Buenos Aires Blues

I came to Buenos Aires searching for something that would change me. At the clubs—Cumbia blasting its three-beat rhythm deafeningly, the mass of bodies on the dance floor writhing and twisting like some monstrous, heaving bag of meat—I stumbled around as I imitated the dance steps that seemed so natural to everyone else in the room.

The guys I’d met at the hostel who brought me to these places would lead me around and pass me more drinks, pointing out various girls that seemed like they needed a dance partner. Esa mina, they’d say, and then give me a shove on the back to goad me in her direction. My approach had nothing of the sensuous machismo that exuded from my Argentine counterparts, that though sexist seemed to work wonders for them in melting both hearts and panties. I would be turned away by a stony glare, or I would turn away out of shyness before I even petitioned the poor girl, and I would return to the guys hopeless. Finally, as they pushed me one more time towards one more girl, I told them as honestly as I could, no puedo, I can’t.

I knew then that the club scene was not the thing that I needed, that to succeed in that setting would require me to compromise ideals that I felt defined me personally. I came to Buenos Aires to change, but I preferred that that change be positive. Rather than the clubs, I went to shows at the music venues, places where I could see musicians playing music they had put their souls into, not DJs playing the same canned beats on repeat just to get the culo shaking.

It was in doing this that I met Pablo. He ran a small, local record label and put on shows around the city to promote the bands he worked with. Proudly, he would tell me that the music he helped record was "something different." Pablo had a mess of dreadlocks atop his head, which he vowed never to cut until humanity found peace; he was, in a country that prided itself on its world-class beef, a vegetarian; with his skin just a few shades darker than my half-Vietnamese tan he was considered negro, shameful in this country that so yearned to be European.

Through my friendship with Pablo I would find solace in Buenos Aires. He showed me records of Billy Bond, the first Argentine Blues artist, nights later after the shows. He drank whiskey with me and chatted about things that didn’t matter, things that only the two of us cared about, only at that moment. He helped me see that through our being different we were the same.