Some Final Bit of Ruminating

November 25, 4:50 AM

Leaving Argentina

We’re in the air, probably above the Atlantic Ocean at this point. We’re headed home, back to houses, dwellings, loved-ones, cats and the familiarity of the day-to-day. Will we miss Buenos Aires? Yes, yes, yes; yes we will. BA has all the magical properties of a great city where you feel like anything is possible.

How can you really describe Buenos Aries? I can’t, except to say that it’s an enchanting place that combines old-world elegance with Latin American grit, a place with an incredibly complicated history that we won’t try to begin unraveling here. Each Argentine we’ve met has been extremely kind, open and sincere with an awesome sense of humor. It’s a city for walking, being and hanging around, everything always on a human scale. Everyone had a wonderful time.
Given all this, what to make of the graffiti I noticed on the side of a building during the autobus ride out of town? I took no photo, so I’ll describe it to the best of my ability. It had been made from a stencil. The image contained three elements: an outline of a person as seen from the right side, the person’s arms extended in front; a garbage can beneath where his hands were; and finally, above the garbage can and slightly below the hands as though being dropped into the can, a Star of David. None too subtle.

I noticed this little hate-o-gram, as I say, from the bus. I think I was the only one to see it. We were all laughing, joking, happy that we were all still on speaking terms after three weeks and a whole lot of bus. I didn’t point it out to anyone because I didn’t want to sour their mood like it had mine. I was saddened but not entirely surprised. After all, Argentina, magic land of tangos, parillos and cab drivers with supernatural powers, had given safe haven to a bunch of Nazis after World War Two. And of course there are always plenty of Christians around who can’t get over that whole “Jews killed our Messiah” narrative. And there are always plenty of plain, regular assholes who automatically hate whoever isn’t like them. There are something like thirteen million people living in and around BA. To expect all of them to be nice people would be kind of a stretch.

As much as I loved Buenos Aires, I have to confess to having found it a little exhausting. I spent much of our visit trying to wrap my brain around all the dynamics of history, colonialism, economics, politics and social upheaval that in various ways had formed the Argentine character, if such a thing exists. Since I don’t know a lot about the history of Argentina, my perspective tended to be colored by what little I do know, ie the military dictatorship circa 1976, remnants of which always seemed to pop up out of nowhere and contrast wildly with the bright good times we were having. Once we were standing around chatting on a (mostly) pedestrian street following a (cancelled) concert when an old, old man shuffling by, noticed us, no doubt was immediately aware of our Americanness, and stopped and stood about ten feet away, scowling toward us with the angriest, most evil scowl I’ve ever seen, for what seemed like an hour. As though he had strong personal reasons for hating Americans, which lots of Argentines surely do. Other reminders of the bad times among the enchantment of the city: the big obelisk in the middle of town, not far from our hotel, against which some of the first “dissidents” were stood up and shot when the generals took over; the ubiquitous Ford Falcons, which the Ford Motor Company, one of the corporate beneficiaries of the coup, had supplied to the federal police and which were used, among other things, for rounding up leftists; the Rio de la Plata, into which many of the bodies were dumped. Walking around the city, it was sometimes hard not to think of state-sponsored terror, hard not to wonder how people dealt with it, how they’re still dealing with its aftermath, perhaps dreading its recurrence.

And now the last thing I see before leaving the city is…anti-Semitism. The fact that it was made from a stencil and not just crudely spraypainted makes it seem extra sinister. Maybe there was more than one person involved, the maker of the stencil plus his minions, or maybe there was just one guy and he wanted to make it as fast and easy as possible to spread the most hate over the biggest area. Either way, I begin to realize that I’m dealing with this in a rather naïve and self-centered manner. Argentina is, after all, a country, and one of the unfortunate things about countries is that some of its citizens tend not to get along. Of COURSE there’s darkness in Argentina’s past and present, just like there is in the US, in France, Mexico, Russia, Nigeria, South Africa, India, etc. And, was I more disturbed by the actual hate message or by the fact that it was ruining my good time? Am I really that incredibly spoiled? Probably, but one thing I can say with certainty is: fuck that stencil guy; fuck all those stencil guys. After briefly wondering at the origin of the stencil, I thought about the other people in the van sitting next to me and how incredibly proud I am to be one of them. I remembered all the musicians we’ve met on this trip, all the wonderful, kind people who love playing music and revel in the community it creates, in its positive energy. And I thought: Give it up, Stencil Guy, because you’re not going to win. Our side is better, smarter, more fun, more numerous, swings harder, and by the way, fuck you, Stencil Guy.

And so, Dear Reader, as we say our farewell to the Southern Cone and all it’s magic and madness, my brain continues to spin, not only attempting to unravel the mysteries and complexity of this place, but the make-up of my own character as well. And that’s why we travel.