One or Several Wolves?

Le partage du sensible

2011-02-20T07:22:00.000-08:00

Demo

2011-02-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

Ponderous yet affective soundscapes (in the non-pejorative sense) that result in a Mizell-like climax (also in a non-pejorative sense). In other words - A tremendous achievement in song!

Beach

2011-02-11T12:27:00.000-08:00

"Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away."

Neil Young is not the first, nor will he be the last, to contemplate, in song, the meaning and meaninglessness of life whilst on a beach. We also have, at the very least, Virgina Woolf and Matthew Arnold as examples. And it cannot be ignored that their specific sense of beach stems, in part, from the fact that Great Britain is a great island. What, perhaps, separates Neil from these others, however, is not the fact that he is a Canadian, but rather the very inexpresiveness of his existential expression. The lyrical content to "On the Beach" is not Neil's best - nor, for that matter, is his vocal delivery. Yet, as my good friend, Forest, noted the other day, that the song lacks in lyrical depth makes it all the more poignant - it emphasizes the human struggle to adequately express what one feels, especially when one is at a loss, adrift on a seemingly solid piece of land that still changes from moment to moment, from wave to wave. For a beach is a threshold: at once the portal to the infinite, the transcendent, and the stark, if amorphous, site of an inexorable terrestriality. Indefinite and definite. Unbounded and bounded. Passion and limit. Oasis and desert. Being and death. We can't drink the water, we can't eat the sand. We can only play in these elements, which are, in this way, always already necessary and superfluous.

Neil has his guitar with him on the beach, too, but even this instrument, in his hands, in these moments, seems to be meandering if not muted, promising something greater than what it is actually able to transmit. To bring it back to matters unbound and bound, Percy Blysse Shelley writes of this same frustrated effort in Prometheus Unbound: "Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran / Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever, / Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever." Or, to put it another way, Neil's solos function as some sort of affective homage to a shipwrecked humanity - now landlocked, formerly lost at sea.

The inimitable metaphysical poet, John Donne, also a Brit, and, therefore, also an islander, famously wrote:

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee. -Meditation XVII

Yet, maybe Donne had never been on the beach. He could hear the bells toll, yes, but only because the sound of the waves crashing didn't drown out their song.

Lorca in the Dead of Winter - All In b/w All Out

2011-02-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

(Drawing by FGL, 1929)

For my money, the poem that follows - "La aurora" by the Spanish poet, dramaturge, and artist, Federico García Lorca - is the most harrowing depiction of the dark side of modernity. No one can match the succinct yet complex expressivity of the naturalistic and surrealistic imagery that marks this poem. In the end, which here is also the beginning, the "dawn," it is all constituitive of nothing, of nihilism - the futility, the annihilation of human drive and desire - and it is at least on par, if not above, the work of T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Sartre, Camus, and so on.

"La aurora"
By Federico García Lorca

La aurora de Nueva York tiene
cuatro columnas de cieno
y un huracán de negras palomas
que chapotean en las aguas podridas.

La aurora de Nueva York gime
por las inmensas escaleras
buscando entre las aristas
nardos de angustia dibujada.

La aurora llega y nadie la recibe en su boca
porque allí no hay mañana ni esperanza posible.
A veces las monedas en enjambres furiosos
taladran y devoran abandonados niños.

Los primeros que salen comprenden con sus huesos
que no habrá paraísos ni amores deshojados;
saben que van al cieno de números y leyes,
a los juegos sin arte, a sudores sin fruto.

La luz es sepultada por cadenas y ruidos
en impúdico reto de ciencia sin raíces.
Por los barrios hay gentes que vacilan insomnes
como recién salidas de un naufragio de sangre.

From Poeta en Nueva York (written 1929-30, published posthumously 1940)

(English translation by STEPHEN SPENDER AND J. L. GILI)

The New York dawn has
four columns of mud
and a hurricane of black doves
that paddle in putrescent waters.

The New York dawn grieves
along the immense stairways,
seeking amidst the groins
spikenards of fine-drawn anguish.

The dawn comes and no one receives it in his mouth,
for there no morn or hope is possible.
Occasionally, coins in furious swarms
perforate and devour abandoned children.

The first to come out understand in their bones
that there will be no paradise nor amours stripped of leaves:
they know they are going to the mud of figures and laws,
to artless games, to fruitless sweat.

The light is buried under chains and noises
in impudent challenge of rootless science.
Through the suburbs sleepless people stagger,
as though just delivered from a shipwreck of blood.

In addition... Some say that Leonard Cohen is the "master of erotic despair." But I believe that the title for the tilted crown of the jilted belongs to Lorca.

Exhibit A:

Of course, perhaps as all homages are destined to be, this one is quite bizarre. Still, the song has a peculiar charm and potency, nonetheless.

A Couple of Genius Leopards

2011-01-17T16:29:00.001-08:00

Behold the face, the sound, the fury of genius in the 21st Century! It is Destroyer. He sings, he screams: "Enjoy the wretched writing on the wall - Enjoy!" The new album drops next week, and it's due to crossover.

A genius of the 20th Century, the Chilean poet, vanguardist, and creationist, Vicente Huidobro. Here, as sketched by Picasso.

"Y la noche encoge sus uñas como un leopardo / And the night retracts its claws like a leopard."

- Vicente Huidobro, Altazor o el viaje en paracaídas / Altazor or a voyage in a parachute.

To Russia With Love

2010-01-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a new mix (with some familiar songs) for the good people at Fun City Shingaling in St. Petersburg, USSR.

Great write up of Ann Arbor Soul Club at annarbor dot com in anticipaiton of the three year anniversary

2009-12-02T08:40:00.001-08:00

Found here!

Ann Arbor Soul Club Three Year Anniversary

2009-11-28T09:12:00.000-08:00

Magic City Soul Club - 29 October @ Cliff Bell's Detroit

2009-10-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

Flyer by Brad

Mix by Robert

Link to mix.

Videos of when I DJed in St. Petersburg, USSR

2009-09-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

The News. Long Post...3 seconds on Wells!

2009-05-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

It's taken me too long to write something here about my recent experiences abroad. I apologize to you, dear reader, for this absence.

I'm traveling. I've traveled before; over the past ten years or so I've been fortunate enough to have spent time in Spain, France, Germany, the UK, Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Some places were "safer" than others, sure, but I've always felt OK about my circumstances. Obviously, it helps that I'm a male (and not necessarily a typical-looking American one at that), have now accrued enough traveling experience to, hopefully, be aware enough of where I am and how I present myself to parts and people unknown, have mostly lived with locals everywhere I've been, and, at least in Spanish-speaking countries, speak the language. All that said, this editorial/fright piece in the May, 30th, edition of the New York Times entitled "Cume Laude in Evading Bandits" (nice title, dickhead) by Nicolas D. Kristof has me incensed! Read it for yourself. It's short and not sweet and will surely scare young people (and their parents) away from traveling, as it offers such sagacious advice to would-be travelers as the following discriminating nugget: "14. If terrorists finger you, break out singing “O Canada”!" Again, I realize that not all parts of the world are safe, that traveling abroad, especially alone, can be dangerous, and that traveling as a cultural and personal practice is unfortunately, not for everyone (I'm not always so sure I'm made for it myself...), but Americans of all ages need to see the world in order to avoid the personal and cultural solipsisms and solar myths that plague our country and add to the general culture of fear that runs rampant o'er the ramparts.

For a different take on travel, I recommend this interview with Rick Steves from salon.com from a few months back. Who knew this dude was so hip?

***

I spun 45s with a friend named Javi Bayo this past Friday night here in Madrid at a place called Sala Juglar. It was cool to be able to DJ in Europe, and not have to travel all the way to Scandinavia to do it (more on that below), and even cooler that most all of my friends here in Madrid made it out to see me in DJ action. At times, in fact, the dance floor was too crowded for people to really dance. Pictures should be forthcoming! I'm not sure that I was the best selector that night, however, since I was going one-for-one/back and forth with Javi and our tastes don't exactly align, but mostly because I found myself saving all the hott schitt tracks till the end; but the end, it never came. Once we stopped spinning around 3:30am, I went for a nightcap with a friend named Álvaro to a "rockers" bar. I'm not so sure we fit in, especially since Álvaro was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and Japanese-looking pants, but it was fun to see that kind of social milieu in Madrid all the same.

The next morning, another local DJ friend, DJ JADD, whose real name is José Ángel Díaz Duran (an only slightly Spanish name, especially when compared to the full name of the Spanish poet and dramatist, Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca), talked me into going with him to a DJ gig in San Sebastián in the Basque Country, in the the Northwest corner of Spain. Carpe diem, I guess. On the way there, we traveled en clase preferente.

José Ángel is an absolute character - at one point he explained to me how he loves train stations and airports because he knows he's always guaranteed to see pretty women in a hurry - so the six-hour train ride was fun enough. My energy was quite low, however, and, as the night progressed I was never really able to fully commit myself to the night. José Ángel was one of four DJs spinning and was by far the best. The others played too much "mehhh" modern soul and "quiet storm" type adult soul for my taste. Always a critic!

The little I saw of the city itself was quite impressive.

The air was fresh and I felt healthy just breathing it in, not like here in Madrid.

***

(What follows goes back about one month in time, and will be fragmentary. If you've made it this far in the post, though, you can only keep reading.)

After Sweden, I went to DJ in Helsinki, Finland as part of the "tour" that took me from Sweden to Finland to Russia.

A surprisingly unadorned city, at least in terms of its "functional" architecture, and one that is currently losing its greenness to thousands of rabbits originally let loose by a crazed pet rabbit owner, I had a fine time in Helsinki with my host, Soul Sami, aka Soul Salmon.

Dude loves his salmon soup. And his rare records. Together with Markus-Setä and Heikki H., Soul Salmon and I spun at Soul Sides on Saturday, April 25. Heikki H. was an interesting type to me, in a good way, and he actually moved to the UK for a couple years because he's that into northern soul. Anyways, I was half-deaf all night, however, due to wax buildup exacerbated by air pressure from the flight from Göteborg to Helsinky a few days before. I have a body; but sometimes it has me. The party was great fun, nevertheless, and we all seemed to get a good reaction from the crowd.

Here I am, dancing mostly with my hand, as I am wont to do.

Before the long night was over, I fell in love with a Serbian named Svetlana. Apparently a common name in the Balkans, Svetlana was not a common name to me. Her jacket was turquoise, her personality was golden. You should've seen her singing along to Pink Floyd at the after-party. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." However long that song is, she sang the whole damn thing. I was there. The whole time, I was there. She was not to answer my call.

Seeing as how I couldn't hear much of anything, I eventually went to the doctor in Helsinki a few days later to have the earwax removed. A bit of a wasted day in a foreign land, I suppose, but I had to hear.

I will tell you this, though, Finnish reggae is for real! So many dreadlocks. So much love.

From Helsinki, I took an early morning bus to St. Petersburg, Russia. I had heard from former travelers that I would need to keep some money handy in order to bribe the Russian customs police. "They prefer dollars," I was told, but I had no dollars with me. "They will get on the bus and point their automatic weapon at you and demand that you give them money." Huh? I don't know whether I just didn't believe these anecdotes or simply thought I was tougher than the 60 year-old lady that told them to me, but they turned out to be patently false anyway. (As it was, on the bus ride back from St. Petersburg to Finland, I was greeted at the entrance to the Finnish customs office by a lovely little rasta rug.)

Russia was a blur. I DJ'd three nights in a row at three different venues - the final night in Ekaterinburg. Look it up. On a map or a globe, if you have one handy. It's in the interior. The party in Ekaterinburg looked to be the coolest party I've ever been a part of (no pics, unfortunately), but when it came time for me to start my DJ set I cleared the dance floor maybe 20 minutes in. :/ How did that happen, exactly? Well, I could start off by saying that the lights were too bright - even though this didn't seem to affect the partygoers when the other DJs were spinning - but I think it had more to do with the facts that 1) I played more soul than funk* and 2) the crowd expected someone with actual DJ skills, i.e. the ability to mix and scratch, or, in other words, a DJ that did not let the songs go all the way to the end.

I wish I didn't have to say that the pictures will have to suffice to tell the Russian tale, but, for now, they will. The whistle has been blown on this one.

*Perhaps the words of a Russian I met who went by the unfortunate nickname of "Igor" because of his general unattractiveness really do ring true, then: "Funk is one of the American utopias." That is, he did not say the same about "soul."

Göteborg and Party Joel

2009-04-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

This past Thursday night was my last night in Göteborg, Sweden, and, even though I had an 8:50am flight out the next morning, I went out Thursday night.

The evening started with a pizza dinner with my relative, (see my previous post for more info. on this) Mark, and his stepson, Jack.

It had been warm that day, but cooled off considerably into the evening. Still, we decided to eat outside because there was a heater next to our table and because the restaurant provided its customers seated outside with blankets.

I've come to understand that this is a common practice in Scandinavia - providing blankets at restaurants to people wanting to sit outside - in part because it's so cold so much of the year that people just want to be outside, so blankets and heaters allows them to eat outside even when it's chilly.

Eventually Mark went back to his home in the suburbs and Jack's best friend, Joel, met up with us and helped convince Jack and I to go out for a few drinks. This only makes sense because Joel was recently named the #3 partier in all of Göteborg! I think you can see it in his eyes. (Also, see if you can find the party pic of Jack, Joel, and me on this page here.)

As the man himself tells it, he lost his job back in January. But he's is a-ok with that, because in Sweden if you lose your job you receive 80% of your salary for the next 200 days. Thus, in Joel's case, losing his job meant a two-week trip to Thailand, a new bicycle, and nothing to do in the morning! Apart from being the #3 party-man in all of Göteborg, Joel also enjoys minimal techno, MILFs, using the affirmation "For true!," and gets laid every night he goes out, which means he gets laid every night.

Family Ties

2009-04-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Göteborg, Sweden! While I understand next to nothing of the language, I know that my roots (on my mother's side) are here in this country, with the last name of Lindeman. This has always been known to me, though not in great detail. Brother Jay had to do family tree projects a number of times in grade school, though I never did. Now things are known to me on a deeper level.

I've been staying with some e x t e n d e d family here in Göteborg: first with my mother's cousin, Mark Johnson, his wife, Kacka, their daughter, Ellen, and puppy dog, Twisty, in Göteborg's country suburb of Björsared, and now with Mark's stepson, Jack, in central Göteborg. (I was forced to make the move from the countryside to the city on Tuesday night - a move that was, perhaps, made for the best as I was thus able to see the city itself - as the Johnson family cat, Cartman, had my allergies in such a state that I had trouble breathing deeply at night and thus could not sleep soundly. Cats! On Saturday night I was the guest DJ at Club Function in Malmö (about a 3-hr drive South from Göteborg). It was a fun night and cool to have Mark come along and see me do my thingthing; I really enjoyed the other DJs, especially all the other excellent and RAER modern soul the other guest DJ, Johan, spun, though found the crowd kinda hard to read and maybe even uninspired. Was it me, my records, or is it just that Swedes don't necessarily go crazy and let it all hang loose in the sweet soul breeze of the smoke-free night? All I know for sure is that I accidentally used the ladies' toilet a few times before i realized my mistake, and that I also used all my free drink cards on Gin and Tonics and glasses of Estrella Dam.

Tuesday was the main event, though. Mark and I headed out for the Swedish midlands in his Prius in search of our common, Swedish roots. I was thoroughly groggy from the night before, however, since I was basically unable to sleep, so I myself was rather uninspired as we started off the day tagging along with a group of geology enthusiasts (Mark is a geology prof. at the University of Göteborg) on the lookout for natural springs. Still, we saw some interesting sites, and even came across an ancient Viking burial site in Dimbo, Sweden, before we started off in search of the rather ancient burial sites of our own kin.

Our roots tour started off at the cemetery of a church located in Frösve, where Mark showed me the grave of our oldest know relative on record, Påfvel Törsen, born 1682, died 17??.

In the same cemetery lies the grave of a man who married one of Påfvel's daughters, Sven Andersson, born 1729, died 1772, who was a one time a member of Parliament (or a Riksdagsmannen).

Only a few miles away is Herrekvarn (roughly translated as "Lordmill" or "Mastermill"), the farmland, stream, and mill that Påfvel owned way back when.

Apparently, the doorposts on this current house are the same ones Påfvel had built centuries earlier.

The next stop was a brick factory. No relation to the family here, but Mark, being the curious geologist that he is, thought maybe there would be a clay pit around somewhere. There wasn't. But I still got in a few cool photos.

After that, we went on to see the first gravestone with the actual name of Lindeman on it in the cemetery at Värsås church. (Again, Lindeman is my mom's maiden name.)

Jonas was born with the surname of Andersson, but at some point he and his brother, Anders, took on the name of Lindeman. Jonas was a pastor at the Värsås church in the mid-1800s, and apparently developed a reputation as being quite a character. (More on this later...) Jonas lived with his wife, Johanna Regina Mebius, on the parish farm called Klockaretorp. Up until this past Tuesday, there had been no information recorded regarding this farm, save its name, but Mark had a hunch that we could find out something more if he started to ask around. Unlike in the States, in Sweden many farms have names and keep these names over the years. Thus, Mark asked about Klockaretorp at a local gas station, where the attendant told him that the name rang a bell and that it was the second farm over yonder. We arrived at this spot quite excited to have possibly found something new to add to the records and started taking pictures of the house after no one answered the door. We eventually noticed, however, a little old Swedish lady coming out of a nearby woodshed; upon speaking to her she informed us that the house in front of us was hers and had never belonged to a Lindeman. She did recall the name though, along with the farm name of Klockaretorp, and pointed to a different farm about 1/2 kilometer away in the gray distance.

The first house we came to on the land turned out to be a rented home, but the couple there told us that the farmland was indeed called Klockaretorp and that the current landowners lived in the next house over. As no one seemed to be home there, we started taking photos.

As we tooled around the plot a bit, a blond farmer dirtied by the land and animals came out of a storage shed. Mark asked him the relevant questions, and the man confirmed that we were in the right spot! He even knew an anecdote about ol' Jonas Lindeman, the kooky preacher, which he related to us in broken English about the time Jonas, also a blacksmith, was doing his blacksmithing and was so caught up in his work on a Sunday morn that he lost track of time and didn't realize that church had already started and that he wasn't there to deliver the sermon. Eventually, his wife notified him of his error, and Jonas, all covered in soot, ran to the church a few kilometers away, where he delivered the Sunday sermon, dripping sweat and soot. HAHA!!

Our new-found farmer friend told us that the original house on the parish farm, built at some point in the 1850s and where Jonas and his family used to live, was still standing, though now being used as more of a shed. This is it!

The first Lindeman who made it to Kansas, Johan Rickard Lindeman, most likely lived in this house as a child and struck out from here when he left for America. Johan died in Salina, Kansas - where my mom is from - on December 6, 1907: seventy-three years and ten months before I was born.

Interview with me in Russian (with terrible English translation as well)

2009-04-15T05:42:00.001-07:00

Not kidding. This interview is in anticipation of my DJ dates in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 30th and May 1st.

Here is a LOL translation of the interview provided by Babel Fish.

Full English text below.

HELLO ROBERT, LET US KNOW MORE ABOUT ANN ARBOR SOUL CLUB (WHEN DID YOU STARTED, ANYTHING CHANGED NOW, HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU HAVE) ?

Brad Hales and I started Ann Arbor Soul Club in December 2006 at what is really a rock/live music venue called The Blind Pig (http://www.blindpigmusic.com/). Ann Arbor is a college town with a huge student population that attends the University of Michigan, so there are always lots of young people looking for fun things to do on the weekends. At the time - in 2006 - there really were not that many dance parties in Ann Arbor that took place at a club/bar/disco; and those that did exist were either CD or MP3 (Serato) based and focused more on hip hop, rock and powerpop, house/techno, and electronic music in general. Thus, the Soul Club filled a void, in my opinion, as it presented the town with an all vinyl-based (more specifically, all 45-based) dance party that focused on soul music. It also filled a personal void for Brad and myself, as we both wanted to put together a real soul party somewhere where we could spin our favorite records that expressed our true musical passion - namely, soul 45s, be they northern, motown, r&b, crossover, funky soul, or modern. Brad had been collecting soul 45s for years, and had done deals and trades privately with tons of different soul collectors that often came to visit Detroit from abroad (esp. "soulies" from England and other parts of Europe) for a good while as well, but he had yet to find a real outlet for his own soul 45s as a DJ. I was definitely a novice, but had always been a big fan of the classic Motown sound. To be sure, Brad introduced me to "northern soul" proper and always gave me great tips on what records to buy whenever I would go to his record store in Detroit, People's Records. He is my Northern Guru, no doubt, and I have learned a lot under his beneficent tutelage! I can remember, for example, one afternoon early in my Detroit digging days when I bought The Falcons "Standing ON Guard"/"I Can't Help It" on Big Wheel and The Superlatives "I Don't Know How To Say I Love You"/"Lonely in a Crowd" on Westbound from Brad. Both were maybe in VG condition (it's often very hard to find clean records in Detroit, perhaps because all the Brits and Japanese came and pillaged all the stock copies of 45s in the 70s and 80s!!) and together they cost less that $10. I now know that they're both relatively common 45s that have been on the "scene" for decades, but, at the time, I couldn't believe it! I was in love with the sound and started to make the 40-minute drive in to Detroit from Ann Arbor at least once a week to go to Brad's store and buy more and more soul 45s. Sometimes I'd go home with more than 30 45s at a time, sometimes I'd come home with only 2 or 3. As I started buying rarer and more expensive 45s (though Brad's prices are always more than reasonable), I'd come home with smaller stacks, but still feel like I was building up both my collection of soul 45s and the record knowledge that came along with the material objects themselves.

Back to the Soul Club...Brad and I had tried to put together soul nights in Detroit back in 2006 on a few occasions, but those attempts were not very successful (perhaps due to the popularity of Detroit's Funk Night...see below for more info on Funk Night), so we decided to give Ann Arbor a try. It's Michigan, after all: the home of soul music!! The Ann Arbor Soul Club has been very well received since it's inception. We do it the first Friday of every month, and for the first year or so we would have around 150-250 people dancing their legs off from 11pm till 2am (the party officially starts at 9:30, but the dancing crowd doesn't usually show up till a little later on in the evenings). Our numbers used to fluctuate considerably, especially when we first started doing the night, depending on the weather or the time of year - it snows a lot in Ann Arbor, which can keep people at home, and during holidays and the summertime most of the student population leaves town. I'd say, though, that starting this past fall ('08) our numbers started increasing to were we'd usually have 300+ people in attendance on the regular. As it stands now, the Soul Club has simply 'gone massive,' to the point at which we sell out every month, which means more than 400 people through the door, a long line out the door and around the block by 11pm, an absolutely packed dance floor, etc., and our overall attendance peaked this past February at 480. At this point we are one of, if not the, biggest rare/northern soul nights in the USA - the Emerald City Soul Club in Seattle might have us beat in terms of pure attendance numbers, but it's not by much! Our guests over the past 2+ years have included (from the US) Mr. Fine Wine (he's been our special guest at both our 1 and 2 year anniversary parties, Downtown Soulville, Bump Shop, etc. NYC), Andy Noble (The Get Down, North By Midwest, LotusLand Records, Milwaukee), Ben Pirani and Aret Sakalian (Windy City Soul Club, Chicago), Juddy and Gordy (Vipers Soul Club, Pittsburgh), Kevin Jones and Marc Mueller (Emerald City Soul Club), Ron Wade (Minneapolis), Breck T. Bunce (Detroit), Asaf Segal (NYC), Aaron Anderson (Grand Rapids, MI), Joe Moorehouse (Ann Arbor, MI) Jay Wells (my brother, Chicago), and Scott Harlow (http://www.midwest45s.org, Chicago)...and from the rest of the world Dave Thorley and Malayka (SoulShakers International), Rob Moss (UK), Jörg (can't remember his last name, unfortunately, from Germany).

I believe that we have had so much success and so many DJs from across the States and the world guest at AASC because our parties are always packed with people of all ages, races, colors, and creeds who really just want to dance to soul music and have fun. It's not at all like it is in the UK or other parts of Europe where everyone knows all the words to all the northern classics and maybe some folks refuse to dance to certain songs that they don't recognize, find to be too funky, modern, disco-y, or whatever, or refuse to dance to songs they do in fact recognize but don't like. There's no social politics at work at AASC, nor any sense of elitism or militancy, and, overall, it's meant to be an inclusive party; this is a big part of why Brad and I often try to work our way through all the various soul genres throughout the course of the night.... as I said on the message board..."I think it ultimately helps our cause that we spin all types of soul - proper northern, r&b, Motown, modern (god forbid!), some funk (say it ain't so!!), etc. - and don't try to be something that we're not, i.e. British. As I see it, such attempts to rigidly recuperate or re-articulate a certain scene that never took off in the States in the first place tend to exclude the possible participation of good people who just want to go out and dance to good, soulful music and could really give a shit about talcum powder, Fred Perry, scooters, Wigan, etc. Of course these avatars are part of the Northern charm, but you shouldn't have to dress or dance a certain way to go out and have fun." We know we'll never be able to make AASC into something like Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca, or Stafford, but that's never been our intent. And while we certainly respect all that the British have done over the years to promote rare soul music and really provide it with an unbelievable forum for its manifestation and appreciation - indeed, there probably wouldn't be any soul clubs at all in the USA if it weren't for the British antecedents! - we've got our on scene going on now. It's a very strong scene that gets stronger every day, too, in Ann Arbor and other parts of the US.

1500 PEOPLE ON THE BIGGEST FUNK NIGHT IN DETROIT NOW IS THAT FOR REAL ? HAVE YOU BEEN DJED OVER THERE ?

Yes, they do now get around 1500 people at the Funk Night in Detroit. Crazy, right?! I think it is safe to say that it is the biggest funk party in the US - maybe the world, too, who knows? It's also an all-night party that starts at 11pm and goes to 6 or 7 am, which is pretty rare for the States, as most bars close between 2-3am, maybe 4am at the latest. Brad started doing the Funk Night around about 10 years ago with Scott Craig (he put together the "Searching for Soul" compilation a few years ago, now lives in L.A.), and he and his current DJ partner, Frank Raines, do the Funk Night the last Friday of every month. They have had to change venues for the party a fair amount over the last couple years, and it now usually includes a live soul/funk band as well, so it's gone through a few different permutations. I have been a guest DJ at Funk Night a couple of times, maybe 2 or 3. For a while they used to have a Soul Room at the Funk Night, and I'd spin in there w/ Brad, and Breck T. Bunce when that was going on.

ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE CAN YOU MENTION ANY SMALL SOUL/FUNK CLUB NIGHTS WITH GREAT ATMOSPHERE, NICE PEOPLE ETC (IN USA) ?

I've really enjoyed myself when I've been a guest DJ at Vipers Soul Club in Pittsburgh, Windy City Soul Club in Chicago, and Gold Label Soul in Lawrence, KS. They just celebrated their first year anniversary at Vipers, where they've got two excellent and fun-loving DJs in Juddy and Gordy, and a very dedicated following already established. The Windy City Soul Club just started a few months ago and is a real DJ collective - I think they have 7 resident DJs in all!! They have yet to find a permanent venue in Chicago, but still seem to pull an enthusiastic crowd everywhere they take the party. And it's high time they had a good soul night in Chicago, what with all the passionate DJs/collectors and, of course, all the soul music history that that city has! I'm originally from Kansas and went to college at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, so I always have a fantastic time whenever I get the opportunity to spin there at Gold Label Soul. It's a pretty small venue, but that makes it more intimate and they really pack the dancers in. Plus, they let me spin just about whatever I want at Gold Label Soul, so I don't have to limit my playlist to where it's only "proper northern," which I do appreciate!

TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR EMPLOYEE (PEOPLES RECORDS), IS THAT YOUR MAIN SOURCE TO FIND RECORDS ?
CAN YOU MENTION ANY GOOD LOCAL FINDS ? DO YOU DIG ALOT IN USA ?

Over the past few years most of my records have come from Brad at People's Records in Detroit, private deals with various sellers and collectors, and online purchases on Ebay and message boards. I don't go out and "dig" per se in Detroit too much, really. Apart from being a DJ, I'm also currently working on a PhD in Spanish Literature at the University of Michigan, and I'm in the final stages of writing my dissertation and about to enter the academic job market as well, so my record time is ultimately limited because of my commitment to my studies. Although, I'd like to think that records are a part of my" life studies" as well!

People's Records - People's is a vinyl-only record store that specializes primarily in rare soul and funk 45s, dance and disco 12"s, and jazz and gospel LPs, but really covers all genres. Brad is the owner, and has run the place for about 5 years or so. He routinely has record collectors and DJs from all over the globe stop by his store and spend hours going through boxes, piles, and stacks of dusty wax, often finding some real gems if patient enough. After being lost in a tragic fire in March of 2008, Brad had to move his store to a new location, one that was closer to downtown Detroit on Woodward Avenue. The transition to the new store was definitely a struggle, but I'm happy to say that it's doing well at its new location. I helped in the transition with the physical labor like moving records and record bins and such and then went to work at his store about once a week starting that summer. Mostly I'd help to organize 45s or do little odd jobs around the store that Brad really didn't have time to do himself - watering the plants, taking his dog, Irma, for walks, taking Ebay records to the post office to be sent off to the winning bidders. Since the money was tight, Brad had to pay me in store credit rather than dollars for my labor, but I was ok with that!

Some of my bigger recent finds include Silky Hargraves - Keep Loving Me (Like You Do) / You're Too Good (To Me) on Dearborn, Pearl Dowell - Good Things / It's All Over on Saadia, Deep Heat - Do It Again / She's a Junkie on Cu Wu, and Tyrone Thomas - You're Hardly Gone / No Good Man on Polydor. Without a doubt, my favorite cheapie these days is David Ruffin - You Can Right Back To Me on Motown. It's an absolute monster!

THANK YOU!

P.S. ROBERT WELLS TOP 10 45s:

1. Sea Shells - A Quiet Home
2. Andrea Henry - I Need You Like A Baby
3. Silky Hargraves - Keep Loving Me (Like You Do) / You're Too Good (To Me)
4. David Ruffin - You Can Come Right Back To Me
5. Pages - Heartaches & Pain
6. Nelson Sanders - This Love Is Here To Stay
7. Betty James - I'm A Little Mixed Up
8. Pearl Dowell - Good Things / It's All Over
9. Dave Hamilton - Pisces Pace / The Deacons
10. Deep Heat - Do It Again

April 25th in Helsinki b/w May Day in St. Petersburg

2009-04-12T16:53:00.001-07:00

Thoughts that must (mustn't) pass through the minds of adolescents

2009-04-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

"You know, tonight I kinda just feel like going downtown with my best girl and making out with her in front of the KFC for hours and hours."

The situation in Madrid

2009-04-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

I live with seven other people here in Madrid at calle Gravina 14, right off the Plaza Chueca. We are eight: three Italians, two Americans (including myself), one Costa Rican, one Brit, and one German. I am the oldest by a good three or four years, but everyone is nice and responsible and clean enough. Still, I seem to get along best with the Italians, especially the sweet and terribly attractive young couple of Valentina and Paolo, who are also both wonderful cooks. I have made a tentative agreement with them that if they cook dinner for me on _ occasions, that I will take them out to dinner as a means of recompense.

Last night, while walking home from a bar in nearby Malasaña, Paolo, Marco (the third Italian), and myself got to talking*:

Paolo: Who was that playmaker** that used to play for Charlotte? Very short, but fast.
Robert: Muggsy Bogues.
P: Yes, right! Muggsy Bogues!
R: And if you're Gary Payton - "The Glove" - then Marco can be Muggsy Bogues.
P: Why is Marco Muggsy Bogues?
R: Because, like Muggsy, Marco is a short man.
P: OK, OK.
R: So, then who am I?
P: You? Let's see... You're Horace Grant!
R: Horace Grant!? That doesn't make any sense!
P: Sure it does - You wear glasses sometimes, don't you?

* Trans. from the Spanish by the author.
** Actual english word used by Paolo in the course of the conversation.

I'm in Spain, but does anyone speak Swedish?

2009-04-06T03:43:00.000-07:00

I ask because I want to know what's being said about me here at the website for the first stop on my Scandinavian DJ tour: Malmoe, Sweden!

More on Madrid - possibly the gayest, smokiest city in the world - soon...

On the eve of my departure...

2009-03-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

...from the former colony to the former empire, I compose a list for the reader (myself) and myself.

Things I will miss about Buenos Aires: My hosts - Leo, Dani, and Piolín; todas las chicas lindas (all the pretty girls); mate; fernet and coca cola; the 15 peso lunch around the corner that includes steak or chicken, side, bread, drink, and coffee; the pizza at Pizzería Güerrin; Fernando and all the nice, helpful people at the Librería Norte; the national libray; nights out in Palermo; the accent; Leo and Dani's artwork and watching them create it; walking up and down Avenida Callao (aka Babe Avenue) on the way to and from the library; the buses; the obelisk; various conversations w/ taxi drivers late at night about cell phones, grammar, girls, fishing, Miami, megapixels, etc.; afternoons spent watching the Mexican telenovela, Tormenta en el paraíso, with Leo and Dani from 2-3pm local time; having a supermarket directly in front of my house; being in Latin America...

Things I will not miss about Buenos Aires: the cats; the dinners alone; the dog shit - EVERYWHERE; the humidity; the national library; my bed; waking up with big bug bites; the accent; my cell phone - I never figured out how to 1) access my voice messages, 2) have, let alone turn up, the ringer volume, 3) include periods in my text messages...

The hipster represents the end of Western civilization...

2009-03-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

Interesting cultural critique here from Adbusters from July 2008 re: the role of the "hipster" in the decline of the West. Though it could be said that the Chicken Little-like critique itself is every bit as smug and self-important as its object of critique - to wit, the "hipster" - it also makes some convincing points about the vapid and vacuous nature of the cool industry today.

An afternoon at the National Library, as told in a series of brief conversations (translated from the Spanish by the author)

2009-03-18T18:34:00.000-07:00

(On the phone, in the park, just outside of the library, with all the cats, including the one with one eye.)
R - Yes, hello. Could I please speak with the Señora Hilda regarding the status of my library card?
? - Hilda? No one named Hilda works here.
R - I think she works on Floor H, in the offices near the Hemeroteca.
? - Oh, right. Well, you've dialed the wrong floor. This is the 6th floor, and you need to call down to Floor H. Here's the number...
R - OK. Thank you.

R - Yes, hello. Could I please speak with the Señora Hilda?
H - Speaking.
R - Hello. I was just calling with respect to the status of my library card. We talked last week about all this, and I filled out the application last week--
H - Yes, OK, but you have to call up to the 6th floor. They'll know what your status is.
R - The 6th floor? But I thought--
H - Yes, THE 6TH FLOOR! You need to speak to Susana Nuñez. Here is the number...
R - OK.
H - Do you understand what I'm saying to you?
R - Uh, yes, I do.
H - Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? You have to call up to the 6th floor!
R - Right. OK. Thanks. Bye.

R - Hello. I think I talked to you earlier, but I'm wanting to know about the status of the library card that I applied for a few weeks ago.
SN - Yes. Hello. OK, what is your name?
R - Robert Wells
SN - OK, let's see, let's see... Yes, here it is! Come up to the 6th floor - we'll have it here waiting for you.
R - Great! Thank you. Bye.

(Inside the library, speaking to one of the employees at the front check-in desk, where I have to fill out a form detailing where I'm from and what I will be doing at the library, because I do not have a library card.)
Check In - Your document, please? What floor will you be going to?
R - I'll be going first to the 6th and then to H.
CI - To the 6th and then to H?
R - Yes.
CI - Hmmm. OK.

(On the 6th floor, but on the wrong side of some glass doors, so I can't get to where I need to go, so, naturally, I ask the midget wearing a leather jacket that's standing next to me if he knows what to do, because it seems like he knows what to do.)
R - Hey. Excuse me. How do I get over there, on the other side of those doors? I'm trying to get my library card.
M - Well, you have to go back down to the 5th floor and then either take the stairs or the ramp (rampa) back up here to the 6th floor.
R - Ah. OK.
M - Yeah. Either take the stairs or the ramp.
R - Right. It's so easy!
M - What?
R - Nothing

(On the 5th floor, going to take the ramp, should be fun, but the lady at the desk stops me first.)
Lady at the Desk - Excuse me? Where are you going? You have to leave your bag in one of the lockers first, please.
R - Oh. OK.

(On the way up the ramp I pass a guard at his post, but we say nothing to each other, and only acknowledge each others' existence with a slight, masculine nod.)

(On the 6th floor, on the proper side of the glass doors now, speaking to someone sitting at a desk.)
R - Hello. My name is Robert Wells and I'm here to get my library card.
? - One moment, please. Have a seat.
(Out walks Susana Nuñez.)
SN - Hello, Robert Snider?
R - Yes, that's me, Robert Snider Wells.
SN - Ah, OK, hello. You just need to sign here and here, please.
R - Sure.
SN - I'll be right back with your card and then you can be on your way.
R - Great, thanks.
(In the meantime a male desk employee missing two of his four front teeth keeps staring at me, and he doesn't seem to realize that we've talked before, down on Floor H, where he told me that he thought the rest of the world should go to war with the USA and that with Barack Obama as President the only real difference is more "dunga dunga" (seemingly a reference made to Africa, the jungle, monkeys) in the White House.)
SN - Here it is!
R - OK! Thanks! It's official!

(In the elevator on the way down to Floor H, and in walks the missing teeth man.)
MTM - What floor are you going to?
R - H.
MTM - Are you Brazilian?
R - No. I'm from the United States.
MTM - Oh, really? I lived in California for a few years.
R - Ah, nice.
MTM - Yeah, I went to the University of Southern California...This is where I get off. We'll talk later.
R - Bye.

(Floor H, in the special reading room, I have my camera and my small notebook with me, and I can see that one of the female employees who I've come to know is there at a desk in a side room.)
R - Hello!
(She doesn't respond to my greeting, nor does she come to the main desk in the room to help me, and thus my uncertainty as to whether or not this woman and I are friends increases. In walks another employee I now know. We are friends.)
R - Hey. Here is my library card!
Friend - Wow! Looks good.
R - Yeah, thanks! I'm an officially licensed investigator now.
F - Indeed you are.
R - OK, I have a few things I put on hold right over there.
F - Of course.

(After looking at these books (really, collections of old cultural/literary/philosophical/political journals from Argentina from the 1920s and 30s) at a table in the back of the room and taking pictures (some more legible than others)

of certain articles that would seem to be of interest to my project, I take them back to my friend at the front desk and ask for a few more. The process goes something like this: 1) I fill out a small sheet of paper w/ the day's date, the name of the periodical I'm looking for, the specific month and/or volume number, the year, the book code (if I don't know the code, and I never do, I have to take the slip of paper to another desk located in another room on Floor H where they look it up for me), and then sign the sheet; 2) I hand this slip to the employee who then signs and dates it; 3) The employee puts the sheet in a sort of small elevator/dumb waiter and it travels down, I think, to some other group of employees in the special collections department; 4) If I'm smart, I didn't turn in all of my materials in at once and still have something to look at and take pictures of while I wait - you're not allowed to bring books into this part of the library; 5) My name is called and I go back to the desk to retrieve what I asked for.)

F - Hey, we don't have this one, but they do have it at the Library of Congress.
R - Oh, really? That's right by where I live here, only about five or six blocks away from my house.
F - Yeah, they have a much better collection of old magazines and journals and the kind of stuff you're looking for there.
R - Oh.

Piolín and Me

2009-03-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

Like "Marley and Me," but better.

Our favorite song!
(From the "Lost Tapes")

Our favorite movie!

El arte

2009-03-05T06:08:00.000-08:00

As I believe I've mentioned before, I live with an artist couple here in BsAs: Leo Chiachio and Daniel Giannone. They have a big show coming up on March 18th at what is perhaps the most important gallery in town, Ruth Benzacar, and I'm very happy that I'll be able to be there to support them. Recently, their work comes mostly in the form of highly-detailed embroideries (as seen above), along with highly-detailed paintings on porcelain plates and jars. Almost everything they do is self-portrait-style as well, and many works also include their weiner dog, Piolín. In fact, they had a whole show a couple years back where they got all their artist friends to create pieces that featured Piolín and, accordingly, called the show Museo Piolín. In all, what impresses me the most about what Leo and Dani make is how they're able to balance incredible craftsmanship with a wonderful sense of humor.

The blog they created for Museo Piolín can be seen here. Their general blog can be seen here, and here's an interview they did (again, in Spanish) that features photos of their most recent work as well. (If you don't read Spanish, just browse the artwork and follow the links and I think you'll definitely get a sense of what Leo and Dani are and have been up to.

Also, if you can't see the entirety of any of the pieces I've posted here, above or below, just click on them and you will be able to do so.

Uruguay... And beyond!

2009-03-03T04:45:00.000-08:00

Now back in Bs As and in library mode, I spent a couple wonderful days last weekend in Colonia, Uruguay. Despite being a hotbed for tourists from around the world, Colonia was a real treat, and I took lots of photos, which can all be seen here. I have also included a few highlights below.

The view looking back towards Bs As from the ferry headed towards Colonia.

I was very happy about the possibility of going to Uruguay!! YAY! :-)

The house where I stayed with my friend's dad (and now my friend), Jorge, which Jorge and his wife built themselves back in the early 80's.

The view from Jorge's house down to the Río de la Plata.

The beach. (It looked better than this, but I think this shot would make a great breakup album cover.)

Downtown colonial Colonia, Calle de los Suspiros.

The lighthouse.

The view out from the top of the lighthouse. Being the escala escaleras that I am, I had know problem climbing the stairs up to the top.

Colonia's coast.

Colonia's old Bull fighting ring, originally built by the Portuguese. It was only briefly in use from 1910-1912. I think they should fix it up and invite Led Zeppelin to play. That would be epic.

A final desolate beach shot.

Another Weekend Report

2009-02-24T17:56:00.000-08:00

FRIDAY

It was Friday afternoon and I had plans to go see the Charlie Chaplin film, City Lights, at 7pm at the Centro Cultural Borges. I'd never seen the film before and, coupled with the opportunity to check out the CCB, it seemed like a pleasant cultural opportunity for a Friday eve.

The walk there took about 45 minutes, mostly down Calle Florida. Street vendors in the middle of the pedestrian pathway and stores for mid-range to fine shopping on both sides of the street for blocks and blocks. As it turns out, the CCB is located inside the Galerías Pacífico, which is a shopping mall. Now, the local porteños might tell you that my previous statement is not true, that the CCB is really next to the shopping mall, but, my friends, I'm here to tell you that that the Centro Cultural Borges in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is indeed located inside a shopping mall.

Hence, before I check out the CCB, I take advantage of the consumer-friendly circumstances and do some shopping!

Frankly, I could use another pair of jeans. I brought down two pairs of jeans, along with one pair of corduroys (of no use whatsoever due to the summer weather) and a pair of khakis, but I ruined one pair shortly upon arriving. Open ink-pen in left-hand pocket. For the second time. As luck would have it, however, the Galerías Pacífico houses a Levi's store! I walk in knowing exactly what I want - skinny style, 31 waist, 30 length - but don't know about jean sizes in Argentina. As I peruse the stock all I see are even-numbered sizes. "OK," I say to myself, "Maybe a 30-30 will work." I ask the clerk for said size, but, as it stands, he informs me of the fact that the shortest length available is a 32. This very fact vexes me, since Argentine men are not necessarily known for their height. Not that 32 length means tall person, but, you know, I mean, whatever. Nevertheless, I try on a pair of 30-32, hoping against hope that the dark, denim deities will be on my solemn side. Of course, they're way too long.

By this point, I've still got some time to kill before the show starts at 7pm, so I take the mall escalator up to the CCB. The CCB itself is not much to speak of. Mostly clever quotes and photos of Jorge Luis Borges. Still with time, I end up sitting down in a nearby cafe for an agua con gas and a piece of cake. There's an American couple nearby, and their gestures are as loud as their words, and their words are very loud.

Movie time! The modest theater is like an arctic chamber. The film will be shown off of a DVD with misspelled Spanish subtitles and onto a small projector screen. Directly, the American couple sits down right behind me. As the movie starts, I am sincerely struck by the ferocity of their hyena-like laughter. Yes, the film is very funny. Haha, very funny. Haha, it is to laugh. Despite this distraction, the film is wonderful. The boxing scene especially had me in awe (see below).

City Lights is only 81 minutes. Around the 65 minute mark, the male half of the American couple falls asleep and starts to snore, furiously.

SATURDAY

I have plans for Saturday night. Plans with people I don't know to go out to dinner and then to a play. My main contact for the encounter is a contact of a contact. In her email invitation, she tells me that we will be eating Peruvian food and and the group will be comprised of an art critic, a filmmaker, a photographer, and a chef, so I am intrigued. (Initially, I misread the email and thought that the play would be called "peruvian food first," or something like that. Who holds the blame for this mireading? The world may never know!) We meet up outside of the Abasto shopping center and walk the streets, slippery with rain and dog shit, in search of a Peruvian restaurant. I order an agua con gas with dinner and it promptly explodes all over the table as I twist the cap. I'm used to having waiters open my water bottles for me, I guess. (Please, whatever you do, fair reader, don't ever re-read the previous sentence!) Maybe I'm nervous. I am. But this special congregation of artists is, really, not that special, and, yes, I have had Peruvian food before.

And we're off to the theater! The crooked rain hitting harder the pavement. As we arrive, I try to dry off my wet glasses with my shirt, but that just makes the smudges worse. So, while in the baño, I take advantage of the privacy and clean my glasses with the very fabric of my life: my cotton boxers.

Now, the play is being performed at the Beckett Teatro, which excites me. I ask one of the guys in our group if he's at all familiar with the work of Samuel Beckett, attempting to explain in my slightly slurred (chicha and beer at dinner) Spanish the scene in Beckett's novel, Molloy, in which Molloy has a set number of stones that he sucks on and rotates from pocket to pocket and pocket to mouth in various iterations for a good ten pages or so. As to the logical question, then, of whether it was the best or the worst introduction to Samuel Beckett, I'll respond by simply saying "Yes."

The play we see has absolutely nothing to do with Peruvian food. It's named Angelito Peña and is written by some famous Argentine stage actor and director named Julio Chávez. With reason do we find ourselves at the Beckett Teatro, for Angelito Peña is certainly theater of the absurd, bordering on the abstupid. It starts with a Paraguayan woman reading the White Pages out loud in an under-enunciated monotone. By the end, I'd say I took in maybe 25-30% of what was said. Luckily, it was a short play.

Reviews are mixed within the group. We look for a bar, for a drink. It's raining harder now. We duck into some hippie tango dive for a beer, but most of the group is losing their social energy. One, though, Carla, has a party in mind. I'm down and I accompany her while the others return to their homes. At the party, Carla doesn't really know anyone and I need to pee (and clean my glasses again!). Eventually, Carla runs into someone she knows: a dead ringer for the actress, Chloe Sevigny, named Julieta. Oddly enough, most of the partygoers are aspiring actors, including our Julieta, who is kind enough to show me me the way to the bathroom. I knock. No answer. I can see that no light is on on the other side of the door. I pull and I push as hard as I can on the door, but it won't open. I come back to Julieta and Carla and tell them of my predicament. Can't see, need to pee. Julieta walks back with me and, with the grace of a girl who, in every single way, looks like a semi-famous actress, she slides the door open.

Cementerio de la Recoleta

2009-02-23T13:53:00.001-08:00

RawBerto's Holiday Chestnuts

2009-02-20T19:03:00.001-08:00

For those that have been roasting them on the regular, here's a list of the artists included on the mix:

1 - Lee Harris
2 - Albert Jones
3 - Andrea Henry
4 - Ike & Tina Turner
5 - David Ruffin
6 - Silky Hargraves
7 - The Soul In-Pressions
8 - El Pooks
9 - David Peoples
10 - Johnnie Mae Matthews
11 - Ann Byers
12 - The Volumes
13 - The New Yorkers
14 - The Valentinos
15 - Gene Chandler
16 - Frances Nero
17 - Betty James
18 - Nelson Sanders
19 - Fabulous Playboys
20 - Top Hat & Little Jeff
21 - Sweet Charles
22 - Margie Joseph
23 - Breakwater
24 - Larry McGee Revolution
25 - The Staples Singers

Weekend Roundup

2009-02-16T06:16:00.000-08:00

It was all supposed to start on Thursday night.

Lenni, an unknown of an unknown, though clearly a known man about town - and how could he not be with that look(!) - had told me that I could spin some of my 45s that night at Makena as part of a party called AfroMama Jams. I was told to show up around 1am: I would have 45 minutes on the decks; I would not be paid. Lenni also told me to bring the heat, for the good people in Buenos Aires like to party hard. That was all fine by me, as I have sincerely missed DJing, and feel like I can let a heat rock loose when called upon. Unsure of how Northern Soul, and, for that matter Northern Rob, aka Roberto del Norte, aka DJ Good Flavor, aka DJ Buen Sabor, would be received in El Sur, I felt nervous all the same.

In the end, I had no reason at all to be nervous. There were no turntables at AfroMama Jams that night, and my debut on the Southern scene was not meant to be.

There was, however, a pretty good funk/soul/hip hop cover band at work. They even covered "I'll Bet You" by Funkadelic, which I though was pretty hip.

My favorite part of the evening, though, was when the B-Boy break dancers started making their moves. One, in particular, felt confident enough in his skills to get up on stage and dance when the band was in the middle of a "Give it to Me Baby" (Rick James)-"Thriller" medley of sorts. (Only now do I realize how the basslines in those tracks are strikingly similar, so the combination ultimately makes great sense.) As I looked closer at the B-Boy, however, I noticed that his sleeveless t-shirt had something written on the front of it. After struggling to make out the letters, in a flash it all became clear: his sleeveless muscle t simply read "The Beatles." I found this to be a supreme cross-cultural moment, and wondered aloud if the B-Boy had ever break danced to Ringo's drum solo at the end of "Abbey Road."

In the course of that Thursday night, a young man named Fabrizzio approached me to see if I would be interested in spinning records at his bar that Saturday night...

"Of course! That'd be great! What's the name of the place?"
"..."
"La Evita?"
"..."
"What? I can't hear you. Is the bar called La Evita Bar? Like, Evita Perón?"
"Levitar!"
"Aha, Levitar. Like the verb. To rise up. To levitate. I get it."

---

Fabrizzio told me to arrive at Levitar at 1am as well on Saturday night. Parties in Buenos Aires go late, to say the least, and the function at Levitar would go all the way to 10am. Hence, very few heard my spot from 1-2:30, save those that worked at the bar and were setting things up. In fact, the place didn't really get going till around 5am. Nevertheless, I had fun, I danced, I enthusiastically sang along to Wild Cherry, Kool and The Gang, KC and the Sunshine Band, and, who could forget, Jamiroquai, and got home around 6am. I think the young people ultimately want to hear hip hop and the hits down here, and they don't really seem to care whether the music they're hearing and dancing to is off vinyl or mp3, so that's that.

---

In other DJ news, at this point my Scandinavian tour looks to be set: April 18th in Malmöe, Sweden, at Club Funtion; April 25th in Helsinki, Finland, at Soul Sides; and April 30th and 31st with The Fabulous Mr. C in St. Petersburg, USSR. That's what's up!

El "look"

2009-02-09T05:23:00.002-08:00

Translated from the Spanish

Robert - You know, it's like sometimes these waiters in these restaurants, they look at me funny. Like they anticipate that they're not going to understand what I say before I even say it. They give me this look, then, and they look at me not as if I were a foreigner (extranjero) but rather (sino que) an alien (extraterrestre).
Leo - It's because you don't have the face of an Argentine.
Robert - Really? You don't think so? I don't look that different do I?
Leo - Well...I take back what I just said. It's not that you don't have the face of an Argentine, but rather a face from a different decade.
Robert - Ahhh.
Leo - So it's not really a question of the geographical zone, you see--
Robert - It's a question of the temporal zone. I get it!
Leo - Yes, and not a question of the time zone, mind you. There is a difference.

Out to eat

2009-02-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

LUNCH

I had intentions to eat lunch out. It was a hot day. I recalled a place named Bar Sitio (Bar Place) that wasn't too far away and always seemed to have a group of girls eating in front of it. I made my way, arrived, took a seat outside, but only a pair of teenage boys sat drinking beer at a nearby table. Oh, well. I was hungry. I had my book with me.

Not too long thereafter I reckoned that it was indeed too hot to sit outside, so I let the waiter know of my desire and changed tables and moved inside. The ceiling fans made their cool noise, no doubt; yet I started to sweat with greater intensity. At that point I looked up to the ceiling and noticed that I had unwisely chosen to sit under the one ceiling fan that did not work. It sat there motionless, clueless, much like myself. Furthermore, the clientele was solely comprised of men over 50. No women, no girls. I took out my book - Amuleto by Roberto Bolaño - and started to read.

It was a nice lunch: steak sandwich w/ lettuce and tomato, french fries, agua mineral sin gas. Just what I had wanted. I only had some thirty pages left in my book, so I thought I might stay there and finish it, despite the heat. My earlier buzz had by then completely faded. (Dani, one of my hosts, and made me a mimosa around 1pm, when I was still in my bedclothes, my thin arms covered in mosquito bites from the night before in spite of our best efforts to keep them away. Later that afternoon I would ask him if he had any insect repellant that I might use to spray in my room. He did. "Do you know how to use it?" Dani asked politely. I did.) I had heard once that when it's hot outside it's better to drink something hot, which made me then remember how an ex-girlfriend once told me that hot tub water is good for your complexion (this latter piece of advice being a true bourgeois remedy). Red wine seemed like the closest thing to a hot and alcoholic drink that I could think of, so I asked the waiter for a glass.

"We don't have any right now," he started. "Wait, actually, we have _____ in either half bottle or full bottle. Which would you prefer?"
"Well, can I just have a single glass?" I replied, not sure if I had heard him right or not.
"No! Half bottle or full bottle!"
"Ah...Half bottle then, por favor."

I had thirty pages left in the book and 7/8ths of a half bottle (7/16ths of a full bottle) in front of me. I went to work. Who knew what I would finish first. Red wine tends to go straight to my dome.

DINNER

I had just bragged to my father in an online chat session about how I hoped my next meal would be "something other than steak." I was serious, though. Steak the night before, steak sandwich for lunch earlier that day. So, I went to a restaurant that I had been to for the first time just days before called Bar España (Bar Spain), where I had had a tasty fish dish for lunch and received excellent service. The fish had been one of the daily specials that day, which meant a cheaper meal, and I went for the daily special again this evening, not really knowing what it was: riñoncitos al verdeo. When in Rome! I knew I recognized the word riñon, but couldn't exactly place it. The dish arrived. It looked stranger than I had expected as the waitress served some on to my plate. It smelled strange, too. It wasn't until I took my first exceedingly chewy bite, however, that I remembered what riñon meant in English: kidney.

La diferencia es lo más mínima, pero máxima tamvién.

2009-02-03T10:13:00.000-08:00

Estas ubas berdes no están muy vuenas; es muy posivle que lleben la vacteria esa de la cual havlavan hoy en la nobela que salió en la telebisión. Vueno, no es berdad. !Sólo estoy vromeando! No es que estoy vorracho, amigos míos, ni mucho menos. Son estas las vromas povres de un bagavundo vigotudo, vonaerense, y pequeñovurgués, no más. Ahora me boy. ?Bale? Tengo barias cosas que hacer. !Que les baya vien!

Las librerías (The bookstores)

2009-01-31T09:35:00.001-08:00

I'm going to this librería tonight.
It's called El Ateneo (1860 Santa Fe, BsAs).

La americana

2009-01-30T12:14:00.000-08:00

Y, si se puede saber,
?cómo es que te consume esa revista que vas leyendo?
Te hablo, te hablo en serio, americana, rubia, cuerpo de ex-gimnasta.
(Bueno, te hablo telepáticamente, pero, igual, te hablo francamente también.)

A ver,
?es que Vanity Fair sea tan ineresante de verdad, o es que estás disimulando?

Ensalada, sopa, helado...Revista.

Capaz que quisieras algo más.

Que sí,
Que el helado te ha traicionado!

Los ajedrecistas (The chessplayers)

2009-01-28T02:19:00.000-08:00

There we were: Ruben, Maneesh, Carrie, Lucas, Horash, Guido, and me. I really knew none of these people. Ash from a purro floated in Ruben's finished bowl of frosted flakes. Carrie had just brought in a lemon meringue pie as a gesture of goodwill, and we were about to order pizza. Horash, an Italian-Iranian, called it in; they said it'd be 80 pesos for 2 larges and some empanadas. Lucas, a local, couldn't believe it. He called back. Asked about the price. "40 pesos," they now said, and apologized for the error.

I was wearing a hat - a vain attempt to dissimulate the blemish on my forehead. Ruben and Horash, meanwhile, apparently felt no need to hide their chest acne underneath a shirt. I wasn't sure what any of this said about any of us. Surely something!

The plan was to go see a drum show that would go from 7-10pm, but we were in no hurry. As we waited for the pizza to arrive, Horash asked me if I would like to play a game of chess. "Oh," I hesitated, "I really haven't played for a while, and I'm not very good either." Both of my excuses were true. I used to play a fair amount back when I was a camp counselor, in my early 20's and late teen's. I even led an activity called "Chess w/ Wellser!" a few times, which was fun. But the thought of playing chess brought back bad memories as well, including always being bested by an 11-year old named Trevor, no matter how I thought I had him cornered. "You got served, Wellser. Checkmate," he would calmly state, looking me square in the eye, and then proceed to flick over my king with his child finger. "What!?!" I'd helplessly bemoan back at the boy..."Ahh, come on," Horash implored. "I'm not very good either. Let's just play one game!" "OK, OK, one game."

Horash indeed was not very good, but he still handily beat me. His was a modest victory, and we had a pleasant chat as we played. Ruben and Lucas kept trying to sing some song together all the while. "What song are they singing?" I asked Horash. "You don't know this song!?!" he nearly screamed at me. "It's '_________!' It's by Jack Johnson! How can you not know this song!?! I can't believe you, man." I had no reply.

At 9:30 Ruben, Maneesh, and myself finally make our way to the drum show. The group, made up of 17 percussion players on different instruments, was called La Bomba del Tiempo (Time bomb) and it's self-styled description read "El trance del ritmo en estado puro" ("Rhythm's trance in its purest state"). Of course, we took it in from the street, along with scores of other people, both local and foreign, as it was too late to get in to the venue, but that was fine by me.

Monday night, and there's not much going on, so we head back to the house with the chess board. Finding myself with little to do, I watch as Guido and Maneesh play. Guido is impossibly handsome and also impossible to understand. He doesn't so much articulate words as he laughs them out of his mouth. Like Cody from Step by Step, but in Spanish.

Guido wins, and, since everyone else at the house seems to be occupied, I'm asked if I'd like to play next. I don't really want to, but I say OK. I move first. "That's a stupid way to start out the game!" Guido laughs. The game goes on for a bit...
"What are you thinking, Robert?
Don't your pawns matter to you - they're people, too, you know!
Wow. You are not very good.
When was the last time you played?
Look at me, everyone! I'm able play chess, talk on the phone with an ugly girl, smoke, and drink - All at the same time! I'm multi-tasking!"

Lucas comes over to see what all the commotion is about. "You know, he can beat you in four moves, Guido," he says. Guido laughs it off, naturally. "Whatever, boludo." I clearly don't see what Lucas is talking about; I don't give a damn either. Lucas starts to engage me in conversation as the game continues. I tell him what I'm doing here in Buenos Aires. "Oh, yeah? I already have a doctorate from the states" he tells me. His work clothes still on, though his white, fitted shirt is now unbuttoned halfway down his chest. "Nice. In what?" I ask. "Business administration? International relations?" "No, in computer programming." "Ah, cool. From where?" A dramatic pause leads to a smile of superiority: "MIT. And you should move your rook here." At which point, he moves my rook for me.

Northern Rob en el Sur

2009-01-25T18:58:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone! Here go some random thoughts about my first few days in Buenos Aires:

I made a conceited effort not to take a nap today. I have been suffering some sort of wicked jet lag/poor sleep scheduling since I arrived, which I believe I correctly attributed to two inter-related phenomena: 1) not getting much sleep right before and right after my arrival due to A) nerves, B) the overnight flight in from Toronto where it seemed, despite the red wine, Benadryl, and flight pillow, all was turbulence and seat belts all night long, and C) the 4 hr change in time; and 2) new found habits of A) staying up till 4 or 5 am, B) waking up after noon, and C) taking long naps between the hours of 6 and 9pm - all hours local time. BIORHYTHMS. I got away from the nap today by going to a quaint, old, traditional café called EL GATO NEGRO (THE BLACK CAT) in the early evening, where I read a recently purchased book about Ortega y Gasset and his influence on Latin America and (for, perhaps, the third time) the editor's introduction to Kant's Critique of Judgment. Maybe tomorrow I'll get past that dang introduction; although, I think the Kantian tendency to split and delineate has already affected my thinking (see above re: sleep)!

Admittedly, I have yet to really explore the city. Meaning, for me, at least, I have yet to take any public transit anywhere. It's been all on foot so far, but that's to change this week. I have, however, already purchased muchos libros (much books), with many of them related directly to the dissertation. All the book purchases stem from the fact that a nearby thoroughfare - la Avenida Corrientes - is chock-full of new/used bookstores, which is nice. Nevertheless, the bookstores themselves aren't so easy to navigate, as they seem to lack any clear order and none of the books have prices marked on them. These qualities do give the stores' employees something to do, though, as I'm always forced to ask them for help. Eh, perdón, eh, ?dónde se encuentra la sección de literatura argentina?

Something else at the end of Corrientes is the (world famous??) obelisk. As an undergrad, I once read some existentialist story about this very obelisk by an Argentine writer who was obviously affected by it and attempted to imbue the monument with some sense of personal and national angst. Perhaps there was something sexual about the obelisk in the story, too - though maybe I only see that possible signification now, in person: all ready to go with nowhere to go. Maybe this is why Argentines (or, at least, the folks in Buenos Aires, aka los porteños) are all so obsessed w/ Freud and Lacan!! Me? I was impressed, yes, but felt neither existential nor sexual. No raised malaise for this young man.

The other interesting thing about the general area around le obelisque is that it stands in the middle of what is purported to be the largest/widest city street in the world, la Avenida 9 de Julio.

I really like my current living situation. Much better than in Mexico City a couple summers back, where I stayed in a decent hotel, where I didn't go out after 8:30pm, where all I had was a shitty version of Tetris and my books. I'm staying here in BsAs with an artist couple, Leo and Daniel, they're weiner dog, Piolin, and their two cats, Domenico and ???, and they're all great. Except for the cats. When Domenico meows it sounds like a baby's cry, and that freaks me out. Anyways, Leo y Daniel are both very friendly, helpful, patient, talented, and smart. They routinely rent their spare rooms out to travelers and students. I started out with the small room - but have moved on just tonight (25.01.09) to the larger room. (I'll have more about the apartment and Leo and Daniel's artwork in a future post/email.)

One recent household blunder of mine happened just last night. I had yet to plug in the nice, JBL, i-pod compatible speakers that I had more or less stolen from my father in KC, and, as I was getting ready to go out to a party, I wanted some louder music to get me into the party mood. PARTY TIME w/ RAWBERTO WELLZ!! It was around 8:30pm, and I had just awaken from a nice nap, after all! When I plugged in the A/C adaptor for the speakers, however, an electric snap sounded and all the power went out in the apartment. I could smell the faint hint of smoke. No one else was around, so I didn't know what to do. Nor had I the cell numbers of either Leo or Daniel. Hence, I left them a note in scribbled Spanish (I couldn't see what I was writing) detailing the electrical accident and my own, personal, sunflower-designed keylight that my Grandmother gave me one Christmas, and that I had kept in my backpack ever since for moments such as this. In the end, I made it to the party, enjoyed myself, and came home to a lighted home, as L&D had come back and flipped the big switch. (1)

(By the way, I have a flickr site for my photos, too. Admittedly, the photos aren't super-iiiiiiiiinnnteresting as of yet, but that should change soon.)

Abrazos (Embraces),
Robert

(1) Hay una luz que sí se extingue: la de los baños extranjeros.

Sublime Soul - Tammi Terrell "All I Do"

2009-01-18T21:02:00.001-08:00

Originally unreleased, co-written by Stevie when he was only 16 years old, this mid-tempo floater by Tammi Terrell sends shivers down the spine.

Saturday Night in Lawrence, KS

2009-01-16T12:22:00.000-08:00

My playlist:

GOLD LABEL SOUL – 1/17/09

Bonnie Brisker – Someone Really Loves You [Magic City]
Sea Shells – Quiet Home [Villige]
Detroit Emeralds – Holding On [Westbound]
Tony Hestor – Just Can’t Leave You [Karate]
Melvin Davis – I Must Love You [Groovesville]
Garland Green – Girl I Love You [Revue]
Lorraine Chandler – What Can I Do [Giant]
Jackie Wilson – Because of You [Brunswick]
Deon Jackson – That’s What You Do To Me [Carla]
Martha Star – No Part Time Love For Me [Thelma]
Philip Mitchell – Free For All (Winner Takes All) [Shout]
Frances Nero – Keep On Lovin’ Me [Soul]
The Volumes – I Just Can’t Help Myself [American Arts, demo]
The Ringleaders – Baby, What Has Happened To Our Love [M-Pac]
Ronnie & Robyn – Sidra’s Theme [Sidra, demo]
Betty James – I’m A Little Mixed Up [Chess]
Ray Charles – I Don’t Need No Doctor [ABC]
Flame N King and the Bold Ones – Ho Happy Day [N.Y.C.S.]
Cania – Visions [Tammy Jo]
Pages – Heartaches & Pain [Sunstruck]
Gloria Jones – Tainted Love [Champion]
Nelson Sanders – This Love Is Here To Stay [LaBeat]
Sue Ann Jones – I’ll Give You My Love [TCB]
Ronnie McNeir – Sitting In My Class [De-To]
Margie Joseph – I Can’t Move No Mountains [Atlantic, demo]
Ike & Tina Turner – Somebody Needs You [Loma]
Silky Hargraves – Keep Loving Me (Like You Do) [Dearborn]
Joe Bataan – Subway Joe [Fania]
Eddie Bo – From This Day On [Seven B]
David Peoples – Got To Get My Broom Out [Saru]
Betty Moorer – Speed Up [Wand]
Al Hudson & The Soul Partners – I’m About Loving You [ATCO]
Archie Bell & The Drells – Where Will You Go When The Party’s Over [PIR]
David Ruffin – You Can Come Right Back To Me [Motown]
The Detroit Executives – The Cool Off [Pameline]
Dee Edwards – (I Can) Deal With That [De-To]
Almeta Lattimore – These Memories [Mainstream, demo]
Gloria Gaynor – This Love Affair [Polydor, demo]

Ann Arbor Soul Club - Preview Mix

2009-01-15T13:16:00.000-08:00

This is something I put together back for the November '08 Soul Club.
Enjoy!

Poems, in Spanish

2009-01-15T10:17:00.001-08:00

I think I'll keep working on the second one, "El caballero callado," but I'm pleased with the simple relationship between desire, banknotes, and a body in the first. For those in need of an inadequate translation, try this.

A la cajera, Sara Fomby

Por favor
Dame los pesos míos
Dame los besos tuyos

Tu apellido...
!Qué raro!

Por favor
Dame mi dinero
Dame tu cuerpo

El caballero callado

Te llamas Thomas
Todo lo que eres es caballero
Caballero callado
Mente aguda
Cara de acne

Hablas con las chicas que te respetan, y, quizás, te admiran también
Pero, me temo que a ti no te den sus amores

Lo siento mucho, Thomas

Caballero callado
Mente aguda
Cara de acne

Random complaint of the week

2008-12-01T14:49:00.000-08:00

Why are Pitchfork's search functions so terrible? Can someone stop trying to be so smart over there and start making the site a bit more navigable, please? And why do I still check out Pitchfork nearly every single day? Maybe that's the real question, my friends!

questions and observations involving sierra mist, etc.

2008-01-24T19:25:00.000-08:00

- who in the world would ever claim sierra mist to be their favorite pop?

- over the recent holiday season, while in an airport, i overhead an older, filipino-american doctor talking to a couple of american businessman about his granddaughter. "she has such an amazing outgoing personality," he said, "so friendly, always smiling, and she can talk to just about anyone about anything, too! oh, what a personality she has! really, it's like that of a hooker!"

new music blog

2006-09-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

THE HOP

<--the parliaments feat. george clinton

Hey, you! No peeing in the lake!

2006-07-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by rswells.

up at summer camp. wet hot.

all the photos

2006-07-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

i'm in kansas.
i'm about halfway through uploading the fotos from my recent trip to mexico and brasil.
i leave for camp in minnesota on wednesday.

i still don't know how to feel about zidane's vicious headbutt.

excerpts from most recent conversation with bríjido the taco man

2006-06-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

(upon my arrival)
b-it´s a miracle! i thought you´d gone away and left us for good!
r-no. i just went to eat elsewhere for a few days.

b-seems to me you´ve traveled to many places.
r-yeah, i guess so.
b-have you been to spain?
r-yes.
b-france?
r-yes.
b-england?
r-yes?
b-germany?
r-yes.
b-austria?
r-no.
b-portugal?
r-no, i´ve never been to portugal.
b-do you know where portugal is?
r-yes, i know where portugal is.
b-it´s just next to spain. a small country.

b-have you ever been to lebanon?
r-no.
b-saudi arabia?
r-no.
b-egypt?
r-no, i´ve never been to the middle east.
b-those are arabic countries...israel?
r-no.
b-now let´s go through the african countries!
r-but i´ve never been to africa.
b-algeria?
r-no.
b-ethiopia?
r-no.
b-the congo, angola, senegal?
r-no, i told you already. i´ve never been to africa.
b-somalia?

r-and if you could travel to one country, bríjido, which one would it be?
b-all of europe and asia.
r-no, one country.
b-just one?
r-just one.
b-denmark!!!
r-denmark? why denmark?
b-because the most beautiful women in the world come from there.
r-from denmark?
b-of course!
r-and how do you know that?
b-because they´ve come by here, they´ve eaten tacos here before. one with blue eyes, the other green. and long hair that went all the way down their backs. whooo! they were here in 2093.
r-2093? you met them in the future?
b-no, i messed up. i meant to say 1993. they came with their men, too. as tall as the fucking ceiling, i tell you.

(at this point bríjido walks away from me and quietly cuts up tortillas for a few minutes. he then groups the small tortilla bits in his old hands, walks outside, and gently drops them on the ground. he´s feeding the pigeons.)

(as i´m getting ready to leave)
b-where are your papers? you´ve got to have your papers on you!
r-i´ve got my little notebook here. just with random thoughts and notes.
b-let me see. ah, it´s in english, huh?
r-yep.
b-hmm...all i see are spiders.
r-well, here´s my driver´s liscense.
b-aha...says here that $50,000 goes to whoever turns in this young man, wanted for stealing women and eating without paying!

b-what was your name again? andrés, right?
r-no, it´s robert. like roberto, but without the o. where´s andres come from?
b-oh, that´s the name of my daughter´s boyfriend. she lives in tennessee. she studies dinosaur bones.

nearly a week in

2006-05-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

i´ve been doing the cultural rounds during the day: museums, parks, cathedrals, plazas. just between the alameda central and the palacio de bellas artes i found a guy selling some lp´s last thursday. i flip through what he has sitting out and then ask if he´s got any mexican rock from the 60´s and 70´s, like LA REVOLUCION DE EMILIANO ZAPATA. this signifies to him that i must know what the deal is. i don´t really, but i tell him that i´m kind of a dj and i´m mostly into soul and funk 45´s these days. he tells me to come back the following day and he´ll bring some mexican stuff on 45 that i might be into. alright ok.

back the next day, but not before entering the palacio de ba and admiring the murals, though many of them are so big that support columns for the museum´s very structure tend to block a complete view. when i go back to the music man, pablo, i see that he´s brought out his record player and has a small stack of 45´s with him. oh, and he´s got his leopard-skin pantalones on him and a girl that looks to be his daughter with him, but is really his girlfriend...he shows me a few items and i´m definitely interested, but vacillate on what to buy. in the end, i walk away with three: la revolucion de emiliano zapata on polydor, peace and love on raff, and tinta blanca on philips. pablo tells me he´ll have more next week, too. word.

from there i walk to a small taquería. i´m there by myself, save for bríjido, the taco man - a true character. he talks to me of tall germans, california, and the value of an education. i eat my three tacos soaked in lime juice and tell him i´ll be back. when? he asks. soon, i respond.

i see X-MEN 3 later that evening. without a doubt, i was the only gringo in the sold out theater. the movie was nothing more that ehhhh and i ate too much popcorn. taking the long way home, i see a men´s clothing store called ROBERT´S: EL ARTE DE SER (ROBERT´S: THE ART OF BEING). not quite the CREPUSCULARITY, but funny enough. i then pass through the zocalo and come upon a book fair. a pleasant surprise. make a few purchases before getting back to the hotel, playing a few games of tetris on my game boy, and then trying to get to sleep.

as a tourist, it seems that consumption works the quickest to abate the solitude, but the few friends i´ve found in pablo and brígido help too.

the next day, saturday, i start off with some chicken quesadillas - with the green sauce, aka the hot shit. my fire breath quickly went from dragon to dragoon. i spend the afternoon in chapultepec park and check out the huge and impressive anthropology museum nearby, though only make my way through maybe 1/3 of it in two hours.

that night i´m trying to kill the usual down time twixt dinner and bed when i hear this bad, bad music being played. it´s ostensibly a cover band at an outdoor cafe. vh1 gone bad kind of thing. all long hair, tight shirts, and self-styled attitude. making jokes about being wasted and on drugs at 9.45 pm. they went from some contemporary emo to radiohead´s ´creep.´ and the drummer. oh, god. the drummer was way off, doing all these superfluous flourishes and fills, but would not stop fucking twirling his sticks at every opportunity! he´s whirling them around like they were lassos. then, he takes a sip of his bottled water and directly spits it out like an aggressive fountain. some strange noise soon starts to emanate from the crowd. i look over to see one of the male fans standing up on a bench and threatening to take down his pants. he comes close, but eventually refrains and is pulled down from on high. the band ends with a cover of ´are you gonna go my way´ by lenny kravitz, which turns immediately into an extended drum solo. naturally. it´s all i can do to laugh and walk away.

more soon. yesterday turned into a big day itself, including a protest led by masked men and women and another encounter with brígido.

el df

2006-05-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

after a few fun-filled weeks with the good people of kansas city and lawrence, i arrived in mexico city two nights ago. the in-flight film was LAST HOLIDAY. a curious movie about christmas and cancer, starring queen latifah, ll cool j, and guest-starring none other than gerard depardieu. an unheralded classic, no doubt. upon arriving at the airport, i breezed through customs and was put into a suburban taxi with another american. his destination: a hotel called FIESTAMERICANA.

i checked in to my spot, HOTEL ISABEL, close to the city´s historic center. the elevator smelled of cinnamon. a few rooms down from me i noticed that 2 american dudes were drinking tequila drinks outside of their room. after dropping off my gear, i walked down to introduce myself and see what they were on about. turns out they had just graduated from occidental college in california two days earlier and were on a graduation trip. one spoke spanish very well, the other knew only a few words and phrases. they invited me to join them for a drink and i accepted. as we walked the empty streets, however, we quickly realized that we weren´t exactly in the social district. nevertheless, this did not stop the one dude from using one of his well-practiced phrases wherever we went: ´¿dónde está la mota?´ (´where is the weed?´) oh, americans - i feel that i feel a strange love for you all!

back at the hotel, i struggled for slumber. the bed felt more like a board, the pillow a styrofoam block. luckily, though, the modest room contained another bed and another pillow for your humble narrator.

yesterday started with a big breakfast: bread, sweet bread, scrambled eggs, beans, tea, orange juice. along with my 2 american counterparts, i then traversed the metropolis´ underbelly via the steamy metro. our main afternoon stop: the universidad nacional autónoma de méxico (unam), the country´s largest university. 260,000 estudiantes, according to the guidebook. it´s main attraction: the central library whose facades present the makings of mexico in mosaic on all sides (as seen above).

i left my compadres later that evening. they had switched hotels, looking for more exciting nighttime activities. i went back to ISABEL. in my room by 9pm. tired through and through, but, once again, finding little sleep. here i am today, though, armed with a few mild tourist trappings, about to make my way to the city´s main plaza, el zócalo.

bigote - 3.25.06

2006-03-26T10:34:00.000-08:00

bigote - 3.25.06
Originally uploaded by rswells.

radio radio and new friends

2006-01-15T18:22:00.000-08:00

i just found out that i will be on the radio at a much better time this semester: tuesdays from 3.00-5.15 (est) in the afternoon. you can stream the show during that time by going to the wcbn website. i start this tuesday. for those in and around ann arbor, the station is wcbn 88.3 fm.

i've also got some new friends these days. here are some more photos.

the dude

2006-01-02T15:28:00.000-08:00

curtis 2
Originally uploaded by rswells.

brother curtis made the first ever bowling team at shawnee mission east high school a few weeks ago; the young man promptly rolled an impressive 239 yesterday at the first day of practice.

bargain blaze

2005-12-27T16:35:00.000-08:00

ok, since so many of my ann arbor counterparts and colleagues are now busily blogging away, here's a little something from me, as 2006 is now nigh.

records purchased today:
{@ the music exchange in westport - sadly, this warehouse will be going out of business in the next month and it really is kc's big-time record store. everything 35% off}
esther phillips - 'from a whisper to a scream'
love unlimited orchestra - 'music maestro please'
shirley bassey - 'is really something'
player - 's/t'
charles wright and the 103rd st rhythm band - 'express yourself'
crown heights affair - 'sure shot'
the andrea true connection - 'more, more, more' (disco single)
jan hammer group - 'oh, yeah?'
al di meola - 'land of the midnight sun'
david crosby - 'if i could only remember my name...'
captain beyond - 's/t'
{@ 1/2 price books in westport. some cost 50 cents, nothing over $5}
eddie kendricks - 's/t'
carole king - 'music'
stevie wonder - 'characters'
al green - 'green is blues'
bobby caldwell - 'cat in the hat'
wes montgomery - 'a day in the life'
grover washington, jr - 'feels so good'
michael mcdonald - 'if that's what it takes'
young mc - 'bust a move' (single, no joke)

currently reading: pnin by vladimir n.
currently bumming because: yao ming will be out 4-6 weeks with a toe injury, which completely throws off my nba fantasy squad
last movie watched: munich last night with parents and brother jay. super-intense and i think i liked it. still waiting to see syriana, though.
record of the year: broken social scene - 's/t'
movie of the year: grizzly man

late break update

2005-10-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

pink champagne cupcakes at mom's 50th
Originally uploaded by rswells.

i had my fall break 2 weekends ago. fun times for serious. first my parents flew up here to ann arbor, and together we took in an amazing paul mccartney concert that friday night, an impressive michigan football game the next day, and numerous good meals. paul pulled out all the stops, the wolverines won on the final play of the game, and i ate a rainbow trout wrapped in prosciutto (aka fancy bacon). then we all flew back to kc on sunday to celebrate mom's 50th birthday the next tuesday. she had a "game party" with an ivitation list of 50 femmes. i also got a chance to spend a fine night in lawrence with the crew. photos of the extended weekend can be seen by clicking here.

all was going well and more or less according to plan...until the travel day from h-e-double hockey sticks on that thursday. i arrived at kci around 8.30am and was supposed to arrive at detroit at 12.45pm on northwest airlines. after one first class upgrade wasted, 2 ginger ales, a pepperoni pizza bagel that made me say "oh my gross" out loud as i consumed it, a maintenance issue with an electrical box on the first plane, which never took off, a long wait in a long line to get re-routed, a $5 calling card courtesy of nw airlines as a compensation for my troubles, a flight to minneapolis, a dinner at chili's too where i finished reading MRS. DALLOWAY, a flat tire and a missing co-pilot on my third plane, which did eventually take off for detroit, a long wait for a shuttle to the big blue deck parking facility, a gas stop to fill up my car, and a key episode of LOST missed, i arrived in ann arbor after 10.30pm.

uh-oh, ab came to town

2005-09-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

abbey hugs trees
Originally uploaded by rswells.

although a few days removed, images and sensations from last weekend continue to linger and loiter about my mind. yes, the young doctor made a visit. unfortunately, she spent most of the weekend rather pissed - both in the american and the british sense. indeed, after a beer.5 she'd start rambling on about how much she liked this band called the fire arcade and then go on and on about the weather, footwear, her extensive "running," and disease. she referred to these things as "phernomener."

on saturday, however, things settled down, or should i say brightened up, when we went to ann arbor's arborous arboretum after walking through a protest on campus against the war. i had never been to such a place before, thus my reaction. abbey, on the other hand, maintained her dour disposition until she found a lonely tree that, much like herself, was in need of a little tlc. meanwhile, i proceeded to make a fake firearm and aim it at the dorky dorm kids that tried in vain to play ultimate frisbee and other simple, relatively unatheltic games, like catch.

later in the afternoon, we took in a funny film, THE BAXTER, done by the same people who did THE STATE and WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER. we both laughed and laughed.

sunday meant studyday, at least for a while. a-b read from a book that looked to weigh as many kilograms as she, while i finished off a novel called THE VOYEUR by a. robbe-grillet. i drank my raspbetty tea and she an amerispresso. the weekend's highlight came that night: 2nd row tickets to INTERPOL. when i screamed out "STELLA!" they went right into "stella was a diver and she was always down." whether they heard me or not, i'm still not sure - you tell me. no photos, sadly, but we both looked really good and my red umbrella matched her red hoodie.

in the end, she also listened to my heart. with her stethoscope.

(one other thing, anyone interested in downloading previous radio shows of mine - i've only done two, one more tonight - can click on this link for access. just click on either sept 16th or 23rd and then the 3, 4, or 5 am options and it will take you to a realplayer to stream the show.)

do i do

2005-09-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

dinner
Originally uploaded by rswells.

last night, i drank a couple imports while watching a french film - i'm trying to watch all of the movies in the antoine doinel series by f. truffaut - in my "tv room," before doing some dancing and getting into some bacchanalia at the BANG!

on thursday night / friday morning, i had my first radio show of the semester on WCBN FM ANN ARBOR at the ungodly hour of 3-6am (2-5am cst). my first set went like this, starting from the top:

the velvet underground - satellite of love (demo)
bill withers - lovely day
bobbi humphrey - uno está
pavement - no tan lines
q-tip - let's ride
lowrell - mellow mellow, right on

if you want to review the rest of my playlist, you can go to the WCBN website and search for it under "playlists." i can tell you right now, though, that "remember" by air from MOON SAFARI shall serve as next week's opening theme.

i had one caller phone in, asking me what song i was playing at that moment because he thought it was cool, which made the whole thing worth it. (the song, by the way, was donny hathaway's live cover of john lennon's "jealous guy.") it was fun to be djing again, no doubt, even though only a handful of people probably heard me. it is also fun to be able to say hello to more people in this city. people that i've already met through the radio radio. in the city that already puts a foreboding faint chill into its arborous air.

one other recent development of note can be viewed in this post's photo. yes, i now am the proud owner of a grill or grille. this, of course, brings me one step closer to becoming an M-A-N.

in other news

2005-09-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

this is what the face of venus looks like.

arrival

2005-09-03T09:10:00.000-07:00

the bean at millennium park
Originally uploaded by rswells.

after spending a few fun days visiting friends in milwaukee and chicago, i arrived in constantly arborous and sometimes ardorous ann arbor last monday. i found milwaukee to be surprisingly charming and hip and would like to send a special thank you, coupled with a birthday shout, out to la doctora maussonbronche.

chicago, meanwhile, was pretty laid back with trips to millennium and lincoln park, the lincoln park zoo, and the art institute of chicago. the art institute blew me away, especially the monets, renoirs, and the special exhibit on toulouse-latrec and montmarte.

i learned on thursday that i'll be teaching spanish 101 again this fall - classes start on tuesday. my house is not as dirty overall as i had previously feared, but the number of cobwebs confounds me. this morning i went to the farmer's market nearby and bought some broccoli, grapes, and a few paula red (semi-tart) apples.

i'd like to make a brief comment here on the imbroglio that once was the gulf coast: seems to me that this is the third time a massive loss of american life has occurred during the bush presidency; one can apparently blame all three tragedies and the respective after-effects on "bad intelligence."

(on a sidenote, i'd like to send my best to the burgeoning band, KELPIE, as they embark on their european tour opening up for koufax. godspeed you young men.)

moving on

2005-08-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by rswells.

being here in kansas for the past three weeks kinda felt like what's going on in this painting to the right.

anyone interested in the new broken social scene lp should click here to download one of their new songs, "7/4 (shoreline)."

kansas

2005-08-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

ku
Originally uploaded by rswells.

i've been home for a while now, doing the back and forth twixt kansas city and lawrence, family and friends. on tuesday i will begin the long drive back up north to ann arbor, making stops in milwaukee and chicago along the way. here are some photos that might help describe the time. (the big news in all of this, though, is that brother curtis made the freshman soccer team at sme.)

Epiblogue II

2005-08-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

What follows documents another one of my big trips that I just recently completed: a torrid ten days that took me to Cuzco, Ollantaytambo, Urubamba, Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu, Puno, Lake Titicaca, las Islas Flotantes (twice), Amantaní, Taquile, and back to Cuzco to do the local disco. I’m left tired, but now have a few more friends from around the world.

Today I ate a nice lunch with Tali and her mother at a spot overlooking the Pacific. I ate ceviche—some rather acidic, raw fish. They ate anticuchos—cow hearts on a stick.

I leave for Dallas at 1am tonight, hang out there for about three hours, and then get back to KCI a little before 1pm. I have a bag of popcorn and an Inca Kola for the ride.

These past seven weeks have just been grand. Thanks to both everyone who’s read along with me and to those who have experienced any of this with me down here as well--wherever you are.

An extra-special thanks goes to Tali Dajes.

Chau.

Day 10—Saturday, July 30—Cuzco→Lima

2005-08-01T16:46:00.000-07:00

los chicos
Originally uploaded by rswells.

Up around 9am, I stumbled through breakfast and my ritualistic face washing. Adam, on the other hand, had to go the airport at 7am to pick up some more incoming American volunteers. After laying around, Bradford kindly gave me two Bayer (extra strength), and I got myself up to hang around the albuergue and its inhabitants one last time. I said a few sad goodbyes, told the locals that I’ll see them again there Cuzco, told the Spaniards that I’ll see them again in el País Vasco, and got to the airport an hour before my hour-long flight is set to take off. I leave on Tuesday.

I leave tonight.

Day 9—Friday, July 29—Cuzco

2005-08-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

out to dinner
Originally uploaded by rswells.

Two American volunteers arrived that morning: Bradford and Sergio. They had wanted a private room with a double bed, but the albergue could not accommodate, so we all slept on separate bunkbeds in the same dormitory that night. I took off to the city center in the morning and bought lots of shit. For lunch I stopped into a Mexican restaurant that my guidebook had hyped. Like any good Mexican food, it was cheap and overextended its welcome in my stomach. For 13 soles (roughly $4) I ate nachos, garlic bread, tortilla soup, two chicken tacos, guacamole, and refried beans. I also read a Borges short story while I took my time with the food. Then, I met up with Adam for a quick tea and a view and a walk up to Plaza San Blas.

That evening we went out with the Spanish girls to celebrate Adam’s birthday—he was turning 23 the following day. After a beer-and-a-half around the albergue, things started with dinner at a funky restaurant called Fallen Angel. The general décor included an aquarium below our table, house music, modern art, futons, and shattered mirrors in the bathroom. The night before the spot had housed a “Sexy Party.” We ordered a bottle of Chilean wine to drink and various types of lomo to eat, discussing the youth and the politics in our respective countries. After the meal and a few glasses of wine, I dropped my water glass on the table—it spilled and shattered. Glass on glass. Embarassed, I made matters worse by proceeding to drink from Ainhoa’s wine glass instead of mine own.

Afterwards, we went to the same Irish pub from a few nights before. No Guinness this time, though, but rather a local brew instead. We were supposed to meet up with Katie, but arrived some forty minutes late and she wasn’t to be found. The big question between us soon became—“Where was Jimi Hendrix born?” Adam and I maintained that he’s Enlgish—“Have you ever heard him talk?”—but Andere contended that he’s originally from Seattle. Her and I made a wager on the matter: a Cuscueña—at a bar and city to be announced later.*

We didn’t have to pay cover at the next spot, a disco named Mamá Africa, because Andere and Ainhoa pretended to be American, which meant that they didn’t speak while we waited in line. Once we arrived, the hour was getting nigh upon midnight, so Ainhoa and I headed to the DJ booth to try and get the man to announce Adam’s name over the loudspeaker, be he didn’t have a mic. By this point I had switched to whiskey and coke and Adam to gin and tonic, while the girls nursed a beer and then a water. We danced, we dance…Until the DJ went rather overboard with this Mission-Valley-style Green Day→Offspring→Marilyn Manson combo. I didn’t and don’t want to be thirteen ever again, so when he switched back to J. Lo→House of Pain→Black Eyed Peas→Wild Cherry, I felt relieved, but really not all that relieved.

By about 2am we left the disco. The girls considered going to another, but then decided to go home—they had to work the next day. The next spot, Africa, pretty much sucked wookie: suffocating crowd, blinding strobe lights, bad techno. We left after one beer and headed back to Mamá Africa. But, by this point in the early morning, unless you’re already tongue kissing, there’s not much going.

*I found out yesterday that I lost the bet.

Day 8—Thursday, July 28—Cuzco

2005-08-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

A relaxed day. Peru's independence day. I slept in and wandered around the albergue talking to whoever and helping the kids with there homework for a little while in the afternoon. For a while, I worked with Gumercindo on a story that read like THE BOY WHO CIRED WOLF. Adam felt sick, so he stayed in that night, but I went out with the Spanish girls and some other Basques from their same volunteer group that evening. I didn’t say much; hence I ended up drinking a few more than everyone else.

Day 7—Wednesday, July 27—Amantaní→Taquile→Puno→Cuzco

2005-08-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

traditional dance for tourists
Originally uploaded by rswells.

The next morning we woke up around 7am with the sun. Our family brought us some bread and an egg sandwich for breakfast. By 8am we were back on the boat and headed towards another nearby island, Taquile. The trip from the port to the plaza made for another 45-minute hike up a rocky path, but also afforded some spectacular views. Once in the plaza, more colorful celebration awaited us, as the locals put on a dance show for the tourists and in honor of their own country as well. I talked a little bit more with the Chilean girls, discussing Saved By The Bell and Beverly Hills 90210, and then ate lunch with Adam and Katie. From there, we walked down the 500 steps that led to the port on the opposite side of the island and boated back another three hours to the mainland. I read a few more stories and took a number of bored, beautiful pictures along the way. After a quick pizza dinner, Adam and I got on the 5.30 Power Bus back to Cuzco. It was another long ride, to be sure, but at least this time we got to watch a movie: RAMBO.

Day 6—Tuesday, July 26—Puno→Las Islas Flotantes→Amantaní

2005-08-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

100_1209
Originally uploaded by rswells.

Up at 7.45, we took a mini-bus down to the docks and then left port with our group around 8.30. First stop: Las Islas Flotantes. Again. We visited to two different islands this time, though. From there, the 3-hour plus boatride out to the tiny island community of Amantaní began. I ate too much popcorn and read some Cortazár short stories along the way. The deal set itself up so that we would spend the night with one of the local families. Little to no electricity or running water. Our mother for the day picked us up at Amantaní’s docks once we arrived around 2pm. She spoke little Spanish, mostly Quechua. Once we trekked the 20-minute trail up to her and her family’s home, Adam and I set our stuff down and rested for a while until lunch. Most of the family sat around and chatted with us while we ate our soup and vegetable lunch and drank our tea. I don’t remember any of the family members names, save the little grandson, Elvis.

After lunch, we met up with the rest of the group in the local plaza and began our 1-hour trek uphill to the top of the island. As the gentle lake breezes turned into a ripping wind, we watched the sunset over the lake and over Bolivia. At that point, I realized that I had lost my gloves and hat somewhere on the hike up, so I bought some more from one of the numerous local artisans that dotted our way up and down the trail. On my way back down, though, I found my hat with the help of Adam’s spare flashlight.

When we returned to the plaza, a patriotic parade began: marching schoolchildren carrying papier-mache creations illuminated by candles contained within, one of which caught on fire; at least fifteen poetry recitations dedicated to el Perú; the local mayor and governor; and a few marching bands. The original plan was that Adam and I would meet up with a girl named Sulmo or Zulmo or Zulma in the plaza during the festivities, but by this point everything was so dark that we couldn't see much of anything and we didn’t want to walk around directing our powerful flashlights towards the faces of unsuspecting spectators either. We had no idea where she was. No matter. We figured we could negotiate our way back to our house, using our flashlights and heightened sense of direction. After twenty minutes and a few wrong turns, we realized that we really had no idea where we going. “Does this look familiar to you?” “What?” “I say do you think we passed this abandoned house on the way here?” “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe.” We decided to head back to the plaza, hoping that we would eventually run into someone there. In a moment that I will always attribute to pure, unadulterated luck, we ran into our dad on the way back. “¿Adán?” he asked. “Oh, thank you, Jesús.” Adam and I reckoned that he only remembered his name because Adam jokingly explained his name at dinner by saying that his wife, Eva, passed away a long time ago.

After another family meal, this one by candlelight, they dressed us in ponchos and colorful hats and had some different girl take us to the tourist dance party where traditional music and style would be on display. The party took place in one of the few building with electric lights. Not too many of the tourists actually made it, though, pry because they were all worn out from the day’s activities. Adam and I each drank a beer and chatted with the only other American girl, Katie. Every fifteen minutes or so, one of young the locals pulled us out to dance in a circle that went round and round. Right before the event concluded, I worked up the courage to ask a pretty Chilean girl to dance.

Neither Adam nor I slept too well that night, despite the fact that our family provided us with upwards of six wool blankets. I don’t think it was the cold that kept us awake, however, just the novelty of the surroundings.

Day 5—Monday, July 25—Puno→Las Islas Flotantes (Uros)

2005-08-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

reed boats with puma heads
Originally uploaded by rswells.

Adam and I woke up around 10.00 and headed straight for the Puno’s port on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world. A tourist boat took us out to three of las Islas Flotantes (Uros), where we walked around but didn't really commingle with the local inhabitants. Tourism is a curious thing—just how helpful and harmful it is, I’m not always so sure.

As the day proceeded I could tell that I had some altitude sickness—aka “soroche”—going on: a capricious headache and a slight fever. We took it easy for the rest of the day and checked out Puno via various bici taxis. When it came time for a meal, we decided against the myriad pizzerias, and went for something a little more local instead. That evening, after we set up an overnight tour out to the islands of Amantaní and Taquile for the next day, I went to a pharmacy and bought myself some soroche pills. They did the job better than the prescription that I had brought with me from the US—the same one that had been making me lose sensation in my digits and my lips for the past few days.

Day 4—Sunday, July 24—Cuzco→Puno

2005-07-31T18:32:00.000-07:00

Adam woke me up a little before 10am, wondering whether or not I wanted to go to the big soccer game that day: Cuzco’s Cienciano vs. Lima’s Universitario. The winner would be league champion. I declined his offer, though, due to the fact that I felt pretty drained from doing the whole Machu Picchu dance the day before; thus, Adam gave my ticket away to a friend at the albergue, Edmundo. When I arrived at breakfast, Adam was wearing his jersey, working on his second beer and had a Red Bull in his pocket for later. Soon thereafter, however, I realized that the albergue’s two newest volunteers, Andere and Ainhoa, a couple of attractive Spanish girls from el País Vasco who use “vosotros” and pronounce Cuzco like “Cuthco,” would be attending the game as well, so I changed my mind and decided to join the group, making eight of us in all. I found a 2x1 ticket without much hassle outside of the stadium and then proceeded to quickly find a local friend willing to split the ticket with me. Together, we all put ourselves in the 4-block-long line that led to the entrance. Every ten minutes or so, the line shortened, which led the rest of us to make a mad dash to catch up to a spot closer to the front. In between dashes I drank a beer. Luckily, Lucía and Rocío found a shortcut in on the other side of the stadium and we found our way in fast.

We sat down in the Cuzco section. I was the only one in the group cheering for La U, but didn’t cheer too loudly because loyal fans of Cienciano vastly outnumbered me in terms of manpower, volume, and loyalty. They also came up with a number of creative, though vulgar, insults for the other team and sang and danced during the entire game. The nearby mountains cradled the stadium, giving it more grandeur than el Matute in Lima. The game proved to be more exciting as well. At halftime, Cienciano was up 1-0 on a header off a corner kick. Andere and I left our seats to procure some chicha—a colorful, corn-based, mildly alchoholic beverage—from out of a bucket for the crew. When we got back to our seats, I got some popcorn from one of the vendors too.

As the game resumed play, things started looking pretty bleak for La U, and then the middle-aged man sitting next to me wearing his Cienciano jersey gave me a thorough and manly embrace once his team scored a second goal late in the second half. That’s how it ended: 2-0.

After the game, Adam and I headed over to the bus station to buy our tickets to Puno. We gave ourselves an hour and a half to get ready and stock up on some supplies, taking off as the afternoon sun went down around 5.30. I couldn’t see much out my window, save a few sporadic fires that looked like miniature lighthouses in the distance. Much to our chagrin, and that of rest of the bus as well, no movie was shown. The ride also took longer than it was supposed to: we arrived in Puno after 1.30am instead 11.00pm. Nevertheless, we quickly found a hostal for the night.

feliz cumpleaños

2005-07-31T17:15:00.000-07:00

boy with mushroom 2
Originally uploaded by rswells.

yesterday, brother curtis turned 15. friend adam also turned 23. heads up.

Day 3—Saturday, July 23—Ollantaytambo→Aguas Calientes→Machu Picchu→Cuzco

2005-07-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

llama and machu picchu
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I woke up at 5.42. Hit the snooze button. Woke up again at 5.47. After washing my face, organizing my bags, and dressing, I heard a knocking on my chamber door at 6.10. It was the doorman from the night before: “You’re still going to eat breakfast at 6am, right?” “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” The breakfast consisted of tea, juice, coffee, and one pancake. On my way down the road, i witnessed the moonset. I arrived back at the ticket booth by 6.45, but the lady told me that the next available train would leave at 9.05 and that the roundtrip would cost about $80 or 260 soles. I only had about 260 soles total in my wallet and I couldn’t pay with a credit card. Since there’s no ATM in Ollanta, I rapidly left the line and hired a taxi driver to take me to the nearest ATM in nearby Urubamba. I gave him one of my chewy bars along the way. This roundtrip took about 40 minutes to complete, and I returned in time to buy a ticket for the 9.05. After paying 1 sol to take a crisp, mountain piss in a restaurant’s bathroom, I entered the waiting room at 8.00.

The train departed on time and wasn’t too crowded. I opened my window and snapped a few eager photos of the scenery afforded by the ride. When I arrived at Aguas Calientes, I felt as confused as everyone else looked regarding how one would get a bus to get up to MP, so I asked someone from the bus company. He pointed me in the right direction and I found my way to a bus that immediately began to ascend up a winding dirt road. I arrived at the entrance twenty minutes later, checked in my backpack, bought a student ticket, and passed through the gates by about 11.20. Luckily, the sun was shining.

I’m not sure what to say about my time around the ruins. Maybe whatever I would have to say could be best explained through my pictures. I felt pretty low on energy for all four of my hours at the site, though, for sure, especially because the chewy bars and sour gummy worms weren’t really filling me up too well. I talked to a few people. An Aussie tried to convince me that the structure was built, at least in part, through “levitation.” “Human levitation?” I asked. “Oh yeah,” he responded. A dude with a Stereolab t-shirt took a photo of me. I’d stand in on explanations provided by guides once in a while and ended up wishing I would I have studied up some more before trying to comprehend what I was seeing.

I left the site around 2.45 in the afternoon with dusty nostrils, having to catch a 3.30 train back to Cuzco from Aguas Calientes. I bought a Tropical Fruit Gatorade for the road. While on the train, the steward and stewardess served us brownies and beverages…And then put on a fashion show—all sweaters, scarves, and shawls being made from only the finest alpaca wool. They would take turns walking up and down the aisle and changing in the bathroom. The musical accompaniment included Kylie Minogue, Madonna, and The Bee Gees.

Arriving back at the albergue around 7.30 in the evening, I took a quick shower and then went out to dinner with Adam. I ordered an alpaca steak. As Adam keenly noted, alpaca thus makes for a both fine pullover and a fine piece of meant as well. After dinner, we made our way to one of Cuzco’s Irish pubs for a Guinness and then played the wall for a while at a disco. When we got back to the albergue, however, we were locked out and no one responded to our knockings and doorbell ringings. We realized that our only way in would be to scale the 12-foot walls next to the door, and that’s exactly what we did. Once in, a neighbor asked us what we were doing. We explained the situation, he easily understood, and then he told us to be careful with the dogs—they might bite us. Then, the door to my room was locked as well and we couldn’t find the keys. I was poised to sleep in one of the student’s beds (they were all back at their homes for the weekend) when Carlota’s daughter, Lucía, woke up and helped me get into my room.

Day 2—Friday, July 22—Cuzco→Ollantaytambo

2005-07-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

view near albergue
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I got up and ate some breakfast with Adam and the American volunteers around 9.00 and then spent most of the morning huffing and puffing around the city center. Cuzco’s an awfully charming place and reminded me quite a bit of Granada, what with it’s cathedrals, narrow streets, and surrounding mountains. The plan was to get up early early the next morning in order to take a train up to Machu Picchu. Carlota, however, told me that I didn’t have to go the “rich gringo” way, but that I could get there quicker and cheaper if I did it the local way; this meant taking a taxi from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo and then a train from Ollanta to Aguas Calientes (the base city, so to speak, for MP) that evening. I took her up on the idea and got myself a shotgun seat in a station wagon taxi headed towards Ollanta. I was facing a serious time crunch with respect to arriving in Ollanta in time to catch the last train, which led the driver to drive like a speedfreak amongst the countless curves through the mountainous highways. At one point, we picked up a middle-aged couple, squeezing four people into the back. I happened to make eye contact with one of the other two; his eyes told me, “Lucky bastard.” Within five minutes, the woman said, “You’re driving too fast, amigo,” so he slowed down for a few twists and turns, but then resumed his ways, which led the woman to let loose the lord’s name. When she and her man got out of the taxi, she said she had never been so scared.

After about an hour and a half of the deathdrive, we reached Ollanta. A great mass throbbed in front of the gates that led to the trains. Much like my taxi driver, I quickly darted my way through the slightly treacherous environment and safely made it to the ticket counter. When the man told me that the last train was full and that I’d have to wait until tomorrow to catch one, I almost let loose a tear. Slowly walking back up the cobblestone road to town with my head held low, I found a hotel for my night’s sleep and then a restaurant for my dinner. At the small spot with rather swpartan décor, I took a seat upstairs. Four Germans sat across the room and a youngish American couple at the table next to mine. The young Americans quickly made fun of the Germans without them realizing it. Once the Germans left, I vacillated on what to order: either pancakes in honor of Huacachina and Jon Snyder or pizza in order to continue a long-standing and much-storied personal tradition. In the end, I went for some chicken kabobs instead. Once the other Americans’ food arrived, the girl started slurping her soup. This then turned into some sort of joke between them, as they tried to outsplurp each other amidst other forms of lovey dovey that included bad jokes and mild slaps to the face. Meanwhile, I, tried to focus on my Cortázar short story and my food. Upon paying their check, the young man approached me, asking me where I was from. Various origins instantaneously flashed through my mind, but I decided to tell the truth: “I’m from Kansas.” The dude then apologized and justified their actions by explaining to me that they thought I was French.

Back at the hotel, the doorman asks me when I’ll be up the next morning fro breakfast. The conversation—translated by me—went more or less as follows:
-What time do you plan to eat breakfast tomorrow morning?
-6am.
-6am?
-6am. I’m going to Machu Picchu.
-Ok, but most of the other groups are going to eat around 7.30 or 8.00—Why don’t you join them?
-But then in wouldn’t get to see as much…You just don’t want to get up early, do you?
-How about if you go get your ticket first and then come back and eat breakfast?

My bathroom came with ventilation, but I kept it closed while I bathed myself that night, singing “Satellite of Love” in the shower.

Day 1—Wednesday/Thursday, July 20/21—To Cuzco

2005-07-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

the andes from the plane
Originally uploaded by rswells.

Since my flight was scheduled to leave on the morning of the 21st at 6.10am, I decided not to sleep at all on Wednesday night, the 30th. That evening I saw a friend’s band called La Ira de Díos in concert. They rocked pretty hard and I had a difficult time understanding their lyrics, save for when the frontman screamed about something being “en fuego.” Actually, La Ira opened up for this other band composed of grandpa rockers that covered groups like Iron Butterfly, Grand Funk Railroad, and The Kinks. The 60+year-old frontman—dressed in corduroys and a turtleneck sweater, topped off with a beautiful, silver bigote—wielded a commanding voice and is relatively well known here in Lima. He used to host radio and television programs, or something. After the show I went back to Tali’s house and watched tv until a taxi came to pick me up around 3.30. By this point in the night, my stomach was beginning to test me—I think because of some yuquitas that I had eaten earlier at the concert. Indeed, as soon as I got in line to check in at the airport, I got out of line to hustle to the bathroom. When I returned to the line, I moved the pink stuff from my check-in bag to my carry on—and in front of an attractive girl, no less. I moved forward a few steps when it hit again. This time proved to be more of a false alarm, though, and I eventually got myself checked in, paid the airport tax, and got myself to the proper gate. Once seated, I started to listen to my favorite airport record, The Velvet Underground s/t.

On the plane, I watched the sunrise over the Andes.

My friend, Adam, was at the airport to greet me when I arrived in Cuzco around 7.30. We taxied to his current lodgings/volunteer site at an albergue that houses and educates impoverished children from Cuzco’s mountain communities. Most of the kids speak Quechua but not so much Spanish. At the albergue, Adam works as the liaison between the local directo, Carlota, and the American volunteers that come in every other week to do some community building projects and play with the kids. Oddly enough, when I arrived there was a family of volunteers there from Ann Arbor. I talked to the oldest son about Big Ten Burrito and The Fleetwood Diner. Anyways, since I hadn’t slept a wink the night before, I slept that day from 9.30am to 6.00pm. When I woke up, Adam and I went to go get pizza for the group’s dinner. After the meal, the volunteers watched somebody’s pirated version of Seabiscuit. I couldn’t really get to sleep later that night, however, because my levels were so off. Plus, the pills I was taking to combat the probable onslaught of altitude sickness made me temporarily loose feeling in my digits and lips.

El gran corso de WONG + Música

2005-07-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

confetti
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I went to the big national parade yesterday here in Lima with a few friends. We saw thousands of limeños pushing each other and witnessed a few insults thrown back and forth between two full-grown women, but didn’t see much of the parade itself. For me, the highlight was this state employee, dressed to deal with toxic materials. The crowded avenue quickly overwhelmed us, however, so we went into a café where I drank a ginger ale and ate some strawberries with cream. The spectacle concluded the afternoon with some nice fireworks viewed between buildings and accompanied by “Darth Vader’s Theme” and Beethoven’s “Symphonty No. 5—Allegro con brio.”

On Saturday, Tali took me to an arcade of sorts: music, DVDs, not-so-clever t-shirts, and paraphernalia sold out of little, entrepreneurial shops. About every fifth shop or so specialized in “todo lo que es…la estética de heavy metal.” Almost all of the music and movies were burned—part of the piratería phenomenon that runs rampant here—and all of the shops with música indie continued to manifest this country’s obsession with early 80s Britpop, especially The Smiths. The last place we checked out made me feel like I was being confronted by Pitchforkmedia Perú. The dude’s walls agreed with everything current that the website touts (and, admittedly, I tend to tout from time to time as well): Four Tet, Of Montreal, Iron and Wine, M83, The Futureheads, LCD Soundsystem, Antony and the Johnsons, The Boy Least Likely To, The Arcade Fire, Belle & Sebastian (+ singles from DEAR CATASTROPHE WAITRESS), Interpol (+ numerous live European bootlegs, even though anyone who’s seen Interpol live knows that the difference in sound between studio and live show is slim to none, but that the light show is blinding, and not necessarily in a good way [of course, had I not seen Interpol in Detroit a few months ago, I pry would have purchased one of the burned live European bootlegs myself]), Sleater-Kinney, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Fiery Furnaces, Cat Power, Beulah. Dude even had Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, for crying out loud.

The current Lima mixtape—gleaned from taxi rides, bus rides, restaurants, discos, and bars—includes the following:
-“Love Will Tear Us Apart” Joy Division
-“Boys and Girls” Blur
-“What if God Was One of Us?” Joan Osborne
-“Gasolina” Daddy Yankee
-“Careless Whisper (I’m Never Gonna Dance Again—These Two Feet Ain’t Got No Rhythm)” George Michael
-“¿Marica quién?”

Tomorrow, Tali and I will do a little rusticating when we bus out to a few towns that linger in the Lima countryside like Canta and Obrajillo. Thursday, I leave for Cuzco for 10 days; while there, I’ll be staying with an old college friend from KU, Adam Huggins—or am I still to young to characterize it like that? On August 2nd, I return to Prairie Village, Kansas.

photos

2005-07-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

a nearby park
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I have recently added some more photos to my lot in flickr: a couple from the neighborhood, a bunch from the poorly lit and slightly creepy museo de la nación, and one of sweet, little elsa helping tali dye her hair.

wednesday

2005-07-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

not too much to report from lima. no new photos. the weather still stays the same, yet i may have found a park. today, i'm back to being healthy, but now tali is bed-ridden after staving off a fever yesterday and then suffering through a tooth removal today; thus, she ascends the throne built under blankets to rightfully claim the recently abdicated crown of the pathetic one.

i booked a flight for cuzco yesterday. as of now, the trip will include at least some of the following: machu picchu; a pint of guinness at an irish pub; another big soccer match; white water rafting; an excursion to lake titicaca--the highest lake in the world; altitude sickness; celebrating peru's independence day on the 28th. i'll be staying in cuzco with an american friend of mine who works at an orphanage of sorts there. should be fantastic.

in the meantime, here are a couple of interesting and alarming pieces from antiwar.com regarding 1) "the smash of civilizations in iraq" and the destruction of the "cradle of civilization" and its artifacts and 2) what troop withdrawal might really mean.

with little on the upcoming agenda, i might go see BATMAN BEGINS tonight for the third time. this time, however, i'll keep a keener eye on how the film relates itself and its audience to terrorism, i.e. how master bruce receives his training in the orient at what is ostensibly a terrorist training camp, how these shadowy men plan to once again destroy one of the hallmarks of western civilization, gotham, because of its decadence (not, apparently, because of gotham's meddling, haughty foreign policy), how these men attack in the name of morality but a select few of us really know what is moral, just, and rational, how "justice" in the form of a masked, wealthy man seemingly alters history's natural course by saving his corrupt empire via science and speed, etc.

me duele la barriga

2005-07-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

pankreoflat
Originally uploaded by rswells.

originally, i thought i'd be going to the circus tonight. you know, the greatest show on earth. turns out, though, that spanish streams got crossed and i wouldn't have seen elephants and lions and acrobats anyways, but rather a magician at the back of a discotheque. no matter: i'm stuck here at the apartment with a case of the stomachs (anyone who knows me well, knows mine's a "sensitive" one), listening to mostly quiet songs on low volume, medicating myself with pankreoflat, amusing myself with posts like this.

Epiblogue

2005-07-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

on the way back to the bus
Originally uploaded by rswells.

What follows documents the past six days of my life in el Perú on excursion. Like Butterfly from Digable Planets, I too covered mad area in my les soul Clarks. Five buses in five days included. If there were two things the trip lacked, they would be toilet paper and soap in the public bathrooms. I took almost 300 photos in all and will be uploading many of them in the days to come. They can be viewed by clicking here.

Like any other sentient being, I tried to take in and gauge my surroundings everywhere I went. What I was often left with, however, was a furrowed brow and the single sentiment: “Where the fuck am I?”

Day 6—Tuesday, July 5th—Huacachina/Ica→Lima

2005-07-05T21:35:00.000-07:00

on the way back to lima
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I woke up a little hungover this morning with no water for an anodyne because I ended up the previous night with bills only worth 100 soles in my wallet, bills which, paradoxically, are usually worth nothing because no one has enough change to accept them. After a breakfast “Americano” style—scrambled eggs, bread, butter, jelly, juice, and coffee or tea—Tali and I took a taxi from Huacachina to Ica for the final time in order to take a bus back to Lima; the strike was over. The slow busride included SPIDERMAN 2 (a film which I’ve now seen a total of three times, all in Spanish-speaking countries) and DUPLEX.

Day 5—Monday, July 4th—Ica/Huacachina

2005-07-05T21:34:00.000-07:00

training for next season
Originally uploaded by rswells.

As I wrote in a brief post that day, Tali and I ended up somewhat stranded in Huacachina for the whole day and night because farmers and peasants had blocked the highway passage back to Lima. Their beef was squarely with a/the free trade agreement with the United States. Our captivity turned out to be a pleasant and pensive one, though, for we spent most of the afternoon and evening up on a dune overlooking the town and the surrounding desert. We also ended up with a better room at the hostel. Plus, Huacachina breaks down more or less like this: bikins by the pool during the day, north faces by the bar at night.

Later on we attended a barbecue at one of the other local hostals, but we didn’t eat anything from the official bbq tent—we just drank, Cuba Libres for Tali and cerveza for Beto. Tali did eventually get a little hungry, so we went inside the place to the restaurant for a chicken sandwich. At this point, all hell broke loose downstairs as a nasty fight broke out between many of the local workers in the hostel’s lobby. Most of them had been drinking since noon in celebration of the boss’ birthday. Things got ugly fast. I couldn’t see what was going on too well from my high vantage point, nor did I dare take any photos, but I could’ve sworn I saw one poor, drunken soul get an uppercut—POW! Right in the kisser! When we cautiously came back downstairs, things were still heated and strong words bellowed from a few men; the tourists, meanwhile, were all nothing’s going on around the bar. I somewhat achieved my goal to talk to new people that night, striking up a conversation with a Peruvian young man from Pisco who loves Usher and DMX and asked me question after question about the US and a rugged Norwegian whose eyes were so lazy I thought he was blind—I didn’t talk to the latter for too long, however, because he threw off my balance. And though my eyes struggled mightily to discern whether or not a pair of Australian birds were indeed attractive or not, I spoke not a word to them.

For the second 4th of July in a row, I saw no fireworks; last summer I saw hail in Oaxaca, México.

Day 4—Sunday, July 3rd—Nazca and Huacachina

2005-07-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

the astronaut
Originally uploaded by rswells.

Since we didn’t have any official tour set up to fly across the mysterious Nazca Lines, Tali and I took a taxi to Ica in order to take a 3-hour bus south to Nazca. The movie for this bus ride: TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES. To our extreme surprise, Claire Danes was one of the stars—Was anyone else aware of this? After the flick and the mini-invasion of a few flies into our immediate surroundings, some VH1 CLASSICS came on next. The videos included one by Rod Stewart and a back-to-back showing of the same song, Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It!” (I think the second one contained an alternate beginning.)

The whole reason any tourist gets down to Nazca is to fly over these lines to which I’ve been referring. The game sets up with about a dozen companies that all offer 35-minute flights over said lines and attracted people from all over the world, few of which seemed to speak any Spanish whatsoever. We arrive around 11.00am, booked a flight for 2.00pm and walked down the road to get an early lunch. A youngish American couple from New Hampshire sat at the table across from us. We chatted for a little while about our respective adventures in Perú up until that point. They were on their “real” honeymoon after taking a cruise with family and friends a few months earlier: an intense, 5.30am wakeup, 10-day action-packed trek of a honeymoon, that is. They had just watched Gus Van Sant’s fictional take on the Columbine shootings, ELEPHANT, on their bus ride. Like them, and surely anyone else who has seen this slow slow chill of a movie, I had no idea why this film would be shown to an unsuspecting audience in such a way. When I said we’d watched T3, the guy responded with, “Oh, man! That’s awesome!” (Neither of them knew that Claire Danes played the female lead either, nor had they seen BATMAN BEGINS yet—no time for movies for them.) You could kinda tell that the guy was itching to talk to another guy because he was really digging my travel jokes and anecdotes, especially my description of Huacachina as being fit for the x games crowd and the story of how I almost shit myself trying to run up one of the dunes. Plus, his new wife was the one with the guidebook—if you know what I mean.

Our flight scheduled for 2.00 didn’t end up taking off until 4.30. Before we took off, Tali was so nervous she was shaking and tried to compose herself with some Lamaze type breathing techniques. It didn’t help that the plane that took off before ours didn’t really take off per se on its first try. Nor did it help that once airborne the pilot kept taking his hands off the controls and turning around to face us passengers in order to explain what figure was coming up next. He banked steeply and frequently so that both sides could get a good look at whatever lay below. For me, the most impressive figure was the ASTRONAUT, with the MONKEY, and the HUMMINGBIRD coming in with the silver and the bronze. As we approached a figure, the pilot would be all like, “Okay, it’s right there to the right! There it is! Can you see it? It’s right there. Look under the wing.” And, of course, I couldn’t see shit for the first few seconds, but then these lines came together to form shapes which subsequently came together to form recognizable figures. Once we landed, Tali admitted to me that the lines were more impressive to her than Machu Picchu.

Our evening bus back to Ica was packed to the point where the standing passengers lined the entire aisle and included a Steven Seagal movie whose title translates to BLOODY FACE 4. Back in Huacachina for another night, we ended this one with pancakes filled with dulce de leche for dinner.

Day 3—Saturday, July 2nd—Ica/Huacachina

2005-07-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

huacachina
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I wrote about part of this day in a previous post and it proved to be the most low-key day of all. Tali and I did peep THE WAR OF THE WORLDS that afternoon, though; I liked it all right…right up until (SPOILER ALERT!!!) the very very end which I found to be straight trite and appallingly bourgeois. As the war played itself out and the entire theater seemed to talk and talk in not so hushed tones*, I ate and drank my “Combo Juvenil”: a medium pop (known in Perú as a “gaseosa”) whose lid served as the base for my popcorn box, which meant that the extra-long straw came all the way up through the popcorn.

Once back in Huacachina, I got ancy and attempted to scale one of the many surrounding sand dunes—I nearly shit myself because my stomach was so full of popcorn and coke. Tali was nice enough to fetch me some water and meet me back at the hostal once I took some deep breaths and burped and farted my way back down the dune, just like Charlie and Grandpa Joe had to when they drank too much soda and floated up too close to Mr. Wonka's menacing ceiling fan. We took it easy the rest of the night because we were getting up at 6.30 again the next morning with the lines of Nazca as the day’s destination to be.

*This tendency to disobey the “Silence is Golden” rule does not apply to all movie theaters here in Peru, but may indeed be an avatar of the Iqueños. Unfortunately, we were not able to test this hypothesis because the only other movies showing were BATMAN BEGINS (I’ve already seen it twice), yet another Denzel as a cop project, and THE PACIFIER starring Vin Diesel in a role once played by Hulk Hogan. No wonder ticket sales are down.

Day 2—Friday, July 1st—Islas Ballestas/Reserva Nacional de Paracas→Ica/Huacachina

2005-07-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

sea lions or lobos marinos
Originally uploaded by rswells.

A 6.30am wakeup call started this cold, long, beautiful day. The day before, we signed up for a tour that would take us by boat to las Islas Ballestas and then by bus to la Reserva Nacional de Paracas. After being picked up at El Cesar around 7.30, we were bused down to our point of embarkation on the coast. We groggily boarded the small boat that took us out to the big one, named Pedro Pablo, that would cruise us around the islands. Besides the cold, biting sea breezes, gray sky, and low visibility, things didn’t look so promising when the driver of the small boat spilled gasoline on me.* Nevertheless, once we finally got our first glimpse of land again from the port side of the Pedro Pablo and the sugary coffee came around, I was awed for the rest of the ride. We came across billions of birds, a few penguins, scores of sea lions, and a shitload of guano. We never got off the boat. I took lots of photos. Our first guide, Yuri, tried his best to explain everything to the international group in both English and Spanish, but wasn’t always on point. One thing he said that did stick with me, though, was how a layer of guano measuring 6-7 meters in height once covered the islands—before someone realized the substance’s fertile possibilities.

After we got back to the buoy and onto hard land, our next guide bused with us to la Reserva Nacional de Paracas: a wildlife reserve without much wildlife, but plenty of desert and wondrous views of the Pacific. I guess I had really never been to the desert before; I felt like I had stumbled across another planet (these feelings initially crept up on me in the morning around the islands and surged back from time to time during the rest of the trip). The tour ended at this tiny, uncapitalized fishing village on the shores of a small bay that looked something like this. It looked like what I imagine the White Cliffs of Dover would look like, if they were exoticized and weren’t white. It was the kind of spot that would entice real estaters like the Donald to give up an organ—or, in Donald’s case, shave his head—just to build a modest hotel. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries at this point in the day, but maybe it’s better that way—I almost feel like the less people see the spot, the less the likelihood for development. Tali and I ate a 4 o’clock seafood lunch on the rocks near the bay, near men fishing for their own meals. Our guide came over to Tali and me and pointed out one fisherman in particular, saying, “Hey look, Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway! The old man and the sea!” The old man turned around and gave a polite wave. He turned around again once he caught a respectable fish to display to us. Our guide went on to inform us that Hemingway himself had once fished off the Peruvian coast…and that Peruvian blood apparently flowed through Nat King Cole’s veins as well.

We got back to Pisco around 5.00, packed our things, booked it out of El Cesar promising to never return again, and rushed to catch the next bus to Ica. The islands and the wildlife reserve had been a real treat, for sure, but the town of Pisco brought on this foul taste to our mouths. Our bus’s windshield had a huge crack in it. We stopped at one point so that the busdriver could pass along some dinner to the highway patrol. My LONELY PLANET guidebook told us on numerous occasions that Ica was a crummy place to stay and that the oasis laguna of Huacachina—only a few kilometers away—was a much safer and enjoyable stop, so we got off the bus and took a taxi out of one town and into another.

The first two hostals we checked out based on LP’s recs were all booked up. Luckily, we found some beds down the town’s short and only road. As I said in a previous post, Israelis had stormed in to the point where menus were written in English, Spanish, and Hebrew.

Tali saw the stars for the first time in a long time that night. Because of my limited knowledge regarding astronomy—all dilettantish enthusiasm aside—I couldn’t figure out whether everything was upside down or not.

*I also should have worn socks.

Day1—Thursday, June 30th—Pisco

2005-07-05T19:01:00.000-07:00

el cesar
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I described the initial part of this day in a previous post. Pisco didn’t offer too much besides a bad night’s sleep at our hostal, El Cesar, a private tech school named “Bill Gates,” a surprisingly photogenic cemetery, and a seafood dinner that didn’t sit so well in my stomach. In the afternoon, we started what turned out to be a wild goose chase with the post office being the object pursued.* We asked about six people for its whereabouts and they all gave us different answers. One man contended that the post office no longer existed. We eventually found it and I went up to the counter to ask the lady for some stamps that I could put on some postcards that I wanted to send to the states. I asked for 20. The price? 93 soles.**

After dinner, the energies took on some relaxing tones as Tali and I sat around the Plaza de Armas, just chatting and watching the people watch the people come and go. A young boy around age 8 soon came upon us armed with a basket of small candies and intent to sell. We tried to shrug him off, but he started talking to us, asking us where we where from, how it could be that Tali is from Peru***, why we didn’t want to buy his candies, why I didn’t want to buy a little chocolate for my lady friend. The kid wouldn’t stop, so I suggested that he go play with the other children over there. He said he couldn’t because he was working. He kept repeating the same phrase over and over, “Cómprame, p.” We were intent on not buying, just as he was intent on selling. Finally, Tali and I got up from our spot and left the plaza. As we walked away, the boy said, “I hope someone robs you!”

On a side note, my father turned 50 on this day back in Kansas City.

*The same phenomenon took a hold of us in Ica a few days later.
**Roughly $30****
***Indeed, this child was one of the seemingly innumerable Peruvians who put on looks of sheer incredulity when Tali said that she was from Lima.
****Roughly equal to the cost of a one-way bus ticket from Lima to Cuzco, with the ride lasting at least 24 hours.

delay

2005-07-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

today, farmers, fieldworkers, miners, and some other peruvian workers are on a one-day strike because of an unfair agreement regarding free trade with the united states. they have successfully blocked the one highway that connects our current location, ica, with lima; hence we are stuck here for the time being. happy 4th of july, usa--yea, capitalism.

currently

2005-07-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

i type to you all from an internet spot in the city of ica. 50 cent pumps out the boombox. the desert´s tall, other-planet-like dunes mark ica´s perimeter. tali and i are actually staying in a small laguna/oasis/mini mtv spring break locale nearby called huacachina. all of the hotels and hostals in the entire pueblo are booked up with kids from all over the world--in truth, mostly from israel, and i have been asked on three separate occasions if i too am from there. they all seem to be looking for some x games travel, replete with sandboarding and dune buggies, i.e. the type that tali and i don´t really get down to. power sandals, dreds, fleeces. some dude from france asked me if i knew where he could score some weed last night at the local bar. i sad no, but we struck up a short conversation. he realized that i wasn´t fom israel and told me he liked my american accent, that it was easy to understand. i said it´s because i´m from kansas, and he replied--yeah, i´ve heard a lot of good things about kansas and colorado, i want to go there. i told him that there really wasn´t much too see in kansas west of state line, unless you enjoy 10 hours of tiny towns and wheat fields with 5 o´clock shadows. he said that that was fine, maybe he could ride through the state on a motorcycle.

today, tali and i got up late and took a taxi around to a few bodegas to check out how the local hard alcohol, pisco, is made. after two separate spots and upwards of six or seven free samples, we left a little tipsy and better informed. our kind taxista threw back two himself. one of the bodegas included this grab bag kind of an antique collection that included the following: pisco, paintings of simon bolivar, a replica of a dali painting, tiny human bones, ancient incan flip flops, and a vitrola.

i´ve got more to give and plenty of pictures to show from this current excursion. indeed, a big post awaits once i get back to lima and organize my notes. yesterday, for example, i saw penguins and the desert in the same day around the ballesta islands and a national wildlife reserve. i also saw more birds over the course of a few hours than i had seen in all of my life up until then.

el museo larco and upcoming excursion

2005-06-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

"O make me a mask"
Originally uploaded by rswells.

this afternoon, tali and i went to el museo larco. it was all ancient ceramics and a temporary exhibit on ancient gold and jewelry. the museum's main attraction, however, has to be the two rooms of x-rated pottery that it houses. buenos días!

come thursday morning tali and i will be leaving the lima gray behind for the wildlife reserves at las islas ballestas and paracas, where i hope to see penguins, sea lions, and flamingos. from there, we'll go to the desert cities of huacachina and nazca. nazca is famous for these mysterious lines that were drawn in the desert centuries ago. the polemic regarding where these lines came from and who constructed them still continues today. in order to fully capture the figures that the lines come together to create, you're supposed to fly over them in a mini-plane.

0-0

2005-06-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

ticket to soccer game
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I went to the big soccer game yesterday with my friend Pilar’s older brother, Mario, and his 10 year-old nephew, Marcelo. We took a small taxi. On the way, our driver made up his mind that he wanted to go too. After all, the crosstown rivals were playing: Alianza Lima vs. Universitario. I saw a different part of Lima and 30,000 or so different faces in and around the dusty stadium, Alianza’s home turf known as el Matute. We arrived a little late to the game, so we bought our tickets from a scalper who was wearing a Ramones jean jacket. After maneuvering our way through scalpers, hawkers, and dirty, friendly dogs, we verified that the tickets weren’t fakes and pushed on to the gates. Before entering the stadium, we were all padded down by some serious police. Mario, Marcelo, and el taxista got through quick enough, but the cop who was inspecting me held me up, asking me what I had in my left pocket. I pulled out my cherry-flavored chapstick and a cheap, plastic pen. The cop looked me dead in the eye, threw my pen aside, and told me to move along.

Once inside, tall, barbed-wire fences separated the spectators from the field. Since we got there a little late, we had to sit in one of the corners. Mario and Marcelo had wanted to sit in one of the ends—they’re both fans of Universitario—where all of the local hooligans jump against each other and sing songs mocking the other team, calling each other faggots and chickens respectively. Police in full riot gear stood at slacked attention not five feet away from us. Torn up pieces of the yellow pages were scattered all about and, as I soon learned, were wadded up and used as harmless but meaningful projectiles. Along with wrappers and empty cups, the spectators threw these projectiles mostly when Universatario's team and the refs came on and off the field. The police shielded them from the paper rain with their riot shields.

The game itself was rather slow. Not much action or impressive skill. Not many shots on goal. 0-0. Even though Peru as a whole is huge on soccer, its national team hasn’t qualified for the World Cup in something like twenty-five years. The fans didn’t let this deter them from having their fun, though. The two big highlights, however, didn’t even really have anything to do with the game. 1) At halftime, a comely young woman—the only blonde that I saw in the entire stadium—came out with one of those t-shirt shooter guns and shot a few into the crowd. 2) Late in the second half, the referee came up limp and had to stop the game for a few minutes. In both instances, the crowd went nuts: desire in the first instance and ridicule in the second.

In other sports news, it saddened both Tali and me to see the Pistons lose last Thursday. Besides the end of the season, the fact that I’ll probably never hear those Peruvian announcers, Vizcarra and Porras, announce a game ever again got me a little down. When they weren’t too busy giving shot outs—saludos—to family members, friends, and emailers, blowing through random noisemakers and kazoos, and dissecting the dance team’s moves, they talked about the game. Here are a few examples of their commentary, some of which were translated into English by me:

-“El boxout de Ben Wallace fue extraordinario.”—Porras
-“Here comes the Frenchman, Tony Parker—ooh la la.”—Vizcarra
-When “Hey Ya” came over the stadium speakers, Vizcarra asked, “Who sings this song? The Black Eyed Peas?”
-“Well, it doesn’t look like Rasheed Wallace is saying ‘Feliz Navidad’ to the referee there.”—Porras “Nor ‘Feliz cumpleaños.’”—Vizcarra
-At one point in the final game, Vizcarra told a joke about Mexicans that lasted at least three minutes.

beto chávez

2005-06-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

beto lleva un suéter eroto-exótico
Originally uploaded by rswells.

hola a todos. me gustaría presentarles a un amigo mío, se llama beto chávez. qué ha hecho beto chávez hoy? primero, desayunó. luego, él y su amiga peruana, tali dajes, salieron de la casa de tali para dar una vuelta y ver el mar pacífico. mientras estaban allá, beto sacó varias fotos del mar gris. a beto le gusta sacar fotos con su cámara futurística. después, almorzaron en la casa del papá de tali--más tarde, beto me comentaría que la comida estuvo buenaza. finalmente, beto y tali decidieron ir de compas. beto se probó un suéter eroto-exótico, pero no lo compró.

esta noche, beto chávez y tali dajes van a ver el último partido de los playoffs del nba. beto me dijo, "ojalá que ganen los detroit pistons! uf! y espero que no me coma las uñas enteras durante el partido! seguro que la tensión me va a matar! pucha! gracias a dios que tendré mi aguardiente a mi lado para chupar cuando las cosas se pongan muy dramáticas." y, a pesar de que ella no es muy fanática del basket, tali quiere que los pistons ganen también.

y después de todo esto? van a bailar en una discoteca. beto me dijo, "ojalá que baile con chicas guapas y que escuche mi canción favorita!"

transplanting

2005-06-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

beto busca breakbeats
Originally uploaded by rswells.

last night, mildly upset because the local sports channel was not showing the pistons/spurs game as it had days before, i kept up with the scores online...until the game came on said channel--a tape delay--as the third quarter came to an end on the computer. score 64-63. at that point, i fixed my focus on the tv in tali's room, coaxed her into watching with me by trying to explain the importance of the pistons to any real michigander, and mentioned that some popcorn and pop sure would be sweet. quickly, tali picked up the phone and called a local grocery, ordering some snacks for the game. an amazing game which put us both on edge until rasheed left big shot bob free to do his thing yet again. (if you ask me, horry belongs in the hall of fame after all of this.)

today, i went downtown with one of tali's friends, pilar, on a music and book search. we took a crowded microbus to the spot and on the way came across a huge sign for "kansas blue jeans." apparently, it's a brand that's been around for a while. something i'll look into later. after twenty minutes or so on the micro, we arrived at a book bazaar of sorts. i found a slightly stained, harcover version of a collection of borges stories for 8 soles (about $2.50). from there, we stumbled upon a small scale vinly bazaar of sorts. as i started flipping through, latin lab type shit came over the speakers. "where am i?" i thought to myself. "am i really hearing latin reggae, latin salsa, latin funk? just like i would at the nuyeurcan spanish harlem that is the 8th st. taptoom? is that wide-smiled and shirtless young man across the way really who i think it is?" after subtly nodding my head, the sellers asked me what i was looking for. unsure of how to sincerely express "groove" in spanish, i said something like "jazz funk funky," giving the "j" in "jazz" a soft "j"/"y" sort of sound and making my "u"'s long. willy then escorted me to his stand in the back, asked me if i wanted some "soul...tipo lou rawls?" and i said "sí�� sí��!" i figured i had struck gold, like some old conquistador. after such a work up, however, the actual collection was not as mind blowing as i had anticipated. plenty of elton john, the carpenters, and the village people. at one point, willy held up a "tierra, viento, y fuego" (earth, wind, and fire) record to me: "no gracias," i responded. i still found a way to purchase 18 dusty lps for about $15.

i followed all this with pizza for lunch at 5pm.

right now an old, subtitled episode of LOST is on the television.

happy father's day, dad!

2005-06-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

dad
Originally uploaded by rswells.

i'd try and come up with some clever catchphrase to go along with the photo, but i think the image speaks for itself--with love.

DoppelgangerS

2005-06-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

within the past three weeks i seem to have seen myself in two separate films: LAYER CAKE and BATMAN BEGINS. i had some trouble following both films, and the appearance of two different doubles obviously exacerbated this trouble. nevertheless, i would highly recommend both, especially BATMAN which made me feel 12 yrs old again.

for anyone else who has seen these movies, let me know if you have seen me as well. in LAYER CAKE, i play a small, speaking role as a birtish gangster with a heavy accent that is involved in the drug trade. in BATMAN BEGINS, i don't speak at all, but show up briefly in dr. crane's insane asylum. look for the following characteristics: the big head--complete with a long forehead--atop a small body, shitty beard, decent teeth. i would post photos of these young men, but that might complicate my singular exixtence beyond repair.

lovely lima

2005-06-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

view from apt
Originally uploaded by rswells.

i arrived around 1am wednesday morning. not much to say about the flight, save how american tourists--already donning their hiking boots and phrasebooks--flooded the plane. i think most of them were headed towards machu picchu. a mother also walked her daughter to the lavatory using one of those child leashes.

after getting settled here in lima, i've recently made some initial rounds with my hostess, tali, and the social calendar is already set up for the next few nights with parties and rock bands. yesterday, the sun shone, but today the smog overwhelms. if you look out from my window, the pervasive gray makes it seem as if the world stops after a certain distance. i think i'll have to head for the countryside within the next week. upcoming posts should include the following: a description of the neighborhood; a mini-thesis on taxi drivers and security guards; and an eye-witness account of the nearby hotel that lodges 2 dolphins and the barside show that they perform.

kansas in the early summer--ready the ark!

2005-06-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

tornado_nguyen_big
Originally uploaded by rswells.

supposedly, this is a real photo taken by this storm-chaser who has the following to say about his adventures:

I often times remain in the hail core to observe the maximum size, measure it, and report it. I usually report hail over golf ball size, tornadoes, etc, and provide a picture to the NWS [National Weather Service] office that evening for their verification. That includes severe wind events which I measure and log using an anemometer mounted at 3 meters above the surface.

and, yes, i did just make a post about the weather. can those who live anywhere near me really blame me, though? we seem to be under some sort of warning or watch every single day. soon, however, i'll be in lima, peru--the place where it's always partly cloudy and about 65.

why "anything but bush" did not work, perhaps

2005-06-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

a short, interesting interview here about why voters who oppose the war in iraq might want to consider changing their tactics for the upcoming elections in 2006 and 2008. in other words, why voting for the other pro-war candidate, john kerry, because he wasn't george w. bush and because he was a member of the other "viable" democratic party did not further the anti-war movement.

sports bar

2005-06-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by rswells.

rob and ab. anxious and exciting. a moment on display during the decisive game 7 battle twixt the detroit pistons and the miami heat. the pistons won 88-82.

the path of genius

2005-06-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by rswells.

by wenzel hablik (1918)

my verdict is in:

2005-06-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

Santa
Originally uploaded by rswells.

GUILTY!

come on in

2005-06-04T11:06:00.001-07:00

jumpshot
Originally uploaded by rswells.

when my friend, jumpshot adams, enters a room,

old friend

2005-06-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

jumpshot dos
Originally uploaded by rswells.

he makes his presence felt immediately.

my bedroom in pv

2005-06-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

my room in pv
Originally uploaded by rswells.

i've got some digital photos going now. dig.

these days

2005-05-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

last night was a tv treat deluxe: suns vs. spurs on channel 12 and the miss universe pageant on channel 13. i was rooting for miss peru...until she tripped over her summer shawl during the bathing suit portion of the competition. i just knew that such a faux pas would not be tolerated by the celebrity judges. of course, who hosted the main event? none other than this asshole, billy bush--aka the cousin of george w. bush. curious how that family leaves its mark on so many constructed competitions. with the adventures of the current administration in mind, i'd highly recommend the film, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, to anyone interested in seeing a realistic interpretation of a "third-world," islamic country's struggle for independence against a western colonial power. depicting the "bloodiest revolution in modern history," the movie watches like a relatively objective documentary as it contrasts claustrophobic scenes of urban guerilla warfare in which insurgents slaughter innocent civilians with vivid images of torture at the hands of the imperialists. the film itself has had its own intriguing history over the years as well, being studied here in the us by both sides, so to speak.

it seems to me that f. scott fitzgerald's description of the us after the end of wwi--taken from the CRACK-UP essays--as being "cynical rather than revolutionary" also befits part of our populace today after 9/11, the start and continuation of the 2nd war in iraq, and bush's re-election. nevertheless, i know that i personally engage in too many worthwhile conversations with my peers regarding the current state of the union to not realize that certain latent forces lie within us, waiting to be liberated. those of us still residing anywhere near the "reality-based community" must, first of all, conjugate these forces into a new, critical language that illuminates rather than obfuscates.

of montreal and the nba playoffs, pt. dos

2005-05-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

it's official: i don't have mono. huzzah! of course, i wasn't all that kind to my body over the weekend up in lawrence, engaging in various college endeavors. i did see of montreal again, though. a real treat. more dancing this time by all involved too. after the show, i talked to a couple of the guys in the band--frontman kevin barnes and the lead guitarist, not sure of his name--about the nba playoffs. they hadn't seen some of the recent games due to the demands of touring, which led me to try and explain steve nash's brilliance to them via smooth, swooping hand gestures, and big, drunk eyes. i guess barnes used to live in detroit, so he's a big pistons fan. i told him about how i think chauncey billups has the sweetest mustache in the nba; barnes nodded in approval.