Bandoneón :: A poem by Mario Benedetti

Terence Clarke just wrote a piece about the death of Mario Benedetti, a notable Uruguayan writer. He died on May 17 in Montevideo. Here is his article from the website "Red Room...where the writers are..."

Terence included this poem by Benedetti, along with his translation into English:

Bandoneón
Mario Benedetti

Me jode confesarlo
pero la vida es también un bandoneón
hay quien sostiene que lo toca dios
pero yo estoy seguro de que es Troilo
ya que dios apenas toca el arpa
y mal

fuere quien fuere lo cierto es
que nos estira en un solo ademán purísimo
y luego nos reduce de a poco a casi nada
y claro nos arranca confesiones
quejas que son clamores
vértebras de alegría
esperanzas que vuelven
como los hijos pródigos
y sobre todo como los estribillos

me jode confesarlo
porque lo cierto es que hoy en día
pocos
quieren ser tango
la natural tendencia
es a ser rumba o mambo o chachachá
o merengue o bolero o tal vez casino
en último caso valsecito o milonga
pasodoble jamás
pero cuando dios o Pichuco o quien sea
toma entre sus manos la vida bandoneón
y le sugiere que llore o regocije
uno siente el tremendo decoro de ser tango
y se deja cantar y ni se acuerda
que allá espera
el estuche.

Bandoneón (translation by Terence Clarke)

I’m fucked, confessing it,
but life too is a bandoneón
there are some who hold that God plays it
but I’m sure that it’s Troilo
since God can hardly play the harp,
and that badly

whoever it is, the one sure thing is
that it stretches us out in a proper pure solo
and then brings us down to so little almost nothing
and for sure drags confessions from us
clamoring complaints
the vertebra of happiness
hopes that return like prodigal sons
and above all like refrains

I’m fucked confessing it
because for sure, right now, today
few
want to be tango
the natural tendency
is to be a rumba or mambo or chachachá
or merengue or bolero or maybe casino
and at the very last a little waltz or milonga,
and a pasadoble? never
but when God or Pichuco or whoever
takes in his hands the bandoneón life
and suggests to it that it weep or cheer
you feel the tremendous decorum of being tango
you just go ahead and sing and you would never agree
that there awaits
your casket.

Sad news :: The death of Marilyn Feng

The tango community is a small and close-knit one. I did not know Marilyn, but I know people who knew her. She lived in NYC, and was killed by a drunk driver last night at around 3:30 a.m. Her companion, Dennis, is in critical condition.

My heart and love goes out to her family and friends.

Sad news indeed.

Here's a link with more info...

On the Business of Death

I didn't feel right about posting anything right on the heels of the news of the death of my friend Luciano. I felt my blog should be in mourning, with the flag at half staff. It definitely hit home, this news. We were a close knit group, several of us in Aspen, Luciano in Buenos Aires, now all scattered to far corners, but still in contact. To have one of that group gone now is strange.

But, (and there always is a but), he didn't suffer. His death didn't drag on for weeks or months or years. His mom didn't have to agonize. He wasn't kept alive on life support, brain dead, his body wasting away at great profit to the stockholders.

My views on death are very unconventional, perhaps even downright bizarre. You see, I view death as a beautiful thing. It's part of life. It's a law of nature. It's a fundamental truth of the universe. Sure, it's scary to be in the process of actually dying and fear that process, the possibility of crippling pain, the unknown of what lies beyond. Sure, it's sad when young people die before their time. Sure, it's difficult for the living who are left behind. Sure it's sad to die when you're in the middle of a beautiful life.

I see death as the beginning of a new adventure, a transition to the next plane of existence for the energetic being I call "me". As in "me, myself and I". Me is the true me - who I am at my core. Myself is my self, this physical shell that I occupy on this bluegreen planet. I is my ego, which is the fucker who springs forth from the battle between the energetic and the physical. Which, or who? Which. I won't give I/ego the validation of "who-dom". Fuckin' fucker. Me don't like that asshole I, but you gotta love him.

That's my view today anyway. I'm ready for it. I've lived a full and pretty happy life. I, with the help of a beautiful woman, created another human being in the form of my daughter. Or was it me who was planting the seed that day long ago? I'm twenty years or so beyond a natural life expectancy - of thirty years - at least in the "natural" days before drugs and medicine and diet and economics (industrial age versus a hunter/gatherer economy) extended natural life expectancies - doubled them basically.

My uncle (in law) dropped dead in his late 40's of a massive coronary, on the dance floor, dancing with his daughter at her Sweet 16 birthday party. He was dead before he hit the floor. Traumatic for her to say the least.

My dad died from lung cancer many years ago. He was 54. Young. Too young to have known the joy of being a grandfather. Adenocarcinoma with metastasis got him. In layman's terms, that means "bad shit that spreads all over your body". He fought it, valiantly, for almost four years. In the end, he was tripping on a morphine drip, and only barely lucid for a few moments on his best days. It was not fun to watch him die this way. A four year, $700,000 death.

$700,000 to extend a dying man's life by four years. Four years fraught with pain and agony and concern and worry, not only for my dad, but for all of us who loved him. We put our pets to sleep - to end their suffering - for $70. We don't want our pets to suffer, but we will drag out the death of someone we love for months and years.

I remember the day my dad died like it was yesterday. Leaving the hospital after he was gone, I walked along the sidewalk to the parking lot. A blue norther was in full tilt - low, dark blue clouds scudding lickety-split across the sky. Cold winds whipping about. Sharp, icy needles of rain drops stinging my face and washing away the salty tears as I sobbed my way to the car. I cursed him for dying.

But I digress.

The business of death is that it is big business. Death is good for business. Half a million people succumbing each year to the ancillary effects of tobacco is good business. Especially after having been faithful customers of your deadly product for forty or fifty years. Your beautifully deadly product with agricultural subsidies from the government. Smart business. Alcohol. Drunk Driving. Drugs. Rx Drugs. White processed sugar. High fructose corn syrup. Products that addict are the perfect products. Products that extend their nasty tentacles into society, into the macro economy. Perfect beautiful nasty tasty products. Ma Nuit said it once - "terrible beauty and sublime ugliness". So much death and dying as we just stand by and watch. Because it's good for business. Death is good for the economy. I know this is a controversial viewpoint, but I will carry it with me until the day I die.

I just want to know my grandkids before I shapeshift into my next life. I didn't know my grandparents - they died before I was born. On my mom's side, they died in a house fire (caused by a cousin who smoked, by the way) and a plane crash (sabotage during WWII). You should know your grandkids before you die. Luciano didn't have that chance. That's sad, for sure.

To close, here's how I want to go. My first choice is to drop dead dancing tango. Not any tango, but Di Sarli's Verdemar, with its dark and deathly lyrics. Dancing to Verdemar in the perfection of a perfect connection. Dancing with a beautiful woman in my embrace. Dancing with the beautiful woman I love. Dancing with the woman who loves me back. To die dancing tango, in love, is all that I can ask for in this life.

Or alternately, to die screwing. No, let's call it making love. With the woman I love who loves me back. At the apex of the orgasm. A big one. A good one. A big, good one. Mind blowing. Make it a simultaneous orgasm. Right then, at that moment in time. Boom and dead and gone. Or perhaps during the inevitable nap that follows. In my sleep. Yeah, in my sleep, during the inevitable post-coitus nap, after the incredible, good, big, mindblowing, holyshitwhatthefuckwasthat?, simultaneous orgasm. I like the irony of experiencing the climax of life, this climax of life we call death, in the midst of a climax. Irony, or whatever.

What the fuck was that? Oh, I just died. That's how I want to go.

Goodbye my friend.


P.S. Either way, I want to be cremated and someone to sprinkle my ashes on the dance floors of milongas in Buenos Aires. A little bit here, a little bit there, with a pinch or two into the wind at the top of Enchanted Rock. Into the north wind, as a blue norther rolls in.

Obituary :: Omar Vega died today

Horrible news. I don't know any of the details, except that it was announced by El Tangauta that he passed away today.

09/23 :: Follow Up :: Apparently he had a severe asthma attack, or a heart attack - I don't think there is any certainty.

Here's a wonderful article from El Firulete ::

http://elfirulete.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/omar-vega/

I didn't know him personally, but I took some private lessons from him in BA just last year. I don't know a lot about him. I know he was one of the many folks who starred in Sally Potter's "The Tango Lesson".

Here is his website.

Comments with details would be appreciated.

It's always a terrible loss when one of our own passes away.

Here is his CV from his website ::

Hello, my name is Omar Vega, and first of all, I want to thank you for visiting my new website and for your interest in my curriculum vitae. Twenty-five years ago, I never thought that I would become a tango professional. I thank my mother, Irma Jeronima Vega, for this possibility, since she is of African heritage, and I thank my grandparents for being of color, and, of course, for giving me this heritage in my blood. Because of this heritage, whenever I hear a drum or any kind of African music, my blood begins to boil in my veins and my heart begins to pulsate and my body to vibrate to the beat of a tango, milonga, salasa, mambo, or danzon, even if I am standing still.

And today I have 23 years as a dancer, teacher, and choreographer. And I have had the good fortune to know many countries in Europe: Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and France. And many cities and states in the US: New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Colorado, Atlanta, and many more…

I was born in Concordia in the province of Entre Rios in 1959 to an Argentine mother and German father, and in the first two months of my life they brought me to live in Buenos Aires, so I am really a gaucho by nature. I learned folkloric dance as part of growing up, but it was not so with tango, milonga, and vals. I studied those dances for five years in a cultural arts center where I learned a lot about tango dancing for shows; but not much about the social dance floor. One day a friend said to me: “Look at all the dancing you are doing, and you never go to the milongas!” She motivated me to go to a milonga, and there I got a big disappointment, because the first step I did, dancing with a 65 year old milonguera, was a backward step, causing the lady to run into a veteran milonguero within the first 15 seconds of dancing. The women led me by the arm back to my table and said to me: “Pibe, when you learn to dance tango, ask me to dance!” Two minutes later, the man we bumped into on the dance floor came over and said to me: “Pibe, you like the tango?”. I answered arrogantly, thinking inside, “Don’t you see that I’m a dancer?” and he continued, “so why don’t you learn how to dance tango?” That was the most frustrating day of my career, and after that I dedicated myself fully to learning about the social dance floor: the sense of the space, the sense of where I am standing, how to begin to dance, etc…

I worked in films like “The Tango Lesson” dancing with the lead actress and director, Sally Potter. In “Convivencia” (“Coexistence”) with the maestro Osvaldo Pugliese. In television, in “Solo Tango”, where I have video documention of two pieces of choreography. I worked with Julian and El Choclo, who gave my career great enhancement. I had the opportunity to travel around a lot of the world. I won many tango championships and received first place in Argentina in 1999.

I have taught in the best places for tango, such as Almagro, Nino Bien, and at Parakultural, at festivals such as the Boston Tango Festival, and in Los Angeles.

Comedian George Carlin dies at 71

"that's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it..."

What a great loss - a great talent, a critical thinker - although over the top with vulgarity at times, most of the time perhaps. He was still young. A man who did not hesitate to speak the truth. Somehow, in our twisted society, the truth was hilarious. Perhaps it was nervous laughter in agreement that we, ourselves, are a bunch of idiots for continuing to chase dollars and do nothing about everything that is wrong.

Here's the article on MSNBC.com - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25322638/

The first part of this one is good...one of my favorites...BUT...

VULGARITY WARNING....
DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS AT WORK OR AROUND CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!
TURN DOWN YOUR SPEAKERS OR WEAR HEADPHONES...
AFTER THE GOOD PART HE STARTS TALKING ABOUT SOME VULGAR VULGAR VULGAR STUFF!!!!
AT TIMESTAMP 4:50...
VULGARITY WARNING....
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
VULGARITY WARNING....


THESE TWO ARE CLEAN (I THINK)




"FEAR OF GERMS"
VULGARITY WARNING
VULGARITY WARNING
VULGARITY WARNING