. I express them chaotically, with no logical order, and precious little humor. The beautiful river of imagination which only scant hours before was rushing through my mind has turned in to an insignificant trickle that barely wets the parched earth it runs across.

Al Qaeda, Please Bomb the Italian Consolate

2005-09-20T16:41:00.000-03:00

Just wanted the vent the frustration I am feeling towards the Italian Consulate in Buenos Aires. I urgently need a certificate which only they can provide me with.
I went on their website three days ago and the first thing I find out is that their working hours consist of a massive four days a week from 9 to 11 in the morning. Knowing, this yesterday and today I have been calling non stop during those two hours.

Results:

Calls made: Close to 300
Busy tone: 200
Not Answering: 80
Hung up in my face: 5

Spent all my lunch hour daydreaming about the revenge I am going to take as soon as I have the time and energy.

Posibilty 1: Classic bollocking
Posibilty 2: Blackmail / Kidnapping
Posibilty 3: Arson / bomb attack
Posibility 4: Break in to tears and hope they suffer due to excessive empathy

On cats, mice and sex

2005-09-20T15:42:00.000-03:00

I woke up this morning and decided to make myself a promise. Realized recently that I am quite good at picking up girls and getting their number but, often, I am terrible with the follow up. I have lost count of the number of girls with whom I failed to conclude after having got their number and attention.
Thus, this morning, decided to carry out a blitz this week and try to get the three girls I have been working on recently in to bed.
The first one is an American student which lives here and seems quite interested. Incredibly she reminds me of Betty Boop, the cartoon character from the 50´s, and in many ways might be the best bet to get in to bed.
My second possibility is Cristela, the receptionist, which I had a bit of a crush on. We have had lunch a few times but it would be a risk pushing too hard right away.
The third “victim” is a slightly older girl I met in a night club the other day who gave me her number. Out of the three she is the one that probably entails the least effort but, then again, the rewards would be the least as well.
Oh, well. I will give all three a try and let you all know Monday whether any worked out. The only problem is that the story about the cat that chased two mice and lost both of them keeps running through my mind.

Memorias de Mis Putas Tristes

2005-09-19T18:48:00.000-03:00

I would like to signal a very pleasant book I read recently. When I found out, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude had written a new book I was one of the first to buy it.
His new book is short and has proven to be surprisingly unpopular with the critics. I, however, found it sweet, well written and un-pretentious.
Set in the Colombian city of Barranquilla, Colombia in the 1950s, the book tells the story of a lonely 90-year-old man who decides to pay himself a night with a young virgin as a birthday present.
He returns to a brothel he once frequented, but instead of finding carnal pleasures, he discovers a renewed love of life and meets the love of his life
Beautifully written and poetic.

Two interesting blogs

2005-09-19T18:35:00.000-03:00

Two interesting blogs:

http://sids-corner.blogspot.com/

http://www.bradanovic.cl/blogger/blogger.htm

On wealth and happiness

2005-09-19T14:09:00.000-03:00

A couple of years ago I was walking around the centre of Rome, pushing myself through the masses of tourists and locals wandering around. Suddenly I stepped in to a gap in the crowd and in front of me, sitting slightly raised on the steps of an old church, was a man. This man in his late thirties was sitting there crying, his Armani suit silky and sleet, his polished shoes glittering in the noon sun. He was obviously rich and successful yet he sat there and cried, his tears falling like diamonds, rolling off his cheeks and hitting the marble floor with a splash. He sat there and cried desperately as the crowds surged passed him without giving him a second glance. The sound of children laughing and people enjoying their day out, overpowering up until a moment before subsided and in the frozen silence of that moment I stopped as though in shock. It seemed to me that time slowed down as though respectful of this scene of misery, a grown man crying in his Italian suit and me, staring at him confused and powerless to help. It must have been only a moment and then I got pulled away by some friend but to me it seemed like hours that I stood there staring at him. I still vividly remember the sensation of absolute loss I felt, the intense empathy I felt. I never found out why this man was crying so desperately yet I think something snapped in my heart that day and that image still burns vividly in my mind every time I think about it. That man crying in his Armani suit still represents, for me all that is pointless and bitter in life.

Children and Drugs

2005-09-19T10:42:00.000-03:00

A report commissioned by the Italian Parliament on drug use amongst youngsters in Italy today was released.
Authorities were alarmed by data showing that the age that kids come across cannabis for the first time has once again fallen, hitting fifteen years of age on average.
Furthermore, the study showed that 32% of 14-21 year olds smokes cannabis and 4,8% use cocaine.
Obviously the data was met with consternation and, as usual, was followed by talk of stiffer penalties, disaffected youth, etc…
When will governments realize that it would make much more sense legalizing drugs (thus taking the money out of criminal hands and making it unnecessary for kids to make contact with possibly dangerous dealers) and taxing the whole business (thus making enough money to pay for any necessary rehabilitation centers, to fund hospitals and schools, and to still have a little leftover to steal for personal use). When will they learn?!

Football and bananas

2005-09-16T18:10:00.000-03:00

I would like to discuss something which may seem controversial or even downright racist. I assure you, however, that my intentions are good and that I am simply trying to explore an hypothesis.
Recently (and not so recently) we have seen an interminable set of racist instances in European football stadiums. From monkey noises shouted at black players in Spain to anti Semite Lazio chants at the Olimpico. As usual, the teams, the football governing bodies, the players and everyone else involved expressed their indignation. Also as usual, the fans who actually chanted the racist insults took absolutely no notice. It seems as though the more racism is condemned the more it raises its ugly head.
Let me diverge a second. I remember, as a young schoolboy, passing interminable hours learning about Nazi horrors committed against the Jews in the Second World War. I sat through lessons and lessons where we were told how despicable these crimes had been and that, as a consequence, we were never, under any circumstances to insult someone because they were Jewish or even make a joke about it. Now, what obviously happened was that as soon as we were alone, there was a succession of Jewish jokes and insults. I do not think that my friends and I were budding young racists. I do not even think any of us fully understood anything about the historical and sociological dilemma. All we knew was that we had been told not to do it and thus, obviously, it was “cool” to do it. It is interesting to note that in the US, where anti black racism receives a lot more attention, I have been told, that in schools a very similar phenomenon occurs vis a vis African Americans. On the other hand, at school, very little importance was given to massacres like those carried out by Stalin and Mao even though they were just as gruesome if not worst. Similarly, in the playground, I do not think I ever heard a joke against Ukrainians or “Counter Revolutionary” Chinese.
What I am trying to get to here, is that maybe many football fans have a similar reaction to that of my friends when they were fifteen (the level of intelligence is probably about the same! Hehe). Maybe they chant racist songs because not only do they know it will piss off the player but also because they feel as though in some way they are being rebellious. Certainly, this is not always the case as some fringes of support around Europe are inherently racist (see Curva Nord at Lazio, or Ultra Sur at Real Madrid ). However I believe that there may be many who either accept these chants or even go as far as joining in simply to feel that frisson of excitement caused by doing something you are not supposed to.
A recent episode I saw might help to explain my point better. Oliver Khan is Bayern Munich´s goalkeeper. He is white but unfortunately looks incredibly like a gorilla. It is a bit of a tradition amongst rival fans to spend the match throwing bananas at him (to his great frustration!). Most people, including me, find it a case of harmless (though certainly harsh) banter. Neither FIFA nor UEFA have ever commented on this or condemned it in any way. On the other hand, the other day, Spanish fans started throwing bananas at a black player and caused universal shock and scandal amongst the media and football authorities.
I guess all I am trying to say is that maybe the whole “say no to racism” initiative is about as useful as the “say no to drugs” one. Let’s face it; humans are petty minded bastards which will do exactly the opposite of what they are told to do. By splashing racist fans on the news every time they throw a metaphorical banana we are simply feeding their ego and satisfying their need to be noticed. Maybe it might be better for all, if less media coverage was given to the whole phenomenon with the hope that all “part time” racists Europe wide simply get bored and decide to rebel in a different way.
Anyway, this is simply an idea, and certainly should not be taken too seriously. Thus, if you are already writing those insulting mails calling me a racist etc… don’t.

Betting on terrorism

2005-09-16T11:52:00.000-03:00

Today, while reading the Italian papers, came upon a strange article. The journalist was complaining about the lack of morality of a new internet game called “Where next?” (http://www.where-next.com/home.php). In this game, users are asked to bet on where the next terrorist attack will strike. It uses Google map technology and promises to provide the winner with a t-shirt. The article suggested this was totally out of line and was particularly displeased that apparently it is an Italian site. It was interesting to note that amongst all the sanctimonious rantings, the journalist never once mentioned that a very similar thing happened not long ago in the US. The “Policy Analysis Market,” a Defense Department project ostensibly designed to predict terrorist events through the online selling of “futures” in terrorist attacks made the news not long ago. Somehow I do not remember the same journalist making a fuss then.
By the way, the location with the best (or worst) odds? The Coliseum, Rome