Buenos Aires - Part 2

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Public Transport and Other Festivities

1) Music and Fun:

On Thursday I experienced Argentine folklore. It was the birthday of a new friend whose name is Dardo. This guy is a riot, beginning with his very name, which is the noun for ‘dart’ in Spanish. Moving onto his sense of style, he becomes even more interesting, as he just doesn’t give a damn. He is a professional who has just turned 56 years old, and he is tall, gangly, with grey hair that sticks up all over the place like Kramer from Seinfeld. On the night of his birthday celebration he was sporting different colored socks. What does he do for a living? He’s a medical doctor, naturally. Dardo had a birthday this week and I was dragged along for a few hours of family fun. We met in a location not unlike an Elk’s Lodge. The décor was as bland as you can imagine (linoleum everywhere, fluorescent lighting, and walls displaying photographs of the deceased and irrelevant). Once I got over the drab surroundings, though, the overall vibe was quite inviting. The music was good, and I couldn’t keep myself from clapping to the beat of songs I had never heard before. It’s fun to pick up a new beat among new people.

Dardo, it turns out, has a seven-year old son, lending credence to my idea that the gangly can maintain their mojo longer than the rotund. As if to lend further evidence for my theory, Dardo was recently seen on the subway by another of my Argentine friends, and he was sitting with a pretty 20-something female. Was it the medical degree or his choice of hosiery? We may never know. On Saturday night I watched a video of him dancing at a wedding reception, and some of the women in the room described his moves as “coherent,” highly technical language which means “The old man has still got it!”

Back to the birthday celebration. That night I discovered Dardo is not only the life of the party, but he’s also got a heart of gold. It turns out that an old friend was recently down on his luck and he turned to Dardo, asking him for a place to crash for a while. Dardo said “Of course,” and he asked the friend for nothing in return. Fortunately, that has been going on for just a short time, and the friend is set to move out any day now. Yes, it’s just a short-term thing. He has only been in the guest room since the Clinton Administration! And, to make matters more colorful, the friend is a life-long drunk! Good Samaritans like Dardo fascinate me. Why would a straight man let another live in his house indefinitely? And why would he let him stay rent-free? Doesn’t the guy cramp his style?

I learned later that night that Dardo has a theory on dating, which I call “the traveling toothbrush.” He thinks that every female toothbrush longs for a home next to a male toothbrush. He also thinks that every female toothbrush is endowed with some sort of gravitational field, and that that field is activated by the presence of a male toothbrush. Once this field is activated it can never be deactivated! It’s like a burr embedded in a cotton sock - no amount of tugging will get it off! This theory of Dardo’s explains the continued presence of his guest -- he’s a shield against female toothbrushes! As long as there’s an alcoholic guy snoaring in the guest room, what woman is gonna plant her toothbrush down in that house?! Doctor or no doctor!! This strategy might be called a reverse cock-block.

2) Transportation and People-Watching

Driving in Argentina is far more civilized than I expected. Part of the reason for that is they actually have lane markers, and generally the drivers pay attention to them. But not always. Still, it’s a far cry from the madness of Cairo -- where literally everything goes - or Rome, where they actually have cars that go fast. Here in Buenos Aires, however, we are saved because the drivers are more tame than the Egyptians and more impoverished than the Italians. Whoever thought the road to highway safety would be paved with etiquette and modest incomes?!

I do find one thing disturbing, however. Argentina has recently passed a law forbidding cell phone use while driving, but they have not forbidden driving with your lights off at 2am! Fully one third of the cars are not running their headlights at night, or their headlights are so dim they can’t compete with a votive candle.

I have been fortunate here to experience nearly all modes of transportation: taxis, my friends’ cars, buses, and subways. Next week I will be adding one more to the list -- long-distance sleeper bus. I will be traveling North eight hours to Cordoba, the second largest city in the country, but apparently much more mellow and safer than Buenos Aires. I joked with my mom today that statistics are sometimes irrelevant: I have been in Buenos Aires for nearly three weeks and have had very few problems, but maybe I’ll get off the bus in Cordoba and be kidnapped immediately. Mom didn’t think that was funny.

Riding on the subway is fun here, and not just because it’s only one peso per journey. The conversion is 3.10 pesos to the dollar. And if you do the math that means a ride on the metro is 32 U.S. cents, an amount I used to earn for speaking eight words in front of judge and jury. The transportation here is massively subsidized from the federal budget. Government services are much like heroin: they feel good for a while, but then the good times come to an abrupt end. Argentina is one of those economies that is wildly out of balance. There are internal reasons as well as external. The internal ones include the money they spend on social services. Their incredible theatre scene in Buenos Aires, for instance, is largely made possible by public funds; the subway and bus fare are nearly zero, even by local standards; and medical services are accessible as well as reasonably-priced. All these benefits exist in a country where the IMF and World Bank have been manipulating the economy for nearly four decades, and those organizations are not known for their beneficence. The best writer on the subject is Naomi Klein in her book “Shock Doctrine: Disaster Capitalism.” She details the ways in which international bankers have dictated “shock therapy” to countries who get into financial trouble. The idea is that free markets must be allowed to work: no pain, no gain. Naturally, this philosophy is precisely the opposite of what the U.S. and European leadership are espousing as I write these words: “The free market needs your help. Save the banks!”

Back to transportation: the metro and bus system are of course the most colorful modes. The taxi drivers are way too tame for me. They don’t shout at each other like in Turkey; they don’t come within inches of pedestrians like in Egypt; and they’re generally just flat-out wimps. The bus drivers, however, are another story. If you board a bus in Argentina and ask the driver where to get off for a certain intersection, he will invariably follow this procedure:
1) pretend he didn’t hear you;
2) act annoyed;
3) pretend he didn’t hear you - again;
4) wait until you’re about to re-ask the question, and then, as if to berate you for asking twice, he will say “If I remember before we reach your stop, I’ll let you know.”

Rather than answering “Thanks, arsehole,” you turn away embarrassed and head for the back of the bus, to be bounced like a buckboard while listening to the sounds of the overly loud engine. All these motors lack good insulation between them and the driver. Therefore, if you’re too close to the engine you feel you’re standing inside a large MRI machine. Besides these annoyances, there’s also the issue of the other passengers. The folks sitting in the back are almost obligated to judge the new people who come on board. I can almost hear them: “God, he’s conceited.” Or “Why doesn’t he look at a fkn… map so he doesn’t have to ask for directions?” Or “The bus driver is not a chauffeur.” I don’t even try to act like I belong when I ride the bus. It’s too hard - too many minds to try and read.

The metro tends to offer warmer vibes than the buses in Buenos Aires. On the “Subte” (short for “Subterraneo”) people tend to look at each other less severely than they do on the bus. The seats are facing one another; there’s more open space, and the ride is surprisingly smooth. One reason is the five subway lines in Buenos Aires run parallel to one another, which means there are very few twists and turns. While in Europe you have to be quite an athlete to stand up on the metro without holding onto anything, here the trains move fluidly and in slow motion. As a result, there is a lot of walking and milling about, like a cocktail party on wheels. There is also plenty of formal entertainment, like musicians, little kids selling stickers and other goodies, and of course beautiful women. I am shocked at the number of blondes here; only half of them are false ones, sporting dark eyebrows or dark roots. (Sometimes it sucks being tall.) The subway vendors are the best. These guys will sell anything, and they do it all day along, tirelessly and with equal verve throughout the day. The coolest thing is their voices. Truly, these people have absolutely no qualms about performing for a crowd. They give heart and soul to their jobs, always using their best announcer voices. Fearless. A summary of the week’s vendors:

1) A man in his 50s selling tape measures: “Get your tape measuuuuuuure. Five meters for only five pesos. Get your tape measuuuuure. Five for five! Don’t miss out. Tape measuuuuuures!”
2) A man in his 30s selling plastic monkeys that do back-flips: “Get your monkey! This is an incredible athlete, ladies and gentlemen. Just wind him up and watch him go! Look - at - this! A true African gymnast.” (More on race relations down below.)
3) Assorted kids selling assorted pens and stickers: they walk through each subway car placing the items on the passengers’ laps, and later they walk by and collect money from those who kept the items. There are lots of people on these cars, which means there’s opportunity for theft. So either the kids have a great memory or there are few Argentines interested in stealing stickers from eight-year olds. Am I the only one who was tempted?!

Back to the race issue. I don’t understand the relationship here between White locals and Blacks immigrants (there are few Argentine-born Blacks). Argentina is truly a homogenous country, certainly by Latin American standards. Mexico, for instance, has everything from tall, fair-skinned people with light eyes to brawny and olive-skinned citizens, to short and indigenous locals. Brazil has an incredible variety - beautiful people in all colors and sizes. The rest of South America has white Latins, indigenous Latins, Mestizos (a mixture of Latin and indigenous), Blacks, and even Asians (as is the case in Peru and Chile). But Argentina is uniquely White. To use a barometer, my own skin color is somewhere around the 75th percentile in terms of melanin content, and there are very, very few Blacks. In the four weeks I’ve been here I’ve crossed paths with at least two thousand people, and I’ve counted six to eight Blacks. One of them was selling items on the subway, and he felt the need to immediately identify himself “Good morning, I am Argentine,” which was true because he spoke in the local accent. The next two Blacks were two attractive women on the subway. You can imagine what a breath of fresh air that was after so much lack of diversity! The following week I saw two Black men peddling costume jewelry from a make-shift stand on the street. (I am told this is unfortunately the most common economic activity for Black immigrants.) Blacks here are not rare enough to inspire the mystique of the exotic, and yet they are not voluminous enough to arouse the type of fear with which Blacks are sadly received in other countries.

3) Live Theatre

If you like theatre, you could spend your whole life in Buenos Aires and be happy. This city offers more plays per capita than any other I have visited in the world. Nearly a kilometer-long stretch of Avenida Corrientes is dedicated to playhouses large and small. It’s incredible. Among the big names now playing is Hairspray, and Rent left only recently. What impresses me most is the abundance of smaller theatres. The variety is astounding, and thus far I have not been disappointed. Wednesday nights on Avenida Corrientes are a kind of “Theatre for the Masses.” Admission to participating playhouses is just 15 pesos! That buys you admission to an elegant playhouse, the kind that have carpeted lobbies and attractive patrons in evening wear.

Tonight I watched Moliere’s “Les Femmes Savantes” (in English, “The Learned Women”). I can say with confidence that everything tonight was learned except the audience. The play was quite good. The director took some interesting risks; the music was strong; and the set design was well-done. But truly the audience was so unruly that the experience could have been spoiled for me. I was saved only by the way I chose to look at the situation - with the eyes of a sociologist. From the moment the master of ceremonies made a musical presentation reminding the audience to turn off their cell phones, I should have known this crowd would be different than the patrons at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Then it hit me: today is Wednesday and it’s reduced pricing. That explains the hyper-active, misbehaving crowd. They probably don’t get out much. I thought maybe the coughing, cackling, nose-blowing patrons around me were the Argentine version of the crowds in the upper bleachers at a ball game in the U.S. - wealthy enough to have a pre-paid cell phone, not wealthy enough to have an $11 seat. My assumptions were wrong, however. When I talked to my friend who had watched the play with me, I learned this rowdy behavior was fairly common. Argentines are a talkative bunch. It’s one of the things I like about the culture. Of course, just like an over-enthusiastic lover who keeps working long after it’s time to relax, the Argentine theatre patrons don’t see any reason to wind down just because they are sitting in a dark theatre observing a 17th century masterpiece!

To be fair, I have already been to four live performances (three on a small stage, and only one at a large venue). The only time the crowd was noisy was at the big theatre. There have been two performances that I really enjoyed. One in particular was an independent production called El Color de los Cuerpos (The Bodies’ Hues). Excellent work with fine, subtle acting. The script was very minimalist and really very bold. The second piece I really enjoyed was a performance by two drag queens! The costumes were well-done, and the skits they did were smart and based on current events. One of the photos I’ve included is from that particular show. Enjoy!

I will be uploading more pictures to my public site tomorrow.

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Photos

My housing
I'm lucky to have a roomy place with lots of light. Thanks Ama!

Jardin Japones
An oasis in the midst of the big city.

What a drag!
These guys put on a great show.

Out in the country
My friend's kid, attacking the German Shepherd!

Comments

[angie]

memories
a pretty realistic depiction of the Argentinian idiosyncrasy and customs. Thanks for keeping us posted!