Drugstore Gaucho

Long ago, I tried to write some kind of conclusion to my blog. I wrote this, sitting at home on a late night and have tried to touch it up a few times since then. It'll never really be finished, so I foist it upon you, warts and all. Oh, and I don't mention it, but I think I'll be back. I hope I'll be back, after college to study music there and be a trombonist and make enough money to live. Anyway... I've always appreciated "The End" with a question mark. Just who or what does it question? Am I, the writer, challenging you the reader to guess whether or not this is the conclusion of things? Is the phrase itself an admission of the uncertainty of endings and the future? Is it the sound of incredulous disappointment, "The end? Is this all there is to it?" Maybe it's simple ambition, the man in charge of the credits trying to wedge an opening for a sequel. In this case, it's a little of all but especially this: It is a confession of ignoran

Che, boludos! It's been a really action-packed week. I explain you now. I'M GONNA BE ON A REAL LIVE CD!!! Roommate of friend Brad is an accordion-playing israeli musician composer. He's been working on a record for the last year. And lately on a track called, Take Five Bulgarians, a crazy little version of Brubeck's "Take Five" in a crazy little mixed meter with a weird middle eastern key signature. So on Thursday, I went to a studio and recorded my bit which will be mixed into the bunch. And it was a lot harder than I thought would be, go figure. But I've had my first studio recording experience and the best part. It seems that this is a disc that will be sold in stores and everything. So, not having graduated yet or even being a music major, I'm on a real CD. And come saturday, some friends of distant conntection through my tango teacher invited me to ¨zapar¨with them on saturday in Provincia. For me, provincia means dirt roads, noncity-dwelling, goo

Cora wakes me from my slumber. There occurred an episode in the club which I am unsure that I want to/lack the creative energy to describe right now. I may return to the theme. In any case, directly after the episode, I was motivated to leave the club very quickly. However, I did not leave with my friend, Brad. This is his story. While I was sitting on a bus, reflecting on my life-changing experience, Brad thought that I was still in the club and commenced to search for me. I was not to be found. Brad, apparently not terribly concerned about my disappearance, decided to stick around inside the club to hear the band play. I should take a minute to explain that cumbia villera is really pretty bad, all things considered. Musically speaking, it is about as complex as a ham sandwhich, which is to say, easy enough to make, but capable of killing Mama Cass. Yeah. The band begins and the people in the club just started freaking out. For all of you interested in the absurd schedule of the place

Hey Kiddies, I’m back, connecting local pizzeria el continental, which I’m told is a pizzeria buena buena buena. I’ve ordered a pizza fugazzetta rellena con queso cremoso, two pieces of fainá and a glass of moscato, a sweet wine which usually accompanies such things. There’ve been some major changes in my life. I cut my hair, for instance. I got a mullet. Soon this will be a dread mullet. I think that you’ve all had sufficient warning. It will be a dreadmullet, once I’ve accumulated the sufficient length. I’m almost done with all my papers and finals and crap, meaning that here comes the part of supplying my own diversion in or out of Buenos Aires. I’m planning on mostly out. The only thing keeping me in town is my bands performances on Sundays of every week. I’ve had better luck with las chicas outside of town anyway. I guess my reputation gets around. ;-) And finally, the achievement of the hour, my first ridiculous story accumulated in Spanish and told in Spanish. It’s a little some

Those two pictures tell a story about how hard it rained in Buenos Aires the other day. Excuse my lack of postage (Cora). This is crunch time for me. In the next day, the following things are due: 1 history paper (7-10 pages, double space) Monday 1 tango paper (8+ pages, single space) Thursday? I hope 1 anthropology paper (7-10 pages, spacing unknown) Tuesday 1 "semiotics" excercise (complicated) Monday or Tuesday several radio excercises (uh...) ? 2 literature finals Monday But the good news is, the view from my room is sweet at night. In other news, I went to see Maykel's band "El Portón" play at a place that is two for two on sweet shows. They play music of the Rio Plata, which is a pack of weird influences including african drum tradition, uruguayan harmonized singing, and a lot of highly dancable tropical beats. There was I cha cha line. I did as I was bid by my dark cha cha masters. Since then, I've been hypocritically thinking about how I'm gonna

I had a four day weekend. Every other Yanqui in Buenos Aires was heading to nearby megalopolis Cordoba for their Oktoberfest. Yes, they have an Oktoberfest there. It struck me as rather stuoid to go to Argentina for a beer festiva that we have in the United States, so I polled some kids in my radio class where I ought to go. They listed off a bunch of party destinations and some place that I had never ever heard of before. Hmm. Beach, beer, booty or a an exciting journey through the happy-go-lucky crazyplace of the Argentina dairy country. Well, you all know me: Yup. That's cheese. Yes. I went to the Wisconsin of Argentina. Truthfully, I didn't know that before I went. The plus side of my vacation selection is that it put me in with a whole bunch of argentines who were in my boat. Tired of Buenos Aires and looking for some place to recharge their batteries. Turns out Tandil is the typical sort of destination for a real portenho. So, two things. Maybe I am fitting into Buenos Ai

Pibe - kid; a young person Bárbaro - Literally barbaric; cool, fantastic My friends are cool, ¿eh? Last sunday I received one iteration of a group text message that said "We rehearse at 4. As a price, asado. "Tirada de goma" for dessert.ee I consulted a taxi driver for the definition of the last term, which appeared to be past participle of the word throw (tirar) and the word for rubber. It seemed to me that it might be a delicious gelatin snack. I confirmed this with the taxi driver I was riding with at the time. As it turns out, its an argentismo for blowjob. It appeared that my friends were being funny. Little did I know I at this time, the sender of the text message was being berated viciously for sending me a text message that I was unlikely to understand on various level. Solutions were hatched. I contemplated a response tranquilly. Searching through my relatively modest Spanish armoury, I select "Your mother will be coming, then" and hit the send butto

Hey Kiddies, I'm writing a real post to tell you about my Argentine Asado experience, but in the mean time, I've organized some of my better fotos into a publicly (hopefully) viewable location. Check it out, leave comments, criticism, whatever somewhere in some form. My Stuff You're cool!

The last post was in coherent, and for that I apolgize. But you've all seen my hair plans. And you've weighed in. I see an overwhelming resistance to the idea, which means that there is only one thing to do. And that is it. Do it, that is. I resolve to get this haircut in the week that comes after this one, as I am thinking of traveling someplace cold and I want the extra hair for now. Some pictures of my new house and an explanation: So I changed host families. Why? The reasons aren't too complex. You all saw pictures of the food in the last joint. Probably better food to be had in jail. And some of you are probably crying out "Nathan, it's wrong to leave a family just cause the food is bad" and you'd be right except that everything else about this homestay was no good. The bed was too small and tucked into a bed-shaped nook in the room so that there were wall's on three sides of the bed and therefore no place to put my feet. The bed is exactly six fo

Well, this will be a weirdly and stunted update. I came to this the ISA office today specifically to write this post with a flash drive (known here as a pen drive for reasons I can not fathom, could be because flashearse means to blow one´s mind) that was supposed to be full of pictures of my new dwelling. As you may have guessed from my use of supposed, my flash drive is not full as I´d hoped. It contains no pictures of my new pad, and instead a picture of my role model for my next haircut. Feast your eyes, ladies and gentleman, on the future of Nathan´s head: Yes, it is wondrous. Now, on to the titular theme. I was on the way here to talk about my change in home stay that I´d recently accomplished, I´ve moved to a house that is nicer and bigger and the food is way better. However, a strange coincidence came to pass. My old (not so good) host mother was in the office talking to Guillermo, the receiver of my complaints and liason for arranging other homestays. I made no special effort

The Concert has come and gone! Total success, ladies and gentleman I'd like to thank you all for your hard work. As you may know, the reggae band which I found with the sweat of my brow and natural good looks and talent, had their first concert with yours truly. Ironically located in the bar in which I first saw them. It was a symbolic revisit and triumph. Only two months ago I went to this bar with passing friend Paul McGuire where we navigated the new (to us) social dynamic of a bar. We lucked out and spotted someone we knew and sat with them and I thanked the lord that Paul was not as fond of the portenho habit of selling beer by the liter as everyone else I knew. We sat there sucking on our cervezas chicas and attempted conversation in the whirlwind of bar noise. We failed at that and I even managed to spill a large glass of beer on Paul that I offered to get him in return for the glass of the bilgy joy juice known as Quilmes that he gave me. Miraculously, a girl there asked fo

I rode the 65 back to my place with a smile. I was full of good pizza, melodies and memories. I arrived at Maykel´s place an hour even later than the hour late time I was supposed to arrive. Rehearsal started at 7, my class ended at seven. It takes an hour on bus to get to his neighborhood. Apparently, it takes an hour to walk back from school, grab my trombone, maintain my relationship with the doorman and find a collectivo. I navigated the crowd on the collectivo with no small bit of skill, snagging a corner to secure my trombone and a wall to lean myself against. I watched as guitarists darted artfully through the crowd with their lighter, infinitely more popular instrument strapped to their back. The man with the trombone stares down the irritation that the human-sized space of his instrument generates. After much direction-peddling and street sign-searching, I get off the bus and ubicated, as they say here. I found my way through Boedo, Maykel´s neighboorhood. I´d been once before

Let's take a little moment to describe the concept of traffic and hora pico in Buenos Aires. Hora pico translates about into peak hour and it refers to when the public transit herer starts to get a little yucky. And by a little yucky I mean it would be nice if a polite Japanese man in white gloves helped press people into the car because it would hurt less than having a 30 yr old, sweaty argentine throw himself into the mob in hopes of compressing the crowd to a size that allows him in the traincar. But when is hora pico? Well, contrary to the singular nature of the name, there is a multiplicity of hora picos. Let's look at this logically. The first hora pico would be in the morning, because everyone has to get to work pretty much at the same time, so one hora pico at the beginning of the work day. I've heard that came be from about 6-8 (notice how hora pico is more than an hour). And, then, naturally, everyone gets out at the same time too, so there is another hora pico (t

I had a conversation with my friend Conner Hinderks yesterday. He has recently come back to the US from a lengthy stay in Japan and is totally psyched about the world. Projecting my own experience on to him, I think that he must be totally blown away my Japan and its culture and looking forward to digging into the culture of another country. He asked me what I knew about teaching English and the like somewhere in South America. Hold your horses, Conner. Pará. I, too, was excited for inter-cultural experience here on scale that I knew in Japan. Te lo doy corto, I haven't got it. I came to Buenos Aires looking for an experience like I had in Japan. Something that would blow my mind for six months. I wanted items as ordinary as vending machines to confound my expectations. I raise a logical question. If one expects his expectations to be violated, and they're not, does that mean his expectations have been in some way violated? More than amusing, that sums up my experience in cultu

My shoes might look like one of these. And by the way, the middle one is not deformed, thats what it looks like before they decide a size and cut it down. This is what a shoe shop looks like. Messy, eh? The view of... some plaza near the plaza de mayo which is not the plazo de Mayo. It's beautiful except... It's totally encased in fence. So there is this really lovely plaza that is clearly designed for pedestrian traffic. Bums sleep against the fence, I like to think out of spite. Naturally, the only reason the plaza is beautiful is because of the fence. If thee were not a fence, it would be covered in poorly executed scrawlfitti. And would look nothing like this van. Which is what good graffiti often looks like in this city. My readership is almost entirely girls. Therefore, I will use this next picture to boost comments as you will almost certainly have to make your appreciation of the subject of this next photo know. Scroll down and proceed with the involuntary cooing. Yes.

Well, it does. Seriously, having finally given up on stealing a consistent signal from my neighbors I head to where I believe there is a decent internet cafe to find out that they have neither microphones nor cameras, so I head out for another and discover that the USB extension the computers are provided with actually prevents usage of USB´s unless you bring some sort of adaptive unit. So, this post will be without pictures, maybe I will add them at a later date. It will also be without structure as pictures usually remind me what I was going to talk about. So let´s begin. Uh. I´m sick again! Hooray. With luck, this could turn out to be like a weekly thing! What excitement! I don´t wanna go to the doctor as I just went and it didn´t seem to help me that much. Grah. So, aside from contracting disease, what have I been up to? Well, yesterday I went to buy tango shoes! And here would be a picture if such a thing were possible. And, surprise, surprise, there were none in my size! But here

Hello friends, this is Nathan speaking to you from deep within Buenos Aires. First, let me further qualify my recent non-postage with an explanation. I was sick and went to the doctor. From my experience, that works like this: you talk to a guy at a desk that asks you insurance type questions and gives you a form and then you sit and wait for a long period of time until a doctor calls you back and talks to you for about 5 minutes before giving you a slip of paper with the name of a medicine on it. It's all arguably irrelevant as getting medicine does not require a prescription. Then you go to the guy out front who charges you 3o bucks. Not a bad deal. Speaking of good deals, yesterday I have two sirloin steaks for six dollars apiece. They were exquisite. Today I had nine and a half empanadas for lunch. That was unwise. Go with steak. What else have I been up to as of late? I got down to some touristing with some friends in the city center. I took along Silia of blue-haired fame to