Thelonious Monkentina

I went to a jazz club and drank a white russian with a jazz drummer I met. Thelonious Club, a jazz club in Palermo, is in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Bs As. One of my new housemates is a german girl named Isabella, she also went. 

The band playing was from Bolivia, It was like Brazil 66' type music mixed with modern jazz. I drank another white russian, and took a bus home.

Their are about 50 Bus companies in Bs As. To attract your

 business, many are equiped with neon lights and shiney paint jobs and look like a disco inside. Others look old. But it doesn't really

 matter what they look like, because they all go to different places, and your going to take whatever one is going your way. I should have taken a picture. 

We took one that took us out of our way, the right street, but the wrong neighborhood. Furthermore we walked the wrong way at first. haha. For about 10 minutes. So we realized and walked back again through the spots with lots of prostitutes and possible drug deals. 

I'm going back to the club on Thursday to watch the drummer play with his band and take pictures so I can pitch the group as a topic for my documentary class.

I have a cell phone now, a friend gave it to me when she left the country, it only has a solar-powered charger. 

I bought a watch and I wandered into a leasing office on Peru st that I had emailed earlier in the day. They told me they had a room with a host family for me to look at. 

I live in that room now. It's pink and has a wonderful balcony. 

My "mom" is an

 theater performer named Anna and one of my housemates is

 a yoga instructor from New Mexico.

Before moving in I had my last night at the hostil, drank with my Pakistani friend, Nasser, and woke up at 10 the next morning to

 move. Nasser just got back from Antartica. 

At some point I went to Codigo Pais, a music-fashion-dj-art annual thing. I was supposed to meet up with friends there, but I spent the night alone. 

I celebrated Claudia's birthday in my roo

m on Gmail chat with her. I counted down to midnight, drank beers and blew out my lighter as a candle. It was fun.

I made an ashtray out of the bottom of a water bottle ten minutes ago, it just fell off the balcony.

School is fine. The rooms, those without windows, are boring. Just white walls and chalkboards. My literature class is all girls studying to become English teachers. I'm also taking a documentary class and a Spanish class. 

I went to my first birthday party, a girl named Julia from New York. There was a band and tango dancing at 5 am. 

I can't really remember much else, I've been to the park a few times. Went to my first club with my pal Flavio, it was just like a club in the states, lights and loud music. The music was a little better I guess, but you couldn't talk over it. 

I love my barrio, San Telmo, It's like funky and shit. 

I am having a great time. 

San Presbo

Church was nice. A Presbyterian church founded in the 1800's by English railroad workers. I realized keeping attention to a sermon in Spanish was just as hard as it is in English.

Afterwards I went down to my future neighborhood San Telmo, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Bs. As., to check out their Sunday open market. 

In the streets I bought a thin scarf, and on a rooftop I smoked a spilf while drinking my first matte.

Then I saw this cute baby.

School started on Monday. I woke up at six and went that day. And tuesday as well. And today, Wednesday as well. And now I'm sick with a cold and it's raining. But tomorrow I actually meet a host family.

Circle Jerks man in park nacho

So I came into my room in the afternoon and a roommate I don't know too well said, "don't fucking trust anyone around here that's for sure." Turns out he hung out with this guy sightseeing for four hours, got lunch with him, had a glass of wine and he last thing he rembers is waking up in the park. He was ruffied and robbed. apparently the guy who robbed seemed like a "chill dude." He must have been passed out in the park for like 5 hours cause it was around 7 when he returned.

Later that night I got in a cab to the way north side of town, almost 

in the suburbs, to see the circle jerks featuring the founding member of black flag, keith morris. 

I had toured with them in the past so I went in the hopes of getting into the show for free and hanging out with those guys. I explained to the door guys that I was friends of the band and I asked them to give a note to the band. They said they would. I passed an hour scoping out Argentine punk kids getting drunk on the side streets and saw Keith in the passenger side of a tour van. 

He pointed at me and said 'what the fuck' or something. As kids lined up near the stage door keith grabbed me and was like, "he's with me man" in his nasally 80's surf punk vioce. So I ate dinner for free and drank beer for free while watching the show from the side of the stage. There were about a 1000 kids there.

The band recently got free tattoes in Chile. Xander, the bass player of Weirdos' fame, got a tattoo of his own face on his shoulder. After showing me he dropped his arms and said, "man, that's so cool that your like going to school here, studying and shit, you've got your whole life ahead of you, and i've been doing this for 25 years and have nothing to show for it." I told him we were both in Buenos Aires just for different reasons.

They were all getting older of course. Keith had a little less hair on top. The drummer was going grey. Xander gained like 20 something pounds. Greg, the guitarist for black flag, looked exactly the same actually, 

but he's got a shaved head.

I decided to move into the crowd for a bit and be among the locals at my first concert in buenos aires. I watched a few songs and went out for a cigerette. This guy about my age noticed by backstage wristband and asked me if I could get him in somehow. I told him the wristband came "de mi suerte." and that it wasn't possible. We talked for a bit, introduced ourselves. His name is Ignacio but everyone calls him nacho. When I told him my name was Nicholas he called his friend over who is named Nicolas. We all had a beer across the street and they asked me to come play with their band at practice on tuesday night. 

Finally some musicians. They play garage/psysodellic music. I knew the microkorg would come in handy.

Still no host family. :(. I'm at the hostel for another week. Tommorow morning i'm going to a presbyterian church. DOMINGO!

What happened after Uruguay. Well, I woke up and met this guy, this guy Matt Hill, a crew member on some boat who was on paid vacation. We went to Recoleta on a cloudy-sprinkle-rain-kinda day. Perfect weather for a visit to a famous cemetary. The whole place was kind of egyptian in a sense. Like a place to live your afterlife. It was all laid out in streets and the crypts looked like store fronts. There were lots of cats around. Then we took a stroll through a ritzy mall, we passed a place called the Tucson steak house.  

We parted ways cuz I made plans at the university to meet Flavio.

Friday I awoke to loud drums in the streets. It was a 

subway workers protest. This would be one of four protests I would see that day. I think many marches had been postponed because of the rain and they all took advantage of the first sunny day at once. I asked the guy at the front desk what exactly they were protesting about and he said, " hunh i don't know, there are so many i loose track"

I told Matt Hill I'd take him down to this cool bar I'd been too, an irish bar about 60% argentine and the rest irish english and american and other. Then it turned into a group of 10 following me to a place that I could hardly remember how to get to and the pressure was on to actually get there. If it were just two people it wouldn't have been so bad. So I walked confidently using the iron in my nose to get us there. To my relief it worked out. The smoking room in the back is just benches that face and encircle a pool table in the center. A short well dressed quantessentially argentinian man was kicking ass. He was way too old to be there, but he gave the room it's Buenos Aires charecter. 

I said goodbye to Matt and went to a Feria Americana, which is like a thrift store. I loved this place. It was heaven. I could have the coolest looking apartment here just getting everything from this place. amazing shit.

I bought some clip on sunglasses from these old men. One of them seemed really talkative towards me. Nordberg was his name. A painter that studied in Paris and Florence in his youth. When I put the sunglasses on he said I looked like James Dean. I couldn't understand him at first . It sounded like.. "jasdmnasdkjfn". well not like that bad but, "yams gean" or something.

oh shit. This guy just walked up to me on the roof. cheech and chonging. Anyways. uh , I can't write right now. ok that guy just left.

so like i was saying, Norberg talked to me a lot. and afterwards walking down the street when i left. i started translating some of the stuff he said in my head. things i remembered that i could'nt translate fast enough at the time and stored for later. I had no idea at the time, but this dude was tottally gay. seriously. he was hitting on me. i just didn't realize till later. He wanted my phone number and address and told me anything i need i could use his internet. luckily i don't have a phone number or an address.

Earlier in the night I went to a Circle Jerks show and hung out backstage all night. 

 

Montemoneyvideo

I decided to take a little trip to Uruguay's capital Montevideo before school starts. it was a good and bad and sad decision. 

A three hour Boat 

ride on Friday started off the trip well 

enough, I tag

ged along with some 

peers from school. When we, a group of 9, got there, we were shuffled around from hostel to hostel until we found one that could accomodate all of us.

I really liked montevideo when I arrived. The people seemed nice, down-to-earth, and more relaxed than in Buenos Aires. The architecture was awes

ome, like spanish colonial 80's buildings or something. Plazas were everywhere. We were staying near the plaza Independencia, which I was glad to have remembered later in the night.

After eating (I ate something a kin to the royal red robin burger that I 

love so much, but even better) and drinking a lot at dinner we hit the main calle for bars and nightlife, a stone pedestrian street packed with people. I danced and stuff, was having a great time, and some of the girls in our pack wanted to go back to the hostel so I walked them back.

After dropping the girls off and witnessing what was the second street fight I saw that night on my way back to the avenue, I ran into my friend Brad, who was talking to some locals, I started hanging out and speaking in spanish with the guys-who were nice enough-and followed them to another bar.

I bought everyone a lot of drinks and two cab rides. The clubs were dark and the effects of 5 hours of drinking were really catching up with me. The conversations became more slurred and pointless and I wanted to leave. 

But instead I got in another cab, paid for it, got out, and started another conversation with a local guy. Leaning on a car and noticing my Spanish was flowing quite well,  I suddenly felt my wallet slide from my pocket while in mid-sentence. I was quick to turn and found myself running full speed after this 15- year-old kid. I kept about 6 feet behind him for about three blocks. I remember his face looking back at me, he looked scared and I think he thought I wasn't going to give up until I pounded his fucking face in, which believe me I did want to. 

At the third block he threw my wallet in the air, pieces of paper and cards fell to the ground. I stopped, heaving, picking up the pieces, thank god my I found my Visa card on the ground. But all the money had been taken out before the wallet was discharged. I sat drunkenly cussing putting my stuff back together and a policia walked up to me. I told him I had been robbed and pointed in the direction of the kid who was long gone. The officer strolled down the street to where I directed him. I didn't wait for him to return. In all I probably lost about $300 USDollars.

This wasted 24-year-old pack a day smoker was no match for a 15-year-old scared kid. I remember when I was his age I could run like an asshole. 

Returing to the club I told the locals I was hanging out with that I was muy triste. They offered to smoke me out. Of course that was the last thing I wanted to do. So one guy told me he loved the United States and gave me some money for a cab. I told the driver to take me to Plaza Independencia. 

The next day I walked around so hung over, with a huge headache I was stupefied over what had happened, dragging myself along with the group. We went to the beach and I got a nice tan and napped a bit.

I watched some capoiera dancers and ate this huge sandwich. Later on when we went out again it didn't sit well and I returned to the hostel, which was a good decision.

I sat in the outside patio playing a nylon-guitar I found resting behind the coach. It felt nice to play music for the first time since I left the states. A drunk-young-foriegn couple wandered in and slow danced to the music I played. I could hear them kissing behind me. This was way better than going out, and I decided I don't like the traveler's-night-life at that point.

I left the next morning at 10am and returned to a raining Buenos Aires.

I just ran down to the ATM because my visa card is getting cancelled. Someone hacked into their system. Anyway, they're sending me a new card in the states in about 7 to 10 business days and then it'll take another few days to get here. I took out 700 pesos, about $200 US, the most i could, and hopefully that'll last me two weeks. 

I met up with my pal 

Flavio in a nice neighborhood named ricoleta earlier 

tonight right next to where evita is buried. We walked through the park 

next to the closed cemetary where she's buried and talked about the political climate in BA. protests are constant and well distributed in the city. we passed a huge portrait of Che when we walked to the middle the bridge that goes to the University of Buenos Aires to get a birds-eye view of the city. He thinks protesters put all their energy in martyrs more than substance or ideas.

At dinner he told 

me 

that Ian Malcolm from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park changed his life, and he's studying economic theory because of him. I talked about Hemingway's influence on my life quite sheepishly. but he was so passionate about Ian. I thought it was cool. He just had

 an interview to assist the economic advisor at CNN today and I'm meeting up with him on sat. its been a good day.