Dýnamó Höfn Poised to Dominate Malarvinnslubikarinnare
The title of this post is actually a lie. Dýnamó Höfn, playing in Iceland’s Malarvinnslubikarinnare football league, are expected to be completely mediocre—again. Their first full season, in 2005, was total gash, an almost comically inept campaign during which they won no games—zero. They didn’t earn a point until the last round, when they lucked into a goalless draw against equally hapless Þórshöfn. Dýnamó manager Eysteinn Sindri Elvarsson was quoted on the subject of his team’s talent level: “These boys suck eleven cox, they are so goddamned awful.”
His words must have served as a motivational kick in the rear, because in the summer of 2006 Dýnamó were vastly improved—they won three games and earned three draws. I ran afoul of the team while passing through Höfn-Hornafirði. I was so impressed by Dýnamó's spirit that night. They wanted to fight my friends and I even though they only
outnumbered us six to three. What courage! It was clear to me right then that Dýnamó Hofn were not ordinary men, but rather genetically engineered supermen whose bravery and sense of fair play is matched only by their good looks and extraordinary luck with the ladies.
I detailed the events of that night in the post
Flags of Our Soccer Hooligans, Part 1, and I've followed Dýnamó's fortunes ever since. The start of another football season in Iceland is ample cause for rejoicing—or at least snickers of anticipation. As the matches get underway, I want to wish these exemplary lads all the best. Guided by leading scorer Ingi Steinn Þorsteinsson, and paced by stalwart midfielder Sigurður Óskar Jónsson, hopes are high that they will manage four wins this season, and their coach can go out in public without a Groucho Marx disguise. Good luck boys—I'll be watching!
Labels: dýnamó höfn, iceland, malarvinnslubikarinnare
I Want To Be a Firejuggler
Today, for the first time, I began to suspect I’ve taken a wrong turn in life. I’m a writer, and while that is a useful skill which allows me to communi-
cate with the .01% percent of the population who read, it does not generate much in the way of instant validation. I toil alone late into the night, in a room lit by the glow of my flatscreen monitor, while in other
rooms, in other parts of town, musicians, actors, poets, and singers bask in applause. What I would give for some applause. Even painters and photographers receive instant validation in the form of gallery openings. Michelangelo worked on his back in the Sistine Chapel for years and was quite possibly miserable every millisecond of that time—but then came the day he unveiled his masterpiece and the gasps of awe from those assembled healed his pain like a balm.
I’ve decided that the only way I can satisfy my jones for exhibitionism and reap the free love I’m missing is to take up a performance medium. Firejuggling is a possible answer (“firejuggle” is a mutant verb I’ve constructed, just for the fuck of it, because, to my thinking, it’s more majestic as one word than two). You may be asking, Why firejuggling? Well, for one reason I can juggle already. I can only juggle three approximately spherical objects of the same basic diameter and weight, and only for twenty to thirty seconds, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Compelling reason numero dos: firejugglers are the ultimate in cool. They travel from place to place and work when they want to, usually at night, and for tax-free money. Sometimes the police hassle them, but that’s a small price to pay, considering the alternatives (office work, restaurant work, retail work). They sometimes smell bad, but they drink life like a fine syrah and that’s the only bouquet that matters.
Firejugglers are often Argentinian, I’ve noticed, or Spanish, or French. Why? Beats the shit out of me. I’ve met a few American firejugglers too, and they tend to go by monikers such as Red Sparks or Max Heat. I am inclined to roll my eyes at this cheesiness, but on the other hand the entire cosmos got used to ridiculous pseudonyms like Tom
Cruise and Angelina
Jolie —which means “pretty” in French—so who am I to rake Mssrs. Sparks and Heat over the coals? Let the names roll off your tongue a few times and they’ll start to sound better. Now try this one—Xanadu Black. That’s the pseudonym I’m considering for myself. It doesn’t have anything to do with fire, but I’m drawing a blank on how to work that element in right now.
During my research into this possible career makeover, I noticed that another cool thing about firejuggling is that it’s a great gateway toward mastering other invaluable skills, such as unicycling and stiltwalking. These can be combined, of course, so that you are a unicycling firejuggler or stiltwalking firejuggler. Multitasking like this is not as hard as it sounds. I saw the firejuggler at top in downtown Lisbon, and when my too-close approach caused his five dogs to boot from sleep mode into maul mode, he managed to call them off without dropping a single baton.
Right now I’m trying to find a firejuggler who will train me. Preferably one reckless enough to train me to sling fire indoors, like my friend above, from Guatemala. One of the links I’ve located is for a comedy firejuggler named Keith Leaf (again with the oh-so-cool names). His
website—hilarious in itself—states: “The dynamic juggling act that Keith Leaf presents consists of fire juggling, dance, and manipulation.” I confess I am especially curious about the manipulation. The site goes on to say: “You’ll laugh, you'll cry, most of all you'll wonder why, because he is Keith Leaf, the Amazing Fire Juggler guy.” Right now a nation of rappers are smiting their brows in envy.
I know what you’re thinking, and no, I’m not letting the romance of this lifestyle blind me to its potential hazards. Some of the fuels used are carcinogenic, but fuck it—what isn’t? Some of you smoke. There is the danger of being robbed trekking those deserted roads from town to town. There are ticks. There is crotch-rot. But it’s the applause that matters most to me. The blessed applause—I can hear it now. Once I’ve perfected my act as Xanadu Black I’ll hit the streets and it’s bye-bye computer forever. No more wringing myself like a rag to dribble words onto an indifferent page. No more lonely nights. Only freedom, and flames, and endless ovations.
Labels: fire juggling, lisbon, the amazing keith leaf
Getting Medieval in Guate
My former home country of Guatemala has been popping up in the news quite a bit lately, for all the wrong reasons. First there was the giant sinkhole that swallowed half a dozen houses, quickly followed by last week’s 6.8 magnitude temblor. But those were just warm-up acts for the astonishing headliner. In the frontier town of Camotan this week, a mob numbering 2,000 people attacked three women on suspicion they had killed a young girl and stolen her organs to sell them. The missing girl—nine-year-old Mishel Diaz—disappeared from her home and was discovered a day later, mutilated and abandoned near a little-traveled dirt track. Reports said her arm was cut off, her eyes gouged out, and the skin on her chest removed in what looked like an attempt to steal her heart and kidneys.
In short order an angry mob, comprised of what witnesses say was the entire population of Camotan, went house-to-house looking for the three women they believed were last seen with the girl. When the crowd found 24-year-old Marciana Recinos, who was one of the suspects, they bludgeoned her to death in the central plaza using rocks, sticks, and plain old fists. Police rescued the other two women but only after the mob pulled a Mr. Blonde on one—dousing her with gasoline à la
Reservoir Dogs and setting her on fire. The other woman, pictured below in a posed police photo (a uniquely Guatemalan tool for dispensing info to the local press) is currently safe in jail.
As bizarre as this story probably sounds to people who have never visited Guatemala, the fear among residents of their children being stolen and harvested for organs runs deep, particularly among rural Mayans. The fear has taken on the character of folklore, with most swearing it has happened to the daughter or son of a friend. I heard the stories firsthand, but in reality there is no substantiated proof of organ harvesting there.
But the danger from incensed mobs was well known among us expats, and we never shot photos of children without explicit permission from the parents (good manners in any case, but a potential life saver under those circumstances). My friends who visited, all of whom were first timers to the country, sometimes snapped photos of children and I always warned them to be careful—usually while distancing myself from the scene. In 2000, a Japanese woman was beaten to death for photographing a child in the town of Todos Santos, and her Guatemalan driver was burned to death as her presumed accomplice. I walked into the aftermath of a mob killing myself in 2004, and I also saw police photographs of mob victims, including one of a man who had been hacked to death with machetes and his head doused with gasoline and burned down to a blackened skull.
News reports on the latest incident all say that distrust of the police is a factor in vigilante killings. That’s true—local police are considered corrupt, and the general feeling among the Maya is that inviting them into their communities is to court disaster. They are not unique in this belief. In poor communities the world over—including in the United States—police are believed to hinder rather than dispense justice. In Guatemala, rural townsfolk prefer to handle arrest, judgment, and sentencing all at once. But in the case of little Mishel Diaz, her death seems far too clumsy to be a bona fide attempt at organ harvesting. There’s no word yet on post-mortem findings, but what seems equally plausible is sexual assault followed by mutilation as an attempt to disguise the true nature of the crime.
Usually when newsworthy events occur in Guatemala, I can find out details that didn’t appear in the press simply by e-mailing my old circle of friends. But cases like this are different. The Maya are a closed circle all their own, a mystery even to other Guatemalans, and police are not motivated to investigate when the people involved seem satisfied with the outcome. I doubt the truth will ever be known.
Labels: camotan, guatemala, travel
The Mechanics of a Leftward Slide
Hugo Chávez by a landslide in Venezuela. Daniel Ortega returning from the political dead in Nicaragua. Michelle Bachelet becoming single mother to an entire nation in Chile. Néstor Kirchner in Argentina and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay. All over Latin America nations have embraced leftist leaders. There is analysis about it on virtually every news and poli-sci website you click to (not to mention on the shelves of those quaint relics called bookstores), but most of the material feels abstract, distant, like the events in question have been viewed from a Google Earth satellite.
Political journalist Jorge Casteneda says: “The combination of inequality and democracy tends to cause a movement to the left everywhere. This was true in western Europe from the end of the nineteenth century until after World War II; it is true today in Latin America.” Casteneda is an acclaimed scholar, and knows his stuff—you can
Wiki him yourself—but again, phrases like “movement to the left” define the phenomenon from orbit. To understand from an up-close human perspective what is happening in Latin America, let’s hit zoom and touch down inside a specific event. Let’s land in Bolivia.
Several years ago, the Bolivian government privatized a water utility serving the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba. Privatization—the transfer of resources from public or government control or ownership to private enterprise—is a prerequisite for World Bank investment. The World Bank is a colossal lender in Latin America, but its billions are readily available only to countries which pursue a privatization agenda. Bolivia, under then-President
Hugo Banzer, had been doing exactly that. Privatizing Cochabamba's water utility was part of this movement. It seemed like a good idea for all involved—the region was water starved, partly because its infrastructure was in disrepair. Whoever took over the water system would need to make improvements, but with only a slight rate hike they would, over the years, earn a handsome profit, while Banzer would take credit for serving the needs of his people.
Banzer's government struck a deal with a company called Aguas del Tunari. Aguas del Tunari was 27.5 percent owned by International Water Ltd., which was in turn owned by Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco. Determining who is truly in command in these situations is like trying to spot an army major in the field who refuses to wear his stripes for fear of snipers, but let's just say Bechtel was calling the shots. Aguas del Tunari promised worried Cochabamba residents that their water rates, if they rose at all, would do so by perhaps 35%. In exchange service would improve dramatically. A 35% percent hike seemed excessive to most people, but they adopted a wait-and-see attitude—since they had no actual say in the matter, it was their sole choice. To their chagrin, Aguas del Tunari's promises evaporated like a water mirage. Instead of a 35% percent hike, many people’s bills doubled and tripled. The reasons for this were simple—Aguas del Tunari was trying to meet contractually mandated profit levels. Faced with shortfalls, they raised rates. People in Cochabamba were outraged, but they adapted by depending more heavily on alternate water sources—wells, rainwater, river water. Aguas del Tunari continued suffering shortfalls, so the Bolivian government stepped in. Their solution was to draft legislation that would charge peasants for water which they drew from wells, and prohibit them from collecting from local lagoons, rivers, and the delta.
So the short version of the tale goes like this: the Bolivian government sold proprietorship of a public utility to a corporation; the corporation placed thirst for profit above their responsibility to provide a life sustaining resource at a reasonable price; and when people decided to collect the resource free from rivers and sky, the Bolivian government moved to criminalize this act in order to force people back to the corporation. The rest of this horror story is just as ugly as its preamble. Protests resulted, large ones, organized primarily by Oscar Olivera, a union official from the region. Violent clashes with police resulted, deaths occurred, and the city shut down. Aguas del Tunari offcials fled the country and President Banzer disappeared down a spider hole. Four days later he emerged and, in a cunning political backflip that would have impressed even a Cirque du Soleil acrobat, cited the departure of Aguas del Tunari officials from Bolivia as grounds to void the nation's contract with the company.
The Cochabamba debacle is not an isolated case. Right now there is a movement afoot by world business to remove all resources—such as water, education, social services, and national parks—from the public sphere and convert them into private commodities. As we hurtle further into the 21st century business looks for new avenues of investment, and public resources are an area that sends its Pavlovian drool reflex into flood stage. In the United States, for instance, Social Security—currently a public resource—is a target. Many of the people behind this movement contend that public resources should not exist at all. This might be sensible if corporations were legally required to serve the public interest, but they aren't—quite the opposite, in fact. Corporations are required by their charters and by the law to put their own interests above those of people, resources and ecosystems. In Aguas del Tunari's case, that meant whether the people of Cochabamba were able to drink was secondary to the bottom line.
Corporate advocates claim that the Bolivian Water War was an isolated incident, while corporate critics claim it was a real world test of the pitfalls of privatization, and that the same pitfalls will exist in each and every case. They believe Aguas del Tunari was complicit with the Bolivian government in attempting to bar people from collecting a resource which they needed for survival. It wasn’t necessarily that Aguas del Tunari/Bechtel thought they could get away with it—it was that it made financial sense to at least try. Heartless though it may seem, this kind of thinking is the modus operandi for all shareholder-owned corporations. The fact that U.S. politicians—primarily from the right wing—have passed laws allowing corporations to dominate American daily life is barely different than inviting Dracula into the house for a nightcap. Author Joel Bakan, in his book
The Corporation, asked a psychologist to construct a personality profile on a typical corporation. It was not such a strange request—since a corporation has the same legal rights as a person, Bakan was interested in knowing exactly what kind of citizen was walking the American streets. The corporation as a person rated as a textbook example of a murderous psychopath.
Soon after the Bolivian Water War Hugo Banzer resigned as Bolivia’s president, bringing about the appointment of an interim ruler, and finally the election of left-leaning Evo Morales. Morales is the first president in Latin America of native descent, and a long awaited alternative to creatures like Banzer, who was the latest in a line of privileged, distant men descended
from European colonists. Morales speaks to Bolivians of resisting the greedy capitalists from the north, and redressing previous corporate wrongs. The wisdom of his words seems self-evident to the people of Bolivia in light of the Cochabamba episode, which has grown to Homeric proportions as an example of successful resistance against greedy yankees. In Morales, Bolivians believe they have someone who won’t put them through an ordeal like Cochabamba again, nor be bullied by the World Bank, nor, most importantly, spout populist rhetoric while accepting cash-filled suitcases behind the scenes.
Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, the Bechtel corporation is nicked but defiant. A Bechtel
website—which sorts right to the top of Google over hundreds of related links—contains the company’s version of events in Cochabamba. It is, of course, comprised mainly of denials. But reputable third-parties such as
PBS and
The Democracy Center have confirmed many of the stories told by peasants. Sadly, Cochabamba is just one example of corporations rushing to carve out profit in Latin America under the banner of privatization. When I lived in Guatemala it seemed there was a new scandal every week. The corporate response to these episodes was always the same—doublespeak so dismissive that it seemed obvious they considered Latin Americans nothing more than little brown nuisances. In response to Bechtel’s denials The Democracy Center sent CEO Riley Bechtel an open letter, asking him to explain his version of events. Rather than respond himself, he left it to one of his public relations androids, who said that prices never went up more than a small fraction.
Personnel from The Democracy Project, dredging figures from the same computer Aguas del Tunari used for billing, detailed example after example of families whose income was perhaps sixty dollars a month being billed twenty dollars or more for water. In their PR smokescreen Bechtel claimed that because they improved the water service, more water was being used by the people. But if water usage increased, as Bechtel asserts, why was it neccesary to draft legislation barring Cochabambans from collecting riverwater? The Democracy Project pulled data from the Aguas del Tunari computers proving that when rates skyrocketed usage immediately went down. Most notable was the case of a family whose water bill tripled even though they cut back on usage by 18%. A view from the Google Earth satellite reveals a giant raft of horse manure floating toward Bolivia from San Francisco Bay.
But when a company like Bechtel makes barely believable excuses for their behavior, they aren’t actually trying to defend themselves—they are reinforcing their dogma, declaring their infallibility. Bechtel, through its subsidiary of a subsidiary Aguas del Tunari, blamed the Cochabamba protests on a rival water consortium. Then they blamed them on drug traffickers. They were anybody's fault, everybody's fault—except Bechtel's. But even though such weak excuses resonate for a while in the media, and a few true believers in the far right quadrant try to spin them into something solid, the arrogance behind their creation eventually becomes crystal clear. This arrogance is a symptom of a larger feeling of entitlement which is pervasive within the U.S. business community, but which often trips them up in the end. It certainly did in Cochabamba, where people now understand that smooth-talking businessmen from the North always promise exactly what is most needed, while eyeing nearby necks for a tender vein. It is a major reason Bolivia is yet another Latin American nation sliding leftward even as the claw of corporate excess reaches toward it from the right.
Labels: bechtel, bolivia, cochabamba, evo morales, privatization
San Francisco Magic
San Francisco was proving to be a most interesting place. It had been a long time since I’d explored a city as jubilant and weird, as labyrinthine and challenging, as baroque in its riches yet as blighted by homelessness and poverty. I was reminded why it is considered one of the world's great cities, and also why greatness is often seen through rose-tinted glasses. There was still more to see—through my friend Steve I’d caught wind of San Fran’s yearly carnival, an event that heralded the real beginning of summer in the Bay. Steve flew up from San Diego and we planned a series of activities designed to last into the depths of the a.m. First problem—the day we chose dawned gloomy and cold, and the clouds refused to burn off. I was worried whether people would turn out for the carnival. But we had a baseball game to attend first and, after checking out the statues of great Giants past, we watched Barry Bonds drill homer 745 through blustery skies.
Steve is the ultimate baseball fan, and so I felt I’d recieve an informed answer asking him what the deal was about steroids. In all the high-decibel denouncements I’d heard, nobody ever explained why exactly they’re illegal in the first place. As they relate to performance enhancement, I didn’t get it. When an athlete who is overheating takes intravenous fluids during halftime of a game, isn’t that performance enhancing? What about cortisone shots in the elbow for major league pitchers? What about those 300-pound behemoths sucking oxygen on the sidelines of NFL games? And how about Tiger Woods and other athletes going under the (laser) knife for corneal surgery? I mean, if your eyes aren’t good enough for pro sports, isn’t getting surgery the definition of performance enhancement? And there are many supplements and chemicals that remain legal. What of those? Steve nodded through all this. Then the most informed sports fan I know said, “You’re right—it’s all arbitrary bullshit.”
That mystery solved, we adjourned to the carnival, leaving in the 7th inning of a game the Giants eventually won. San Fran’s amazing ballpark is in Potrero and the carnival was a short drive away in the adjacent district of Castro. The weather hadn't changed—it was chill and grey and gusty, and I was more worried than ever this Chernobyl climate would keep people indoors. But I learned that San Franciscans aren’t even remotely deterred by a little cold and wind. As you can see from the photo below, the locals were going to celebrate Rio-style come hell, high water, or hypothermia.
San Fran’s carnival will never dethrone Brazil's—let’s be straight about that. There’s no way it could—Brazilian carnival has an apocalyptic quality, as if it’s the last bash at the end of the world. They party with such supercharged finality that, come Fat Tuesday, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a nuclear explosion on the horizon instead of sunrise. Seeing carnival in San Fran reinforced the truth that Brazil’s celebration is one of the few guaranteed life-changing experiences on this planet.
That said, the San Francisco version was excellent. Eight blocks of Harrison Avenue had been closed and, in this expanse, four band stages had been erected, as well as pavilions for drum circles, dance classes, and sports. There were food booths, beer tents (first stop for us) and
capoeira demonstrations, and tens of thousands of particpants taking part. We edged our way through the crush until the sound of congas drew us down a side street. On a stage at the end of the block a samba band was playing. They were called SambaDa. Their music was a rugged and percussive amalgam of reggae and samba, and before I knew it, I was dancing. I really began to feel like I was in Brazil when a couple asked me to pose with them for a photo. This actually happens to me a lot, but I'll discuss that in another post. Anyway, just when I began to break out my authentic samba moves the fest shut down. It was 6 p.m.
But we had planned ahead—we had tickets to an early pool party at Bambuddha in the famous Phoenix Hotel. The Phoenix is a San Francisco landmark, sort of a north coast version of L.A.’s Chateau Marmont. Pop culture luminaries such as Keanu Reeves, Joan Jett, Vincent Gallo and Little Richard have called it home. We must have been radiating quite a bit of leftover carnival energy, because our cabbie asked us if we were a rock band. Since I was actually in a touring indie band for years, this was old hat for me, but I know it made my friends feel pretty cool.
When we arrived at the Phoenix, Marques Wyatt was spinning. Marques's name hasn't been enshrined in the pop lexicon just yet, but he’s a star—one of the great deejays in the game right now. I’d resisted the eight dollar ballpark Heinekens so I’d have cash for later on. Later on had finally arrived, and I wasted zero time—the drinks flowed fast and furious; shots appeared and were consumed. We danced in the front room near the fireplace and watched the beautiful people. The guests looked so cool, so perfect, and so diverse, yet nobody seemed to be trying too hard. It was an amazing crowd. All the hipness must have rubbed off because, after a while, we felt like beautiful people ourselves. The music went on and the fire burned and the drinks kept coming. Bambuddha finally died at eleven and the night was still young.
We wandered the mean streets, headed for a carnival afterparty somewhere, anywhere. Homeless men loomed in the cold like specters, or were huddled in dark doorways. Rubber gloves and bottles were strewn in the gutters. I got the shot at left through the wrought iron security gate of a rundown apartment building. San Francisco was at its most fantastic and stark. I loved it—big, glowing, kaleidoscopic, but dark and overwhelming too, like something out of William Gibson. Clouds racing overhead in the gunmetal sky. Marvelous and horrible. Magical and hellish. Loved it, but I could never live there.
Charlie said, “What about this place?” We were outside a bar called the Ambassador. We went through the doors and the place drew us in like we were longtime regulars. We didn’t even consider leaving until the lights came up. A staffer herded us toward the exit and we weaved through the night toward our hotel. I can’t remember the name of where we stayed, but it was a good place—traditional, venerable.
Sometime in the night one of the males in our group got up and went into the bathroom. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him. He missed the toilet, totally drenched the bathroom. The Irish car bombs had affected his equilibrium, obviously. The next morning I was wondering what to say. What is the best way to tell your friend he hosed down the bathroom? He solved the problem for me. Getting dressed, he picked up his socks. He felt them, looked at me, and said, “Why the hell are these wet?" I laughed. “Well, my friend . . .”
Labels: barry bonds, marques wyatt, phoenix hotel, san francisco
outnumbered us six to three. What courage! It was clear to me right then that Dýnamó Hofn were not ordinary men, but rather genetically engineered supermen whose bravery and sense of fair play is matched only by their good looks and extraordinary luck with the ladies.
