Olé ELO


Just heard this local cover band do a set of Electric Light Orchestra tunes live on the radio, in support of a show they're doing tomorrow night - myspace link. Here's a faint recording I made. They're joined by the Tosca String Quartet. How could I miss seeing that ?

  posted by John : 9:06 AM

 
Underdog
Underdog Cartoon Tricky Trap By Tap-Tap (1967)


Svend sent this mp3 of Wally Cox yodelling for my birthday. I remember Cox as a regular on Hollywood Squares, but he was also the voice of Underdog. I loved this cartoon show as a kid. Oddly, according to Wikipedia, Cox's ashes were scattered over Death Valley together with those of Marlon Brando. A live-action Underdog movie is due in 2007.

  posted by John : 5:59 AM

 
Current events in Caracas


While riding in a taxi to the airport on Sunday we were handed some Chavez flyers by a guy on the street, including this sample ballot. Oddly, both of the major candidates are listed numerous times, under icons for different campaigns.

Yesterday NPR aired a few Venezuela-related stories:

Venezuela's Chavez Under Pre-Election Scrutiny
Venezuela's Chavez Rolling Toward Election Victory
Venezuela Enjoys, and Suffers from, Cheap Gas

  posted by John : 2:15 PM

 
More Margarita
I've added a few pictures to our Isla Margarita slideshow / photo album. Its very strange, but now two day's later and back at home I can still feel myself being bobbed by those waves.

Slideshow Album

Our last day on the island, we decided to go on the snorkel tour again, and it was wonderful - or "chévere" as they say in Venezuela. The lunch spot on Los Frailes was much better, without the million flies we had on the first trip, and as a follow up to lunch they served grilled oysters that had been caught only minutes before. We made friends with a group of students, teachers and parents from a high school in Pamplona, Colombia on the tour, along with two Dortmund gals and a couple from Stockholm (pics). On the ride back they all sang Happy Birthday for me, in four languages (Sharon leading the English chorus, of course). Very special.

  posted by John : 7:14 AM

 
Isla Margarita

Slideshow Album

Click this for a few pictures of our vacation in Venezuela, presented as a Picasa slideshow.

Sitting beachside at Playa El Agua on Isla Margarita, the largest Venezuelan island in the Carribean. An east-facing beach, with a view of the Los Frailes archipelago in the distance. The beach is a couple of miles long and is filled with beach chairs and umbrellas which are included in your hotel stay, or can be rented for about $7 a day for two chairs. Every thirty seconds somebody walks by showing you what they have for sale - trinkets, clothing and services like a beach massage, manicure or suncreen application. I'm sitting inside at the bar in our chosen hangout, Woody's, using their wi-fi connection to geek out between bouts of relaxation.

  posted by John : 6:39 AM

 
Caracas Weekend

Slideshow Album

Click photo for a short slideshow of pictures from the weekend Sharon and I spent together in Caracas.

  posted by John : 1:32 AM

 
Sopa del dia
Every place has something that we see as its quintessential attribute. Different for each of us perhaps, whether you think of Germany as beer steins and frauleins, or Nietzchesque techno-Dieters. For most, Venezuela is the land of beautiful women, with a Miss Venezuela winning more world titles than any other nation. And just like elsewhere, young girls (and boys too) strive to be just like the fashion-plates. We've noticed that the current fashion trend is tight-assed pants. For better or worse, this is the dominant choice in attire for all ages, shapes and sizes of Caraqueño women.

But for me, the outstanding quality here is that it is a land of wonderful soups. Many restaurants are an offshoot of a Spanish tasca. They usually have six different soups on the menu, plus a soup of the day. Last night we had an incredible beef goulash at a German restaurant, and earlier in the day we tried the garlic and onion soups (Sharon says the garlic is her current favorite). There's always a couple of interesting "cremas", like cream of yam and a lovely cream of spinach. And if the soup is named chicken consomme - expect the unexpected - it will be a hearty homestyle bowl full of meat and vegetables. Second runner up in the gastronomy category is their bread. Also very German-like, the breads are dense, fluffy, fresh, and flavourful. Third place goes to the beer - the local Solera brand, especially its Verde variant, which is served near the freezing point and comes in a smaller 10oz bottle so it stays cold to the finish.

Maybe on a future trip here we'll sample all three of these in the odd Germanic town of Colonia Tovar. But I don't feel that much like battling weekend traffic, so we're staying in the city.

  posted by John : 5:05 AM

 
Weekend 2 in Caracas
This week our gringo-group of coworkers grew from four guys to six. And of course we became proportionately more college like. At home I don't drink much. But since coming here, four beers on a patio just waiting for the traffic to clear is the new norm. Sharon arrived last night to join me here for a week - she's sleeping off her two hour jet lag right now. Being together will surely help me get back into a healthier routine. This week was more about logistics for us than the first -- we had so much trouble getting back to the hotel at night. On Wednesday there just wasn't any cabs and the traffic was at a standstill. The solution is to go straight to dinner and wait it out. Or if you were crazy enough, ride on the back of a scooter weaving through the crawling traffic. We knew there would be a tradeoff in moving from the metro line.

I really have the chance of a lifetime here to become more fluent in Spanish. I'm working closely with two people who are eager to practice their English, but I converse a great deal with them in Castellano too. Will really have to apply myself. I'd love to get some lessons a couple of times a week if I can find a teacher.

Last night's excitement for Sharon's arrival consisted of changing hotel rooms yet again. Took me five days of persistence to get a room with an internet connection, but the new room had cigarette smoke seeping in from all directions and was choking us after being in there for a minutes. Better now.

  posted by John : 5:38 AM

 
Translation
We've moved our horizon out to the near suburbs of Caracas. Where chic restaurants and shops defy the encroaching decay of the inner city. To show the change in view out my hotel window, here's a shot from Sabana Grande:

 

... and where we've moved, to the somewhat updated 1950s oasis of the Hotel Tamanaco:



I woke in the middle of the night to the TV I'd left on, playing a late-night Ab-Master ad in spanish, feeling a bit like Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation. When I first saw that movie it was a dreary experience, much like being stuck in a hotel yourself. But watching it a second time, on a flight back from Tokyo, I really appreciated how well it captured the weariness of that experience. This hotel is nice, but too isolated and not on the metro line that liberates us from taxis and the traffic.

When our plans to visit the archipelago of Los Roques this past weekend fell through (there were no seats on any return flights Sunday or Monday), I threw together a quick plan for the four of us by calling an 'eco' travel operator and asking what else there was to do in this country. I'm finding out there's a whole lot to do, but only a few good options within reach of Caracas by car. So we hired a driver to pick us up at dawn and drove us 3hrs to Parque Nacional Henry Pettier and the coast. From there we got a boat to take us a short hop over to a lagoon populated with fishing shacks, that have been converted into basic, yet all-inclusive, posadas. There we met Humbert, a bodyguard and the national kick-boxing champion of Venezuela, who was staying with his boss. That night he brought his quatro (four string guitar) and his awesome talent over for our rum party. The next day Stu and I paddled across the lagoon for some great snorkelling right off the beach.















For the sake of my pink skin this was a good place to hang out versus the treeless Los Roques with its relentless sun and reflective white coral sand all around. Saving that for another trip.

  posted by John : 12:10 AM

 
Caracas Day 4
Every day I feel more oriented and slightly more comfortable here. We've progressed from taking a taxis to and from work, to riding the metro, saving us at least an hour on the trip back to the hotel in the evening, since we're staying right on the subway line. Here's a picture found on the web of the walking street outside my window:



But it doesn't really look like this where we are - its actually a crush of flea-market type stalls made of tarps lining the streets, not pretty umbrellas. Maybe that's somewhere else as its a long street, and I've yet to explore it.

I suppose part of learning your way around a big city is going to the wrong places first. Description of where we're staying and the bar I just came back from tonight, from Wikitravel:

Most hotels are in Sabana Grande. Do not stay in hotels west of the historic city center. While Sabana Grande has affordable hotel rates, you need to take great care at night. Sabana Grande is not as safe as it used to be, especially the Boulevard. Neighborhoods further east such as Altamira and Las Mercedes offer much safer accomodations but at increased cost.

Whiskey Bar. Located in Commercial Center San Ignacio. Very similar layout to a typical East Coast lounge in the United States. Popular hang-out for professionals. The coldness you experience here from people are not representative of the Venezuelan people.

One of my co-workers was robbed earlier tonight -- by the police. It may have been a routine streetside shakedown - he was walking back to the hotel in the aforementioned Sabana Grande district, around 10pm. I wasn't with him, but we met up in the lobby a few mintues afterward. The cops took him into a little wooden booth on the street supposedly because he wasn't carrying his passport and demanded money. He gave them 80,000 Bolivares (US$40) which got him out of there. So he found out one of the ways they mean by don't walk around here at night. We have to learn our lessons.

  posted by John : 6:21 PM

 
Caracas Day 2
Tonight's TV selection featured Hugo Chavez speaking to a small audience dressed in red t-shirts and baseball hats. I couldn't really understand the speech, but he referred to the "revolucion" many times, and like any president got applause after every other sentence. He's up for re-election in a few weeks, and the city is decked out in political advertisements - the biggest ones by far declaring "Vota por Chavez". His popularity may be quite superficial. I sat next to a young woman on my flight here that told me about the blacklist she has found herself on after being involved in some sort of strike or opposition at her job for the state run oil company. She's since had to find employment with foreign-run firms, in her case Schlumberger.



  posted by John : 6:27 PM

 
Caracas
Arrived here in Venezuela last night for what will be a three week stay. Haven't had any real time to explore yet, busy working today. Its all a bit overwhelming. Traffic is horrible, so if you don't leave work early, or go to a bar for a few hours before heading back to the hotel you end up sitting still in four lanes of cars gushing fumes with the windows rolled down on a hot afternoon. After just such a drive, we did the right thing and stopped at a bar for beer and arepas - tasty local cuisine. Mine was avocado and chicken, which looked something like this.



  posted by John : 6:36 PM

 
They All Laughed
I was thinking of writing an IMDB review for this film, but I don't feel like my thoughts are very clear on it. My strongest impression of it are all intersections in time, fiction and reality that take place here. The movie feels like a mix of Urban Cowboy, Annie Hall, Roller Boogie, and even The Last Picture Show (Manhattan is made to feel like a small town for the way the characters all keep bumping in to each other). Bogdanovich, writer and director, must have been too distracted by his off-screen romance with Dorothy Stratten to do much toward making the story interesting. Or the thin plot is by design, as an homage to screwball comedies of the 1940s. Surely partly autobiographical, with John Ritter acting like a fumbling Jack Tripper, but wearing Bogdanovich-huge glasses, trying to win Stratten's character away from her angry husband. Its fun to watch, if only as a capsule of many intersecting real-life events (Gazarra had had a brief affair with Hepburn too). Reading the credits I saw that Austin resident and famed piano player Earle Poole Ball was in the country band in the film and did the musical arrangements as well. Dang, just realized that I forgot to watch the commentaries and already shipped it back. Will have to check it out again, another time.

  posted by John : 10:10 PM

 
Pavarotti of the Plains passes
Seeing Don Walser perform live was like glimpsing into country music's past. He was always in great spirits and his voice ready for a performance worthy of the Grand Old Opry. And his wife Pat was there at every single show, selling CDs and bumper stickers at a card table by the stage. Don said he practiced singing while driving tractor on the farm, singing as loud as he wanted over the noise of the engine. He passed away on Sept 20th, after being sidelined from the stage for a few years due to illness. His son Al created this sweet slideshow for the memorial service. We'll miss you, Don.

I came down here in March 1996 for a week that turned into two weeks, that turned into a new life. Went into a small bar on 6th street where Don Walser and the Pure Texas band were playing. I'd probably read about them in the Chronicle. Two couples were doing some incredible swing dance moves on the floor in front of the stage. Not long into the set, Guy Clark came up to join in and sang We're In the Jailhouse Now. I've had a few right-place/right-time experiences, that was definitely one.



  posted by John : 10:08 AM