Semana Santa - Part One, The Way Down and The Wedding

ok.
welcome to spring break -- or Semana Santa -- as they say down here.

Here goes. One of La Flaca's friends from high school decided to get married the first Saturday of Semana Santa, so we went to Bucaramanga [that isn't a typo, there really is a city down here called Bucaramanga (pronounced boo-ka-ra-MAN-ga, really.)] Anyway, we went to Bucaramanga for the wedding, in a van, with a couple of La Flaca's friends and a bunch of people neither of us knew, and a drugged up cat in a diaper. Yes.



So, here's the best explanation I can give for this girl bringing this cat on an overnight trip of six hundred miles or so that just happened to take fourteen hours, give or take: her sister is pregnant. That's the explanation I got.
"So," I asked. "Why are you bringing a cat on a six-hundred mile overnight trip in a van with fourteen other people?"
"My sister is pregnant."
"Okay then."
I know not to ask too much more than this, as Colombia is a place people believe some weird shit. Example 1: La flaca will not take a shower after eating. Why, you ask? She doesn't want to have a heart attack. Hmmmmm. She's 24 and weighs like 90 pounds.
Example 2: My maid will not iron clothes after taking a shower. Why, you ask? Doing so will destroy her bones. Hmmmmm. I don't know how to respond to that. usually I say "Ok."
So, the cat couldn't be left at home because the girl has a pregnant sister.
The trip was long, painfully uncomfortable and cold (the van had serious-ass A/C) and I never want to make this trip again.
But we got there safely, even though cat-diaper girl had no idea where we were going in Bucaramanga and got us repeatedly lost. Eventually the driver got pretty pissed at her and yelled at her a bit. By the way, did I mention cat-diaper girl is FROM Bucaramanga and she was trying to get her uncle's house, where she had been a million and a half times. Personally, I think she was sampling el gato's medicine on the trip.

Joselitos Last Stand

The last day of the carnival celebration here in BQ is dedicated to Joselito. It is his wake. Joselito has died from some sorta over-indulgence and his body is interred until next year. I think. I really don't know, but lots of people, men and women alike, dress as grieving widows and the last of the rum, beer and aquardiente are consumed before the long forty days of lent that these Catholics impose upon themselves. By the way, from the aguardiente link, this particular beverage can be ordered in the states; do so at your own risk. I do not recommend drinking this stuff.

Anyway, to make the long story short, the carnivals are behind us and the world once again is spinning as it should, and we can all return to some goofy-BQ-interpretation of "normalcy".

ciao ciao
fpp

A Carnaval Apart

Carnivals in Barranquilla came early this year, and the staff at FPPInternational left town super-early, but not before mugging for some TV time at The Lounge. Gio, bear-like proprietor of The Lounge, invited us to hang at the BQ nightlife hotspot Friday night, while a TV crew from Fox Sports filmed it for an episode on Colombian bars to air in Latin America in about a month.


I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.

As soon as that was over, the Staff got a little shut-eye (very little) and caught the 4:30 express collectivo for Tayrona. Of course, this is the Gilligan's Island-like national park a couple hours up the road from here, as mentioned in previous, thong-filled posts. Anyway, we organized a trip to the park with another local gringo and gal, slept in tents and got sunburned, thoroughly missing the Carnaval events of the only weekend of the year when people from the interior (Bogota, Medellin, Cali) and the exterior (USA, Europe, Argentina) actually come to Barranquilla.



Life can be sweet on the beach, but maybe too sweet, as the flies and ants would not leave us alone while our glucose levels rose and rose, and now, in order to augment our bitterness quotient, we have decided to return to normal lives with work, showers and all the daily battles that drive us on to the grave.
Happy Feburary. Kisses,
FPPInternational

Van Halen 1984, Track 3, for Xmas

Uh!
Oh yeah!
Ah-huh!

Jump back, what's that sound?
Here she comes, full blast and top down
Hot shoe, burnin' down the avenue
Model citizen, zero discipline

Don't ya know she's coming home with me
You'll lose her in that turn
I'll get her!




Just returned from a short holiday break in Panama. For Easter I am already planning a trip to Hot For Teacher, Uruguay or maybe Everybody Wants Some, Chile. No matter how you slice it, the Holidays came up Panama which means a mind-numbing number of hours spent at shopping malls and plenty of time in American restaurants (Wendy's, Popeye's, Hard Rock Cafe, Bennigans, Hooters and TGI Fridays, just to name a few).



Anywho, after five days and five Chicken Caesar Salads, La Flaca and I flew back into the wilds of Barranquilla yesterday and must now face the remaining Holidays without access to cheap shopping malls and greasy Gringo chow, which is why people get so depressed around this time, I think

ho ho ho
fpp

The Immaculate Slipstream Trailer

The Immaculate conception, which was actually the impregnation of St. Anne (the baby is the Virgin Mary) occured on Dec. 8, so on Dec. 7 Colombians stay out all night and get drunk and dance. When in Rome, go to the baths, gorge yourself and watch Spartacus.




So we went out last night, and succeeded in establishing our little group as THE bunch of assholes to avoid. Living in Barranquilla is like living anywhere else, only hotter, louder and without a creamy filling.



I Have one week of work left and then will be vacationing in Panama where I am planning on digging a big trench and convincing a couple oil tankers to pay me millions to use it, then escaping into the jungle with my ill-gotten gains as the tankers crash in the ridiculously shallow trench, spilling precious oil all over the wildlife. sweet sweet pollution.

monitoring problems and an all-around lack of good sounds

photo courtesy of cdveston

In order to remind ourselves and others in our vicinity that we are not talented, a group of gringoes got together and created the most recent incarnation of a country-disco band, this time called "Leslie, All Up In Your Grill." Although imortalized by the name of the band, Leslie declined to play bass in her clingy, wet, white wife-beater, opting instead to go to Medellin. I consider this a smart move. Anyway, we played some tunes poorly, and drank some cocktails heroicly, and another wednesday passed into history, much like the wednesday when John Wilkes Boothe got himself ejected from the Local 431 Barber's Union, and was subsequently forced to try his hand at acting and anarchy and shooting tall presidents in the noggin.

playa blanca on a three day weekend

There are lotsa three day weekends in october and november in colombia. these are all fine and dandy opportunities to do something less orderly. So la flaca and I made a trip to Rodadero last weekend and spent a couple days at the beach, which was hot and sweaty and not raining, which means a lot given how wet it has been lately.



In Rodadero, I got myself some new groovy sunglasses, some sunscreen and a blue towel. My life is advancing just as it is supposed to I think. Next step, 2.1 children, 1.8 cars, a dog, and a mortgage.

kisses
fpp

Taking Care of Business

THE KING RETURNS, SORT OF



Dateline, October, 27th, Cartagena, Colombia.

A bald, bad-tempered, well-dressed Elvis impersonator and entorage of fellow Barranquilleros arrived at at a post-ish grino event five days before Halloween and made complete asses of themselves.


A couple facts about this night. It was election weekend, which is Ley Seca, which means drinking is illegal across the country. The party wasn't a costume party (I didn't know this when we were leaving). Too much tequilla can make gringoes do stupid shit.



Halfway from Barranquilla and Cartagena, we stopped in pigtown and played guitar and drums for the locals, ate their empanadas and left after being filmed on a gaggle of cell phones.

Pigtown does not have a single working toilet with clean seat, but every fourteen year old girl with two arms has a better cell phone than me.

Anyway, that was the first adventure for the little Elvis get-up that I had made this summer-- thanks, mom-- which was quickly destroyed. The sleeves are still in Cartagena, along with a pair of underwear and an enormous amount of self-respect, somewhere in the old city, I think.



Elvis photo courtesy of Cdveston at flickr

Leslie's Birthday and lackluster weekend adventures

Still alive and kicking in BQ.

It's dried up a little in the last week, only raining every other day now.

And the gringoise have been entertaining themselves with trips to nice resturants where they make asses of themselves. Gabriel Garcia Marquez' favorite haunt "La Cueva" was this weekends first stop in celebrating Leslie's birthday. She found herself in the most uncomfortable position of being surrounded by overly celebratory unshaven gringo teachers. Poor poor girl.

Kisses to her and you.

Welcome to October,

Fpp

Juggle-mania in BQ

An interesting addition to our little BQ-world down here has been Peter Loftus, known professionally as PJuggle, a pretty-damn great juggler, which is probably a little weird to explain to the customs-guys at the airport. He's down here visiting some folks and has made appearances at my school (a couple steps up from Letterman, I think) and brought some glowing balls to the bar Saturday night.



CDavis and I agreed, watching this exhibition after a couple bottles of rum, that it was a damn good thing we were no longer of a University-age when more, shall we say, unpredictable substances are frequently imbibed, as this sensory overload might be enough to make one of us jump off of something high-up.

Amor y Amistad

Love and Friendship day is the colombian equivalent of st. valentines day in the US, without the focus on the massacre. I have always found it kind of interesting that in a country with fifty-some "st. fill-in-the-blank days" they do not celebrate Valentine's Day, but instead have a very artificial corporate-titled red-boxes-of-candy day of their own, which is what we people up there (north of mexico) do so well. I don't know who is imitating whom or what is being grafted onto what to make an apple tree that produces pears, but I do know that DIA DE AMOR Y AMISTAD has nothing to do with the Speilberg movie about that slave ship and is a great occassion to get out of the house and getcher funk on. So we did (one must always follow the steps that are painted out on the floor in order to learn how the dance is danced).



We (this is a long list, turgid with the elite of BQ) went to the new salsa bar Bambaleo and stayed until little birds were preparing to sing songs and chirp and chase worms and fly into large, clean windows. The night went off without a hitch and I was guiltly of not a single act of turpitude, which might be a record for me.

happy valentines day, love and friendship to all
fpp

sumo sumo more more

sweating profusely, i continue my assault on mid-september with yet another post, this one featuring a screwey sumo wrestler in kobe japan way the hell back in 2003. I really have very little to report. It is hot here and I am putting bunches of really idiotic things up on youtube



see you soon, besos
fpp

Making up for August

That's right, babies, two posts in one day.

I have little to say other than I have recently added some videos to Youtube. They are more or less stupid. the other videos that appear are not mine. at least I don't think they are mine.




this is me being athletic last spring or winter, i think, it is all relative here on the equator.
kisses,
fpp

Still Alive in BQ,

Is a bad blogger someone who writes badly about his or her absolutely mundane daily life, or someone who never writes at all...
You be the judge.







Crossed the river yesterday to eat fish: no one drowned. I have promised to liberate the monkeys in the cages.
Our Brothers will not be kept in bondage by the Military-Industrial Complex

I forgot Canada (I am sure I am not the first)

I forgot to mention that I spent a very wet couple days on two wheels (both motorized and pedalized) in Vancouver with some Henna Gaijin from my Kyoto-Fu days. And, except for having my thumb nearly torn off by Ben and getting absolutely drenched on the Kawi, I had a great time. Gavin and Lana put me up and Gav. showed me why people say Vancouver is prettier than Seattle (people are right, by the way; it's not even a contest). Anyway, the Canadians treated me nice, and I escaped with ten fingers and toes (they were taken from me at the border) and a fancy bright yellow motorbike rain suit, in which I look uber-sexy. It was a rocking good time, eh? So good I blocked it out of my memory.

Canuck kisses,
FPP

Sven's co-ed Drinking-Intense Baby Shower and Crown Hill Invention: Chili Fever

So much to discuss...

After a successfull and fairly far-reaching hillbillie adventure that took me to Grangeville, Cottonwood and Keuterville Idahos and Colville and Chewelah Washinton, I tripped back to the "west" for various adventures including a Mariner's Game and Weathe and Kristen's co-ed baby (Sven) shower, the focus of which was drinking games.



After that I hung about in the general Seattle area for a couple days, where I saw Crown Hill Invention at the Nectar bar, the scene of my first Seattle debauch earlier in June. Full-circle, I guess.



Anyway, I am back in BQ, where I belong, I guess. My apartment is filled with sunflowers, streamers and balloons courtesy of La Flaca. I am tired. My luggage is still in Miami, but I am not distressed, It's too damn hot for that.

Willie and the Reichlin boys

Okay. So I guess there is no other way to say it: for father’s day, I purchased tickets and took my dad and brother to see Willie Nelson at the Gorge Amphitheater on the 4^th of July. It was great. Willie, of course, came on last after Son Volt, The Old 97’s, Drive by Truckers.

Regardless how you shake it, it came up Willie. The event info said no “professional cameras” and no “digital cameras” so FPPInternational, ever the rule-following gaggle of cowardice, went to the event armed only with a small golf pencil, a piece of paper on loan from the beer-selling lady and a Kodak disposable camera (FPPInternational’s journalistic integrity and historic pursuance of greatness helped me to choose the zoom model disposable Kodak film camera) I entered the gates to the gorge and waited in the sun for a 74-year-old nasally singing Texan. Willie played for over two hours and at midnight declined to be interviewed, preferring to smoke some sagebrush.

My super cake

On my 22nd birthday, fifteen damned years ago, Melissa of Don and Melissa fame, made me a wonderful birthday cake. But damn did I have a hard time eating it, as I had just had my wisdom teeth pulled a scant three days before. So, through teary eyes and yelps of pain, I told Melissa I appreciated that she had made me a cake, but couldn't eat my piece. She got really really pissed off. Actually, she understood and has made me a birthday cake whenever I am nearby when late June rolls around. This year she went crazy and made me a beach-themed birthday cake with gummy sharks eating bikini-clad teddy grahams. Thank you, Melissa. All my snack-food fantasies have come to fruition.

Lake Chelan Hike, Nature’s Revenge.

Bees, Barbeques and Bowels Teach the Boys Who’s Boss

The annual boys against nature hike-o-rama was an exercise in humility, with six bee-stings, one scorched leg and at least one emergency forest-poo contributing to an otherwise successful and eventful weekend in eastern Washington. Next year, I predict Weathe and Strando will have the dramatic adventures, but this year it was pure FPP and Chili.

BEE Trouble

This one I really do not understand. I took my bike out this morning for a short ride up the hill past crown point. It is all uphill. On the way back, a nice leisurely downhill run in the highest gear, I got hit in the face, specifically in the right side of my upper lip, with a bee, who, being malicious, decided with dying breath, to sting me. Damn. My upper right lip is now puffy and funny looking, to match the rest of face, I suppose. Fine. Semi-normal summer occurance. I do not die or even get sick from beestings. But goddamnit, I got bit in exactly the same spot on Friday, the first day of the Chelan hike. A bee, unbeknownst to me, flew into my handful of gorp and stung my damned lip as I tossed it in my mouth.

Later, also on that Friday, I was looking for firewood for our first camp (wood that would later contribute to a scorched chili-leg) I got into a bee’s nest and was stung on my hands, feet and, you guessed it, right side of my lip. However, this time it was the lower lip. But regardless, this bee-lip connection is becoming a real pain in the ass, or lip, actually.

Puffily yours,

FPP