superfacilmente

As it goes without saying (and it seems that generally that it has not been talked about) Argentina lost against Brazil last Sunday. Their third time up against Brazil in the series unfortunately came to a loss and we feel sorry about over here. At any rate, still thought it would be nice to show goal highlights for those looking for a little fútbol exposure.

So our karaoke friends had, while at karaoke, invited us to La Viruta a tango milonga located in, of all places, the Armenian Cultural Center in Buenos Aires. They had been recommended to the place by their young hip tango instructor who said it was one of the few places where you could find authentic porteños actually doing the dance. From what I have been told, tango is seen as somewhat antiquated here, and people prefer their salsa and cumbia to the lumbering a-little-to-old-giant that is tango in BsAs. That might explain, and mind you were forewarned, why the basement room where we watched the show was decorated something like a “high school gym at prom” to quote Iris. Well at any rate we went and I was thoroughly impressed. The night started with salsa dancing, moved to some wowing professional tango dancers taking the stage and even had a live band (Valetango! who did a great job getting people on the dance floor. Kira and I even tried the one tango step we have learned thus far with mixed results, and mind you ever 15 minutes or so Madonna’s Holiday was played as an interlude… then there was the rockabilly portion of the dancing, but let’s not get into that.

At any rate the whole thing was once again captured on film (what could be made out)

First we have some videos of Valetango with and without a guest singer:

And then the professional tango dancers who got me thinking about how spiffy and awesome tango looks:

Now when Kira and I were invited by our expat bffs to go karaoking, we were very excited, well at least I was. I am not exactly an expert karaoker, but I have done my share of it back in New York and I won’t lie, I am not that bad. My best results came during a rendition of Stayin’ Alive (BeeGees) which I rendered with a perfect falsetto and got the ten or 15 other patrons of the bar out onto the dance floor.

So, as I said, I was pretty pumped about our little adventure into the world of BsAs karaoke. I spent the hours before the show getting over a pretty severe cold (with Bayasparina C) boning up on any songs I might be able to throw out there (not just Stayin’ Alive, but Don’t Stop Believing, White Wedding, and even The Final Countdown). Then Kira and I hopped a cab towards Plaza Serrano where we met for a quick drink (that were bright blue) in some upstairs bar and then, around 1am, headed towards Karaoke central, Bar Karaoke in fact.

Now when I think of karaoke night in the big city, it’s usually pretty small. In Manhattan, little bars feature small groups of would-be karaoke stars singing their greatest hit. I did not expect what I saw down at Bar Karaoke. To start with I got to see these four fine ladies (one of whom I date) going crazy at the microphone. Here’s an idea of what they looked like:

While I praise their gutsiness, they were one of the small groups! The announcers, the porteños, picked out our table early (as we were almost all Americanos and English speakers to talk about), but by request sang everything from what I assume are Argentine classics to New York, New York.

Then all of the participants would join in en mass and I would sit back dumbfounded. The announcers then picked at random the little requests (stubs of paper) and the lyrics would appear in front of the lucky group as well as behind them so we could sing along. A few drinks in, it didn’t really matter that I didn’t know the songs, or the Spanish, I was singing along. Babasónicos, Los Auntenticos Decadantes and many other names i didn’t know appeared on the screen behind me. Even my request (Bohemian Rhapsody) was brought up by a porteño who sang about 50 times better than I could and got the whole room singing along. I have not seen so many people in a small space bounce when they reached the hard part of the song.

Ultimately, I didn’t make my way up after Bohemian Rhapsody came on. The other English-Speaking options we had chosen were not called and I chose instead to remain primarily the spectator to the show as more and more people crowded the floor. Even when Iris, Jess, Kira and everyone else I knew came up, I decided to merely film the proceedings, but the life and vivacity of the karaoke club were quite amazing. At least I have the videos (which I have posted below) which hopefully you can enjoy. I will explain each.

My friends take on the Karaoke Stage

The biggest group of revelers that night

Part of the fantastic rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody

Another group of ladies take on the mic (and dance?)

I assume a boy band?

And the rest are just random people

This last one is the announcers singing. A pretty good time… And a way I staid up until dawn!

I think most of Buenos Aires had the same collective moment yesterday. Spending the day indoors for the holiday, we all were either warming by the fire, heater (or in my case blanket and tea kettle) when we stared out our windows to see something we didn’t expect. SNOW! For the first time in 81 years I hear. Personally, I skipped the snow and opted to see a movie in the Abasto Mall (which was packed) but even there, people were playing, dancing and enjoying the flurries just outside on the mall steps.

Sadly, for the first time, I didn’t bring a camera. Luckily, I am not the only blogger in this much blogged about town. Jeff, whose wonderful blog Buenos Aires, City of Faded Elegance updates me often about the BsAs world, took some pictures, which I have stolen and put below.

Enjoy and check out Buenos Aires, City of Faded Elegance when you can:

PS - I also like these photos because they are near home for both Jeff and myself… huzzah for San Telmo

For those who are reading my blog in the US, independence day is already a week old (practically). However, here in BsAs, Independence Day came a few days and 40 years later. And while Americans were shooting off fireworks and generally carousing around grills, I have been informed via the BA Expats that this is happening:

Not a lot happens around here on Independence Day, I’m afraid. Not since K took over, anyway. That’s another benefit we can thank him for. We used to have a nice, though austere, celebration, which basically consisted of a parade down Avenida de Mayo. Quite cheerful. Not anymore. He now runs to Tucumán just to get away from the Tedeum at Metropolitan Cathedral in Plaza de Mayo… He usually gets a mouthful from the Archbishop, which he doesn’t really enjoy. You see, it’s the only time someone gets to tell him what’s wrong without giving hin a chance to talk back.

I suppose we will all celebrate in our hearts. For my part, I will spend the day, updating the blog.

I post this as only proof that after long and hard work (a month at least) Kira and I are returning home at the ripe hour of 6 am. We have finally managed a porteño evening and are going to sleep with the dawn. Expect an update with what we did!

Thanks to Iris and Jess for making this possible

Am I right in thinking there’s a difference between between Feria music and Subway music? In many countries there is a wide variety of musicians in the subway. Some can play very well, and in places like London and New York can actually be city sanctioned to play. Others hardly can play an instrument and are scrounging for change. This is very different from the musicians on Sunday at the Feria in San Telmo. I may be generalizing, but the full bands that perform, from classical, to tango, to rock, are a pretty astounding group of instrumentalists. Of course I may be aggrandizing the experience, but the flood of music throughout the day on Defensa certainly lights up my weekend, from the poor players to the brand new jazz and funk bands. This band, maybe called Telepatica was playing last week and was selling their cds. I found both the band, and the cd, very professionally done. Of course I would love to hear any opinions or information about the musicians or the feria and how the musicians get to play. Maybe I will try out my pianaca (check previous posts) on the mean streets of San Telmo.

Listen to the band and if you hear them on the streets, buy the cd!

Last night, I set myself a new mission. In order to hopefully finally start to understand the Porteño accent, I decided to start watching films made in Buenos Aires because while it has been hard for me to find many porteños willing to gab about their lives in my broken Spanish, movies provide a fine outlet to hear the accent and prepare me for full blown out conversations. I didn’t realize what I was in for:

Now for those unable to understand the Spanish, I apologize, but I have a feeling one of the reasons for the subtitles in spanish is that the characters in this well known Porteño film actually speak so quickly and with so many curses that when watching it with English subtitles I noticed full sentences were missing. It was extremely strange to constantly be rewinding and trying to actually understand what was being said, not to mention the dozens of words, literally, that stood for our favorite explicative, fuck.

That wasn’t the only word that seemed to pop up in different forms. I saw cigarettes were called cigarillos, cigaros and finally puchas (I think) which I had never heard before.

The actual film seems like a classic story in our movie lives. Coming of Age, the big score, and all that were factored into these young guys who robbed for a living, but did it badly and were constantly being chased after because of their scams. The scam that introduces the movie involves a cab driver getting “robbed” (the cabbie is in on the deal) along with his fair. That is perhaps the only successful robbery in the movie, especially considering one of the main characters has asthma which makes running and robberies hard for him.

Throughout the movie you get a great view of a slightly older Buenos Aires. The fact that the movie revolved around scams, which I suffered myself made the whole thing hit a little harder. However, the view of the city and of its people is very dark, callous even, as if all Porteños are out to rob and plunder from each othereven if it is for the most noble of reasons. it’s a very different view of the city than the one I think I would paint for it, of fairly gregarious and citizens that are usually quite “amable” for lack of a better word. I just find this aspect of the movie particularly fascinating.

It was also filmed ina s tyle that would make any indie buff proud. Aside from utterly depressing me, the movie was well done and a nice intro to the world of Argentinian cinema, though I have to say the world it created, from hanging out at the obelisk to the pizza places all was different from my Buenos Aires. Maybe I still don’t know them that well.

A few nights ago, I was up until my usual bedtime which is getting closer to 3am. One of the many reasons I stayed up that particular night was due to the tremendous amount of noise that was present up and down my street, the main street of Capital Federal, Avenida de 9 de Julio. Not usually that quiet a street, it was filled with tons of honking horns and what sounded like gunshots and people shouting slogans in groups. I made a feeble attempt to capture the sound on my camcorder. The sound is pretty bad and this was a quieter moment, but here is a sample:

I assumed, rather sadly that war had broken out. June is an active month in politics and elections seem to be going on all the time, but of course I was wrong. The ruckus was over that grand sport, which inexplicably remains unpopular in the US: Football.

Here, at least once a week you see people crowded around televisions lining the street outside of cafes with televisions or listening to radio results of football. But that night was particularly special. One of the local teams, whose stadium I can walk to very easily, The Boca Juniors apparently won a very important match. Now the Boca Juniors are famous for rising passions in their fans. One of the two big teams in the area, they have a bitter, worse than that whole Red Sox and Yankees thing, rivalry with another, I believe Rio de la Plata. Passions rise high and the teams will often mock each others economic status and ridiculous things like that. All in good fun. But really the passion of the fans is unseen in the US and took me back. Here are some Youtube videos of Boca Junior’s fans in action:

I have never been much of a sports fan, but it really is remarkable to see all of these people together, chanting and just how any match on television will cause people to stop, stair, and be more engrossed in that than in scandal or upset in the news. Certainly, I think it’s better than the whole Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan coverage in the US, but that could just be me. An interesting difference though. Have celebrities become the new US national pastime?

What’s also interesting is how complicated the whole world of football is here with about 4 or 5 different cups to be won per year. I started a discussion about it at BA Expats.com. You can read the ins and outs of the football hierarchy here.

Today Kira and my “BFF of Buenos Aires,” the Am Civ major Iris invited us to her apartment for her and roommate Jess’ Latinamerican Idol party. We were supposed to dress as our favorite Latin-American Idol, but, having none, I just went and got to see the show (luckily the only person to dress as an idol was Jess who pulled off a very convincing Shakira).

Latinamerican Idol is disturbingly like its predecessors with a man who looks like Simon Cowell (plus 150 pounds or so) doing the insulting thing in an elitist Spanish accent to make up for Simon Cowell’s British one. Former pop sensation Jon Secada played the role of Randy Jackson, deferring to his two other judges often and giving steamy looks to certain other male stars (not to mention twitching occasionally). You might remember Secada from his one time hit, Just Another Day: (The Spanish Version is Below)

And the Paul Abdul character was perfect, saying muy bonito about every two seconds and spastically dancing along with the contestants whether they were good or not…

And of course there was the very tasty Monchi to make up for Mr. Seacrest (the girls all appropriately said “I’d like to take a Munchy out of Monchi.”) And the crop of would-be stars was pretty terrific including a tenor soprano (a rarity to find in the days post-eunuch) who had an amazing voice, but was not idol material, and with his long hair did seem to be both a man and a woman at the same time, and twin brothers who got into the idol contest because they harmonized so well. What the hell is up with that? I bet I could get into the idol thing then if I could find a singer to harmonize with (I guess he would have to be my twin).

One small interesting note is that though tackiness reigned wonderfully supreme in this south American version of the show, with the hosts (Monchi and his female companion) obviously being green screened and stuff like that, I did notice two really interesting things about the show.

1. Lots of guitars- The idol stars who got in could actually play guitar and stuff. Now I haven’t watched idol since them Clay Aiken days, but I found that noteworthy.

2. Nationality - Idol is actually a decent franchise because of this. People phoning into idol will vote down national lines, I assume. People want their country (Colombia, El Salvador, Peru, Argentina) to be the Latinamerican Idol. We could eventually see a WORLD IDOL competition where China would win by dint of having the most people, but the competition would be awesome…

Of course perhaps the highlight of the evening were our two hosts who introduced us to peach flavored wine and Maria Isabel (the 7 year old idol of Spain)

One thing I know is I will be texting my votes in to Latinamerican Idol this year. It’s a guilty pleasure I can enjoy outside of America