Buenos Ay-ya-ya-res

I was just doing a little background investigating in order to write a better post and I realized, damn girl, you don’t know squat about Cumbia and yet you want to write a post about it?  And then I thought, no, you always write about things you don’t know squat about.  I don’t even know how to squat.  What is a squat?  Shall we proceed?

So, for those of you who know me, I like music.  I know, you think, Leslie?  She doesn’t care for tunes.  But if you really know me, you know that, in fact, I am a music fan.  I am saying it here, loud, clear, and in some boring font: I enjoy listening to music.  I also really enjoying dancing.  If you want to imagine me dancing, I recommend renting The Life Aquatic.  According to my friend Rebecca, Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) wiggles just like moi!  It’s the scene when they’re about the go diving and he talks about how they put a rabbit ear on their helmets to pipe in some music.  Then he copies my moves.  I should have patented them….  Money in the bank.

But life has been hard here in Argentina.  As you can see from my previous posts I have been very unhappy.  I have no idea why this post is so sarcastic.  I apologize.  No, but really, I haven’t really been able to quench my music addiction here.  Yes, Lo de Roberto’s, but after a while….  Well, it lost its charm.  I don’t understand tango lyrics.  And tangeuros are dangerous.  They’ll break your heart.

Rock Nacional, aka anything that is rock and made in Argentina, has its moments, but for the most part, leaves something to be desired.  What is a wiggly giggly girl to do?  Of course, dancing in the shower is fun until you slip. 

Last night, I called my friend Jessica Fain (see Busqueada de Huevos) and invited myself to a party.  I am good at that.  Anyway, she said it was in a "Casa de Juventud."  A youth house.  Youth hostel?  No.  Youth House.  Do young people live there?  No.

Tennessee and I got in a cab and booked it to this place.  I was nervous I was going to forget the address, but when we got out of the cab there was a door with a few youngsters in front and a sign that said, "Casa de Juventud."  Apparently Jessica was not wrong, it sure was a house of youth.

Now, earlier in the evening I met up with Tennessee and Ernesto (see gangsta picture in my profile).  Ernesto had to go to a birthday party at a club and invited us to come along, but warned us about the steep cover charge.  He called it cheto, which I guess translates to upscale, but depending on how you say it can be a positive or a negative negative thing.  But what he said after stuck with me, "You’d probably not like it.  It’s not cool, cheap, or underground."

You can all stop laughing now.  I know I am not underground.  I am aware of that.  But I do enjoy the cheap stuff.  And if I have to pay a steep cover to get in somewhere, it better rock and the booze should be free.

So, Tennessee and I, in a weird twist and turn of an evening, ended up at the Casa de Juventud.  We got our free drink (with the cover of 5 pesos, yippeee!) and found Jessica and her friend Cris. 

And then I heard it.  Cumbia.  It has this distinct chuu-chi-chi-chuu-chi-chi-chuu.  Sounds like someone shaking a can with rice in it.  As you do.

Of course I had heard Cumbia before.  I hear it daily.  I am in South America.  They’re crazy for Cumbia.  Every car that drives by is fueled with Cumbia.  When people clean their apartments, they have to air out the Cumbia on the balconey.  I have been aware of it for a while.  But it never really interested me before.

Apparently Cumbia comes from Colombia. If you look at the pictures here, you’ll see that it seems really folky and kinda like something you’d send to your grandma on a postcard.  But, oh my sweets, this is not the Cumbia that people are crazy about.

There is a type of Cumbia, Cumbia Villera, which is pretty popular in Argentina.  I am not sure if we were listening to Villera or what, but I guess it’s like if Cumbia were Rap, Cumbia Villera would be Gangsta Rap.  I say this because, apparently, Villera talks about poverty, stealing things, living in ghettos, etc.  And like rap, there are MANY socioeconomic conotations to be a fan of this music.  It is not high class to like Cumbia, especially if you like Cumbia Villera. 

Which I find interesting.  Unlike the States, where well-fed suburban kids have huge collections of rap, dress like rappers, etc., but live a very different life from those portrayed on the albums, that is just not what happens here.  This, however, goes way deeper.  The whole concept of dressing down just doesn’t exist here.  In general, if you have money, you dress like it.  If you have money, you go to these places.  If you don’t you look like option B and you go these places. 

I believe something started in the 60s and was sign, sealed, and delivered with grunge rock that just twisted our whole conception of money and appearing a certain class in the United States.  Distressed jeans that cost $300?  Or, another example, I, like many of you, enjoy thrift store shopping because I like the clothes and the prices and that smell of must, but secondhand clothes in Argentina have almost no fashion value whatsoever.  Yet I can see a old raggedy t-shirt and feel like a million bucks.  Or maybe Americans like to be walking paradoxes.  I do, don’t you?

In any case, so, I am at this Cumbia party in a Casa de Juventud and Cris asks me if I am going to dance.  I say I don’t know how to dance Cumbia.  She’s like, "Don’t worry about it, it’s easy, it’s like Salsa." "I don’t dance Salsa."  "Don’t worry about it."

So, I wiggle.  I giggle.  Did you know that you can get away with that in Cumbia?  You don’t have to know what you’re doing at all.  I mean, open your eyes, imitate, but it’s not like Salsa, which I have tried, and then felt the ridicule of people’s laughter.  I cannot isolate my hips.  It’s a learning disorder, ok, stop making fun.  But Cumbia gets major major bonus points from me for being so accepting.  Steve Zissou would be very at home dancing Cumbia.  Maybe.

But I danced and danced and danced and danced some more.  I found a new fun thing, and it is Cumbia, and if that makes me low class, bring it.  I am an American and I like people thinking I have no class.