The past 6 or so hours have probably been the best I´ve spent here in Santiago, and you´re gonna get a recap whether you like it or not.
I spent my last two months in Costa Rica searching for Turn On The Bright Lights by Interpol and came up empty handed. I came across a bunch of cd stores as I walked around Santiago the first couple days here, but no luck. Earlier today I stumbled across this record store hidden away inside this indoor strip mall type thing and I got all giddy looking at the records they had displayed in the front window. First I saw the new Sleater-Kinney disc, then The Glow Part Two by the Microphones, and then Interpol. Success! They also had a copy of the brand new Songs: Ohia 7", but they don´t have it anymore because I got it along with Turn On The Bright Lights, which I´m listening to and loving right now. It almost makes up for Ian Curtis hanging himself. All the other stuff they had I can wait to get till I get back to the states since import prices here are pretty high, but the clerk told me he´d get a copy of the Loose Furs cd in for me when it comes out later this month.
A couple stores down from this wonderful record store is the music shop where I found the guitar that I´m gonna buy. It´s made in Santiago and it sounds really good. All the Spanish style guitars I found here have these wide ass necks that my fat, stubby little fingers have a hard time playing, but this one has a skinny neck more conducive to rock and roll.
I was in a skate shop asking directions to the cd store when I saw a flier for a show next month that includes Mark Eitzel this musician from SF who I haven´t heard but is supposed to be good and one of the guys from Tortoise, everyone´s favorite post rock band from Chicago. There´s a couple other gringo performers plus some local bands. I´m stoked to hear some of the local rock and roll.
On my last night in Costa Rica, Vince and I were sitting in Doble Cero drinking Imperials and talking about a lot of things. Among them was our wish that Shakira play in Santiago while we´re down here. Well, Juan Pablo my roomie here at the house for the time being made our wish come true today when he told me that she´s gonna play here in Santiago next March. Up front it´s gonna be me and Vince and a bunch of screaming teenage girls and probably some old perverts too, and it´s gonna rule. We´re gonna get all loaded and sing along, I can´t wait. Oh yea, and Mana is playing at this big ass music festival at the beach town Viña del Mar a couple hours from here at the end of February, that ought to be tons of fun. This Interpol record kicks ass, I don´t know what the hell Dan and Drew were thinking not seeing them up in Portland.
On a non music note, uh oh bad pun, I was cruising around with Brooke another Reno head earlier and we found cheap tofu at this Asian foods store, they didn´t have rooster sauce but I´m sure I´ll find some eventually and put loads of it on everything like I do back home. They had vegan egg roll wraps, too. We also found a cheaper and closer place to go for beers than that hip Swedish hood, and right around the corner from there was a cheap and good looking vegetarian restaurant that I must´ve walked right past 10 times. The lady there was in a damned hurry to close the place, otherwise I might´ve found out what the hell time they open and the like. A vegan skateboarder told me of another restaurant at that back of this food court not to far from here and said it rocks, I´m sure I´ll give them all a test taste in due time.
Today kicks ass. I´m going shredding tonight and right now I´m gonna cook some potatoes and dump a crapload of curry on them, like I do back home. Fried potatoes, the food of vegetarian college students everywhere.
I was just thinking that if I ever broke onto the hip hop scene, I could get all fat and call myself Bad Pun and all my rhymes would be, well, bad puns. If I got really good I could be in Jennifer Lopez videos before dying of a heart attack like, well, Big Pun. RIP.