6.24.06: Show Day

Early afternoon. Rehearsal with La Portuaria at the Trastiendo club in the San Telmo district. They are well prepared. As well as a couple of their own songs we practice a couple of Talking Heads songs and, at the end of the rehearsal, there arrives a small (6 person) choir to sing the choir parts of "Road To Nowhere". It sounds incredible — I usually cut that part of the song if I perform it, as it is impossible to do without a bunch of singers — so this is a treat.

We finish rehearsal just as the Mexican and Argentine players enter the field for the World Cup match that will decide which of them continues to the final rounds. The entire city has stopped for the game. All the club and band technicians gather round the TV. The national hymns are sung and the players take the field. Diego drives me to my hotel — he’s not a big football fanatic — the streets are almost deserted. All shops and restaurants are closed except a few where televisions can be seen with clumps of people huddled in front. All worshipping at The Church of Football.

We stop at a sandwich shop for a late lunch. It is manned entirely by women, which might explain why it remains open — though there is a tiny TV sitting on the bar, which competes with the techno music. Diego mentions that he was in high school during the dictatorship. The world cup was here then — in ‘78  — and he says that some claim it was used as a screen for many to go missing and become disappeared. The government supported the event massively and used it as a clever way to disappear people when few were paying attention.

Most people were then, and even now remain, in partial denial, many claiming they saw or knew nothing — although many sensed that this was happening. As a high school student Diego went to visit some friends one day and no one answered the door. The house was vacant and remained so — later his father said maybe they were taken. There was a general feeling of paranoia — and for a high school kid the fear manifested in stuff that a typical school kid of that time might worry about — that if your hair was too long or if you got caught with a joint you might be picked up. Only the repercussions of being picked up were ominous. Everyone was careful, political talk was hushed. Gunshots could be heard on the streets at night — the military or police (often the same thing) doing business.

I myself remember paranoia in elementary school. It was the Cuban missile crisis and the level of fear must have been intense. I remember walking home from school in suburban Baltimore (I would have been in 5th grade maybe — 10 years old?) It might have been about a mile to my home through mostly old suburban neighborhoods of lawns and trees. I remember I could imagine the dark winged bombers coming overheard (Cuban bombers? Russians?) …and as I walked I planned my route to shelter, block by block. On this block I could make it to Dean’s house — it was just over there — then, a little further, my friend Ricky’s house would be a better bet. The way home had to be calculated, planned, measured.

Changing neighborhoods

Palermo, where we are having a sandwich now, used to be a quiet neighborhood with lots of pocket parks — which are still here. It got gentrified in the last few years and now it’s filled with clothing boutiques, chic eateries and bars. Diego recently moved out of his apartment across the plaza from this sandwich shop. The house is for sale. He asks what changes NY is going through — commenting that it now seems so clean. Same process — the artists and new arrivals seek apartments further out as the rising rents drive them out, away from the center. I comment that the resulting lack of concentration and mixing of people is ultimately detrimental to creation. Creation of all kinds. With young creative types now spread out over NJ, Bronx, Williamsburg, Red Hook and elsewhere it’s harder for a scene to gain traction…the city will end up like Hong Kong or Singapore — a vast gleaming business and shopping center.

We walk to my hotel — a few blocks. The streets are empty (football is still going on.) The rain has stopped. Diego asks about hip-hop. I reply that the beats and music are often incredibly innovative and sophisticated, but for the most part the lyrics are gangster crowing and put-downs of bitches. He brings up Baile Funk — the fairly recent Brazilian evolution of 808 beats, techno, hip-hop, and funk (though it’s more like being pummeled in a violently disorienting fairground ride than getting funky, in my opinion) — we agree it’s incredibly innovative and ridiculously extreme. Diego says the lyrics in the Brazilian case are violent and rough, but unlike hip-hop the words are usually from a victim’s POV.

Argentina just scored a goal — it's 2-1 Argentina — shouts go up from the hotel bar.

Now Argentina plays control-the-ball, beautifully, I hear.

15 minutes later — Argentina has won — the crowds in the club tonight are sure to be in good spirits.

They are. It’s a typically late show in Buenos Aires (12:30 start…maybe later.) I joined the band at the end of the set and the crowd was caught unawares. I flubbed some lyrics in the excitement, but the vibe was good. Got back to my hotel around 3AM and fell out, as we fly to Bariloche in the lake district of Patagonia tomorrow for the closing show of the festival de nieve.

I’ve been reading an Argentine guidebook alternating with Lolita. Nabakov’s hilarious descriptions of his darling Dolores Haze (what a perfect name), her mother and anyone who enters his view are perfect. The way he catches how one obsessed fixates on skin, the back of a neck, a goofy posture — “polyp-like lips” was part of a description of a neighbor of “Big Haze and Little Haze”.

Even his descriptions of the object of his obsession and desire are less than flattering — gum chewing, silly, and slightly awkward — but they still convey the perverse rose-colored view of one in love — love of a very special sort.

One of the funniest books I’ve ever read.