Observations on Travel: A Blog about Problems, Politics, People, Sociology, and Opportunity in Travel
Tuesday, January 22
Sunday, January 20
Porn Censorship around the world
I'm an american... i like to be able to make mistakes.. figure it out on my own. I don't like the imposition of others values on my behavior. I change and grow, I evolve, but I believe that the imposition of rules often creates stupefying obedience and frustration instead of true emotional growth.. people learn by doing...
this preamble is to say that I kind of likes me some entertainment from my computer on occasion. I travel a lot.. it makes it hard to maintain normal sexual relationships, and if you buy the once every 8 seconds rule, there aren't many women in the world that can consistently satisfy a man over extended periods of time. Also, men are very visual. it's a fact,male and female biology is quite different, and for a man, stimulation, superficial as it might be, is often heavily visual. I didn't make my body, but barring a lobotomy or extensive ingestion of salt peter, I am forced to live in in.. so you can understand why I might get a little frustrated when I bump into censorship in different countries of my occasional outlet.
My first experience with this was in Japan. I was staying in a nice hotel, and I had dinner with a very funny Harvard PHD who might or might not have known anything about me from our mutual friend, but had a healthy (in his case homosexual ) sex life himself... one of his first jokes to me when we discussed the hotel I was staying in, the Imperial, kind of the main old hotel of Tokyo, famously for visiting dignitaries, was "so how's the pixilation treating you!". I was quiet for a second, realizing that I had in fact spent about 30 us bucks the night before to learn this sad fact, that porn in Japan contains pixilation that obscures the hard core elements of the action, turning all porn, at least that displayed in hotels but I think also on the Internet, into the equivalent of American single X. I was there with an old friend, this PHD and his partner, and the goal was to have a fun dinner in the restaurant that inspired the last scene of the Kill Bill Movie, so what the hell, I answered "It Fucking Sucks!"... admitting that I had gone through it the night before.. and felt a little bottled up afterwards...
I don't know if I am parroting Porn industry propaganda, but it has been alleged that the availability of pornography has dropped incidence of Rape where it is available, and from a strict civil liberties perspective, what adults want to do,they should be allowed to do. I don't know if I would want my daughter working the pole, or in this case, the digicam, but I have chosen to not have kids, so it's kind of a moot point for me. I have dated a woman or two that makes their money in such ways, and it didn't really bother me. I am not arguing for child pornography nor exploitation.In the US where Pornography is close to completely legal, some obscenity laws aside, the business is actually somewhat dominated by woman in California.
So my gripe: Porn is censored in many countries around the world, and by many private entities as well. The Marriott Chain, run by a Mormon Family, was known for years for not providing Pornography on their in room On Demand systems. This is a valid choice made by a private entity, and I can usually vote with my feet if it means that much to me, but I am also seeing voluntary censorship of the Internet in rural areas of Colombia, it appears, by companies.. this I find to be much more alarming, as the Internet is to some degree like an electronic library, and this is like a banned book.
Here is a Wikipedia Graphic and explanation of where and how the Internet is Censored, but not specific to Pornography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_by_country#
So Officially, Japan Pixilates and distorts all portions of images that would give something a rating above X in the US.
Many Internet Providers in the north of Colombia Self Censor as a business.
Thailand is now on the list, absurdly, although laughably ineffectively... thank God.. sure you can do almost whatever you want in this country, but this is something one is less ashamed of in the morning.
South Korea began pornography censorship in 2012... it seems almost abusrd given that South Korea is kind of symbolic of freedom from opression compared to North Korea, but it seems to be indicative of the rise of Christianity and it's influence in the country. Self Righteousness is peeking it's head into a country with no Jeffersonian values.
this preamble is to say that I kind of likes me some entertainment from my computer on occasion. I travel a lot.. it makes it hard to maintain normal sexual relationships, and if you buy the once every 8 seconds rule, there aren't many women in the world that can consistently satisfy a man over extended periods of time. Also, men are very visual. it's a fact,male and female biology is quite different, and for a man, stimulation, superficial as it might be, is often heavily visual. I didn't make my body, but barring a lobotomy or extensive ingestion of salt peter, I am forced to live in in.. so you can understand why I might get a little frustrated when I bump into censorship in different countries of my occasional outlet.
My first experience with this was in Japan. I was staying in a nice hotel, and I had dinner with a very funny Harvard PHD who might or might not have known anything about me from our mutual friend, but had a healthy (in his case homosexual ) sex life himself... one of his first jokes to me when we discussed the hotel I was staying in, the Imperial, kind of the main old hotel of Tokyo, famously for visiting dignitaries, was "so how's the pixilation treating you!". I was quiet for a second, realizing that I had in fact spent about 30 us bucks the night before to learn this sad fact, that porn in Japan contains pixilation that obscures the hard core elements of the action, turning all porn, at least that displayed in hotels but I think also on the Internet, into the equivalent of American single X. I was there with an old friend, this PHD and his partner, and the goal was to have a fun dinner in the restaurant that inspired the last scene of the Kill Bill Movie, so what the hell, I answered "It Fucking Sucks!"... admitting that I had gone through it the night before.. and felt a little bottled up afterwards...
I don't know if I am parroting Porn industry propaganda, but it has been alleged that the availability of pornography has dropped incidence of Rape where it is available, and from a strict civil liberties perspective, what adults want to do,they should be allowed to do. I don't know if I would want my daughter working the pole, or in this case, the digicam, but I have chosen to not have kids, so it's kind of a moot point for me. I have dated a woman or two that makes their money in such ways, and it didn't really bother me. I am not arguing for child pornography nor exploitation.In the US where Pornography is close to completely legal, some obscenity laws aside, the business is actually somewhat dominated by woman in California.
So my gripe: Porn is censored in many countries around the world, and by many private entities as well. The Marriott Chain, run by a Mormon Family, was known for years for not providing Pornography on their in room On Demand systems. This is a valid choice made by a private entity, and I can usually vote with my feet if it means that much to me, but I am also seeing voluntary censorship of the Internet in rural areas of Colombia, it appears, by companies.. this I find to be much more alarming, as the Internet is to some degree like an electronic library, and this is like a banned book.
Here is a Wikipedia Graphic and explanation of where and how the Internet is Censored, but not specific to Pornography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_by_country#
So Officially, Japan Pixilates and distorts all portions of images that would give something a rating above X in the US.
Many Internet Providers in the north of Colombia Self Censor as a business.
Thailand is now on the list, absurdly, although laughably ineffectively... thank God.. sure you can do almost whatever you want in this country, but this is something one is less ashamed of in the morning.
South Korea began pornography censorship in 2012... it seems almost abusrd given that South Korea is kind of symbolic of freedom from opression compared to North Korea, but it seems to be indicative of the rise of Christianity and it's influence in the country. Self Righteousness is peeking it's head into a country with no Jeffersonian values.
Friday, January 18
The Beurocracy and Extortion of Hotel Laundry
My biggest pet peeve of all in the Hotel Industry, is when they use your residence as an excuse to overcharge for basic services.This is most common in Phone Calls, Laundry, Movies, and sometimes even Food and Room Service. There are hotls where it is so bad that you can hardly clal it hospitality, because all you get is a bed. Other annoying ones are having to pay to use the Spa or Gym when you are already paying for your room, having to pay for Exhorbitant Parking, and even Wi Fi. The French and Americans Corporate Chains are the worst for this. The best situation I ever had was in New Zealand. I needed to call the US, and asked a guy in asea side little hotel in Northern New Zeland how much the call would be... "About 60 cents a minute" he told me.. I was a bit stunned, it seemed cheap, so I asked him why, since most people would charge at least a dollar,but with a smile on my face... he answered, kind of scratching his head "Becasue that's what it'll cost me!" as if who the heck would think of asking for more when you already paid for the room.. this is hospitality! The worst I ever saw was the Ritz Carleton on Central Park South. They had the audacity to charge 17 USD for the first minute of the call. The employees here tend to be a pretty brainwashed crew, but I once got a guy to admit to me at the frint desk that people go nuts sometimes when they see it, sometimes even having hung up but still having to pay the 17 dollars. A good new trend is being charged one buck for national and two bucks for International calls of any length, which I encountered at the Mandarin Oriental. They seem to have gone with some Internet Calling System, some kind of Corporate Vonnage and the woman who ran the hotel, who looked a lot like Nicole Kidman, would only admit that's what it was, and that it was working pretty well. It seemed fair to me, even though I think it charged me a buck for local calls as well.. there was an upside, and I could call peoples cell phones for the same one buck if they lived in DC but had never changed out an old number.
Back to Laundry..no one wants to count and touch dirty laundry,but they turn it into an accounting project worthy of Ft Knox Gold.. First they give you a Plastic Bag (the Hotel Faena in Buenos Aires actually had cool spandex ones, I will admit to having stole the one out of my room, which was more than made up for by what I was paying, and it was the best laundry bag I have ever had.. it caught on fire on the muffler of my motorcycle in China once, unfortunately.. sigh..), then they expect you to fill out this fucking form.. for what you are paying, can't they just take it an fill it out. the whole thing is about making sure
A. You know how much you are getting fucked by the price of each item.
B. They can claim they didn't loose anything, which I can see people going ballistic about, but how hard is it to just wash one bag at a time or just count it yourself downstairs.
C Seeming officious, as officious means money, and money is what they are after. So if you go to a Chinese laundry even down the block from a place like this, they can do say 5 pounds of laundry for 9 bucks, and in two hours, but hotels, they act like they are washing the queens garter. Now I get that a little pretension is actually kind of fun, makes a hotel stay feel special, but there are limits.. so my worst case was again in the Ritz Carelton in NYC, right there on Central Park. I was in a bad mood, and just wanted my laundry washed and folded. An employee in a nice suit showed up and demanded I do the paperwork.I think she was from Costa Rica. I told her I wasn't doing any paperwork, I just wanted it washed and folded, simple as that.. I'm a customer,not a clerk, and it's a pretty simple request. She blew her top and stormed out of my room after I kept refusing. I got my laundry the next day, and mind you, I usually wear jeans and T shirts, and it was all on metal hangers covered in plastic and paper (a huge environmental waste). She had had it all dry cleaned, and they gave me a bill for 450 dollars. Again, there is a chinese guy 4 blocks away who could have done it for 9.
The one bright spot in this game was the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, one of the coolest hotels on earth. Somehow the Thai have a way, in the customer service realm, of actually making it feel worth it.. I did the same thing, just gave em a bag, told em I wasn't going to sort through my dirty clothes, just get it back to me clean and folded... Well, for either 45 or 75 bucks, can't remember which, but somehow after the Ritz experience it seemed worth it, it came back in a basket,wrapped in some gauze and a bit of plastic, but topped with flowers and I think parts were even wrapped in Banana Leaves..I can't make this up.. for once it seemed worth it...
Back to Laundry..no one wants to count and touch dirty laundry,but they turn it into an accounting project worthy of Ft Knox Gold.. First they give you a Plastic Bag (the Hotel Faena in Buenos Aires actually had cool spandex ones, I will admit to having stole the one out of my room, which was more than made up for by what I was paying, and it was the best laundry bag I have ever had.. it caught on fire on the muffler of my motorcycle in China once, unfortunately.. sigh..), then they expect you to fill out this fucking form.. for what you are paying, can't they just take it an fill it out. the whole thing is about making sure
A. You know how much you are getting fucked by the price of each item.
B. They can claim they didn't loose anything, which I can see people going ballistic about, but how hard is it to just wash one bag at a time or just count it yourself downstairs.
C Seeming officious, as officious means money, and money is what they are after. So if you go to a Chinese laundry even down the block from a place like this, they can do say 5 pounds of laundry for 9 bucks, and in two hours, but hotels, they act like they are washing the queens garter. Now I get that a little pretension is actually kind of fun, makes a hotel stay feel special, but there are limits.. so my worst case was again in the Ritz Carelton in NYC, right there on Central Park. I was in a bad mood, and just wanted my laundry washed and folded. An employee in a nice suit showed up and demanded I do the paperwork.I think she was from Costa Rica. I told her I wasn't doing any paperwork, I just wanted it washed and folded, simple as that.. I'm a customer,not a clerk, and it's a pretty simple request. She blew her top and stormed out of my room after I kept refusing. I got my laundry the next day, and mind you, I usually wear jeans and T shirts, and it was all on metal hangers covered in plastic and paper (a huge environmental waste). She had had it all dry cleaned, and they gave me a bill for 450 dollars. Again, there is a chinese guy 4 blocks away who could have done it for 9.
The one bright spot in this game was the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, one of the coolest hotels on earth. Somehow the Thai have a way, in the customer service realm, of actually making it feel worth it.. I did the same thing, just gave em a bag, told em I wasn't going to sort through my dirty clothes, just get it back to me clean and folded... Well, for either 45 or 75 bucks, can't remember which, but somehow after the Ritz experience it seemed worth it, it came back in a basket,wrapped in some gauze and a bit of plastic, but topped with flowers and I think parts were even wrapped in Banana Leaves..I can't make this up.. for once it seemed worth it...
Tuesday, January 1
World Food Superlatives
Unless you live in a major metropolitan area with loads of food options (most likely in the US), a big part of the fun of Traveling can be eating things you could never get at home.
Here are some of the things I have picked up over the years about food in the world.. some simple categorizations:
Best Street Food:
Thailand The Flavor's in a one dollar Thai street meal can rival a 100$ dinner in other countries. It's perfect for the weather as well.
Mexico This hyper competitive street market manages to do as many things as possible with about the same 20 ingredients.. Mexican street food is about tried and true themes with just enough variation to distinguish 20 taco stands on the same street from each other..
Freshest tasting food:
Iceland
Why? they have one breed of cow that has been specialized to the country, and greenhouses for fresh even tropical produce. Also some of the best butter in the world comes from Iceland, Smurj. Iceland is small enough, 300,000, that they are basically cooking for each other, and you happen to be there to enjoy it too.
Best High Cuisine:
France
Honorable Mention goes to Japan, which is constantly refining and creating fun experiences.
Best Restaurant Rating System:
Michelin
Now obviously, there is a lot debate and whimsey possible in stating what restaurant is best, as mood, taste and moment all play a factor, but if you want to see the idea of a Restaurant taken to the extreme, 3 Michiln Stars is the ultimate for a restaurant that would submit to a rating. This leaves out everything from the Lone Wolfs to the Acolades of Bouli out on their own and unrated.
Honorable Mention goes to:
Relais & Chateaux you are pretty much guaranteed great thoughtful service at any restaurant they rate
Zagats, the american standard, does a great job as well.
Your Local Alt Paper They will tel you what is popular in the town you live in or are visiting.
Best Restaurant City: New York City It's both perhaps the most diverse and most competitive, from high cuisine to every variety of ethnicity, to experimental and unique. Street food in New York isn't the most amazing, it can be hard to get a license for a cart, which has allowed Pizza and Hot dogs to be the De Facto street options, but a Sabrett's Hot Sausage with Catsup and Stewed Onions can make the homogeneity worth it. New York can go in cycles with waves of new immigrants (for instance, unlike the rest of the US, Mexican's just recently began arriving in force in NYC), but you will find what you want somewhere, no matter how odd the itch.
The Progression of European Food: The Greek's started it, the Italians refined it, and the French, feeling threatened, decided to take it to the nth degree.. the British gave up on competing, and the Spanish decided to give it a try for a little while..
National Palletes:
Brazil Sweet
Mexico Hot and Savory
South Africa Sweet, allmost Saccharine, and Savory
Thailand Sweet, Spicy, and Savory
America: Savory
Here are some of the things I have picked up over the years about food in the world.. some simple categorizations:
Best Street Food:
Thailand The Flavor's in a one dollar Thai street meal can rival a 100$ dinner in other countries. It's perfect for the weather as well.
Mexico This hyper competitive street market manages to do as many things as possible with about the same 20 ingredients.. Mexican street food is about tried and true themes with just enough variation to distinguish 20 taco stands on the same street from each other..
Freshest tasting food:
Iceland
Why? they have one breed of cow that has been specialized to the country, and greenhouses for fresh even tropical produce. Also some of the best butter in the world comes from Iceland, Smurj. Iceland is small enough, 300,000, that they are basically cooking for each other, and you happen to be there to enjoy it too.
Best High Cuisine:
France
Honorable Mention goes to Japan, which is constantly refining and creating fun experiences.
Best Restaurant Rating System:
Michelin
Now obviously, there is a lot debate and whimsey possible in stating what restaurant is best, as mood, taste and moment all play a factor, but if you want to see the idea of a Restaurant taken to the extreme, 3 Michiln Stars is the ultimate for a restaurant that would submit to a rating. This leaves out everything from the Lone Wolfs to the Acolades of Bouli out on their own and unrated.
Honorable Mention goes to:
Relais & Chateaux you are pretty much guaranteed great thoughtful service at any restaurant they rate
Zagats, the american standard, does a great job as well.
Your Local Alt Paper They will tel you what is popular in the town you live in or are visiting.
Best Restaurant City: New York City It's both perhaps the most diverse and most competitive, from high cuisine to every variety of ethnicity, to experimental and unique. Street food in New York isn't the most amazing, it can be hard to get a license for a cart, which has allowed Pizza and Hot dogs to be the De Facto street options, but a Sabrett's Hot Sausage with Catsup and Stewed Onions can make the homogeneity worth it. New York can go in cycles with waves of new immigrants (for instance, unlike the rest of the US, Mexican's just recently began arriving in force in NYC), but you will find what you want somewhere, no matter how odd the itch.
The Progression of European Food: The Greek's started it, the Italians refined it, and the French, feeling threatened, decided to take it to the nth degree.. the British gave up on competing, and the Spanish decided to give it a try for a little while..
National Palletes:
Brazil Sweet
Mexico Hot and Savory
South Africa Sweet, allmost Saccharine, and Savory
Thailand Sweet, Spicy, and Savory
America: Savory
How they Spend New Years in Valledupar, Colombia
I have spent New Years eve in a lot of crazy places.. Northern Alaska, Rural China, Mexico, Times Square, hell, even Key West, Ibiza, and in a broken down truck somewhere in Alabama, but somehow none has left me quite as equivocal as the one I just experienced in Valledupar, Colombia. Thanks to a drunken Moto Taxi Driver ( a 100-150 CC Chinese motorcycle driven as a taxi service) and some restless searching on foot, I can pretty much say I saw every flavor of celebration in this town of 400,000, and I won't be booking for next year here...
My dream, after I relented to spend another night here when my body resented the thought of taking a bus up to Pueblo Bello after a full day in the sun yesterday that had me passing out at sunset without dinner in my fortified hotel room at the Tativan (70 bucks a night seems to buy Car Bomb proof in Colombia, and a view and a pool of sorts to boot...), was that I would find some miracle of an outdoor concert of Vallenato, literally Valledupar's one true contribution to Culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallenato .. that would prove a tall order..
I began around 9pm, walking to the hot spots I knew in town, having already ascertained that the town's main square was dedicated to young couples, attractive but with the lack of outward charm and emotion that comes standard in Colombia, watched their kids ride around on the type of car that a dad spends 200 bucks on to try to make his kid happy at a super store, plus 20 for batteries. I had passed a group of older men passing around some Johhny Walker Red Label nearby, and they seemed a dignified bunch, so I wondered if this might eventually turn into some measure of adult celebration, but I was wrong. I headed north from my hotel towards where I knew the Rico's lived, the rich ones, hoping they might be showing off somewhere, but all I heard was some live Vallenato coming out of a club that might as well have been Fort Knox. As I read this Wikipedia entry, I realize it was the club mentioned, where a few Landed Gentlemen once deigned to legitimize this musical expression. I usually like to give Latin Rich people shit, as they tend to be pretentious or absurd, but in Colombia the are less vulnerable, which almost makes them a little less likable and a little more frustrating.. they have been at war long enough to have learned a little better who they are, and to not make the obvious mistakes, but there is still a subtle air of, not so much superiority but of justification. subtle but there, and I watched as people pulled into the club through heavy but again subtle security, and I knew that was the party I might have wanted, but it wasn't being shared.. back to the main square I wandered, only to see more of the kid set with nary a nod to the wild side of New Years.. a cab driver tried to convince me that New Years was a family time, and having walked from rich neighborhoods through middle class neighborhoods, I began to believe.. I had seen family after family sitting in plastic chairs in front of their homes, listening to music and occasionally dancing, but doing nothing that would constitute celebrating as a community.. maybe that was to come, at Carnival, or passed at Christmas, some community event so ground shaking it didn't merit repeating for a while, but it left me short.. so all the sudden a Moto Taxi driver was giving me the shrug that challenged me to go where he might be able to take me.. a female crack head arrived to kind of make me uncomfortable enough to want to hop on, despite us both being in a very public place, nothing quite like a female crack head to shame a guy into getting out of there, the odd combo of repulsion and appealing vulnerability that they elicit so well.. anyhow, he went one block before I spotted, a few blocks down a road I had not ventured down, a party.. I asked about it and the driver flipped his helmet up to strongly dissuade me, spit flying into my face from his mouth as he throttled on at 40 miles an hour barely looking forward as the bike wobbled, that that party was in the ghetto for bad people, and that it was only good if I wanted coke or Marijuana.. he had that air of a drunk scrawny guy in charge, he would solve all my problems and I would never realize he was ginning up the price, the same gig from Tijuana to Tierra Del Fuego, but every one of them, like a dog under the dinner table, thinks he's the first to think of it (we'll avoid why kind of hate Latin America for now).. we roar off, occasionally stopping to talk to another bike or cab driver, but never anyone I want to talk to and never long enough for me to get off the bike, past the Cuban place I had eaten at one night( closed) past all the middle and upper class bars that I also knew would go bust but he insisted on showing me, all around town at 40, me holding on for dear life as he tried to explain to me in endless ways that tonight was a family night with his spit coating me to the point where I questioned that it could be raining with stars shining above me just to avoid confirming the obvious displeasing fact that he was drunk and had my life in his hands in addition to the indignity of this saliva shower... inside, outside, all around the town... I finally convinced him to take me back to the square we had left originally, so I could shake him and sneak off to the party I had seen since he obviously was giving me the run around. The usual Haggle occurred where the Colombian act's morally indignant that you wouldn't want to pay about two times the going price, a way in which Colombians lie that I have never seen so confidently anywhere else, and finally he rolls off with little my price or nothing with a shrug... and I make my way to the forbidden zone.. families still lingering like sheep at 11pm in the main square with kids sugared to the hilt on local hand ground ice slushies, but with that nonplus-sable Colombian air that all that is shall always be.. a 463 year old town center feeling like an un-invested in park in Riverside County.. and the music intensified.. I could tell it would be ok because kids, teenagers but not the malicious kind, were moving towards where I was heading.. well dressed, no edge or menace.. even though the street went from pavement to a rocky jumble in a matter of feet, I somehow could sense that tonight until midnight I could boldly go where no gringo should have gone before.. I don't know what it was that struck me first, the enormity of the sound systems I was confronted by, or the bolting horse about to mow me and a bunch of kids down, but this was an altogether different scene.. not the one I had dreamed of, some Colombian Version of Dave Chapelle's block party with the local flavor of Buena Vista Social Club thrown into an all night samba marathon (not a huge stretch, as I had had an experience that wouldn't make that seem too much the movie fantasy in Barranquilla just weeks before, a night that kept me from getting onto a plane having given up on Colombia entirely, a night where a hand band did inspire the neighborhood to dance in a circle around them for hours on end, with all manor of man woman, and in one case a man/woman with an outfit Carmen Miranda wouldn't turn down..), but what I came upon was something altogether different.. in this jumble of shacks with open sewers but somehow wealth I wouldn't assume, everyone had lights, fresh paint, and of all things no less than every other house a sound system worthy of the Nassau Coliseum for a Ratt show. stacked sometimes 3 high, cases, professional looking if not in quality... while the middle class homes had sounded out the same imploring Vallenato from appropriately sized home stereos, these guys had practically needed trucks and hoists to drag out 4 by 2 foot amplifiers into the dirt streets in front of every second house.. I hope this explains the bolting horse.. people just let him go, but there were moments as he veered towards kids going the other way and away from the light of the homes and occasional storefronts that you wondered if the night was about to turn bad, but out of sight became out of mind, and I took my opportunity to wander what was evidently the hood, but still seemed to have more social fabric that my vision of the hood would have imagined.. family after family, usually three generations represented.. the same plastic chairs (the ones your buddies bought in college for the back yard, or after they became bachelors but before they finally figured out how to pull chicks... rounded and shiny at first, kind of appealing looking shiny in the store, until you touch them for the first time... and the music pumping, house after house outdoing the last... only one or two houses in the hundreds I passed giving me the delight of the indignity I would expect from the lower classes, a girl no more than 14 getting a bit too jiggy with her beau, and occasionally a mom and pop that were more than just the seated dull roar like an American mechanic at a bar b q, but actually dancing in an embrace...I finally asked a guy what time it was after some wandering.. wondering how much time I would have to kill before midnight. My response came, 1130... left and right through alleys, enough rubble to make me look drunk but women on heels still navigated with ease... the sound pumping pumping pumping. the plaintive tragedies of Vallenato, with only one house confirming my worst fears by Dancing Gotham Style... when I knew it was close to midnight I knew I needed to find my way out.. like Cinderella, the spell would break at midnight, and I would be stuck as an honored guest somewhere, while bullets rang into the air.. maybe I should have indulged, but Latin America has me jaded after all these years..what a better story it might have been with the shots ringing into the air, Colombian tough guys who actually still looked like cops anywhere else (this is a conservative country, even the rebels look like soldiers!), but I took off the few blocks back to paved road territory, another sad new view into the world of the not so poor and the not so rich, enough to put Sally Struthers out of a job unless they would hide the sound systems from her, or unless there was a lower level yet for me to see besides those few who had stumbled into the pit of addiction.. New Years rang out with a house on the corner of the main square ceasing it's dancing and hugs being given, a radio announcer, subdued by the standards of, say, Mexico, wishing all a Feliz Nuevo Ano over and over again, but never with more passion.. as I walked back I noticed a family of perhaps 15 sitting in a huge circle again, this time eating soup, and I wondered of that might be another twist in the endless traditions of the Levittowns of the world, another underwhelming night spent in Colombia...
My dream, after I relented to spend another night here when my body resented the thought of taking a bus up to Pueblo Bello after a full day in the sun yesterday that had me passing out at sunset without dinner in my fortified hotel room at the Tativan (70 bucks a night seems to buy Car Bomb proof in Colombia, and a view and a pool of sorts to boot...), was that I would find some miracle of an outdoor concert of Vallenato, literally Valledupar's one true contribution to Culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallenato .. that would prove a tall order..
I began around 9pm, walking to the hot spots I knew in town, having already ascertained that the town's main square was dedicated to young couples, attractive but with the lack of outward charm and emotion that comes standard in Colombia, watched their kids ride around on the type of car that a dad spends 200 bucks on to try to make his kid happy at a super store, plus 20 for batteries. I had passed a group of older men passing around some Johhny Walker Red Label nearby, and they seemed a dignified bunch, so I wondered if this might eventually turn into some measure of adult celebration, but I was wrong. I headed north from my hotel towards where I knew the Rico's lived, the rich ones, hoping they might be showing off somewhere, but all I heard was some live Vallenato coming out of a club that might as well have been Fort Knox. As I read this Wikipedia entry, I realize it was the club mentioned, where a few Landed Gentlemen once deigned to legitimize this musical expression. I usually like to give Latin Rich people shit, as they tend to be pretentious or absurd, but in Colombia the are less vulnerable, which almost makes them a little less likable and a little more frustrating.. they have been at war long enough to have learned a little better who they are, and to not make the obvious mistakes, but there is still a subtle air of, not so much superiority but of justification. subtle but there, and I watched as people pulled into the club through heavy but again subtle security, and I knew that was the party I might have wanted, but it wasn't being shared.. back to the main square I wandered, only to see more of the kid set with nary a nod to the wild side of New Years.. a cab driver tried to convince me that New Years was a family time, and having walked from rich neighborhoods through middle class neighborhoods, I began to believe.. I had seen family after family sitting in plastic chairs in front of their homes, listening to music and occasionally dancing, but doing nothing that would constitute celebrating as a community.. maybe that was to come, at Carnival, or passed at Christmas, some community event so ground shaking it didn't merit repeating for a while, but it left me short.. so all the sudden a Moto Taxi driver was giving me the shrug that challenged me to go where he might be able to take me.. a female crack head arrived to kind of make me uncomfortable enough to want to hop on, despite us both being in a very public place, nothing quite like a female crack head to shame a guy into getting out of there, the odd combo of repulsion and appealing vulnerability that they elicit so well.. anyhow, he went one block before I spotted, a few blocks down a road I had not ventured down, a party.. I asked about it and the driver flipped his helmet up to strongly dissuade me, spit flying into my face from his mouth as he throttled on at 40 miles an hour barely looking forward as the bike wobbled, that that party was in the ghetto for bad people, and that it was only good if I wanted coke or Marijuana.. he had that air of a drunk scrawny guy in charge, he would solve all my problems and I would never realize he was ginning up the price, the same gig from Tijuana to Tierra Del Fuego, but every one of them, like a dog under the dinner table, thinks he's the first to think of it (we'll avoid why kind of hate Latin America for now).. we roar off, occasionally stopping to talk to another bike or cab driver, but never anyone I want to talk to and never long enough for me to get off the bike, past the Cuban place I had eaten at one night( closed) past all the middle and upper class bars that I also knew would go bust but he insisted on showing me, all around town at 40, me holding on for dear life as he tried to explain to me in endless ways that tonight was a family night with his spit coating me to the point where I questioned that it could be raining with stars shining above me just to avoid confirming the obvious displeasing fact that he was drunk and had my life in his hands in addition to the indignity of this saliva shower... inside, outside, all around the town... I finally convinced him to take me back to the square we had left originally, so I could shake him and sneak off to the party I had seen since he obviously was giving me the run around. The usual Haggle occurred where the Colombian act's morally indignant that you wouldn't want to pay about two times the going price, a way in which Colombians lie that I have never seen so confidently anywhere else, and finally he rolls off with little my price or nothing with a shrug... and I make my way to the forbidden zone.. families still lingering like sheep at 11pm in the main square with kids sugared to the hilt on local hand ground ice slushies, but with that nonplus-sable Colombian air that all that is shall always be.. a 463 year old town center feeling like an un-invested in park in Riverside County.. and the music intensified.. I could tell it would be ok because kids, teenagers but not the malicious kind, were moving towards where I was heading.. well dressed, no edge or menace.. even though the street went from pavement to a rocky jumble in a matter of feet, I somehow could sense that tonight until midnight I could boldly go where no gringo should have gone before.. I don't know what it was that struck me first, the enormity of the sound systems I was confronted by, or the bolting horse about to mow me and a bunch of kids down, but this was an altogether different scene.. not the one I had dreamed of, some Colombian Version of Dave Chapelle's block party with the local flavor of Buena Vista Social Club thrown into an all night samba marathon (not a huge stretch, as I had had an experience that wouldn't make that seem too much the movie fantasy in Barranquilla just weeks before, a night that kept me from getting onto a plane having given up on Colombia entirely, a night where a hand band did inspire the neighborhood to dance in a circle around them for hours on end, with all manor of man woman, and in one case a man/woman with an outfit Carmen Miranda wouldn't turn down..), but what I came upon was something altogether different.. in this jumble of shacks with open sewers but somehow wealth I wouldn't assume, everyone had lights, fresh paint, and of all things no less than every other house a sound system worthy of the Nassau Coliseum for a Ratt show. stacked sometimes 3 high, cases, professional looking if not in quality... while the middle class homes had sounded out the same imploring Vallenato from appropriately sized home stereos, these guys had practically needed trucks and hoists to drag out 4 by 2 foot amplifiers into the dirt streets in front of every second house.. I hope this explains the bolting horse.. people just let him go, but there were moments as he veered towards kids going the other way and away from the light of the homes and occasional storefronts that you wondered if the night was about to turn bad, but out of sight became out of mind, and I took my opportunity to wander what was evidently the hood, but still seemed to have more social fabric that my vision of the hood would have imagined.. family after family, usually three generations represented.. the same plastic chairs (the ones your buddies bought in college for the back yard, or after they became bachelors but before they finally figured out how to pull chicks... rounded and shiny at first, kind of appealing looking shiny in the store, until you touch them for the first time... and the music pumping, house after house outdoing the last... only one or two houses in the hundreds I passed giving me the delight of the indignity I would expect from the lower classes, a girl no more than 14 getting a bit too jiggy with her beau, and occasionally a mom and pop that were more than just the seated dull roar like an American mechanic at a bar b q, but actually dancing in an embrace...I finally asked a guy what time it was after some wandering.. wondering how much time I would have to kill before midnight. My response came, 1130... left and right through alleys, enough rubble to make me look drunk but women on heels still navigated with ease... the sound pumping pumping pumping. the plaintive tragedies of Vallenato, with only one house confirming my worst fears by Dancing Gotham Style... when I knew it was close to midnight I knew I needed to find my way out.. like Cinderella, the spell would break at midnight, and I would be stuck as an honored guest somewhere, while bullets rang into the air.. maybe I should have indulged, but Latin America has me jaded after all these years..what a better story it might have been with the shots ringing into the air, Colombian tough guys who actually still looked like cops anywhere else (this is a conservative country, even the rebels look like soldiers!), but I took off the few blocks back to paved road territory, another sad new view into the world of the not so poor and the not so rich, enough to put Sally Struthers out of a job unless they would hide the sound systems from her, or unless there was a lower level yet for me to see besides those few who had stumbled into the pit of addiction.. New Years rang out with a house on the corner of the main square ceasing it's dancing and hugs being given, a radio announcer, subdued by the standards of, say, Mexico, wishing all a Feliz Nuevo Ano over and over again, but never with more passion.. as I walked back I noticed a family of perhaps 15 sitting in a huge circle again, this time eating soup, and I wondered of that might be another twist in the endless traditions of the Levittowns of the world, another underwhelming night spent in Colombia...
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