OUT TO SEE: FINDING THE MUSIC SCENE IN BUENOS AIRES (PART I OF III)
As you may be familiar from some of his past columns about his travels (Sevilla, Spain, Prague, New Zealand,etc.), Notes from Vivace always makes a point to try to locate the local music scene in each of the places he is exploring at one point or another during his trip.
Pre-Trip
On this vacation, I focused my pre-vacation planning in three areas. The first was to buy a computer tablet. I was tired of always going to an Internet café. I got super jealous after seeing my fellow travelers in Edinburgh surfing the web on their tablets in the hotel lobby. Now I could have gone with an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy tablet, but doing so would be contrary to my cheap nature (though I suppose my cheap nature disappears when it comes to camera equipment). I ended up purchasing an Amazon Kindle Fire at Best Buy. My second focus, as always, was to do some research into the local music scene. I came across a blog called “Going Local Travel” by Vicky Baker. She appeared to have a good grasp of the local music scene in Buenos Aires so I shot her an e-mail. I got a response with a nice list of bands to check out. I ended up checking out two of her suggestions along with a venue. So if you’ve come across this travel post, you just might enjoy Going Local Travel, as well. Also, finally for the first time on my various trips, I was planning on meeting up with a friend who was attending school in Buenos Aires.
Black Friday
As is my recent norm, my trip started on Black Friday — yes, I skipped the whole Black Friday shopping day (however, this didn’t prevent me from driving past a Best Buy on a Wednesday to look at folks camping out two days in advance of Black Friday, I find certain things amusing). My public transportation travel was rather mundane. The boring was observed such as just like my United Kingdom trip, I got to the Blue Line just as the train was pulling away (PLEASE WAIT FOR ME!!!). When the next train pulled up, I ended up in a car that had a plaque dedicated to Glendale, CA. When I got to the shuttle bus to LAX, it was filled with TSA employees.
I got to the airport in about two hours. And as I went through security, I was given an irate grunt when I forgot to take off my belt before going through the x-ray machine. When I got to the gate area, I decided to take out my new tablet and see if I could get any use out of it. I powered it up and came to the realization that I had to pay for Internet access at LAX. Forget that. I put it back into my carry-on.
An elderly gentleman approached, “Is that your computer?” (more…)
IN PHOTOS – A MUSIC “PHOTO ESSAY”
If you are a frequent visitor to Intraffik, you know that I’ve been on a movie review kick. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped checking out the Los Angeles music scene. Here’s an “In Photos” essay to update you with some of my “past” nights out . . .
Silverlake Lounge:December 5
Sabrosa Purr
Useless Keys
Light FM
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Bootleg: December 11
Eliza Rickman
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Three Clubs: December 14
The Child
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Bootleg: December 15
Gothic Tropic
Eastern Conference Champions
Happy Hollows
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The Satellite: December 19
Manhattan Murder Mystery (more…)
ROOMMATES…
26 is too old to have roommates. It’s too damn old.
When I moved to Austin, I didn’t know anyone so I used a roommate matching service which is a big mistake. Everything was honky-dory for awhile despite the few discrete hints here and there that one of my roommates was absolutely batshit.
“I’m allergic to dust,” he said to me one day.
“Isn’t everyone?” I thought to myself.
“Whenever I breathe in dust, I sneeze like crazy,” he continued. I’m no scientist, but I’m sure this is the most common affliction next to breathing itself.
Every night I walked into my apartment, all of the furniture was completely rearranged.
The first time this happened I asked, “So you like changing things up a bit, I guess?”
“I need to get every dust particle so it helps to move things around.”
Every single day.
Even this hint of batshittiness didn’t register on my batshit meter.
Maybe the alien, conspiracy, and alien conspiracy talk should have clued me in.
After watching some alien “documentary” on the History channel:
“I’ve been preaching about the Illuminati and aliens since the 90s and now everyone’s talking about it.”
As if he’ll be remembered in the annals of batshit history as a kind St. Paul to UFOlogy.
A little conspiracy talk doesn’t scare me, but once he started talking shit on tomatoes and the conspiracy within them, my batshit detector went off the rails. I was like, “Hey, man. Lay off the ketchup.”
I began to talk about his craziness to friends -– a true sign of a burgeoning hatred. (more…)
A MOVIE REVIEW – “A SEPARATION”
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“A Separation.” This movie comes to us from Iran and so you’ll need to spend time reading subtitles if you go to see it, but if you do you won’t regret it. The film opens with Simin (Leila Hatami) making copies of travel documents. The next scene has Simin and her husband, Nader (Peyman Moadi), in front of a judge. Simin wants a divorce. Why? She wants to leave Iran. Nader refuses. He is the caregiver for his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) who has Alzheimer’s. Simin insists that the father no longer recognizes them and that they must take this opportunity to leave the country. Since Nader refuses to leave, Simin wants a divorce. The judge grants the divorce and Simin moves out of the house. Their child, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), stays with her father. Interestingly, Simin does not leave the country, but instead moves in with her mother – perhaps hoping that her now ex-husband will change his mind or maybe her airplane ticket isn’t for another few weeks.
With his wife moved out of the house, Nader needs a caregiver for his father. He hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a very religious woman, who is conflicted regarding the job (working for a now single man). She needs the job to help out with family expenses as her husband, Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini), has lost his job and has enormous debts. She brings her child, Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini), with her. The job is difficult for her as she is pregnant. (more…)