The War Is Over

So I'm actually doing it. I  hate the very idea of it, I make fun of others who do it, and promised myself long ago I would never attempt it. 

I'm writing a goddamn fucking blog.

Fuck it.

Even though it's the ultimate act of narcissism (other than Twitter) and is the artistic outlet of choice for 12-year-old girls, I'm throwing my hat in the ring. I feel a bit better about the situation with the knowledge that my readership has no hope of ever breaking double digits. In the end, I thought that if I made it to fifty I wanted to have some record of the more enjoyable things I did in my life. My worst moments are already seared into my brain to the point that I can never again pretend to respect myself, so I'm not worried about forgetting those. But some memories I do want. This will be my record and it will all be travel-based.

And I get to scream and vent to no one at all like a complete lunatic.

So here it is, the maiden voyage of my new blog, and the actual moment I lose my last shred of dignity. 

I'll start at the beginning...

I was at a medical clinic right before I got out of LA and I took a hoodie that someone left behind from one of the closets. The people in this clinic weren't sick so I figured it was okay. I only bring it up because I'd like to believe I'm above stealing clothes from someone dying of cancer or AIDS... but thinking about it now, I'm not so sure. I've accomplished Herculean acts of self-destruction over the last couple of years and am now convinced that a person like me is pretty much capable of anything.

On the front of the hoodie is a picture of a zeppelin flying over some place with the words "the war is over" written on the side. Once I landed in Buenos Aires I thought about the phrase and figured it was apt. I got out of LA (barely) with my life. The war was over. I didn't really think about it on the actual airplane because I was unable to string a thought together. Before my flight, to ease the stress and anxiety of a long plane ride, I decided to drink enough booze and take enough pills to drop a silverback gorilla. Other than slurring to the stewardess that she looked "kinda like that lady from Apocalypto, I don't know which one," I don't remember much.

Everything was a haze the first few days. I couldn't seem to process that I was back in the city that had dominated my thoughts every waking hour for the last two and a half years of my life. It had changed but was exactly the same. I had gotten older but felt the same as I did when I was 25 and came here for the first time. It was a sensory overload, and I spent the first week tearing through the city like the loud, greedy, soulless, dead-inside alcoholic that I am, and that defines the entire culture which I come from.

And that's something I realized in that first week: Buenos Aires has been ruined by North Americans. When I first came here the crash of 02' was still fresh in the minds of the people and the city had yet to be the mecca for frugal international partygoers it is today. It was innocent then, and didn't deserve the brutal raping we (re: mostly people from the United States) did to it. There are diverse groups of people who come to to live in this city but we all have two things in common: we're running from some kind of failure, and we are part of the problem. If you are a North American expat living here and take exception to what I just wrote, then you may as well beat yourself over the head with a polo mallet until you're dead... because you are completely incapable of being honest with yourself.

The most glaring examples are the unemployed investment bankers. I don't think I'm going to get much argument on this one. In fact, anywhere in the world, including the United States, these people are part of the problem. More soulless and dead-inside than I could ever hope to be, they tear through the city like trash compacters, consuming stupid quantities of cocaine and alcohol, pretending it's still New York, that they still have a job, and that it's still the eighties. They treat the locals like shit, they treat the girls like shit, and they treat the prostitutes like animals. The saddest part is that sooner or later they'll go back to the United States, get new jobs and marry. And there will be people who call them nice. There will be white women who refer to them as "really sweet" and  "great guys".  And there will be a Paraguayan immigrant who will always have to remember the time she was tied to a hotel bed in Palermo Hollywood for two days while six coked-out Yankees ran a train on her and threw cum in her hair. It's almost a miracle of nature that there can be an entire group of people with zero redeemable qualities. They are a cancer in thousand dollar suits and white loafers... and hopefully they all get spinal meningitis and die.

There are others, of course. The idiot, rail-thin vegan hipster with the tiny vintage shirt (congratulations, stupid, you picked the one city in the world where you can't eat any of the food. Have fun listening to your Belle and Sebastian records and watching Barry Lyndon while you die of starvation.) of which I had enough of back in the trendier parts of Los Angeles.

Then there are the students. They tend to be between 18 and 24 and I suppose are relatively harmless with decent-enough intentions. But they're still from the United States and still have that bullshit sense of entitlement. Sooner or later they'll be adults and will really start helping to fuck up the U.S.'s reputation with their stupid attitude and behavior.

Another thing is that we're a really loud people. I mean, I know most people from the U.S., republican or democrat, are ignorant blowhards, but I didn't realize how extreme it was. We're loud in restaurants, bars, on the street, in the doctor's office, wherever. It really takes spending time in another culture to see the faults in your own. It's like thinking you're Tom Hanks all your life, then you look in the mirror, and you turn out to be Daniel Baldwin.

And, yes, I said Buenos Aires has been ruined. And I stand by that statement. But it is still the greatest city in the world (sorry New York, go fuck yourself) and a ruined Buenos Aires is still a million times better than a thriving Los Angeles. I dare to say I am happy and content, even living amongst assholes as terrible as I am (except the bankers, who are way worse).

Next post I'll get into the big visit from the Balandran brothers! And three different people vomiting red wine all over my loft!