“La Jaula de las Locas” a.k.a “My Big Fat Gay Wedding”

         Friday, August 6^th. It was going to be the wedding celebration of one of the same-sex couples who got married here in Argentina, Alejandro Vanelli, a manager, and Ernesto Lerrese, an actor, who had been together for 34 years. I got my Willy Wonka golden-ticket into the fancy party because one of my friends works at the company responsible for setting up the party, so I showed up with her a couple of hours before and made some paper-mache flowers for the decorations, then jumped into my suit once the guests started arriving and basically infiltrated the wedding.

         When I first arrived at the party area, where things were still being set up, I was amazed to see how fabulously and flamboyantly gay it was. From the candles to the paper-mache flowers, everything was dipped in the colours of the rainbow, and when the DJ was doing a sound-check, Cher’s ‘Believe’ was blasting through the room. Even the dance-floor was a huge rainbow. It was every little gay boy’s wet-dream come true.

         The press, from all sorts of magazines and TV shows, was waiting hungrily by the red carpet, and the only negative point was that they seemed to be more interested in the Argentine celebrities strutting down the carpet than in the grooms, who arrived in a fancy old jaguar.

         I was standing in the reception room with some friends who had slipped in the same way I had (only they had actually worked before during the setting up), sipping on champagne and basically devouring any hors d’oeuvres that passed my way (I hadn’t eaten that day, and the waiters seemed to recognize the starving look on my face because they always made a beeline straight for me first). I stared at the crowd of people slowly filling up the reception area, wondering how many of these were so-called ‘celebrities’ I didn’t recognize, when I thought I spotted a familiar face among the crowd. A beautiful blonde woman wearing a short, sexy dress, I was sure I’d met her before, and was on my way over to say hello when I realized who she was: one of the actresses of “Botineras.” If you’ve read my previous post on “telenovelas” you would know that this is the only Argentine show I watch, and therefore the only argentine actors and actresses I can name. She was Guillerina Valdez, Lily in the TV show, the scorned ex-wife (in “Botineras”) of my future husband Cristian Sancho, el Flaco on the show. I was going to ask for a picture but then I realized she had quite the bitch-face on and I hated her character and thought of her as a terrible actress, so I decided against it. I did almost drop my champagne glass when I realized who she was (note: it was my sixth glass).

         The guests were then ushered into the main hall as the curtains leading into this room were parted, and me and my friends quickly snatched a table (thank God there was no seating arrangement, can you imagine how awkward that would have been?). It was a buffet dinner of sushi and “sandwiches de lomo” and some other stuff, but I was too busy at the bar to pay much attention to the food, plus I’d stuffed my face with every type of hors d’oeuvres.

         During the dinner a slideshow of pictures was projected onto the screens at the back of the room, showing the two grooms’ lives from babies to old men (they’re over 50, for me that’s old). There were also clips of the debates and demonstrations over the marriage equality law, which was kind of awing and nostalgic because it made you feel like you were living in a historic time. I mean, I would never have imagined I would be attending a gay wedding, and there I was, basking in the gayness of it all. It was time for the groom’s first dance, and ‘I am what I am’ started playing. It was really gay, but really cute as well to watch the two men dancing surrounded by loved ones and ‘celebrities’ and party-crashers clapping and shouting.

         It was then I sneaked off to one side of the room, heading for the bar of course since it was empty since everyone was watching the dance, and I spotted two nice old ladies sitting on one of the tables, wearing granny-sweaters and smiling brightly. My lesbo-dar instantly went off, and I realized they were the first lesbians who got married in Argentina. I couldn’t remember their names but I tripped my way over to them, sat down next to them and started gushing about what an inspiration they had been and wondering if I could get a picture with them. They smiled and said ‘of course’ so I pulled out my Blackberry and snapped a shot with the merry lesbo grannies. My night of stalking had begun!

         The dancing was starting and I was drunk enough to shake my thang without feeling weird, though to be honest I was at a gay wedding so I’m pretty sure there were quite a few ‘dancing queens.’ It was then I spotted another Argentine celebrity: Gonzalo Heredia, the latin lover personified that maids and tweens gush over all throughout the country while watching “telenovelas,” though he currently stars in one of the hottest TV shows “Malparida” (see post on local literary gems), but “Malparida” is the enemy of “Botineras” so I wanted nothing to do with him. But then I realized how jealous I could make many of my frenemies so I sauntered over to him, praised him for his work (which fortunately he didn’t question or I would have stared at him blankly and been forced to have made a quick getaway), and asked for a picture. He agreed, and now the photo in Facebook is full of comments while I purr in smug self-indulgence.

         I then dragged myself into the reception area for a breather when I saw the grooms taking a picture for a magazine. I chugged another champagne glass and went over to them, once again smiling like a retard and saying how proud they made gay youth in Argentina and blah blah blah. Of course it was picture time again, and I handed my Blackberry to some fat lady who snapped the shot and said it was great. I thanked the grooms and moved back to the bar. I decided to check the picture out and almost choked on the Caipiroska I was gulping: the picture was really blurry. I made a mental note to trip the dumb bitch who had taken the picture if I got the chance, but I nursed my wounded pride with another drink.

         It was time for a toilet break, and this is when I almost peed myself in excitement. Standing near the toilet was Leonora Balcarce, another actress from “Botineras,” who plays Mercedes the President of the Cristal football club. I ran towards her and started blabbing on in English in a British accent, saying how I was from London and loved her show and watched it online from the other side of the ocean. Total bullshit, but I was drunk enough to believe it, and she seemed pretty wrecked as well, but stared at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look as I rambled on in English, stuttering a basic ‘thank you’ every now and then in quite shitty English. I demanded for spoilers, eager to know what was going to happen, and she had to call a friend over to serve as a translator, though I almost blew my cover at one point by almost answering her without waiting for the translation. It was the highlight of the night.

         Anyway, the dancing and drinking went on and I basically ended up with two flowers pinned to my hair and taking picture with the dancers and drag queens of ‘Club 69’ who had graced the party with their fierce and fabulous presences. The rest of the night is a bit of a blur but it is enough to say I woke up the next day with an epic hangover, flowers in hair and little gay flags pinned to my suit.

         To all the “locos” and “locas”

         El Pendejo Porteño

PS: Also took a pic  and chatted with Maria Rachid, president of the Argentine LGBT, but her English was pretty good so it wasn’t as fun as with Leonora

“El toro Cobos” a.k.a “The Farm Strikes Back”

In 2008 Argentina was greatly divided into two factions: those who supported the “campo,” Argentina’s main source of income, and those who supported the Cristina’s government, something I will never understand. Is my bias clear enough? Okay, now we can proceed to explain the facts of the situation that led many Argentine cities to run out of meat and dairy products for a couple of weeks.
In 2008 the then Minister of Economy, the hunky Martin Lousteau, announced a new system of “retenciones” (taxes) on four of the largest export products, and the products derived from them, from Argentina: soy, sunflower, maize and wheat. The objective of this measure was to balance the unstable fluctuations of international prices, fight the so-called “sojización” (soy was rapidly taking over as the cultivated product of Argentina), and preserve the politics of the ‘high dollar’. All this means basically squat to me, since I’m a literature student and don’t understand any of this economic balderdash, but what I do know is that this measure meant raising the taxes of soy.

This policy was quickly criticized by the four main agricultural organizations of the country, who, two days later on March 13th, declared a general strike with road blocks, to be extended for 129 days. The hoo-ha got worse when on March 25th the organizations declared that the strike would go on indefinitely until the taxes were taken down, at which Wannabe-Evita Kirchner answered there would be no discussions until the lock down was removed. Which is quite cliché, the whole ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’ bit, don’t you think? But it was getting to be quite a bummer situation, because meat was quickly running out in major cities, and when porteños don’t get their “milanesas”… PEOPLE DIE! Sorry, I was too tempted to use the Mr. Bigglesworth quote from Austin Powers, but seriously, what were people like me going to do without our “milanesas?” If you answer with anything containing the word ‘vegetables,’ I will punch you in the face! And what about all those soccer moms desperate for their zero-fat yoghurts? They would have to eat chocolate, and then get fat and miserable, and therefore make their husbands miserable. You see how close society was to crumbling?

Thousands of people starting coming out onto the streets in mass protests, either in favour of the “campo” or the trashtastic Cris, and there were many violent exchanges between the group. Lousteau had to resign, but with such a pretty face he probably would’ve had a better career on a ‘telenovela,’ and he was too cute to be taken seriously as a Minister anyways.

On the 5th of June a federal trial declared the “retenciones” to be unconstitutional because of the way they were carried about. I mean, despite she wished it were so, Cristina couldn’t just say the word and raise taxes. This is supposed to be a ‘democracy,’ remember? Someone should have given her a ‘Dummy’s Guide to being a President,’ but I guess she skipped the lessons to go shopping. Anyhoo, even the amount of taxes was declared illegal, since it was in the 40% and constitutionally the maximum was 33%.

17th of June Cristina announced she would be sending the law as a project into Congress, you know, doing things the right way for once, so the bloody taxes could actually be legal. It passed the House of Representatives with a few modifications, and as the project went into the Senate the whole of Argentina waited with bated breath for the outcome.

Conspiracy theories were running rampant, from the “campo” trying to overthrow the government to Cristina trying to get her grubby hands on more money for the Hermes handbags. The project entered the Senate on the 11th of July, and various Senators were ‘escrachados’ (threatened or pressured or made to look bad). One of Cristina’s party senators, Emilio Rached of Santiago del Estero, had his mother come in for a good scolding and he finally voted against his party and against the project, resulting in a tie.

It was chilly winter’s morning on the 17th of July, and everyone was watching the debate take place at around 5am. Because of the tie, it was up to the Vice-President, Julio Cobos, to cast the final vote. In a shocking move that swept the nation, Cobos said these fateful words “Que la historia me juzgue. Pido perdón si me equivoco. Voto... Mi voto no es positivo, mi voto es en contra”, which for all of you ignorant in the Spanish language, means he voted ‘no’, basically turning against Darth Kirchner and bringing hope back to the galaxy. You won’t find this shit on MTV, this is drama. 

Some people were pissed, some were ecstatic, I was celebrating with a “milanesa” which had never tasted so good. Basically some other stuff went down that I don’t understand because I snored my way through Economics in High School, but I’m pretty sure it was a kind of happy-ending for those backing the “campo.” Darth Kirchner was momentarily vanquished, but since she is harder to kill than a cockroach of course she lived to spoil another day.

To the ‘milanesas’ and ‘asados’, God bless you!

El Pendejo Porteño

“Más vueltas que en la telenovela” a.k.a “The suitcase scandal”

The year is 2007. The Penguin King, also known as Nestor Kirchner, is President of Argentina, but elections are coming up, and instead of deciding to submit himself as a candidate, he decides to support the running of his wife, Greta the Gremlin, also known as Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. What follows is the scandalous story of political manipulation, corruption, money laundering and crack-whore resembling women, known as the infamous suitcase scandal.

August 4th, 2007, 2.30am. A private charter plane, coming from Venezuela, arrives in Ezeiza airport, bringing into the country several Venezuelan businessmen and government officials, among them a man named Guido Antonini Wilson. Airport custom officials find 790,550 dollars in Wilson’s suitcase, which hadn’t been declared and were consequently confiscated. Because that’s what happens when you try to smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars, in a suitcase. Has this man never flown before? Do x-ray machines ring a bell?

August 6th, 2007. Venezuelan President Hugo ‘the Delusional Revolutionary’ Chavez arrives in Argentina to sign several agreements related to petrol and the buying of 1000 million dollars in bonds. A day later Antonini Wilson, the hero of our tale, leaves Argentina for Uruguay without reclaiming the confiscated money (suspicious much?), almost 400 thousand dollars after the payment of the corresponding fine. I would personally like to know where those 400 thousand dollars ended up, and honourably submit myself to the arduous task of keeping the money. The Argentine government asked PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil company that some of the businessmen on the plane worked for, for an explanation since Antonini Wilson had taken the flight at the request of the son of the company’s president. PDVSA said they would start an internal investigation. And here is where things start going downhill…

The Venezuelan government, on the other hand, declared that Antonini Wilson wasn’t one of the government officials on the plane and wasn’t part of Chavez’s party, and that the case was of a personal nature pertaining solely to Antonini Wilson. One word: scapegoat. They also stated that the plane had stopped briefly in Bolivia before arriving in Argentina, casting doubt on the fact that the money came from Venezuela (where it is illegal to take more than 600 dollars in cash for trips and a bigger amount has to be approved by the government). Bolivia quickly answered that the plane had never stopped there, so the money must have come from Venezuela, making Chavez look like either a complete idiot, or a dirty liar, no?

16th August, 2007. The president of the PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez, resigns in lieu of the general protests and backlash the scandal had caused. But do not worry all you kind-hearted folk, he probably had enough money stored in the Caiman Islands for a nice retirement.

In Argentina, Antonini Wilson was accused of contraband, and by the end of the month the FBI found him in his home in Miami. Argentina asked for an extradition, but officials said it might take a whole year for the process to be approved and completed. The extradition was further complicated when Antonini Wilson decided to collaborate with the FBI in a cause against three Venezuelan citizens and a Uruguayan in the USA accused of being agents of Chavez’s party. Oh Chavez, what are we going to do with you?

October 28th, 2007. Cristina wins the presidential elections. Eyebrows are raised across the “choripan” nation and the consequences of botched facial plastic surgery are exposed by no less an icon than our dear president herself.

December 2007. The men accused of being Chavez’s agents in the USA were arrested by the FBI. Two of the accused were the owners of a Venezuelan company Venoco, which manufactures automobile lubricants (but nobody really cares about), and Antonini Wilson worked as an advisor for their company. According to the FBI, Antonini Wilson had been pressured in a series of meetings by the alleged agents into accepting two million dollars in exchange for not revealing the origin or the destination of the money, and the lives of Antonini Wilson’s two daughters were threatened. In the FBI interrogation tapes, Antonini Wilson declared that the two million dollars came from Chavez’s party, and were supposed to be used for Cristina’s presidential candidacy in Argentina. GASP! I am so shocked by this blatant corruption I might shake my fist in rage. But then again I remember what country I’m in and shrug my shoulders and go ‘oh well’.

December 12th, 2007. District Attorney Thomas Mulvihill stated that one of the men accused of being agents, Franklin Duran, had declared that the money was for Cristina’s candidacy, and that additional funds had been secured for her campaign. DOUBLE GASP.

December 13th, 2007. Cristina denounced the American statements as lies. Of course she did. She probably flicked her 500 dollar hair and snapped her 200 dollar manicured fingers and made some sort of grunting noise.

December 18th, 2007. Chavez states that the accused men were not agents and that the whole thing was a plot by Imperialist America wishing to hurt Venezuela and Argentina. Which is typical of him, bitching about his poor little country being bullied by the big superpowers.

December 20th, 2007. Victoria Bereziuk, ex-secretary of one of the men on the charter plane, claimed she had seen Antonini Wilson in the Pink House two days after he tried to get the money in, a claim backed up by a senator of the UCR party, Gerardo Morales, and a lawyer, Ricardo Monner Sans. The Argentine “Jefe de Gabinete”, Anibal Fernandez, denied that Antonini Wilson had visited the government house. How is this even debated? Do they not have security cameras in the pink house?

January 23rd, 2008. One of the arrested men, Moises Maionica, pleaded guilty to being a Venezuelan agent. Gotcha!

March 3rd, 2008. Another arrested Venezuelan, Carlos Kauffman, pleaded guilty to the federal charges of being an agent.

March 17th, 2009. Franklin Duran was sentenced to four years of jail for conspiring and acting as a Venezuelan agent and trying to cover up the origin of the confiscated money.

And they lived happily ever after… Though not really, because some guys went to jail, Chavez got of free and we got a crack-whore resembling president. If this were a movie, who would you cast? I’d get Arnold Schwarzenegger as a rambling revolutionary Chavez, Elijah Wood as Antonini Wilson (because he is the wearer of the One Suitcase. One Suitcase to rule them all, One Suitcase to find them, One Suitcase to bring them all and in the darkness bind them), and then probably Mikey Rourke as Cristina Kirchner.

El Pendejo Portenio

“Che Boludo” a.k.a “Local Literary Gems

Last night I had en English friend and an Argentine friend over for dinner and a DVD, and while gossiping mercilessly about people my Argentine friend and I went to school with, she told me that a guy we knew “cagó” his girlfriend, to which my English friend, who is almost fluent in Spanish, raised her eyebrows and asked what that word meant. We quickly explained that it meant the guy had cheated on her, and when she asked what the infinitive form of the verb was, my other friend said “cagar”. Here I quickly jumped in and added that “cagar” literally means “to shit”, but that it was a common expression here to use in the sense of cheating on or betraying someone, and I suppose that it makes sense in a metaphorical way, since it would be fair to say that if you cheat on your girlfriend you are “shitting on your relationship”. I decided therefore to make a list of frequently used slang phrases and their literal translations and English counterparts.

·      “La concha de la lora”: Literally ‘the female parrot’s vagina’. Used to express feelings of profound rage and irritation at something (note: in Spain “concha” means ‘sea-shell’, so this phrase loses all effectiveness in the Iberian Peninsula). Example: Homer Simpson would say it if he ran out of beer. English equivalent: ‘fuck!’

·      “La puta madre que lo/la parió’’: Literally ‘the mother, who is a whore, who gave birth to it’. Similar to ‘La concha de la lora’ but ‘it’ can be an object, situation or person. Example: What most English people thought of Maradona in 1978. English equivalent: ‘motherfucker!’

·      Malparida/o: Literally ‘badly given birth to’. Used to refer to someone evil or with evil intent, presumably because of complications during birth. Example: Sarah Palin. English equivalent: ‘sick bitch/bastard’

·      “Es un caño”: Literally ‘he is a pipe’. Used exclusively for the male sex, denotes physical attractiveness. Example: Eric from True Blood. English equivalent: ‘hot as hell’

·      “Es una yegua”: Literally ‘she is a mare’. Used exclusively for the female sex, denotes physical attractiveness, but can also imply of a malevolent nature or a woman of loose morals. Example: Angelina Jolie. English equivalent: ‘hot but kind of slutty’

·      “La/lo parto en cuatro”: Literally ‘I would break him/her into four pieces”. Refers to a deep attraction for another person, the force of which would shatter said person into four pieces (note: the number of pieces may vary according to how deep the arousal is). Example: What I feel about Eric from True Blood, only I would add a couple of digits to the number. English equivalent: ‘hot as fuck’ 

·      “Hijo/a de puta”: Literally ‘son/daughter of a whore’. Someone or something annoying, frustrating or of malicious nature. Example: Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. English equivalent: ‘son of a bitch!’

·      “Tragasables”: Literally ‘sword-swallower’. Pejorative term for homosexual mean, synonym to “bala” (‘bullet’), “maraca” (‘maraca’), “mariposón” (‘big butterfly’) “trolo” and “puto” (‘fag’) (note: “puta” and “trola” do not mean ‘dyke’, they mean ‘whore’). Example: … I can’t think of any evil gays who would deserve the word, but maybe Andrew from Desperate Housewives in the earlier seasons. English equivalent: ‘fag’

·      “Ella es torta”: Literally ‘she is a cake”. An informal, and depending on the context, sometimes offensive synonym to ‘lesbian’. Example: Everyone on The L Word. English equivalent: I have no idea

·      “Apretar”: Literally ‘press together’, but also used to mean passionate kissing with use of tongue and saliva exchange, also called “transar” and “chapar”. Example: Do you really need one? English equivalent: ‘make out’

·      “Le quiero comer la boca”: Literally ‘I want to eat/his her mouth’. Indicates a fervent desire to partake in the activity described above with a certain person to the point of devouring said person’s mouth. Exampe: … Please don’t use this term, it is crass and vulgar and most people avoid it. English equivalent: ‘I really want to make out with him/her.

·      “Es un/a pendejo/a”: Literally ‘he/she is a pubic hair’. Can refer to someone annoying, immature or simply younger in terms of age. Example: Children. English equivalent: ‘little shits’

·      “Paja”: Literally ‘hay’, but has another colloquial definition which is ‘semen’, and several variations spring forth from this definition, such as ‘hacer una paja’ (‘give a hand-job’), “hacerse una paja” (‘masturbate’), “pajero” (‘lazy bum’), “que paja” (‘bummer’) and “me da paja” (‘I can’t be bothered’). Examples: I am a “pajero”, sitting for exams are a “paja”, and I take a cab when taking the bus “me da paja”. English equivalents: All of the above plus more.

·      “Boludo/a”: Literally ‘person with big testicles’, though oddly the word does not signify brave, but rather stupid or dim-witted, and can be used to refer to something very easy, a “boludez”, and can be applied to women as well as men. “Boludo/a” is also employed by Argentine youth as a playful and affectionate term to a friend, as in “dale, boludo…”,  meaning ‘come on, person I hold dear to my heart but I mock by calling dummy’. Example: Sarah Palin. English equivalent: ‘dumb’

·      “Che”: Literally ‘hey’, probably the best-known of all local slang, this informal way of calling someone’s attention has permeated through the whole of Argentine society and become acceptable and friendly, as in ‘hey’, but can also be used to express annoyance at someone as in “che!” (‘hey!). Not to be used to refer to people of authority like policemen, judges or presidents though. English equivalent: Already said it, but can also be compared to the British ‘oi’ 
El Pendejo Porteño

Question Time: “Why are they drinking weed?”

If you’ve ever seen people sitting on parks or, if you’re 
in Uruguay, wandering around a supermarket with a thermos under one arm and a ‘mate’ in the other (a dried gourd thingie), sipping on a long metal straw, then you’ve witnessed the popular Argentine act that is ‘mate’ drinking. Personally, I hate the stuff (unless it’s drowned in sugar), but I guess you could say it’s a sort of national pastime.
    ‘Mate’ is not only the gourd, it’s the drink itself, the mixture of ‘yerba’ with ‘agua caliente’. ‘Yerba’ is like this chopped herbal weed stuff, only you don’t smoke it, you pour it into the ‘mate’ and add hot water to make ‘mate’, which sounds weird but hey, that’s just the way it is.
    ‘Mate’ is a sort of social activity, where people come together to share this bitter drink, especially popular among students or friends hanging out. Don’t be the first one to serve the ‘mate’ though, or you’ll become the ‘cebador’ and be in charge of pouring water in every time.
    If you’re meeting new people and they offer you a ‘mate’ try not to reject them; the offer is like a peace offering in which you are being welcomed into their circle. Plus, it’s not like it’s that hard to sip the damn thing and smile; you can always brush your teeth later, and rejecting the second drink is fine.
    Many students drink ‘mate’ instead of coffee when they need to stay up late getting ready for exams, and many people going on road-trips or needing to drive for long hours drink it to keep awake. If you realize you do enjoy ‘mate’, be careful you don’t drink too much though, as it is said to give you ‘cagadera’.
    El Pendejo Porteño

“Gracias a Dios por los feriados” a.k.a “National Holidays”

As many of you know, Argentines aren’t famous for being hard-workers. In fact, many of us relish in the fact that many Mondays we get to sleep late and sip a cool ‘Quilmes’ in the afternoon (vodka in my case). Many people from abroad are amazed by the amount of ‘feriados’ we have, holidays spread throughout the year where people don’t go to work and kids don’t go to school. When I was in high school ‘feriados’ and ‘fin de semanas largos’ were one of the things we most looked forward to, because we got to skip Mat and Gym class, which in my case was kind of pointless anyways since I still don’t know what a derivative is and I can’t run two blocks without losing my breath, but whatever.
    Here in the land of ‘mate’ and ‘alfajores’ we have two types of national holidays: ‘feriados nacionales’ and ‘días no laborales’, so holidays and non-working days. ‘Feriados’ can be either on a fixed date or can be swapped around a day or two to a Monday for touristic reasons, and can fall the same day every year or change depending on whether they’re a religious festival that works on another calendar (like the lunar one) or some other bullshit. ‘Días no laborales’ are days when people like jews or muslims get to skip work/school because of some religious holiday, but the rest of us have to work. Many of my friends back at school used to say they were Jewish in April to get to skip on the 20th and 21st because of Pesach; I now wonder why I didn’t copy them. So many Math classes I could have avoided… Oh well.
    So yeah, we get ‘Día Nacional de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia’ on the 24th of March off, in order to remember the political victims of the dictatorship; ‘Día del Veterano de Guerra y de los Caídos en la Guerra de las Malvinas’ on the 2nd of April to lament those who died in the Falkands/Malvinas war; Holy Thursday and Friday to remember the sacrifice the Easter Bunny made for us; ‘Día del trabajador’ on the 1st of May, which is Labour Day; ‘Primer gobierno patrio’ on the 25th of May to celebrate the gaucho government or something; ‘Día de la Bandera’ on the 20th of June to wave ‘banderas’ and wear ‘escarapelas’ proudly; ‘Día de la Independencia’ on the 9th of July because we got rid of the annoying Spanish; ‘Día de la raza’ on the 12th of October, the day Columbus discovered America, which is kind of ironic being called ‘Race Day’ as it should be called ‘Day the Indigenous people were doomed’; ‘Día de la Inmaculada Concepcion’ on the 8th of December, which is to admire how witty this girl called Mary was when she came up with this whole thing about immaculate conception to avoid getting stoned, and finally Christmas and New Year. I don’t think anyone really reflects on why we have the ‘feriados’ (except maybe hardcore nationalists and people with nothing else to do), we’re just happy we do have them.
    Many supermarkets are still open on these days, but unless you work in a shop or store you can spend the whole day doing nothing! Hooray! It kinds of makes you want more horrible things to have happened to Argentina just so we can get the excuse to ‘think and reflect’ on them for a whole 24 hours.
    I have just found out that on the 24th of April Armenians are allowed to not show up for work or school… This is very interesting since I have an Armenian name. Can you guess what I will be doing 24th April 2011? NOTHING. If you’re Muslim you can skip the 10th of January and 1st of October, and if you’re Jewish, apart from Pesach, you can demand a day of rest on the 26th and 27th of April, 28th and 30th of September and 1st of October.
    It’s kind of like a game, isn’t it? Who can rack up the most ‘feriados’. I might just convert for the extra days of getting to lie in bed.
    To the ‘vagos’ and ‘vagas’ like me
    El Pendejo Porteño

“Cintas rojas y botellas de agua” a.k.a “Gauchito Gil and Difunta Correa”

One of the many things I love about this country are the WTF moments that seem to occur so regularly, when you see something that just doesn’t make any sense, like throwing eggs and flour at kids who have just graduated university (fear not faithful readers, I shall look into this), or when Cristina became president and everyone scratched their heads and looked at each other with an “It wasn’t me” look on their faces (this might be just a bit of wishful thinking. Anyways, today’s post is about explaining the WTF moment when you’re driving through Argentina and find water bottles and red ribbons by sanctuaries on the side of the road. They are connected to two of the most fascinating and interesting figures of Argentine mythology, or superstitious bullshit as I like to call it, the Gauchito Gil and the Difunta Correa (literally translated into ‘Gil the little Gaucho’ and the ‘deceased Correa’).

         Let’s start with the Gauchito Gil, shall we? Gil, some say, was a sort of Argentine Robin Hood, only he wasn’t a red fox with a “mucama” called Marion (damn you Disney for giving me fake illusions about talking animals), stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (and since he was a good Argentino, probably keeping 70% for himself). The legend of Gil is based on a real gaucho called Antonio Mamerto Gil Núñez, whose origin is debated but historical records agree he was murdered in Corrientes in 1878. One version of Gil’s myth claims that Gil was a rural gaucho who fell in love with a rich widow (emphasis on rich, and he was probably ‘in love’ with her money. Remember, he was an Argentino!) but he got in trouble because the local constable (Sheriff of Nottingham much?) was also trying to get in her pants- Sorry, I meant to say in love. Because Gil was in danger he joined the army and left to fight in Triple Frontier War (makes total sense, right? Join the army to escape danger. These gauchos might make for some hot calendars, but they’re not the brightest bulbs in the tanning bed, huh?). Okay, so he returned from the War but got caught up in the Civil War in Corrientes (which, being a good porteño, I have never heard about), but later deserted the Liberal party he had joined. So now Gil had enemies in the constable and his lackeys, the Liberals who were pissed he had left and whoever the Liberals were fighting. Eventually Gil was captured by his enemies (doesn’t specify which enemy, but maybe they started a Facebook group to pool their resources or something), and he was hung from a Carob tree by a foot, and his throat was slit. Before the slitting though, Gil told his executioner, who had a sick son, to pray for the kid in Gil’s name (either Gil was kind of psychic since he knew about the guy’s sick son, "maybe it was like ESPN or something," or maybe Gil was a gossip queen and just knew everyone’s business). Basically the kid recovered miraculously (Praise the Lord-! I mean, the Gauchito!), so the executioner returned to Gil’s body and gave him a proper funeral, and news of the miracle recovery travelled fast. The spilling of innocent blood was believed to have mumbo-jumbo powers at the time and a Gil cult of personality expanded throughout Argentina, and the red ribbons people tie to trees and leave in sanctuaries are placed by people who go to pray for him, red meaning the spilt blood (duh).

         Moving on to the Difunta Correa. She was called Dalinda Antonia Correa, and her story also has a kind of shitty ending (for her, I mean): Correa’s husband, Clemente Bustos, was conscripted into the army at the time of the Argentine Civil War between the “unitarios” and the “federales”, which made Correa, anxious and worried over her husband’s poor health, seek to be reunited with him and ask for clemency on his behalf. Correa took her baby and followed the tracks of the army through the San Juan desert, taking with her only a few loaves of bread and two bottles of water. Okay, I need to get this off my chest: I’m all for the sob stories, but seriously, you’re crossing a desert and that’s all you take!? Seriously!? Bitch is just asking for trouble, in my opinion. Anyways, Correa ran out water in the desert (duh), and she took her baby to her breast and lay in the shade of a Carob tree (Note: same tree as Gil. Remind me stay far, far away from these trees), and there she died of thirst, hunger and exhaustion. Sad? Yes. Predictable? Very. The next day (bad timing much?) a troupe of soldiers, who had been neighbours of Correa, discovered her dead body, but the baby was miraculously alive, still suckling from Correa’s flowing breast (how’s that for poetic imagery?). The fate of the child is disputed, some say he grew up to walk over water and raised the dead- No, wait, that was the other miracle baby. Some say the soldiers took the baby but he died soon after and the soldiers returned him to the Carob tree to be buried next to his mothers while others say the child lived a long life. News of Correa’s devotion (a.k.a lack of any common sense) and her arduous journey spread quickly, and many people began to go on pilgrimage to her tomb, which became a sanctuary. Around Argentinia it is common to see small shrines in her honour on the sides of roads, and truck drivers in particular, who have long journeys ahead of them, leave plastic bottles with water (recycling be damned, apparently) in the shrines so Correa will protect them on their journey, a token of worship to the brave woman who died of thirst (and stupidity).

         To the “gauchos”, “gauchas”, “difuntos” and “difuntas”, and anyone stupid enough to believe this

         El Pendejo Porteño

PS: Anyone else left wondering what happened to the rich widow in Gil’s tale? Did she marry the evil constable? Did she kill herself upon hearing about Gil’s death? Did she take her money and head to Las Vegas? Questions, questions…

PS2: Kudos to anyone who noticed the “Mean Girls” and “Juno” quotes

“¿Quién le teme al Lobizón?” a.k.a “Argentine Werewolf”

In honour of all the True Blood and Twilight mania going on, I decided to take some time to investigate the local flavour of lycanthropy and came across the interesting story of the Argentine werewolf. This is not your jailbait, six-pack sporting werewolf that pines after mildly attractive girls with absolutely no personality (a.k.a Jacob Black and Bella Swan), but the scary man-eating type you normally threaten your kids with when they’re being annoying or crying or whatever the hell it is kids do.

         The facts-? I probably should say “facts” though, since this is folkloric bullshit, but whatever. The seventh son of a married couple (no bastards or daughters allowed) is a werewolf. Yes, it’s that simple. No getting bitten by a werewolf or cursed by some scorned biotch, merely having the bad luck of being born the seventh son of seven boys. Which in itself is bad luck, if you think about it, because your clothes will probably be hand-me downs for the rest of your life and if your parents had seven kids they’re either idiots or Catholics, and I’m not sure which is worse… Anyways, here’s a fun fact: in my mother’s small town in the province of Corrientes, the postman was the seventh son, and many people believed he shifted into a wolf. What did this mean? People would cross to the other side of the street when they saw him, ignore him and not look him in the eyes, and generally be a total jerk to him. Which personally I think is retarded, since he could only change at night and during the full moon, so there was no point mistreating him during the day, right? I mean, if you’re gonna believe these bullshit legends at least pay attention to the rules.

         Many couples (obviously undereducated peasants) sacrificed their seventh son out of fear of his becoming a werewolf, so what happened? Why, they invoked the President. As in couples started naming whoever was President of Argentina at the time as godfather to their seventh son, invoking his protection so the child wouldn’t be discriminated. Then in 1973 President Perón issued a decree that officialized this custom, decree number 848, which also ensured that the kid would receive a full scholarship for primary, secondary and tertiary education. Pretty sweet, huh? A small upside to the life of hand-me-downs I guess.

         Problem: a little thing called GENDER DISCRIMINATION. What about the seventh girl if you had seven daughters? Some believed the seventh daughter was a witch, but nobody was really dumb enough to believe this (ha!), and it’s much easier to kill a witch, I mean you just tie her to a stake and burn her. But where the hell do you get a silver bullet in the middle of the countryside? Or anywhere for that matter. (Technical note: not sure if you can kill an Argentine werewolf with a silver bullet but that  seems to be the general rule for lycanthropes. If you happen to be successful let me know). Moving on, girls  were,  and still are I think, future women, and what do women need education for? I mean this is Argentina, land of machismo, and as long as a girl knows how to change diapers and cook “milanesas” for her man that’s all she needs, right? (Of course I am joking, so back off all you annoying feminists) Apparently I’m wrong, since in 1974 Perón’s second wife, President María Estela Martínez de Perón, modified the decree to include girls as well.

         All’s well that ends well, huh? Though maybe not for the poor postman, who probably died alone as an alcoholic with poor social skills.

         To all the “lobizones” and “brujas”

         El Pendejo Porteño

PS: Imagine if Cristina was your godmother? Just the thought gives me the chills

“Flecha Bus es la posta” a.k.a “Travelling within Argentina”

Here’s a fun fact: Aerolineas Argentinas charges twice as much, and sometimes more, for tickets to travel within Argentina to non-residents. Having lived here my whole life, and being the proud owner of a DNI, I had never heard about that. I think it’s bullshit, like getting charged more on the ‘Tren de la costa’ because you have ‘cara de extranjero’, but anyways, I’m here to propose another method of getting around this huge country: omnibus!

    Back in the UK, travelling around there on a bus is a nasty business: the seats are uncomfortable and falling apart and sometimes you get old grannies sitting next to you who smell like old cabbage and cat piss. I’ve heard many horror stories involving the bus system in the UK, and it seems to be the same in the USA, according to my American coworkers, but fortunately the local, third-world version of the ‘omnibus’ is kind of great. Prices vary according to where you want to go and how you want to travel of course, but if you don’t mind paying a bit more and travelling pimp-style, go for first class, which is ‘servicio suite’, which comes with huge, fully reclinable seats, plasma screens, a mini bar and air-con. If you’re a student, or a just plain cheap, you can go for the less luxurious classes like ‘servicio cama’ and finally the ‘servicio semi cama’, which is the one the peasants take, but is really cheap. It wouldn’t be exactly comfortable, but at least you don’t get grannies with soiled diapers blabbing about their fat grandchildren to you, which I think is the stuff of nightmares as you might have guessed.
    The other day in ‘La Nación’ newspaper, as I was trolling about looking for a story to plagiarize, I found an interesting piece that is relevant to this subject: Aerolineas plane tickets have gone up by 15% due to a resolution by the Ministry of Tourism, since the cheapest tickets were starting to rival, in terms of cheapness, the prices of the ‘coche cama’. Don’t get your hopes up at the idea of cheap plane tickets though; remember this is only for those VIP enough to have a DNI Argentino. Ah, the sounds of dreams being crushed into dust, always music to my ears. But yeah, investment in the ‘omnibus’ department hasn’t been good the last two years, so the government is trying to get more people on the buses.
    One of my coworkers took the ‘semi cama’ to Mendoza this weekend, and she says that even though she froze her ass off because they turned off the heating at night, and that she almost starved (she’s a vegetarian, and in this country a vegetarian meal is a ham and cheese sandwich), she did get her money’s worth. And it wasn’t a lot of money, since she decided to slum it by going ‘semi cama’. So if you want cheap, but kind of uncomfortable, travel go ‘semi cama’. If you’re bourgeois go ‘servicio cama’, and if you’re awesome go ‘servicio suite’.
    To the ‘campesinos’ and ‘campesinas’
    El Pendejo Porteño
PS: for more information on prices and stuff go to www.omnilineas.com.ar
PS2: I have just found out that there’s a lower class to ‘semi-cama’ which is ‘com·n c/aire’, and even worse than that is ‘com·n’, which I’m guessing doesn’t even have air-con. Shudder.  

“La musculoca numero uno” a.k.a “Ricardo Fort”

If you’ve ever seen a guy on Argentine television or magazine covers that looks like the local, male equivalent of Cher, you have come across the awesomeness that is Ricardo Fort, our country’s biggest (by FAR) guilty pleasure. So why is Ricardo Fort famous? Probably for the same reason Paris Hilton is: money. He is a millionaire, heir to the Felfort empire that spans from chocolates to candy to cereal to easter eggs to ‘diet’ products. Also, Fort loves to show his money, dazzling those less well off by proudly displaying his limited edition Rolls Royce, private jet and extensively worked on body (pectoral and ass implants, I’ve been told). If you look at this ‘musculoca’ you will wonder why the hell could anyone be interested in some rich playboy whose face and tattooed body look like they were put together by some mad scientist, the answer is: it’s fun. He is the probably the biggest ‘papelón' around town, a raging queen defending his ‘machismo’ by publicly dating ‘vedettes’ (cough beard cough), “singing” and “dancing” his way through Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ on popular Argentine TV show ‘Showmatch’ (put ‘ricardo fort bad romance’ in youtube, you will thank me later), and trying to be taken seriously as a menswear designer, even though his taste is disgustingly ‘grasa’. We don’t cringe at the sight of such an attention-whore, we don’t feel ‘verguenza ajena’, merely revel in the fact that Fort is apparently the only one not in on the joke and has deluded himself into believing people take him seriously. Sorry, Ricardo, but we are laughing at you, not with you.
    What is a ‘musculoca’? A combination of ‘músculo’ (muscle) and ‘loca’ (queen), and Fort, despite all his miserable attempts at conserving some ‘machismo’, is the definition of this porteño slang. Right now he’s serving as one of the judges on ‘Showmatch’s’ ‘Bailando por un sueño’, which is the local version of ‘Dancing with the stars’, and no one is quite sure what qualifies him as a judge since he is a frustrated singer who can’t carry a tune and moves with all the fluidity of an 80-year-old woman, as you can see in his ‘Bad Romance’ clip (watch it NOW!). Plus he can barely speak English, which makes his voicing ‘caught in your bad romance’ sound more like ‘cach en ior vad romans’. For a taste of Fort’s deliciously ridiculous nature go to his website, www.ricardofort.com, but turn your speakers down because ‘Bad Romance’ will start playing automatically. Seriously, no person with such a Gaga-complex can be straight. He is 42-years-old, but his face is probably a couple of decades younger, and he jumped into the limelight when his father died and he inherited millions and millions, which he then proceeded to throw around at his hired girlfriends and probably bribing TV shows to let him sing.
    Okay, I can’t take it anymore. You HAVE to watch this:  Ricardo Fort "Bad Romance"
It is the essence of Fort, the divine charm that springs forth from his (implanted) chest. It is a work of beauty, of genius, so inspiring it’s literally painful, but watch at your own risk, since you might either laugh, cry, groan or want to beat your head against your keyboard.
    He was recently in the news because he proposed to one of his whorefriends, and she publicly turned him down on ‘Bailando por un sueño’ right before he gave her a 10/10 for her choreography. With such local drama, who the hell needs to watch Gossip Girl?

    When will the Fort-mania end? Probably quite soon, when people get tired of his (implanted) ass, but don’t hold your breath. Just remember, Ford-bashing is acceptable and even welcome in decent society, though come to think of it, decent society would probably not even mention him.
    I once heard that if the world were to be destroyed by a nuclear war, the only things to survive would be cockroaches… and Cher. I would like to add Ricardo Fort to that list.
    To the ‘locos’ and the ‘locas’
    El Pendejo Porteño

“¿Mas chico no tenes?” a.k.a “10 and 20 peso bills missing”

There should be signs posted around the city with the faces of Manuel Belgrano and Juan Manuel de Rosas on it, with ‘WANTED’ written beneath in big black letters. One of my coworkers was complaining today about how nobody in the city seems to want to break a 100-peso bill, and there was an article in ‘La Nación’ newspaper about the lack of 10’s and 20’s, so obviously I thought about ripping off the idea and writing a post about it.
    It seems that many ‘cajero automáticos’ are only giving out 50’s and 100’s, but as most porteños know, these are really hard to break; you’ll probably have to end up like my coworker going into a supermarket and buying some random shit you don’t need just to get the change, or wait for a couple of hours queuing at a bank if your local ‘supermercado’ happens to be closed. The problem seems to be mostly in the ‘micro-centro’, but reading the comments posted in the ‘La Nación’ article you get the idea that this is common even outside downtown, and is a growing concern for many.
    According to the article, the biggest losers are those people who benefit from social programs. It gives the example of this guy who was supposed to receive 700 pesos, so off he went happily to the nearest ‘cajero automáticos’, probably whistling and skipping, only to realize he couldn’t get the total amount out. Why? Because he got charged for some retarded concept called SDO.ULT.RES (I have no idea what this is), that charged him 2.18 pesos to take the money out. And since the ‘cajero’ only had 100 and 50 peso bills, if my calculations are correct, and I am no Math genious since I failed my Math IB exam, he was only able to get out 650. And, if this guy really is some sorry bum in desperate need of the 700, 50 pesos must be a big loss for him. And the poor dude couldn’t get the cash from a bank teller due to regulation imposed by the bank and ‘gobierno porteño’. Rip off much? I’m guessing the guy’s smile was wiped off his face when he realized this.
    But I don’t think people such as this dude who receive benefits are the only ones affected by the lack of smaller bills; everyday citizens wishing to get cash out are screwed as well. Try going to a ‘kiosco’ or getting a taxi and paying with the purple face of Julio Roca. The ‘kiosco’ man will probably smile and ask ‘¿no tenes mas chico?’ but the taxi driver will probably be pissed off, and many taxis even have little signs in them saying they won’t accept these bills. Everyone is desperate to hang onto their 10’s and 20’s, and, like my coworker asked, ‘doesn’t the country realize how much money is being lost by refusing to accept 100’s?’. It was all very hard-working-American of him, but I reminded him that we Argentinos aren’t really bothered that much about hard work and shit like that. But it’s a fair question: how much money is being lost to production and the economy everyday all around the city? If everyone accepted 100 peso bills, which the ‘cajeros’ seem insistent on spewing out, we’d probably be spending a lot more every day, and help with this little problem we’re dealing with here in the land of the ‘choripan’ I like to call ‘inflación’. God knows I’m not an economist, and I probably slept my way through the one year of Economics I did in high school, but I was a History student, and one of the things we learned about was the Great Depression, and how the Weimar government was trying to get people to spend more to fight the decreasing value of their currency, a lesson that seems almost as relevant to ‘Contemporary Economics’ as to ‘Germany in the early 30’s’.
    One of the comments in the newspaper’s online article was that the 10’s and 20’s are being hoarded up in the ‘casa presidencial’ and ‘la casa rosada’, which is the ‘pink house’, also known as the ‘white house’s gay younger brother’, and if so we should all march there and demand the release of Belgrano and Rosas! Obviously I’m kidding, and that comment was (I hope) a joke, or the product of a delusional person with conspiracy issues, but on the other hand it would not surprise me if the Empress of Evil, Cristina, was actually sitting on piles of 10’s and 20’s laughing at the chaos she was creating outside her window, a grin plastered on her she-gremlin face (seriously, write ‘greta the gremlin’ in the google image search, you’d think they were separated at birth or something, the resemblance is truly uncanny).
    So yeah, where the hell are the 10’s and 20’s? Well… fuck if I know! But we definitely need them for people to stop being so annoying and accept the 100 bills.
    To the ‘wachos’ and ‘wachas’ who won’t accept the big bills
    El Pendejo Porteño

“¿Te puedo dar un caramelo? No tengo monedas” a.k.a “The Coin Problem”

Do not be surprised if, after buying a ‘Tita’ or ‘alfajor’ or ‘vauquita’, which you could surely do without and will probably regret later when you’re tottering over your scale and drinking Coca-Cola ‘light’ so as to feel better about yourself, the ‘kiosquero’ smiles at you and asks if you can take some bullshit candy or a piece of gum because he doesn’t have those ‘veinticinco centavos’.
    There’s probably more theories regarding where the hell all the ‘monedas’ are than there are theories about Lady Gaga’s gender (which is a really bad simile, I know, since there’s only two genders, right? Or two and a half, if you count the intersex one or whatever it’s called). Some people say the ‘colectiveros’ and leaders of the ‘gremios de transporte’ are keeping them all like pirate booty to increase their value; I’ve also heard the theory that there’s an illegal coin traffic to other countries where the metal is melted and sold as scrap metal since the metal is worth more than the coin in today’s inflated era of K-penguin government; and probably the most ridiculous/hilarious theory about a couple of guys who decided to hoard every coin they ever got. It’s a cool picture, isn’t it? Two guys standing over piles of coins like pimply plunderers guarding their treasure.
    But what’s the problem with this coin shortage, you ask? Well, the millions of people who commute and travel around the city of Buenos Aires might give you a couple of reasons. They use trains and the buses, all of which can only be paid with coins, and many times you see the annoying message ‘ingrese cambio exacto’ on the ticket-machine because it’s ran out of change. Even a coin black market has arisen, but these charge you a commission of 3-10%, so if you give them a ten-peso bill you might only get nine pesos back in coins. Fair? No. Argentine? Yes. Have you not heard about ‘viveza criolla’ before? Banks are obliged by the Banco Central de la República Argentina to give change to citizens in exchange for notes, but the queues outside of these places can lead to waiting for a number of hours.
    Our dearly elected President, or the crack-whore from Santa Cruz as some of us call her, Cristina Fernandez, announced a couple of months ago that an electronic ticket system would come into place in public transport, but once again she has managed to unabashedly lie through her teeth while clutching her ten thousand dollar crocodile-skin Hermes handbag. Only two ‘lineas de colectivo’ have this electronic-ticket thingie; the rest of them demand coins.
    So remember, coins are useful and valuable, especially if you travel around in public transport a lot or are a proud member of the masses or a ‘descamisado’, or one of those communist rich kids who like to feel like being ‘parte del pueblo’ and volunteer to slum it up on the TBA instead of getting a ‘remis’.
    And if the ‘kiosquero’ doesn’t have any change and wonders if he can give you candy, next time go for the ‘vauquita’, because those things are fucking tasty and totally worth the I-don’t-want-to-know-how-many calories.
    To the ‘gorditos’ and ‘gorditas’ who waddle over to the ‘kiosco’ every chance they get
    El Pendejo Porteño
PS: I totally ripped off many of the facts in this post from some BBC article

“¿Donde mierda queda la parada del subte?” a.k.a “The subway”

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