The night of four shows

So the chick in charge of entertainment had the Teatro Cervantes on the list for tonight. I knew the building, it's a poorly maintained clearly colonial era building on Cordoba. Checking it out now, it claims itself nothing less than "the national stage and comedy theatre of Argentina". And Teatro Nacional Cervantes, mind you.

So we get there five minutes early, the whole thing's sunk in lugubrious darkness. We go around it to try and find the entranceⁱ, there's no entrance. Just extremely solid wrought iron defenses everywhere, protecting it from the public. As I wonder out loud what the fuck is wrong with these people, two elderly ladies point out to me that the thing's closed, because they have electrical problems, there's an ad in the window over there saying so. I thank them and go check this wonder. Lo and behold, there IS a common sheet of paper in one window, behind the grating behind the grating, stating that because of "electrical imperfections" the show's cancelled. Just like that!

Which "electrical imperfections" are the fucktarded Argentine's way of saying "We are gigantic losers that won't maintain the equipment because whatever, why should we like have to do anything ? Isn't it national enough already ? Give us money!11". It's state run, of course, and it shows. Of course. Which is exactly the fucking problem, not just here, in Italy and in the US and everywhere. This "state" somehow ends up with all the nice buildings, as if there's any sort of relation between the current derps in charge and the people that built that thing (both physically and ideally). Nevermind the fact that if the actual builders met these current fuckwits, they'd probably piss on their faces, after having separated their useless heads from their overly fed trunks. But no, the "state" inherits things, because whatever, presumed continuity. What continuity is there between pre-Peron Argentina, a well run country that was easily in the top ten of world powers and current day Argentina ? What continuity is there between Washington's Washington and Obama's Washington ? Why should Obama BE in the White House at all, for that matter ? They've got nothing in common, his people and those people, let them build their own shit I say.

So we go for a walk, because I live on Buenos Aires' Broadway, there's easly one hundred theatres within a ten block area. The next thing we run into is this small, privately run Teatro Andamio ´90, on Parana. They're half way through showing "Como si fuera un crimen", which is a ridiculously moldy production on top of Roberto Arlt. It deals with all those important matters of you know, how women are, and whether they cheat, and what love really means and domestic life and primitive machismo, all the hot topics of rural establishments pre World War 1. Good stuff </snark>.ⁱⁱ

This only takes about half hour or so (but 70 pesos a head, think of it, all of five bux!) and so next we're in front of the Centro Cultural San Martin, which is promising Le Bel Indiferent by Cocteau. In Spanish of course, and without Piaf, unfortunately, but such is our fate, latecomers as we are. It shall do, especially as it starts in one minute, so in we go, only to discover that in the acre wide hall, the box office is... one box. Literally. One. And there's a dozen people there, and a dozen minutes later there's... still a dozen people there. Because "El Cultural San Martín" is run by the state, of course, and because "en todos estas vos", of course, and because why give a shit ? Give us money! Of course. So there they derp, completely impervious to any sort of sense or humanity or anything important. "El Ciudad" de Buenos Aires, in the sense of a bunch of fucktards that aren't in any sense urban, pretending they're running things and representing things and oh will I enjoy watching the lot starve.

So on we go, in the words of the master of dramaⁱⁱⁱ, forward, wandering Jew! And we end up in Teatro Picadero, which is right between Callao and Corrientes. It's really a restaurant, above which they've turned a narrow, inconvenient room into a college auditorium. They're selling tickets for El Credito, Jordi Galceran^iv. 250 pesos a head, which here is extremely expensive (think full blown burlesque show). The audience, all old twerps, they file uncomfortably to go inside, they're confused, they've obviously never been to college, can't get to their seats, it takes a while. Two hipster faggots play the oh-so-important role of ushers, not like that role goes, a mix between a bellhop and a cigarette bunny, but like some sort of delusion in their broken reddit heads, something between a US Marshal and an airline pilot. They're in charge, yo!

After all the entire collection of people dressed as if the 90s were just about beginning and they were in the prime of their life plus the coupla trophy chicks are seated, the more mongrely of the two hipster faggots launches into this lengthy explanation no doubt intended to be funny about how please turn off cellphones and if you don't know how I'll help you and srsly it happens and bla bla. Kid is obviously "working" there for no pay per se, just like any other redditard, but figuring that hey, he's practically almost a stand-up comedian, right ?

And these objectionable fucktards that live on pensions and shouldn't, neither live nor on pensions, fucking applaud him to shut him up. Because that's the sort of hollow shitsacks that they are, god forbid they laugh the faggot out of the fucking room, between hollers of "go back to mommy and who let you wear long trousers and speak in public anyway ?!"

The play, if we can call it that, proceeds as you'd expect : two dubious but for the audience reasurringly old derps are meeting supposedly in the credit office of a bank, where one is trying to get a loan and the other is refusing him. Do you know how long it takes an Argentine banker to say no ? No less than ten minutes (I wouldn't know, I walked out just about ten minutes in). There's plenty of time for the petulent petitioner to ask the officer to please recommend him as a trustworthy old client (to which the banker responds that this is the first time I see you!) and for discussion about "one's word" and "what are men really" and for lending of handkerchiefs and loud blowing of noses and "you have something left there".

Seriously, toilet humor. That's what they do, that's what they eat up. At top ticket price, in a pointlessly pretentious atmosphere among the self-sufficient locura of Buenos Aires^v. The sorts of people that complain about the "insecurity" in Buenos Aires because there's no TSA here. This is what they think art is, over here, two derps looking just like them sitting around a motherfucking bank just like they do idling the time away and doing fart jokes except not really, farts are too much woman for these guys. Noseblowing jokes, that's thinned down enough.

Anyway, I walked out. If I had more women with me I'd have thrown tomatoes. Gotta get more women. And some tomatoes.

1. Do you know the horny bear joke ? [↩]
2. Hey, one of the chicks actually took off her blouse, displaying a bra, in an extreme act of bravery and unparalleled daringness of all edgy and shit. [↩]
3. Ion Luca Caragiale, Caut casa. [↩]
4. A contemporary nobody, but whatever, from Catalunia. [↩]
5. Yes darlings, it's you. It's not the whores, doing twelve men a night, it's not the nude dancers, doing six shows a night, it's not the bums, sleeping on street corners. It's you, the old "middle class". You're the filth of this town, with your narrow minded, idiotic "knowledge" of nothing at all. Fucking drop dead already, it's not that I hate you, it's not that your children hate you. The fucking stones in the pavement hate you. You're abominable, go away. [↩]