john cougar mellencamp

I can always count on Cougar Mellencamp to make me feel patriotic as FUCK.

This song makes me want to nod my head at a stranger/fellow American I meet in a gas station somewhere in the south or midwest who coincidentally is also buying a bag of doritos, pork rinds and an Arizona iced tea.

This song makes me want to slap my son's back in a playful way if I were a man and his baseball coach and we had just lost the tournament game, but hey, life ain't so bad, little guy. **American flag flies in the background** Now let's go to Dairy Queen!

This song makes me want to shake my head in slow motion while laughing and giving the thumbs up at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert to a silly, middle-aged passerby dressed in hot pants that say "Free Bird" on the butt.

This song makes me want to chase a bison on a horse just because.

This song makes me want to crack open a Budweiser and then drink it.

This song makes me want to marry my high school sweetheart and reminisce with him years later about how he used to be a great quarterback but now that he lost his job at the plant, I want to throw it up in his face that he's 40 pounds overweight and hasn't touched a football in 10 years.

easy breezy friday

It's a 4 day weekend here in BA, not that that matters when you don't have a real people regular job. Even if I did, I will say these people sure do know how to relax.



I thought I'd share something nice and fun - a view of my laundry from the roof of my building, (better enjoy it while I can, I'm moving next week). I really love doing laundry here, carrying it all the way up to the roof for it to dry in the sun and breeze. Give me a few months and I'll be cursing like a sailor going up each step as the novelty will have worn off by then and my laziness would take over from there. For now it's great.



Also, a few weeks back I saw a free concert with a few different artists from South America. One of whom was Marcelo Pretto who I now love. He's Brazilian and brilliant. We couldn't use cameras at the show, but that didn't stop me from recording a bit of one of his songs from my purse. Just enjoy the sounds of the video matched with his elated face and have a happy Friday!

bomba del tiempo

This was a really fun concert I went to with some friends a while back. A group of drummers go nuts for like an hour and half while the crowd dances and from what I remember smelling, smoke pot openly. Lots of fun. Especially the beautiful conductor, he's somewhere in this city and I will find him...

the sounds

This is a pretty loud place. Sometimes even when I'm walking down the street with my headphones on at near-full blast I can still hear the random roars of the city around me. Here are a few things you might expect to hear here (here! here!:) -

Whistling buses - Not sure why but many of the "colectivos" or public buses that drive around the city are accompanied by a high-pitched and inexplicable whistling noise. This combined with the fact that they go very fast, making a roaring engine sound, helps to create a consistent vibrating hum on the street during the day and well into the night.

Screeching sounds of the subte - In between certain subte (subway) stations as you pass through there is a horrendous sound of metal scraping against metal. These seizure-inducing screeches are pretty bad. It's like when you have your iPod turned up loud already and then a song comes on that you downloaded, (legally or illegally?), which was recorded extra loud, (because you downloaded it legally or illegally). That moment when the song pierces your ear drum and you could drop to the sidewalk from the shock is comparable to this scraping sound on the subte.

Random music - Sometimes I hear songs that are under the radar even in the US. There are some radio stations that have a great mix of indie music and 90s and 00s. But then sometimes, you're in a cab at 2 in the morning and your middle-aged, male cab driver is playing Super Trooper by ABBA and tapping cheerily on the steering wheel.

Morena hermosa! - If you at least even resemble a woman here, chances are, you will receive cat calls. If you are not a woman and you get cat calls, I would encourage you to show your true self to these men and scare the hell out of them. If there has been one man who has succeeded in picking up a woman through cat-calling, I would love to meet him. This man would be an international hero, because 10 times out of 10 women want nothing to do with these assholes, myself included.

More sounds to come, I'm sure...

wow

I am completely floored by this song for some reason.

I imagine it's the imagery it creates of a woman as a robot, made only to please whoever needs/uses her. Could be that the beat is just kickass. All of the above.

Clicky --> Wow-e-wow-wow.