Cumbia Circle of Death and Maizena

First of all, as covered earlier, by the crack team of reporters at FPPINTERNATIONAL.COM, maizena is corn starch, and for some reason it is to be rubbed into the faces of everyone present at carnaval. If one is lucky, when the water, beer or spuma is sprayed/poured into his/her face, it will clean some of the stuff out of his/her eyes.

Anyway, with a half dozen Carnaval options open to us for friday, we chose the Cumbia circle of death. Basically, it is the dancing in a circle around a drum band, while all sorts of stuff is sprayed and rubbed into one's face; you know, like thanksgiving at Grandma's.


Also, a case of Venezuelan rum came into our possession, just as carnaval weekend was to kick off. Karma? Fate? Hugo Chavez looking out for his North American friends? Who cares; the stuff is smooth and delicious, distilled from Hugo's belly sweat under them green fatigues, I have been told. Some people took the possession of this stuff to heart, adopting the bottles, naming them, caressing them, copulating. Keep your fingers and small children back at least two meters. (uhhh, six and a half feet)

Friday, Carnaval at school

IT'S HERE!

On thursday, at my job at the big, local bilingual school, the kids didn't so much refuse to work after lunch, but they worked on their program for the next day's Carnaval celebration at school. 3 o'clock rolled around and they informed me, "It's finally Carnaval!"

See you next wednesday, I guess.



We had school Friday, but it involved the kids taking a philosophy exam, the pre-school parade and then the high-school carnaval celebration, ending at 11:30. A tough day for everyone involved, friday. That, I guess, is a glimpse into my job.

Guacherna (pronounced: Goo-Ah-Chair-Nah)

The Guacherna is the parade a week before the big bad Full-Thottle Carnaval celebration. It is maybe the funnest one to participate in ("dance" is the term folks here use). Reasons for its coolness: It's at night. It's shorter than the others. It's a little chaotic.

One of the things that determines how enjoyable your Guacherna experiece will be is your choice of Comparsa, or the group you are in. Most costumes are very traditional. The group I was in, however, was the Disfrasate Como Quieres or literally, the "Wear whatever costume you want" comparsa, with this year's overall theme of Mythology. Do whatever you want, as long as Mythology is involved. Some of the getups I honestly did not understand, but to hell with it, I was never one to question my own lack of understanding. So a pack of five gringos found our place on 44th Ave, at 72nd, opened up the bottles of rum, and waited to dance to the Cathedral a couple hours away.

One thing most people don't consider when planning a night of drinking rum and dancing down a street for two hours in a black superhero star suit is the bathroom break reality, which suffice to say, ain't pretty. But no one was injured and no animals were harmed in the filming, so I consider it a raging success. Plus I have a cool new black suit with silver stars tearing off it to wear to job interviews and funerals.

Exciting Times

During the final push to Glory, much is missed. Downtime. Preparing for the Guacherna, what have you. The Guacherna is the next Carnaval parade, and the only one I am participating in. In anticipation of this, I designed and put together my own suit. So here I am a week ago, sewing up a storm. Yeah. Anyway, I was terrible at it, and remember almost nothing from Mrs. Childers Home-Ec classes and ultimately my friend Erica called her aunt, who sewed my suit for me.

Plus bowling with La Flaca.
Although I proved to be a terrible seamstress, I did roll ok, even though it has been six months since I have shook my shit on the lanes. As you can tell, my fashion sense is still as crisp as ever, which is more of a gift to the people, something to help them through their time of need.

Coronation weekend

Marichy is officially the queen of Barranquilla.

Friday night the Carnival Queen was coronated with much pomp and a dash of circumstance. Entering the event with a press pass under the auspices of Barranquilla Council of Guys Who Do Not Question Gringo Activities, four of us were able to get right up to the front with our pair of five hundred dollar camcorders to "report on the activities" for the free world. FppInternational Corp. has gracefully agreed to cover all expenses except beer, transportation and lost/damaged cameras.

So we got into the coronation, watched the dancers, took lotsa video, but scant pics, and found a reason to hope for the future under a new queen and the prospect of a long, fruitful reign.

The night was full of pagentry and feathers and dancing, and girls wearing little feathery little costumes and bodypaint and sparklies.

Three-quarters of our crack international journalistic team voted the night "a raging success for demonstrating the viability and necessity of the fourth estate." I was unable to cast my dissent, however, as I was in the porta-john.

Not really too much to say beyond that.

Domo Arrigato, Mr. Garabato

I don't exactly understand the Garabato. It's a parade of BQ's rich people, nearly all drunk, dancing through the streets in traditional costumes. It's also the first of the Carnaval parades, and the first of many many days of being sprayed with foam, water and corn flower. Streets are shut down, rum is consumed, insanity prevails and we are exposed to the weirdness of BQ Carnaval that will, over the next four weeks, dominate nearly every aspect of life here. This is the smallest, least organized and least-official of the Carnaval events, and I wish it were the messiest, but the throngs who line the parade route and become positively unhinged are only warming up for the weekends to come. I will keep you informed, as things progress.

Suffice to say that my Garabato experience was typical and i have a few items waiting to be laundered. Suffice to say also, that I am glad I have a waterproof case for my camera.

The gringoes participated whole-heartedly this year, as evidenced by the photos of yours truly and fellow gringo "the original man" Adam.

I promise to follow through on my journalistic duty, but for the time being, you'll have to excuse me, as I have crap to clean.

BQ's Carnaval

Carnaval season has officially kicked off in BQ.
http://www.carnavaldebarranquilla.org/2005/home.php

Ok, you say, this is good for a small post. Not so fast sparky. BQ's Carnaval has officially begun. This is the time of year that the fourth largest city in Colombia distinguishes itself from its much more celebrated and sophisticated brethern. In February Bogota is not boss. Medellin is not the Most, Cali doesn't cook and Cartagena ain't king. It is really the time when goofy, lazy, homely Barranquilla shines. Barranquilla boasts the second-largest Carnaval in South America (next to a little place called Rio in Brazil) and it is nuts here.
And, with Rio so damned far away, and New Orleans still suffering from the effects of the hurricanes, Your natural choice for a Fat-Tuesday celebration is a little town two and a half hours south of Florida. So contact the airlines (Avianca has direct flights from Miami) and get your ass down here, it's really the only time that there is much of a tourist presence in BQ. And it is the only time you'll probably get into competition of rubbing corn-flour into the faces and clothes of everyone around you. Personally, I never figured that one out. But no one really asks complex questions like "why" here in Feb.. More to come.

An interesting sidenote to this years Carnaval is that the Reina Carnaval (Queen of the Carnival, a serious title for a young woman from BQ) just happens to be a former student of a bald, but remarkably handsome middle aged dude from Washington State who's typing this here sentence right now. So, if you need an in to the Carnaval don't hesitate to ask, after meeting with Uribe (Colombian president, gringoes) Marichi has me pencilled in for a 4:05-4:05:30 meeting, and I will be sure to mention your name.

Chiva Me Timbers

Blair and Julia (Co-habitating gringos who embrace all that is BQ) both have late-January birthdays, so they've decided to celebrate them together, and what better way to say, "I was born twenty-blah years ago," than to pile a bunch of people into an old bus with open windows, a small percussion and fife band, give everyone a bottle of rum and drive around to various bars until the wee hours of the morning, ending up at a beachfront place called Kilimanjaro where exhaustion will ultimately overtake nearly everyone. Happy Birthday.

This is the Chiva, one of the many weird, rather diverting options on a friday night. Chaos reigns on the chiva, and the later it gets the more unabashed the dancing on the bus becomes, as the people lose their inhibitions about a dancefloor that has a five and a half foot ceiling and is hurdling along through the streets of BQ at anywhere from 30 to 60 miles an hour. There are usually enough people to keep you falling flat on your face should the driver decide to say, take a quick left or brake.

So buckle up, hold on tight, drink the rest of that bottle of rum and feel free to barf out the window when your time comes. And trust your driver, he's been trained at a special school up in the mountains, at the Chiva-Academy. Applications are available at all the finer hotels.

Finding My Ancient Inner Tears For Fears

Like Neil Young, The Who, Foo Fighters, and Clarence Carter, I recently played a small, 80's themed South American Bar in a shopping center. Along with fellow old fart Chris Davis (congas), I had the unique experience of helping a young Colombian rock band (Alo Kunfu) drive a heavily-liquored-up audience of Gringos and Barranquieros into a Rock'n'Roll Frenzy of epic proportions. Uhhhhhh. Ok. Exactly.

So anyway, as things often happen in our happy BQ world, Chris (more force of nature than third grade teacher) got me involved in something I would not have forseen nor imagined say, Monday. This, being Friday, is about par for his abilities. Tuesday evening he called, asking if I'd like to play guitar and maybe sing with a BQ band. I said 'sure'. Thursday evening we were at the local rock station promoting the gig live on the air. Thursday night we took the stage. The crowd was drunken and responsive. Flashback (the small 80's bar) was packed. The fog-machine was annoying.

I am proud to say I caught the pair of panties thrown at me. I don't feel inclined to mention exactly who threw the panties, but, everyone needs a groupie, even if mine happens to be a 6'2" Canadian man named Thierry. Either way, I feel good about the catch. My shame, however comes in breaking my long-standing three-year tradition of always inserting a Johnny Cash song whenever I play an open mic or any such sort of program. I was too intimidated by Robert Smith's reputation as an asskicker to question whether or not two songs by The Cure was a good idea. Getting the crap kicked out of me by a skinny mopey guy with spikey hair and tons of eye makeup would be too much to try and explain.

West Meets East Meets South Meets Eats

I know what you have been collectively thinking: Where in the hell can I get me some reasonably priced Indian chow in Bogota, dammit? With funky lights and a loungey seating area that used to be a garage and little multicolored cloth elephants hanging from the ceiling?

I am glad you came to me first, cause the answer is obvious:

Calcutta. Address: Cl.75 #8-12. Phones, 2495892,

The food is good, Colombian-friendly (Not very spicy), and reasonably priced (La Flaca and I ate their and it came to a about 75,000 pesos with tip (that's thirty-five bucks)).

It was a great break from the usual fare one gets in Colombia, especially in my pueblito of a city, and the ambiance of Calcutta is charming and very relaxed. The restaurant is basically a converted giant old house with fireplaces, intimate little rooms with tables and Indian decor. So, on your next trip to Bogota, dig in, and dig the lamps, every room has it's own funky multicolored ceiling lamp, which must be the "Indian" thing to have in one's house.

People there were nice and I am sure no one spat in our food.
I tried to take artsy-fartsy pictures of the elephants hanging from the ceiling, spinning them for effect, but that just looked all squiggly and confusing.

All That Crumbles Is Not Cheese

Havana is falling into the sea. Make no mistake about it.

The recent wave of hurricanes and the prolific lack of paint in Habana have resulted in the current situation plaguing the people of Cuba. Shit's afalling down.


Jacques informed me that the two commodities most needed in the country are bras and paint. The former caused him to applaud the embargos and the whole communist system and the cuban people's love of struggle and unity against the western capitalist dogs. The latter just inspired a big question mark over his head, as he walked the streets of La Habana, cartoonlike.

"Why ain't there no new paint on nuthin'?" he asked.

"Why is it so easy to see nipples through thin tropical shirts?"

The answer was simple: NO SHERWIN-WILLIAMS and NO PLAYTEX or VICTORIA'S SECRET.

Gray concrete revealed strip-like from the peeling paint and pokey booby-tips everywhere.

Jacques informed me he only got pics of the decrepit buildings, we will have to trust him about the bras, but I personally think he is full of crap.

Doing Fine

Red Text today to highlight the commies and their propaganda.

A good friend, and all around fine human being, who shall remain nameless, even though he's Canadian, went to Cuba and took some pics of the fine state of affairs in that fine state, as it crumbles, slowly, into the sea. As I have little information on this caribbean island I will just give what I can remember from Jacques' stories, however, I will maintain that the Cubans are all evil, and that their country is a dirty, disgusting cesspool, lest Dick Cheney and his little pal George W. find it in their hearts to throw me in jail for treason.

Anyway, there are far too many tourists in Cuba, poverty is like a red badge of courage, and the young people seem to basically be waiting for the impending wave of western-style big business fun to innundate the island with casinos, hotels, topless dancing shows, and greenbacks. Nobody works too hard, except the hookers, and the guys who come up with the government posters with slogans like, "We're doing fine!"