Chichipanguanorrea 3.0

Picture by Luis Pérez

A corraleja is a typical celebration from the Colombian coast regions where people gather in a place similar to a bullfight ring and fight several bulls. The difference with a bullfight is that there is no matador in corralejas, but anyone can jump in and fight the bull. And the bull is never killed. It is very dangerous and lots of people get injured. But you can stay off the ring and just watch the whole thing while you listen to a live band and drink alcohol.

Yesterday I went to a Corraleja with my friends from college and it was very fun to watch but also disturbing to see all these drunk guys fighting the bull and doing it for money or alcohol. They would ask the crowd for money after doing different dangerous tricks like jumping on top of the bull, and they will also show you their wounds and ask you for money to pay the hospital.

After the corraleja was over we went outside the ring and listened to a vallenato concert by Silvio Brito and stayed there until 11pm dancing and drinking more aguardiente. Finally a friend took me home and my sister was having a good bye party since she will be moving to Virginia next week to pursue a PhD.

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It all started on July 30th at 3:30am when I get this phone call:

Me: “He…mfff…llo…bmgrrr?”
Cab driver: “Hello are you Mr. Jaramillo? I´m the cab driver and I´m waiting for you outside your house”
Me: “Dude! I asked for a cab for July 31st! You came 24 hours too soon!”
Cab driver: “Oh… errr.. crap!… sorry sir. I will cancel this service then”
Me: “No problem, just make sure you pick me up tomorrow at this time. Thanks.”

Ok that wasn´t really the start of the trip, but it was a funny story. By the way, if you ever need a great cab driver in Austin let me know and I will give you Fernando´s phone number.

It all REALLY started on July 31st at 3:30am when I get a phone call from my cab driver Fernando and he takes me to the airport. I got there at 4:15am and there was no line. Check-in and passing security was extremely fast. My first plane was Austin-Atlanta departing at 5:30am. In Atlanta I had a Donut and orange juice for breakfast and then at 10:30am took a plane from Atlanta to Miami. I got to Miami at 12:30pm and had pizza for lunch. In the past being at the Miami airport has been a nightmare bearable only because you can buy beer and walk around the airport with it, so I had one Heiniken for lunch, and then a Pacifico but I have to say that this time the airport wasn´t as crazy as other times.

Finally we got in the plane to fly to Medellín. The plane had some decorations related to the Feria de las flores which is the city festival celebrated once a year in early August. But that wasn´t all: the Avianca crew in charge of the flight had a few surprises for us the passengers. First they played Me voy para Medellín by El Combo de las Estrellas and then played La tierra by Ekhymosis (rock band from Medellín that Juanes used to be part of). Then they announced that Buchanan´s was sponsoring the fun factor in our trip, so they did a raffle and gave away t-shirts and a bottle of scotch and then gave scotch to all the passangers. Off course I had mine on the rocks. But the best thing came when we were about to land: instead of landing directly at the Jose Maria Cordoba airport located 30 minutes from Medellín when you usually don´t get to see the city, the pilot flu over Medellín for about 15 minutes at a not-very-high altitude where you could see all the main city landmarks like the Coltejer building, the Atanasio Girardot stadium, the old airport, the pueblito paisa, etc… it was a blast and at this point we were all singing, drinking, screaming, clapping! It was like being on a flying Chiva.

Anyway, that last part of the trip was a blast, and then seeing my family was even better. We stopped at Rancherito and had a picada and finally came home. I can´t wait to see what is next, but I´m having sancocho for lunch today!

Una trova a mis treintas.

Trent Reznor rocks! I said once. NIN fuckin’ rocks! I said later. I even was crazy enough to play along with them. But now I have to say: nine inch nails is the best band in the world. I’m really sorry Pink Floyd, U2 or Soda Stereo.

“thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one’s on me” - trent reznor

Still learning how to take good pictures. Check my latest pictures on flickr and leave some comments if you love/hate what you see.

Learning to fly is one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs.

I have seen better Molotov concerts in Austin, but none the less this one at ‘La Zona Rosa’ was really good too. They played many songs from the first album specially the ones with XXX lyrics. They also did some jamming and played snippets from a few covers like Eye of the tiger (survivor), Smells like teen spirit (nirvana), Enter Sadman (metallica) and Higher ground (rhcp stevie wonder).

Smashing Pumpkins // Tool
Zeitgeist // 10,000 Days
November 13th 2007 // November 14th 2007
The Backyard // Frank Erwin Center
Billy Corgan in the spotlight // Maynard James Keenan in the shade
more // no more

I spent most of last week in Monterrey, Nuevo León, México. The purpose of the trip was mainly to see the concert Me verás volver of Soda Stereo, one of my favorite bands ever. The concert was AMAZING! Check Marcos‘ blog for the chronicle and take a look at the official concert photos here and here.

Besides seeing Soda Stereo, we also went to the Fórum Universal de las Culturas 2007 at Parque Fundidora and saw the exhibition Isis y la serpiente emplumada (Isis and the Feathered Serpent), walked around the Macroplaza, went to the MUNE museum to see the Buddha: Guanyin exhibition, to the History of Mexico museum (my 3rd time there!), to the Marco museum to see the first Julio Galán exhibition after his death and to the Tecnológico stadium to watch the soccer game América vs Monterrey.

It was a great trip and you can see it by yourself.

Not exactly… instead Los Amigos Invisibles came to Austin for a concert at Antone’s. Earlier that day I went with Cetrulo to the Mexican consulate in downtown to obtain a permit to cross the border and go to Monterrey to the long time awaited concert Me Verás Volver 2007 and that is when Cetrulo took the picture above this text. If you want to see pictures from the concert, make sure you visit Marcos’ blog.

Update: Pictures available here.

You gotta love Austin. The festival this year was great.

I arrived with my friend Luis on friday around 4:30pm and the first band we saw was Queens of the stone age. I had already seen them two years ago when they opened the NIN concert in San Antonio and I really liked their show so I wanted to check them out again. The show was great with lots of energy. It was a great start.

The second band I saw was Gotan Project. This band is awesome. The band has a pianist, a bandoneonist, a clasic guitar player, 3 or 4 violinists, a singer and two DJs. Their music is a fusion between tango and lounge music and its incredible.

Björk was the last artist I saw on friday. She was great and had a large group of musicians playing with her. Her voice is amazing and she totally gives herself to the crowd.

On Saturday I got to the festival around 2pm. I saw the band Augustana which was pretty good and then I saw Blue October which was great too. I really like their song Hate me. Then I went to see the Colombian band Aterciopelados. I was really close to the stage wearing my ‘aguadas’ hat and my colombian flag. It was a great show with lots of energy and dancing. The crowd loved them and they did 3 extra songs at the end after we screamed ‘otra!’ a few times. This normally doesn’t happen at ACL. Bands are not supposed to play longer than what is scheduled, but since they were the last band in that stage I suppose it was ok.

Muse was the last band I saw at ACL since I didn’t make it on sunday. I really really really like Muse and the sound great live. They totally made up for the White Stripes who decided last minute not to come to the festival.

The only dissapointment of the festival is the fact that I couldn’t bring my new camera. I really wanted to take nice photos but I brought my point and shot camera and the pictures aren’t that great but I’ll post them soon anyway.

To summarize, the 3 shows I liked the most were:

• Muse
• Aterciopelados
• Gotan Project