It’s been well over a year since my last blog post. In fact the last coincidentally enough was while I was on my way back to Argentina. I have since returned home to Oz, quickly grew tired of the 9-5 rat race and jumped on the plane to spend all my hard earned savings once again.
This time however I embarked with a plan... actually study the language at a hideously overpriced ‘Uni’ in order to blackmail myself into maintaining a degree of sobriety long enough to actually absorb the language, and to fill the remaining time with something productive.. a documentary.. !
The very few travel programs covering Argentina on the nauseatingly repetitious Australian pay TV channels always cover the same cliché shit, therefore friends and fellow Aussies have developed a very narrow, short sighted perception of what exactly Argentine society and culture is really like.. and even the vast majority of expats who I do bump into here in the city rarely stray far from the Green Line and ... yes you know it...Palermo. Each to their own I say, whatever makes them happy, and I honestly relish my family time in Zona Sur completely free of the loud nasal American accent and camera happy sidewalk obstructing extranjeros. It’s amazing that after a total of 2 years I still have never heard a foreign accent in the South.. just a short 30 minute train journey from Constitucion. I do occasionally invite the friendly western acquaintance South for a more authentic experience, but they rarely tear themselves away from the monotonous routine, and expat social scene that lives and breathes in and around the yuppy green line. A direct reflection perhaps, of the unrelenting fear propaganda pumped out to the masses daily by the government despising media, or is it just comfort in numbers, familiar surroundings and nasal conversation... birds of a feather.
Nevertheless the point of the rant I suppose is that my own experience has been very different, and I possess some kind of urge to share the flipside to popular belief. This time is the first time I have made the effort to join the ranks of my fellow western students and hit all the tourist traps... yes yes.. tango, football.. and por el amor de dios I’m getting sick of the name... Palermo. And my verdict? A rapidly diminishing bank account, nights melting into weeks, headaches, hangovers, and an expanding waistline. I am again losing the battle of the deadly Porteno diet of empanadas, pizzas, milanesa napolitanas, asados and beer. There is only one thing that can fight the BA Belly, and old Diego knows the recipe not that it did him any favours mind you... shame I have to manage the psychological ups and downs of its source.So in my efforts to paint a more accurate picture of the ‘Reina del Plata,’ I’ve been out and about sticking my camera in (strangely willing) people’s faces in an attempt to extract some real history, and an insight into the modern day argentine cultures and issues that exist today. Goths, bears, tattoos, paco, dogs, media, protests, fear, disillusion, electro tango, cumbia, rock and roll, ska, street art, graffiti, pirate dvds and playstations, and Russian and Senegalese immigrants .. its evolving into quite a project.
With the unrelenting insurgence of bills scaling the walls like a Zulu army , and the time with my daughter which frankly is bought by the hour, I have no alternative now to pull the pin on my own studies and somehow miraculously find the discipline to continue study alone.
With more free time now on my hands I have been looking towards the only true friend I have here, and wondering who this shell of a former human being is. Aside from the occasional coke binge moments of mateship, the good times have been few and far between. Admittedly I have found the whole Bear thing tough to take in (self proclaimed open mind or not) and to suddenly have a jealous and strung out wolfman drag queen, clearly agitated by my presence is just taking the fucking weird to a whole other fucked up dimension... Frankly the weirdness of the situation is fucking uncomfortable and testing the limits of my loyalties. The broken promises and blatant lies may just be the final nails in the coffin.
In case I believe him to be fully aware of the choices and therefore sacrifices he has been making, a necessary evil perhaps in his twisted thought process. So the question is.. can straight dudes and gay dudes really be friends? Or is the union inevitably and ultimately doomed from the start?
