10.21.04: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Mauro said, with a disappointed tone, that he felt Santiago was very much an "American" city (meaning North American). I can see what he means; it's pretty clean, lots and lots of office buildings and little messy character or funk in evidence. Mauro pointed out that this was one of the only countries that didn't have slavery. (I mentioned that even Argentina had a sizable black population at one point, but, ummm, mysteriously they have all vanished, pretty much from the collective memory as well.) Anyway, he's implying that the Africans gave South American culture much of it's character. Certainly much of the unique music on the continent is a hybrid of European, indigenous and African styles.

Last night a bunch of us were joined at dinner (I had goat) by Ignacio from El Arranque. He mentioned that numerous groups are trying the tango/electronic fusion, but to his mind none of them have succeeded yet — not that it's not a worthwhile goal. Unlike lots of tangueros here, he and El Arranque are open to collaboration and new approaches, from the part and the future. They've unearthed actual handwritten old (1940s) arrangements, some of them fairly radical, he says.

They're in the middle of completing a CD on which older masters join them and play their guys. He says this is unusual because it’s not a very collaborative or open scene.

He wonders how Arto Lindsay does it — producing Brazilian artists and making very up-to-date sounding records that don't lose the flavor of the music. We're both admirers of the Piccolo Orchestra Avion Travel CD (Cirano) that Arto produced.

(Nico recommends another tango group whose name I can't remember; it's larger and more trad in format but less trad in material.)

I take a late morning swim in the hotel pool. At the far end, here is a chubby kid with a baby face, who possibly has Tourette's. He's bobbing in the water, ejaculating yelps and weird cries. At first I think he's down there playing with himself super enthusiastically and vigorously, but it seems he's just having a tick-y moment. He submerges and goes under the partition that allows one to swim to an outdoor patio. Maybe he's whooping out there. I can't tell — his back is to me. Soon enough, he reappears on this side and the yelps resume. I begin my laps.

A woman lays outside on a deck chair sunning herself in a swimsuit, even though it's sort of brisk weather. Her skin is like tanned leather and her hair is white. Maybe she's the yelping boy's mom? There's no one else around except the pool receptionist that hands out towels.

Two hostesses or stewardesses in matching outfits enter. They also go outside and plop down on some deck chairs, turning their faces to the sun as they chat.

There are newspapers available for browsing. La Nacion has a well-written review of our last concert here. They mention that I went to the El Arranque rehearsal and brought a CD of theirs to be autographed. They note that during the show I mention that I will miss Susana Baca's upcoming BA show, that Ausencia was arranged by Goran Bragovic, who will be in BA next month and that "Desconocido Soy" was a duet with Ruben of Café Tacuba, who will be here in a few days.

I go to a nearby bookstore, as I've exhausted my English reading material and pick up Foucault and Cabrera Infante books to carry me though. I read the intro to the Foucault over a fish lunch alone and think there are maybe some parallels with my tree drawings.

I just finished reading The Telephone Booth Indian, a collection of AJ Leibling pieces written in the 1940s for The New Yorker. There is one piece about sideshow folks that is hilarious and another about The Jollity Building, a midtown Broadway place, like the Brill Building, but filled with the bottom feeders of show business.

The show in BA was videotaped for television. This was part of deal that Aquiles had set up.

La Portuaria, a local band I know, opens with an unplugged set; they're joined by Chilean singer Violetta Parra (daughter of Violetta Parra?). She has a beautiful voice. The drummer uses a folkloric drum instead of a kick, which draws Mauro's attention.  I had met Diego, the singer, on a previous trip. He was also my introduction to De La Guarda, the physical theater production. His wife (?) is in it, as part of the original cast. So when it came to NY we connected.

The audience is fantastic. After about our 6th song, they rush forward to dance, led by a woman in a wheelchair who unabashedly twitches to the music. Once again, there are soccer chants in the middle of the show — after "Psycho Killer," I think.

I can see Leon Gieco, the Rock Nacional icon, in the 4th row in a baseball cap, smiling. We sang together once in NY, and I covered one of his songs years ago. (After the show I see in my dressing room that he sent some lovely red wine as a present.) I can see Violetta Parra dancing over stage left. Half the audience fills the right side of this basketball arena.

Afterwards Leon and others converge in the catering room. I see Nico, who I thought was part of Los Autenticos Decadantes. He certainly was back when they performed in NY, but I'm never really sure. We crossed paths once in Mexico after a show there and he amazed the Mexicans with his knowledge of Narco Corridos,  the ballads sung in the north about drug dealers and traffickers. He knew the words to all of them. Now he’s handed me a pile of CDs of Argentine and Paraguayan cumbia bands. I didn’t know such things existed. There's even a bachata band here, something I thought only existed in Santo Domingo. He says Paraguay is the Jamaica of South America, though what he means by that is slightly unclear. It's not the dope. I think it's the fact that he believes they've evolved an original slant on their music.

He and a young woman both attempt to tell me what the various cumbia CDs he gave me represent. He says the words are deep, important, like Leonard Cohen. Somehow I doubt this is the correct analogy; this is music of the poorer people, music that reflects their concerns, as rap did at one time in North America. But I can see what he means. There is deep poetry here, in the way we think of blues as being deeply poetic, within its parameters.

He said rock has become the music of the big companies, the big countries, and therefore it is no longer the voice of the people. I have to agree that, seen from here, contemporary rock is the product of the foreign, often North American, multinationals. No matter what or who the artist, the product is invariably tainted by its source.

We return to the hotel and reconvene in the pub. Las Chicas de Tosca have headed off to an El Arranque social.

Nico says he'd like to give me his shirt — a kind of handmade guyaberra from Paraguay. I go fetch a T-shirt to give him to wear, but he says, "Why don't we just exchange shirts?" I'm wearing a black western shirt that might be a teeny bit tight on him, but he agrees to try it and we both strip to our waists in this bar full of people. He inscribes his shirt to me, which is sweet but I kind of hope it washes off because it is a nice shirt.

Lastly, he says that he is content that their band may never be "international." He's proud that they represent the culture and identity of this region, which may limit them commercially, but he feels it is right and proper.

Now it's the next morning and we’re on a flight to Mexico. In the passport line I say hello to Ely Guerra, the Mexican singer, and her band, who are flying to Santiago after playing a festival in Argentina. Her hair used to be short and blonde and now it's a huge sort of afro.

I watch The Terminal on the plane, which is spectacular-looking but wasn’t the true story of the man who lived at Charles de Gaulle. The movie is relentlessly upbeat, filled with cute touches and heartwarming situations like an old Hollywood movie from the 30s. The bureaucrat of Homeland Security is portrayed as an inhuman dunce. Spielberg is a skilled craftsman, and he knows exactly how to push the buttons. I admire the way he makes pop culture mythic – resonant images of piles of mashed potatoes, airplane meals, Reese's cups. And, often, it's the background;the production design and cinematography tells the story more than what the actors are saying.

Out the window is the mountainous desert that covers the very top of Chile and the southern part of Peru. Reportedly, it's the driest place on earth. There are white salt flats here and there, as in central Australia. The Nazca lines are down there somewhere.