I recently befriended this Argentine who has become my urban sherpa so I keep him around. His name is Nicanor "El Lagarto" Fletas. Much like the Himalayan variety he's not a talker. This helps him exudes an aura of wisdom which is really no more than familiarity with the place in which he's been stranded for life.
Just as when I was trekking the Himalayas, sometimes keeping up with these folks in their natural habitat can be perilous. But here it is way more dangerous. There is no Base Camp to fuck around here, you'd get pick pocketed in a minute. Traversing this city should be illegal. Maybe that is why anything can be delivered: ice cream, booze, cigarettes, and the local favorites: strippers and pizza. Of course the army of delivery scooters is more hazardous than the Grand Duke of Baden's feldjägerkorps and equally mean spirited.
Jaywalking maneuvers that normally kill your average DCite are easily performed by Porteños. These people are like ninjas of pedestrian infraction. But Darwin said it, other lifeforms adapt as well or perish. In order to catch up with Porteño pedestrians, Porteño drivers have developed astounding assasination skills, sometimes a driver will divert three or four blocks from destiny to take down one of these street lynxes.
This in in part why Argentines never really converted to automatic transmission. You gotta have that quick acceleration to run over grandma trying to cross on yellow. But grandma is not that easily caught. These people are like Emperor Penguins, the ones that made it past 18 are probably gonna push it to 90. Imagine if Oprah Winfrey's Katie Holmes debacle Tom Cruise had played Maverick in TopGun. Now add more hand gestures and a burgee of their soccer team, voila, your average Porteño driver.
A serious problem compounds on this: the car park is what some might call full of "classics." Between the Ford Falcons, Renault 12, Fiat 600 and IES (which is a ripoff of the shittiest Citroen) one really comes to understand what it is to be among people of faith. Faith makes your 1940's-60's piece of shit car perform like a Ferrari Enzo (in your mind, of course). The 1960's Fiat 600 outperforms every Ferrari in the local form of abstract pavement anyways. I keep telling them to no avail that the similarities between the Enzo and the 600 really end at four wheels and Italian. Their ego is writing checks their car body shop can't cash.
But one might ask, how does grandma survive thus far when her speed is severely diminished by arthritis, high cholesterol and 50 years of psychoanalysis? Well, abuela is no longer an ordinary human.
When you're crossing an avenue there is no calculation, cars are coming too fast, their course is too erratic (they side swipe to maximize contact), too many new objects are popping into the picture. You just got to do, and she does. That is how one learns to let an out of control bus flash inches front of one's face at 60 mph. It's all about reacting to the environment, it doesn't matter if it's one inch or ten meters. Apparently the more you do it the better you get at it.
A major cause of death is "loss of conentration due to Porteñas wearing a jean miniskirt and high heels at a busy intersection." I've been told it's an actual line in the statistics ministry's records. The same ministry which claims claims inflation is 0.7%.
But these Porteñas are just one more trap this city lays for you.
Showing posts with label Washington DC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington DC. Show all posts
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, November 16, 2009
Double Whammy
Dear friends and allies,
As it is widely known in social circles of the District, albeit the less well connected do not, I remain banished in the land of Argentina. Here the soil soaks in the blood of cattle and good intentions of men; while beef eating Argentinos and Argentinas roast the flesh of a Hereford for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tea time is reserved for facturas and mostly mate.
It is hard for a corn bred, red blooded American like me to live in a land so wild teeming with tricksy people who abuse my kindheartedness at every turn. It's like good ole Charley E, a real redneck from Kansas told me once
Them Argies, they ain't got no decorum. They tell me that lady called Cristina is the president of the land, but no, sir, it is sarcasm which presides over the executive, no doubt.
The real antic down here seems to be telling foreigners that really they're Argies. Even the good boys at the American Embassy seem to be in on it. Maybe they've caught on to the locals and are merely trying to extort some money out of me.
Visa? I'm from McLean, VA! Be it as it may, I can't get back home. My passport gone I've managed to move in with some people who lost a son some time ago who had an uncanny resemblance with me. It is spooky, my word on it.
In good American fashion, I refuse to surrender to this situation. Something about a wild thing, one of our great poets said. Not as eloquent myself. I'm on my feet, getting out on the streets and spreadn' the good word about democracy, the free markets and, yes, Baseball (the oxidizing element of democracy, if one might). I feel confident that in no time this will be a fledgling republic full of honest hard working people. No time, I tell you.
My stories will be recorded here, on this world wide web log in hopes that some kindhearted border officer, maybe my congressman or even the President himself might see it to it that the tribal leaders of Argentina secure my passage back home. Until then, my job is to unleash the American inside every one of these South Americans who crosses my path.
Sadly, you may never know, Charley, unless my return occurs, since
as you used to say.
How long will it be? That is for time to decide.
I've taken the liberty to elucidate for the city folk through foot-notes what that voice from the heartland so illuminatingly preached:
*"What will you do in the Sudlands of the sub-continent, Martin, my lad. There is nothing for you to do in South America! Have you not been following The Economist (r) ? You are as American as a Coolidge or a Lodge! Even more so, in fact."
**"There is no Wi-Fi coverage in the corn fields. This I sternly, and a little agitatedly, point out."
http://www.economist.com/countries/Argentina/ For those of you unfamiliar with the terrain and in need of a refresher from an irreproachable source. Charley has in fact never read The Economist (r), but his remark implies a truth so widely known and correct that the only way to express it was through referencing something which might have been read in The newspaper.
As it is widely known in social circles of the District, albeit the less well connected do not, I remain banished in the land of Argentina. Here the soil soaks in the blood of cattle and good intentions of men; while beef eating Argentinos and Argentinas roast the flesh of a Hereford for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tea time is reserved for facturas and mostly mate.
It is hard for a corn bred, red blooded American like me to live in a land so wild teeming with tricksy people who abuse my kindheartedness at every turn. It's like good ole Charley E, a real redneck from Kansas told me once
"Whut yoo gonna ghaw doo dawn dere, Mahrn, buoy? Yoo ain't goa no bidness in them Soudamerica! Yoo Amrkn' as apple pah! Mo'even."*
Sure wish I'd followed your advice, ole Charly boy. Never will forget those red cheeks and shoulders, after a full day's labor, when you said it. What truth you spoke! Even in your limited intelligible ways.Them Argies, they ain't got no decorum. They tell me that lady called Cristina is the president of the land, but no, sir, it is sarcasm which presides over the executive, no doubt.
The real antic down here seems to be telling foreigners that really they're Argies. Even the good boys at the American Embassy seem to be in on it. Maybe they've caught on to the locals and are merely trying to extort some money out of me.
Visa? I'm from McLean, VA! Be it as it may, I can't get back home. My passport gone I've managed to move in with some people who lost a son some time ago who had an uncanny resemblance with me. It is spooky, my word on it.
In good American fashion, I refuse to surrender to this situation. Something about a wild thing, one of our great poets said. Not as eloquent myself. I'm on my feet, getting out on the streets and spreadn' the good word about democracy, the free markets and, yes, Baseball (the oxidizing element of democracy, if one might). I feel confident that in no time this will be a fledgling republic full of honest hard working people. No time, I tell you.
My stories will be recorded here, on this world wide web log in hopes that some kindhearted border officer, maybe my congressman or even the President himself might see it to it that the tribal leaders of Argentina secure my passage back home. Until then, my job is to unleash the American inside every one of these South Americans who crosses my path.
Sadly, you may never know, Charley, unless my return occurs, since
"Der ain't no 'wah-fah' in Kansas, bwah! Nah git da heck outta hir befaw yoo catch'a beat'n!"**
as you used to say.
How long will it be? That is for time to decide.
--------------------------
Idiomatic clarifications and footnotes:I've taken the liberty to elucidate for the city folk through foot-notes what that voice from the heartland so illuminatingly preached:
*"What will you do in the Sudlands of the sub-continent, Martin, my lad. There is nothing for you to do in South America! Have you not been following The Economist (r) ? You are as American as a Coolidge or a Lodge! Even more so, in fact."
**"There is no Wi-Fi coverage in the corn fields. This I sternly, and a little agitatedly, point out."
http://www.economist.com/countries/Argentina/ For those of you unfamiliar with the terrain and in need of a refresher from an irreproachable source. Charley has in fact never read The Economist (r), but his remark implies a truth so widely known and correct that the only way to express it was through referencing something which might have been read in The newspaper.
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