Borcanelanul (elanul la borcan)

Hi. I should probably be writing "Strategic Superiority - The Saga Returns" 2016 or somesuch restatement of that ancient theme seeing how am comis-o din nou as they say in Romanian. I can't be bothered.ⁱ Maybe tomorrow, or whatever. Instead, let me tell you about my experience with Buenos Aires nightlife last night.

So, girl reports she's infiltrated a group, of which a few chicks and a coupla dudes are going to a rock concert.ⁱⁱ And she asked and they kindly verified that yes the tickets will be sold at the doorⁱⁱⁱ.

The place was a "centro deportivo", in the collective mythology of Argentina, but otherwise a plain warehouse with zinc sheet roof (and ventilators - welded shut), a spinning mirror ball hanging unverisimilitudiously^iv from a crossbeam, what no doubt locally passes for a bar - a drywall-delimited enclousure, washed white and decorated with fantasmagoric "brick" pattern.

And the smell. Good lord, the smell. Do you know what New York gyms smelled like back when the year was 1930, they all included a boxing ring and a pool table, and their chief function was to provide the mob with a recruiting ground ? That smell, old stale sweat and old stale dust, cheerful pain and hopeless suffering. That acrid thing vaguely between mice and old socks that I had imagined extinct for many, many years. It's right here, I had some.

There were no "chicks", in the hundred or so attendance, seated on rickety chairs of which no three were alike, drinking happily the local swill^v, carrying with the excited urgency of the poor large plates heaped with cheap fodder, soggy potatoes, wonderbread, petrocheese, steaming an unhealthy steam in their gloatful, excited faces.

There were no chicks. Everyone was dressed as for a PTA which, inexplicably, took place in the dark, in a dubious hole no self-respecting mom would have patronized back in the old country, back in the old days. Hoodie-wearing females are not chicks, they're meat robots, not to be fucked anymore than bees are to be fucked. Pants, everyone. No heels^vi, no cleavage, no nothing. Twenty minutes in I had enough of marinating in the sauce^vii and we took off.

We stopped for icecream^viii. SPP^ix girly^x had to argue with the idiots at the counter to use fucking glass bowls. For which trouble I got miserable coffee in a cup and some marginal icecream in a cappuccino glass. You know the sort, thick cheap glass with a handle on the side, it's by now universal in every obrero cafe the world over.

Twenty minutes later we were entering a Cena! Show! kinda place. A bunch of old people hanging around. The waiter comes over, I order Reserva San Juan. Dos.^xi The... other waiter comes over with menus. I tell him we already ordered. He then comes over with properly warmed glasses^xii, in which he pours A LOT of something. Girly points out it's not what I ordered. It wasn't. We taste the paint thinner just for the hell of it. Atrocious. I stand up, get dressed, blondy that no doubt was hot back when this country was cool, 40 years ago or so, asks us why're we leaving ? I say "because they've got no cognac", throw a hundred on the table as the avatar of disdain and we're off!

Concert, icecream and drinks. What more could you ask of the night life of a poor city inhabited by some people who don't know they're poor ? Un turno ie one hour in their love hotels goes for 190 pesos (about 12 dollars). With the condoms and the empanadas, the locals get laid with leftovers out of "quinientos", I spend twice that and can't even get a cup of coffee worth the name.

Todos Unidos! Todos Iguales! Partido Idiotas Aqui Presentos!

1. Being self-employed is pretty great, let me tell you.

   But not if you let yourself become your own boss. There's a difference here. I also don't feel like discussing that. Maybe some other time. [↩]

2. Speaking of which : earlier in the week I was walking by some place when some 15 yo cut me off and very purposefully (in the manner of 15yos doing the FORBIDDEN) entered some building. From which music could be heard! So I turned around and followed her (did I mention self-employment rocks ? you get to drop what you're doing whenever you feel like!), to the surprise of a bouncer guy. Eventually he explains to me that it's "a rock concert", what I'm hearing. At four in the fucking afternoon! And "it's just about finished".

   Take a moment to sink this through. Rock concert, in Buenos Aires ? Rock concert, just in time for lunch ? That is finishing ?

   This country doesn't exist. It is, entirely, a work of fiction. They claim otherwise, they think and believe otherwise, but they're delusional. This place simply can't exist. [↩]

3. They do this thing here, where the tickets must be bought in advance across town. Don't imagine this means it's a better venue or anything, it's literally the exact shit with more inconvenience heaped on top. Imagine what life'd be if Burger King required you to go to Kinko's to pay for your meal. You have to order in the clown head, go over to Kinko's to pay, then come to Burger King for your order. And there's no seating. And everyone's naturally an idiot, as opposed to constructing their idiocy deliberately out of crack and smack and ketamine, they just got it as a gift from their stupid mommies. It's called "recursos humanos" here in Argentina. [↩]
4. Fuck you, "unlikely" ? Neverosimil, bitch! You call this rag a language ?! [↩]
5. They call it beer, but it's directly and obviously alt-flavoured soda. Cheaper that way. [↩]
6. "They're so impractical!"
   "When's the last time you got laid ?"
   "Oh well, I am not comfortable talking about"
   "Shut up and get your lazy ass six inches up. Then you'll be comfortable." [↩]
7. For one thing, spend enough time in that sort of atmosphere and you end up smelling like it.

   For the other thing, stink is not the only thing that rubs off - spend enough time with stupid people and you'll become stupid, too. Which was the original point of feminism - forcing a woman to interact with nothing but children and other women similarly captive necessarily makes her stupid. [↩]

8. The Arkakao place closed down. We found this out in the usual manner anything's found out in this country - by surprise. One day we went for icecream, found ourselves smack drab in the middle of an auction, all the various kitchen utensils, furniture etc lined up in lots and some staffers trying to give me lists of what's on sale.

   This is how they do things here. Everywhere else, real estate goes on the market months before the current leasee vacates. If it doesn't meet the price, it gets discounted, up to zero if it need be, but there's no such thing as commercial space redirected to the purpose of dicking around. Here, they have no problem with it - they'll never consider discounts, as a matter of principle, apodyctically. So what if waiting one year for someone to pay your desired rent for a month is significantly a worse outcome than being paid half your desired rent all year through. Soberania! [↩]

9. Serviciul de Protectie si Paza, in Romanian in original. [↩]
10. I call them girls, from the inside. From the outside they appear a lot different. [↩]
11. The local cognac by appointment to my lordship. [↩]
12. Cognac is served in warmed glasses, yes ? [↩]