FRONT PAGE NEWS

The world-class athelete Diego Maradona, a 4-year coke addict, confirmed bi-sexual, and the most famous Argentine soccer player ever, was admitted to a hospital yesterday because of heart failure.  Im going to take a guess that it was probably the yayo that triggered this one, rather than something strenuous like a jog or wiping his butt.  He´s about 3 chorizos away from needing a wheelchair.  

Its always comforting to have a leather salesman tell you things like that. Its also nice to hear things like "buy it one size small...you`ll thank me later" and "you should never wear underwear with this."
But anyway, his comment is not as homophobic as it sounds...rather just a practical observation about the abundance of beautiful women here. I was with a friend shopping for leather jackets, and we DID say we were from San Francisco...and we were two guys shopping together for leather, so maybe he wanted to guide us in the right direction, just in case we were thinking about starting some gay activity.

Nothing too specaular has happened lately, although I`ve been in this internet cafe for over and hour and the old woman next to me hasnt stopped talking to herself yet. She`s also turned 90 degrees and looking at me right now. Weeeeeeeeeeeird.

I`ve had a few incredible nights out, with my usual results. Its kind of like my philosophy on fly fishing: I know Im not going to catch fish anyway, but its still fun to go for the scenery and whipping that fly around. Ok the fly on a string thing is weird analogy, but I think you get the point.  I am expecting a few pictures from the club tomorrow.  Yes, I was one of those guys taking pictures in a club.

I also had one of the weirdest conversations EVER with a British couple in the pub (Jack the Ripper) next to my apartment. My friend (from leather shopping) and I arrived at 2am, after a normal Sunday night dinner. Long story short, the British couple starts talking to us in English giving us their life story. It was fine at first, swapping travel stories and comments about local culture...par for the course as far as all that goes.  They are in their mid 30s and have decided to travel indefinately on 10,000 quid through south america. They gave up learning spanish after 2 weeks since "we`ll never use it anyway" and, perhaps the funniest thing all night, the woman says with a straight face, "they have all these things like adjectives and verbs......we dont know what those are!"  Right.  The man, who`s worked in "package delivery" for the past 5 years, said he went to law school but quit after the first day, because he didnt want to "be stuck with those wankers."  My thoughts exactly at that point.

Congrats to Josh "dirty Mexican.....get it? he´s a DIRTY MEXICAN!" Goines, who was recently accepted to a highly reputable business school (and who´s colors he wont be allowed to wear in his parents house).  Was the admissions officer at our Halloween party?  Did you wear the costume to your interview?

Here´s hoping for a "Dirty Clown" ethnicity box on B-school applications for me next year.
Either that or my ebonics translation experience should give me some kind advantage.

Before I get to telling about my nice, if old-man tourist-style getaway in Mendoza, I have to tell you about the crowning moment of my english teaching career.  The daughter of my co-teacher, a 12-year-old girl who speaks decent english, grabbed me right before class started to ask me what "bow wow" means.  Long story short, she next asked me what "in tha hizzle for shizzle" means. Yes, she´s been listening to Snoop Dogg and other Best-coast rap, and I dont if I´m proud or horrified.

I know I always say this, but my loyal commenters still manage to suprise me with their creativity and offensiveness. Well done.  I have also wondered whether it was smart to use my name for this blog: I think when I run for public office it will be easy to find these pages archived somewhere.  Unless somehow I can spin it that I have wide support from the minority community....can somebody prove that Lickwanda is a real woman?

The coolest thing about my first day of spanish class was that out of 10 total students, 4 are Japanese... 3 exchange students and one old man. Its a funny thing to try to communicate with people in a 3rd language that you´re both just learning.  My first thought was that I might just get some good japanese food out of the two girl exchange students. I dont know if that´s something to be worried about or not. 

Oh so the class....we waited until 9:45 and still no teacher had shown up.  Pretty great way to start a month of intensive classes. So now my huge enthusiasm to learn Castellano has dissapeared (for the day), and I just want to nap and watch college hoops.  I`m starting to hate latin time.

Speaking of college hoops....we dont get them here. I have 2 ESPNs and Fox Sports, and zero college hoops. Understandable, I guess..... people here aren´t into american sports like that.  So imagine my suprise and disgust when on Saturday I see 2 hours of ESPN programming devoted to PBA,"Pro Bowling Association" pro-tour, with 2 fat men in cheap golf shirts slapping high-fives on their way to the lanes.  Utterly depressing....

...Johnny Walker Red on ice and cable tv. I´ve had both since Tuesday and all these "too cool for TV & drinking" types don´t know what they´re missing. For one, constant reruns of 90210 and O.C. We also get Jackass here. And who can forget the nightly French porno? Frankly its nice to see another country get into the mix exporting TV here..although that is a globalization discussion for another time, except I will note that it´s nice plus when foreign trade involves tasteful, female, french-accented nudity.

Speaking for foreign media, CNN International is a joke. If you think CNN at home is bad, compared to the UN version its all apple pies and baseball. My first clue were the subliminal "Death to America" and "Globalisation: For Whitey Only" slogans which randomly replace the CNN in the bottom right of the screen.

But seriously, the amount of editoralizing is not so much shocking anymore, but amusing. When switching to a report live from CNN America, the tone of the anchor was not so much of an announcement, but in his voice a deep tone of warning and caution, as if the American version of CNN might expose one´s home to such taboo American ideas like the nurturing of entrepreneurism, enough self confidence to know everything at the UN is a joke, and an absolute demand for kiss-ass customer service breaking through your TV in a blast of .38 shells (none of that pussy 9mm metric shit), fake tits, and Big Macs. Then again, I had just finished my 3rd scotch.

Pet peeve of the moment are snooty & smirking British female reporters, LIVE from the scene of each new bombing donning a sober mask of gravity but with an obvious inner smile of glee peeking through, fire and bodies providing the perfect background to pose "objective" questions that automatically condemn America in their asking rather than in providing any value as a true seeker of truth. They also are annoying as hell. I´m not a violent man, but I want to take Christine Amanpour to a moster truck rally, pour beer on her, punch her in the face, and then shoot a shotgun in the air as a victory salute. I´m not sure if i dreamt it, but the whole scene is very clear in my head. Hell, I don´t even need to punch her, but her nose looks like its been through a long heavyweight career in the ring anyway, so what the hell. Can a blog be used as evidence of premeditation?

So instead of news, I am now enjoying the wide variety of sports available on television: Argentine Football, Italian Football, Spanish Football, Champions League Football, and mens field hockey. And they wonder why we dont watch international sports? Thank God for "Superchicas", a morning fitness program hosted by three incredibly talented and almost frightenly flexible women that I always get up to. Some of the activity involved in the French porn could also be considered athletic, and no, its not running away from any invading armies.

Im now in Cordoba, the second biggest city in Argentina, and basically a large college town.  Its my first time out of Buenos Aires since I arrived in this country, so its a welcome change of scenery.  I took a 10 hour night bus that left at 11:00 pm.   The seats on these "go all the way back," and for a Koala like me, that is a little slice of heaven.  

Nothing inspires confidence in a major transportation company like a 5-minute long reading of Bible verses as the vehicle is leaving the station.  I hear they even have an on-board Padre for complimentary last rites on Sunday trips.  The fact that it was in spanish made it even  more exotic. I know this is a little "out there," but I was reminded of that part in the Goonies where "Mouth" has to use his Spanish skills to correctly determine the instructions for playing the organ made from bones. (monte, no comments about your organ made from a bone please).  Equally as disturbing, the on-board film was McHale´s Navy, starring Tom Arnold.  I would love to discuss programming with the entertainment director for this company: Bible readings and freakin Tom Arnold movies? I guess they ran out of electro-shock earphones playing old Laurence Welk shows.  After hours of horrific entertainment options and in spite of the need for devine help, or hell, maybe because of it, we arrived safely in Cordoba the next morning, and rolled into town to another reading of the Gospel of Jose.

I had plans to see all kinds of cool little towns within 1 hour of here, but it has not stopped raining since I arrived, so my motivation to sight-see is at about zero.  So we moved on to other types of sights, like salivating over the huge population of girls aged 17-22 girls here.  Im here with my friend Jeremy, who lives here and speaks great spanish, so we went out for meat at midnight and then cruised to the club that goes off on Wed. night.  While I thought it was impressive that there was already a scene on Wednesday night, I was informed by the first group of girls we met that the weekend actually starts on Tuesday.  We were talking to them at 4am and they said they had a class at 7:45 that morning.  Following the expected response to my offer to spend some time in bed before class, we moved to another spot in the bar and resumed letcherous activities.   All and all, a quiet night, and we left early, arriving home about 5am. 

I woke up at 8:30.  I really need to learn to adjust, but for some reason I can´t sleep in.  For those that are wondering, its the main source of my Koala characteristics. That, and the fact my mom used to put me to sleep by laying me on the dryer while it was running...conditioning me with some Pavlovian response to shut down whenever I feel heavy vibrations, like a boat, car, plane, or Monte´s husky baritone sweettalk on the phone.

Tonight I should meet some locals, and some of the girls Jarrad knew when he was down here before.  Hopefully I´ll have a more respectable story to tell after tonight. I´ve been avoiding posting on the blog as not much interesting has happened in the past few days. Here are a few little tidbits...

Other thoughts:
We saw several groups of girls where none of them looked a day over 18.  However none of them knew Jarrad, so the jury is still out.  I´m not sure how I feel about it. 

March madness starts soon, but nobody shows the opening rounds here. Hopefully ESPN will carry something...this is the first year in a long time that i´m not employed and can actually watch all the games. I´m beginning to find things I miss about home, and college hoops is one.  A few others are black pepper, mashed potatos, curry, and burritos. And no, this has nothing to do with sex foods (yet).

Teaching English has been entertaining as hell. It better be, as the pay is a good laugh too.  Perhaps I should work more than 3 hours a week.  I finally have a cute girl in class...she looks like a latin Parker Posey.  Next week I´ll try to get her to unknowingly recite lines from Waiting for Guffman.  I´m not sure if this kind of thing is pathetic, but I have to give myself little goals.

Just an FYI....Frenet and Coke is an abomination and tastes as if it simulateously acts as a colonic agent and oral narcotic. In case you dont have a dictionary handy: It tastes like herbal shit.  With Coke.

I ate intestine for the second time in 9 days last night.  Two times in 9 years is probably enough. Cam, can you please tell me the recommended daily allowance by the FDA for intestine? 

Ive just returned from waiting 2 hours in line outside a club, only to be turned away at the front door, as they just started letting in only girls.  Again, motivation to learn spanish... : "Yo soy Yanqui!" didnt quite change his mind.  (Although it should...we actually spend money inside these places, whereas Argentines have a wonderful ability to spend 5 hours at a bar  and only split a diet coke 3 ways)

Anyone who knows me knows I have problems waiting in lines period, much less ones where a group of 5 guys just happen to recognize someone and jump in. The flip side was that I saw more hot girls in that 2 hours than in 7 years of living in San Jose & Santa Clara. So I was convincing myself that those two hours in line was some sort of process while I work through my problems. Not so. Perhaps if I had gotten in....now I highly doubt Ill ever wait over 15 minutes in line again... 

Good bye social life. Hello TiVo. Well, I wish it was Tivo, but I finally bought a TV today, and im getting cable next week.  Oh I had to wait 20 minutes to pay for the TV. 

So I had my first Argentine BBQ today, called an asado.  They are basically like our BBQs, except that when we eat things like kidneys & large intestines, they are INSIDE the hotdogs, not grilling on the BBQ like a Hanibal Lecter cookout.  Blood sausage too.  The large intestines actually taste great at first, but when you start getting near the rectum, it starts getting a little gamy. This is definately one of those cuts where you dont want to eat the "dark meat".  (Monte, dont get too excited about that last bit...I know how you think)