FIRST PROBLEM:

You’re walking alone on a dark downtown street. It’s late.

This is a timed exercise. Get it right, you get nothing. Don’t get it wrong.

Halfway up the block you see a couple getting robbed across the street and twenty meters up. The thief is alone, scraggly, a glue-sniffer or crackhead. He menaces his victims with a long piece of broken glass held high over his head.

The girl, she cries. The guy panics and forks over something from his pocket. The thief spins drunkenly on his heel and runs in your direction. The couple huddle away in the opposite direction, the girl’s hand over her mouth.

The thief is fucked up. He’s looking past you as he approaches, wobbly but aggressive. He gets a car width away and notices your face and pauses, but he’s already committed to demanding all your valuables. He also holds the piece of glass high over his head, angling down in a theatrically menacing gesture. You notice he has a piece of cloth wrapped around the glass to keep from cutting his own hand. It might not be enough to keep from injuring himself if he stabs, but probably good enough if he slices, so while the guy may not be a pro, the glass isn't strictly for show.

In your pockets, you have: a handful of change, a wad of bills, a small folding knife, and a canister of pepper spray.

You:

You have three seconds to come up with a plan.
 

SECOND PROBLEM:

Your street is hundreds of years old. The buildings are older than electricity, and along and between all the buildings are miles and miles of cables and wires. Rather than retrofit wiring in a sensible manner, generations of people have haphazardly hung wire under eaves in thick messy bundles, down walls in single lines for no apparent reason, and dangled in unsightly criss-crosses in every direction. You  can assume all of them had a purpose at one time, but these days, who knows how many are actually carrying any kind of current. You just hope none of them are your electricity, phone, alarm, or doorbell.

One night, while walking on the street, you heard what sounded like firecrackers. Across the street at knee level, an apparently completely solid masonry wall was sparking in a rough line. The wiring inside the wall was shorting out enough to throw bright sparks through the paint with loud bangs as it went. Upon inspection, the wall was completely smooth and solidly painted, except for a few very faint scorch marks. Wiring is nearly supernatural in this country.

Late at night you can sit in your third-floor window and watch the thieves at work, usually alone, but sometimes with a lookout. They scale walls with some skill and grab any piece of wire they can and pull. Whatever lengths they break off get stuffed into a plastic garbage bag, which they take to the junkie’s district to sell for copper. If they see anyone coming up the street, they jump down and curl against a wall and pretend to be asleep, just another passed-out homeless person for the police to ignore.

Some nights you’ll hear a strange noise outside and see a guy hanging off a wall at a daring angle, pulling as hard as he can on an overhead wire. He may be out there for quite some time, making a stupid racket at 3AM. You’ve even seen them Tarzan off the walls, trying to rip out the wires. It’s an urban jungle, all right.

The Platypus Hostel has one main building and two sub-buildings, one several doors up and one a few doors down and across the street. In order to connect the other two with wireless internet, a local engineer had erected, at considerable expense, a rather sizeable antenna on the roof of the main building and a powerful wi-fi repeater. Naturally, the system never worked. An Australian geek staying in one of the sub-buildings took it on himself to wire it up with a cable. He carefully strung seventy-five meters of the highest-grade Cat5 he could find high among the gutters, mixing in with the other old bundles of wire. "Oh, I know the weather will degrade it," he said, "but I only need it to work for a few months." He was surprised when it disappeared a few nights later. If you leave a lightbulb screwed in overnight, 15 feet off the ground, don't count on it being there in the morning. These guys are as ambitious as they are aggravating.

You come home one night, a little drunk, and you hear a strange noise outside. You have to take a leak anyway, so you jokingly tell your friend on the internet chat: hold on, I have to go pee on a cable thief outside my window.

When you look out the window, there’s a guy climbing the wall two stories down, grabbing at wires, smack dab precisely underneath your open window. It is a windless night.

You:



THIRD PROBLEM:

You are walking into an office building with a security desk in the lobby. As well as the guard behind the desk, the door to the elevators is manned by a security guard. There are a few other people coming and going.

In order to get inside this building, visitors are required to leave a photo ID at the security desk and receive a visitor pass in exchange. You have forgotten your ID.

Sometimes, security is tight. The Israeli embassy, for an obvious example, brooks no bullshit. And even as an American, just try to get into the US embassy without an appointment – usually the only way to manage this trick is to wave your blue passport at the Colombian guards, insult their mothers in the most egregious fashion possible, and tell them you’ll call someone with real authority if they don’t open the gate for you right the fuck now. You may not want to be an ugly American, but they won’t back down until you are.

Other places, security might be a little looser, and being a foreigner may work in your favor. You expect this is one of those buildings where security is not exactly top-shelf.

You:


 
FOURTH PROBLEM:

There’s a mugger working your corner most nights of the week. He’s maybe twenty years old and scruffy, with a distinct disjointed way of walking.

The first time you see him, he approaches aggressively, but not exactly threatening. He doesn’t seem put off by the fuck-off look that stops most. In fact, he seems a little stoned. He tries to reach into your jacket pocket, but you swat his hand away and tell him to fuck off like you can’t even be bothered to beat him. He offers to walk you home and tags along for the remaining half-block to your door. He seems friendly and just happy to talk, but there’s an underlying menace that needs to be handled.

At the door, you grab him by the collar, put your finger in his face and explain to him if he ever tries to pull anything on you it will not end well, and things will go better if everyone stays friendly. He seems sincere in his agreement and wishes you good night with a wave.

You don’t see him again for quite some time, but when you do, you recognize the odd gait from a block away. You pull out your pocket knife and curl it point down in your fist, the blade hidden under your sleeve. When he approaches to ask for a little money, you tell him it’s a bad idea, but the kid won’t listen and he tags along again, aggressively and obnoxiously. You can’t be certain he’s actually the violent type, but he’s definitely unstable. You scratch your nose with the back of your hand, displaying the blade. He stops in his tracks, but he can’t resist calling out, hey, if you won’t give me money, will you give me your knife?

You turn around and tell him with a smile no, but if he wants it, he should come closer. He laughs cheerfully and runs off.  

You see him a few times after that, but he seems to recognize you now. He’ll walk up within ten meters and take a look, but he won’t come closer.

One night you watch him from your window. He works the street carefully, hitting up people for change. He ignores single women, but he’ll approach a couple or single men. He slinks into a corner and smokes crack and becomes a little bolder. He approaches one couple who deny him, but he senses something in the man’s demeanor, a bit of weakness. You can see it from three floors up – the guy startles. The kid tags along with them for half a block, looking all around spastically, until he decides the coast is clear and he pulls out a piece of broken glass and demands money. The guy hands it over and the kid runs off.

He works again the next night. He loiters around the intersection looking for just the right target. He lets dozens of people pass by unmolested, not even asking for change. He stalks the pavement for a half hour before what he wants comes walking: two foreign guys, tall, blond and oblivious. He moves with surprising speed, showing them a piece of broken glass. The guys are surprised and fork over their money without a thought, and the kid runs away.

A few nights later, the kid approaches you fast from behind, but when you turn around, he recognizes your face and slows down.

“I know you,” he says.

“Yeah, and I know you,” you say. “I’ve seen you robbing people on my street, and I’m not happy with you.”

The kid keeps trailing along.

You:

 

BONUS PROBLEM:

Georgian jazz combo, 1969. Hippest thing a bunch of commies ever did, or hippest thing anybody ever did, ever?


Pencils down! Let's see how you did...


FIRST PROBLEM: None of the answers are especially good, are they? Try this: tell the mugger be cool, brother. I don’t have much, but I’ll share it with you. Take some coins out of your pocket and when you go to hand them over, fumble and drop them on the ground. Say oops and keep walking. He’ll scramble for the change and figure it’s all he’ll get out of you, and by the time he finds all the coins, you’ll be gone and he’ll have forgotten you. This is probably the closest thing to a win-win resolution. You get to feel clever for neatly sidestepping the issue, and he gets a few pennies closer to his next hit of glue. Everyone’s happy, no one gets hurt.

A case might be made for violence, if you want to play Batman. But where do you stop with this? If the purpose is to incapacitate the bad guy, well, smacking him up won’t keep him from doing the same thing tomorrow. The criminal justice system won’t work here. You could cripple him to prevent him from attacking other people, but if you’re going that far, why not just kill him?

The paramilitaries arrived in La Candelaria to do just that. A few guys dressed all in black on motorcycles, patrolling the streets… if they decide you’re a bad guy, good night. I first heard of this from a friend of mine, a Colombian adoptee raised in the US. He’s American, but he looks local. He told me about an “undercover cop” stopping him in the street one night and yelling at him to get home quick. It didn’t make sense to me, but then I heard the paras were in town and I thought my friend was pretty lucky. If they didn’t like how he looked, they might’ve taken him for a long walk just for being on the street at night. You wanna follow the paramilitary example? Really?

Actually, the best answer to this problem, for normal people, would be to turn around and run the opposite direction as soon as you see the guy robbing the couple up the street. But for people like us, where's the fun in that?

SECOND PROBLEM: Yeah, I know it’s gross, but the universe gave you a full bladder and put the jackass directly under your window for a reason.

THIRD PROBLEM: Neither answer is correct. The correct answer is, walk into the building like you own it and have places to go. Don’t even look at the security desk. It doesn’t exist for people like you. Nine times out of ten, you can walk right by the line of people waiting to exchange their IDs and visitor passes and the security guard will even open the door for you. It’s a little spooky how well this actually works, and worst-case scenario, you’re back at option 1 anyway.

FOURTH PROBLEM: All the answers would probably work to one degree or another, but an even better answer is to tell him you’ve seen him working your street and you’re unhappy with him, and does he know what you do to thieves on your street? You… tickle them! And then lunge for him and tickle his ribs. This will spook the living shit out of him and every time he sees you in the future he’ll run straight the hell away from you, you fucking freakshow.

BONUS PROBLEM: Are you kidding me? Look at the guy in the red shirt turn on his bandmate at about 1:16! These guys were tight! If the rest of the Soviet Union was this hip, they'd still be around.


SCORE YOURSELF: If you maintained any portion of your sanity whatsoever, reward yourself with a belt of whiskey, champ.

I came to in the morning with no money, half a bag of BBQ potato chips, and a lovely 19-year-old girl. How do these things happen – first, I thought I had an over-25 rule, and then, where did I find a bag of BBQ chips at some stupid-o-clock hour?

The 19-year-old turned out to be all of the good adjectives and not really any of the bad, save the “too young” thing. As the hangover lifted I remembered thin slices of the previous night, including one point where she’d surprised me by being smart and goofy and cool. So much for the age guideline. The potato chip mystery never got resolved, but the girl, she stuck around.

A few weeks later, Sam and Vlad and I were waiting at the Bogota Beer Company for three girls Vlad knew when the 19-year-old called. I told her to come by for a beer with us. Vlad said, hey, there’s already a girl coming for you, and I said, nonsense, you can never have too many women around. Besides, it’d be entertaining and educational. I predicted Vlad’s upper-class women would instantly hate my spunky punk-rock lower-class 19-year-old, and would give her only the courtesy strictly demanded. My girl would hold her own, despite the fact she’d never been to the Bogota Beer Company before and didn’t know from the upper class.

Which was how it went. But when I met my girl outside the bar, she’d shown up with some male friend. I shook the guy’s hand and told her she was welcome to join me and my friends, but her friend would have to fuck off.

Which is, where I come from, a dick move. In Bogota, it’s self-defense. If it’s male and not already a known quantity, not at least vouched for, get rid of it. Too many ways to go sideways and not enough ways to go good.

I’m in the tienda bar late one Sunday afternoon, the tienda bar where the phrase “wretched hive of scum and villainy” crosses my lips every time I cross the threshold. It’s a horrible place but more importantly it’s rarely boring, and my friend and I are only stopping in for one beer.

I tell my friend about a project I’d been working on, these Colombians who’d written a role-playing game in English and wanted me to edit it to American English perfection, until I started editing. They wrote very well for a second language, but aside from the expected twists of grammar and punctuation, many things were garbled, nonsensical, and idiomatically wrong. Some parts were plain bad writing, or repetitive and dramatically overblown in that flowery Latin way that doesn’t translate well. They patiently explained how every one of my edits, without exception, was completely wrong and they were writing at a level of English clearly beyond my comprehension, like Shakespeare, and as upper-class Colombians, they were accustomed to a certain level of service and maybe I didn’t really want the gig. All things considered, plus having seen their hilariously idiotic and badly backfired attempts at viral marketing online, they had a point. But I saluted their superior condescension, classism and general retarded fuckbagishness, and vowed to improve mine – when in Rome, or Stratford-upon-Avon, after all. I’m laughing about it to my friend, but I’m grateful I read "Catch-22" when I did.

My friend, he’s upset with his Colombian girlfriend. They were at a club the previous night with a group of people including a guy she works with. The guy was calling his girlfriend “mi amor” and touching her face, aggressively and blatantly trying to pick her up. My friend is still pissed off about it.

"I don't even mind all the flirting if it's on the job," he says, "I know how it is at work. He just shouldn't be doing it at the bar, right in front of me. And she shouldn't let him.”

"Can’t argue with that," I say. "But look at 'em. It’s a basic cultural difference. Guy right here, for example." I nod at a nearby drunk douchebag. The douche looks like he’s near the pissing-his-pants drunk stage, and he’s slurringly grab-assing any woman that gets within grabbing range. It’s obnoxious as hell, grounds for a pepper-spraying where I come from, but in this bar it’s good-naturedly blown off by the women and tacitly encouraged by the men.

"Pathetic by our standards, but whaddaya gonna do. I knew a guy, hell, he couldn't help but harass anything he saw with tits - ever try to have a conversation, guy stops every thirty seconds to tell a passing twelve-year-old he wants to put his thumb in her ass? I've seen it, man. And I don’t think the women here are going to rise up and commit gendercide anytime soon, so ya deal with it. But look at the bright side: this is one reason why their women prefer us. Really, the douchier they are, the better. This drunk, your girlfriend’s co-worker… most of 'em are only doing us a favor."

Soon enough, the drunk douche notices us gringos. He cantilevers over our table and yells at us, flecking spit - "WELCOME COLOMBIA! Eh? WELCOME COLOMBIA!"

Yeah, that's great, thanks. Maybe this reads like a friendly gesture but I’m already guessing where it’s going, and in this bar, it hardly ever ends happy. I’m hoping the douche gets distracted by some unattainable skirt and goes the hell away.

But douche won't stop. He's yelling at my friend over too-loud Judas Priest, leaning in, breathing heavy. My friend asks me to translate.

"He's saying, '18 percent THC' and something about Colombia's the only place in the world to get it - y'know, the usual 'wooo Colombia number one wooo' bullshit. Remember, every day is September 12 for them. Just roll with it. And if he says anything about the food, agree with him no matter what."

Douche realizes my friend doesn't speak much Spanish. He switches gears. He tries to speak in English, and for fuck's sake, here it comes: "COME BACK," he says, "COME BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY."

"You mean, 'GO BACK,'" I tell him.

"COME BACK!"

"It's GO BACK, jackass. GO BACK. GO. GO. GO BACK. Christ, at least learn to insult us competently."

He thinks we're German. I imagine this is because we speak English. He switches back to Spanish and leans into my friend, tells him he'll kill him. He doesn't care if we're German or whatever, he says we made a big mistake coming to his country and we should leave, because he'll kill us all. He's waggling his middle finger off to the side as he speaks, the passive-aggressive thing, and he makes a throat-slitting gesture. I've seen this before – it’s grandstanding, bullying, playing on a badass international reputation. I imagine it mostly works because gringos are easily spooked. My friend doesn't spook. He doesn’t understand what the douche is ranting about, but I can tell from his face he's struggling with an internal debate whether or not to throw the douche off the balcony, just on principle.

But me, I’m in hysterics. I grab the douche by the shoulder and excitedly tell him, "you know what I love about your country? It's that the people are so friendly!"

This is what the newbie foreigners always go on about - oh, the locals are so gosh-darn friendly! I’m laughing at my own funny, but the douche gives me a confused look, like I don’t understand his point. He goes on about how Colombia is for Colombians. They don't need us here. The ground is stained with Colombian blood, it's their country, not ours, he’ll kill us, blah fucking etcetera. I listen with an amused grin and wait for him to pause.

"Yeah, man, that's exactly right!” I say. “All the wars, all the guerrillas and paramilitaries and narcos and constant killing, nothing but death death death, that's been working out great for you people so far, stick with it! The ground stained with Colombian blood, man, fuck yes, I support you in that one hundred percent! You guys don't need us, and no other country in the world wants you either, so you stay here alone and kill each other off. The more dead, the better! You should be proud to be Colombian, in your own little isolated pocket of killing! More death, man, more death! Go go go!"

My friend gets up to leave. He's had enough. Douche doesn't know what to make of my rant - his attempt at being threatening has backfired badly, and he's left holding nothing. He sits on the railing as I pass and I lean in close to him. "But you know what else? I'm not leaving your country, pal, until I'm done fucking all your women. ALL OF THEM." Smile. Wink. Slap on shoulder.

His head slumps to his chest and he gives me a desultory finger. I walk down the stairs and wave over a pretty girl I know to tell her I'm leaving. She comes over and kisses me. I tell her to walk outside with me for a moment and she puts her arm around me. I look back over my shoulder and the douche is watching us leave. I give him a little nod and a smirk - there he was, grab-assing any female he could and failing miserably, and there I am - snap my fingers and I walk out with the cutest girl in the bar.

It’s a moment of high blatant arrogant dickery. It helps no one and hurts everyone, and it makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.

Anyone knows me, knows few things make me Christmas-morning giddy like winding up US military douchebags. Like the Marine cuntbucket who told me, "look, man, I'm not here to talk to you, I'm here to get some pussy," and then tried to pick up my girlfriend - while she was sitting on my lap. Or the special forces wackjob who told me the best feeling in the world is to bust down a door, put some poor slob's neck under your boot and jam a gun barrel against the back of his head - it's like being god. Or the hero who threatened to shoot a Red Cross girl in the skull for daring to suggest that Afghanistan was better off before the US invaded. You bet I support our troops, and the more brainfucked they are, the more entertained I am.

It used to be easy in Bogotá. There were only a few places where embassy and military types would go drink, and if you saw another American, he was bound to be FBI, CIA, DEA, Marine, Special Forces, private contractor, or something you don't wanna know. It didn't take long to figure out how to spot them. Mostly, they'd be pretty cool guys with interesting stories and I really enjoyed hanging out with 'em, but every now and then I'd strike gold and find a real douche.

The most popular news show in Colombia is probably Septimo Dia. I've never actually seen it, but I understand it's not quite "60 Minutes." The host of the show called up my friend Fin, looking for help on a story about US military types who come to Colombia, knock up the local bimbos, and bail. The host wanted Fin to wear a hidden camera and ingratiate himself with some military types and get them to talk, well, how they talk about the local girls. Pure tabloid stuff.

Fin's from Australia – he could maybe go undercover "Point Break"-style with a band of bank-robbing surfers, but he's about as far from US military as it gets. "No, mate, I'm not the right guy for that," he said. "But I know who is."

"I'm your boy," I told the host, "but I'm gonna need two hot models to go with me to act as bait."

And that's how I found myself getting paid to go drinking in high-end bars with models, hunting for dumbass gringos. It's great when a hobby becomes a profession. It would've been all fun and games except for the third-world hidden camera system: a mid-90s vintage Sony Handycam tucked into a ridiculously oversize fanny pack, with wires running out the side and up the back of my shirt to a cheesy baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses perched on the brim. Yeah, slick.

The show had hired out for the hidden camera. Of course, the hidden camera contractor was the boyfriend of the show's producer, 'cause that's how this works down here.

"I'll wear this because it's funny," I told the camera contractor, "but you do understand how ridiculous and suspicious this looks, right?"

He didn't. "How so?"

"Well, first, no American wears a fanny pack, not unless they're fat middleaged tourists from Nebraska. Or unless they're trying a little too hard to prove their gayness."

"Seriously?"

"Oh, fuck."

"What about the hat?"

"Yeah. Baseball cap with sunglasses on the brim and cords running down the back of the neck. Because Americans always wear that to go out clubbing at night in a city that's cold and overcast anyway."

"But you think it's OK?"

"Dude, in no way is this 'OK.' I look like a gay redneck. No way is this gonna blend in with military types. The serious guys are gonna know right away something's weird. Only chance we have is finding some Marines, 'cause they'll be the only ones too dumb to notice."

"But you'll still do it, right?"

"Yeah, as long as you'll still pay to get my teeth replaced after I get curb-stomped."

Deal. Hell, Hunter Thompson got his ass beat for Hell's Angels, and this seemed way funnier to me.

The models were good, wacky fun, and we had several fine nights out. We usually met some military types, but unfortunately, none of them were Marines and all of them were really cool. I didn't record any of them. Honestly, it made me feel pretty relieved, in this case, that dickhead gringos were so hard to find. We met lots of private contractors and mystery types, including one guy who'd been here 14 years ago.

"14 years ago… around the time they got Escobar," I'd worked out. The guy looked at me sideways and said yeah, exactly. Ah. Gotcha.

One night the producer spotted a group of embassy-type gringos going into a bar, and I tracked them down - four guys with three Colombian women. I caught one of the guys off-guard while he was playing with his cell phone.

"'Scuse me," I said, "you're from the embassy, right?"

He cocked his head and looked at me like, what the fuck, who wants to know.

"No, no, it's cool, it's just, you wouldn't happen to know a Marine named Tony, wouldja? Black guy, shaved head? I told him to meet me here, but he hasn't shown and his phone is off."

"No, we're not Marines," he said.

"Oh, obviously – you're not acting like complete fucking idiots." I know enough to know that if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's making fun of Uncle Sam's Miserable Children. The guy loosened up.

"What's his name? I can look up anybody's phone number from the embassy right here."

Whoop, forgot about that - they all have everybody else's cell phone number pre-programmed into their phones. Think fast, change the subject. "No, I already tried, his phone's off or something. Probably banging some girl. So whadda you do here?"

He looked at me with an arched eyebrow. I laughed. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I don't wanna know."

"That's right."

"Well, shit, listen, I don't think this guy's gonna show - I'm here meeting a couple of models I want to hire for my business, so I've got an extra chick here if you're interested. They're kinda dumb, but… models."

"Oh, well, hell, bring 'em on over!"

He grabbed the bait…

"Just ease off on the blond, all I ask – I might be interested in that one."

"Hey, it's all fair game here, buddy!" he joked.

… and then I yanked on the line. Bring out their competitive nature - yeah, steal the blond model off the dork in the stupid hat and fanny pack.

The guys moved to another club to meet up with an even larger group of gringos who all worked for various agencies with three-letter acronyms. They were more standoffish than usual, which I chalked up to my absurd outfit. They all seemed like pretty decent fellows, until I finally decided we wouldn't get anything worthwhile and went to retrieve my two models. When I approached the girls, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and some black American guy was leaning in and saying something.

"What?" I yelled over the music.

"LEAVE," he said. "Get the fuck outta here."

"No worries," I smiled, "I'm leaving, I'm just taking these two girls home with me."

He looked shocked. "Wait, they're with you?"

"Yes. They. Are. Good luck, buddy."

The guy fell over himself apologizing. He'd just assumed I was disrespecting his boys, trying to poach their meat. That was as close to dickhead as I found, and you really couldn't blame him, especially me wearing the stupid getup.

One guy did talk to me that night, though. Very cool guy. He did something secretive and financial, and he seemed a bit drunk, so I had to ask him about the big hostage rescue that was all over the news.

"So there's a rumor," I said, "that the US and France and Colombia paid twenty million dollars to the FARC in exchange for the release. That true?"

The guy looked at me, a bit surprised, and said, "no comment."

"Oh, come on… are you telling me you can neither confirm nor deny reports of a payoff? For real?"

"Listen, man," he grabbed me and leaned in close to speak over the music, "you and I both know that shit you see on CNN isn't the way the world really works."

I'd asked the TV producer what she thought about the hostage release. She'd spent a lot of time with the FARC. She just harrumphed and said, "anyone who believes the official story doesn't know my people." True enough. She also told me about a recent story they'd worked on, about how you can hire an ambulance in Bogotá to deliver an important package or to get you to an important meeting. Brilliant - I love how the corruption extends beyond even my imagination. I need to hire an ambulance one of these days.

I met a guy who worked with the Colombian diplomatic mission in France and was heavily involved with the media and the Betancourt family during the rescue. When I asked what he thought about the $20 million rumor, he looked away for a very long time and said nothing. Finally he turned back and diplomatically said, "I think it's true."

But I actually liked the official story of the hostage rescue. Very amusing, I thought. The FARC even came out and denounced the guerrilla leader who was captured along with the hostages – they called him a traitor. The $20,000,000 rumor probably assumes that the money was paid to this guy, but if you look at the photos after his capture, his face black, blue and grim, it's a guy who just got the shit kicked out of him and is about to be extradited to spend the rest of his life in a US prison, not a guy who just made himself twenty million dollars. I figure the reality is that the top FARC leaders took the twenty million and arranged the hostage rescue, and then blamed the poor schmuck who got captured... which may not be as clever a story, but certainly more appropriate for here.

The Plaza Bolivar during the July 20 FARC protest. Most people wear a white shirt, except me - I wore gray.

The FARC have had a tough 2008. It started off with a hostage release negotiated by Hugo Chavez, joined by Oliver Stone, who I used to adore, but now can go fuck himself for supporting the FARC. What a stupid asshole. The FARC had originally struck a deal for the release of three hostages, but it got called off at the last minute when they realized one of the three hostages, a young child, had been turned over to the custody of the government years earlier. This might have seemed odd, but completely plausible if you know how disorganized, inefficient and downright incompetent everyone in this country is… and then it's just hilarious.

Still, Chavez did pull off a hostage release, and in response, a couple of Colombians organized a protest march against the FARC and Chavez through Facebook that turned into the largest protest march in living memory. It was a massive, unexpected and impressive show of solidarity that told the FARC and the world they have no support among the people, thus discrediting the whole concept of a "people's army."

Shortly after, the US military tracked a satellite phone call from the FARC's number two guy, Raul Reyes, to Hugo Chavez, and the Colombian military blew him up. The FARC camp happened to be over the jungle border in Ecuador, which sparked Chavez to mouth off, but at least the number two guy is good and dead.

Shortly after that, the FARC's founder and number one guy, Manuel "Tirofijo" Marulanda, apparently kicked off from natural causes.

And then another of the top FARC leaders got wacked by his own bodyguards, and they turned in his severed hand for the reward money. At least, that's the official story – according to rumor, it was the military who offed him. But whatever.

The FARC have a seven-member secretariat, their top leadership, and in the space of a few months, three of them were taken out. And then there's the desertions – even one of the leaders of a FARC front, a vicious, well-known woman, turned herself in to the government and made TV commercials begging her former comrades to do the same.

But here's some really far-out speculation on my part: at least another two members of the secretariat might be working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency. A Colombian general bragged after the hostage rescue that they had infiltrators at the highest levels of the FARC, and who knows, in all the excitement around the event, he might've slipped up and actually said something truthful.

Cut to Viktor Bout, the most notorious arms dealer in the world. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Viktor managed to commandeer a couple of Antonov cargo jets and worked his way up to being one of the most wanted men on the planet, selling any kind of weaponry to any kind of group, anywhere. You know the movie Lord of War with Nicolas Cage? That movie was inspired by Bout.

Bout was finally captured in Thailand in March by the DEA, set up in a sting operation arranging a deal to airdrop surface-to-air missiles to the FARC - a narco-terrorist organization, which explains the DEA's involvement. I happened upon his arrest warrant one night online. It's a good story, but there's one sentence in particular that's fascinating:

"SMULIAN also indicated that BOUT had shown SMULIAN photographs of all the senior officers in the FARC and asked SMULIAN to identify CS-2 and CS-3 from the photographs."

Smulian was Bout's right-hand man. As Bout is too wanted to leave Russia easily, Smulian was the guy flying around the world arranging arms deals for him. Smulian met with two guys who claimed to be from the top leadership of the FARC, but were actually working for the DEA – these two guys are called CS-2 and CS-3 in the arrest warrant.

So Smulian goes to meet Bout in Russia to work over the details of this FARC deal. Bout pulls out pictures of "all the senior officers in the FARC." Smulian is then asked to pick out the two guys he's been meeting. If Smulian looks at the photos and says, nope, the guys I'm meeting with aren't any of these guys, then Bout knows something's wrong, that Smulian hasn't, in fact, been meeting with genuine FARC leaders, and it's all a setup. But if Smulian points to two of them and says, sure, it's this guy and this guy, then Bout knows he's been meeting with genuine FARC leaders.

The arrest warrant doesn't explain what happened, but the fact is, Bout moved forward with the deal and went to meet the two FARC leaders in Thailand, where he was finally busted. Would Bout, who's been in this business very successfully for a very long time, continue with such a risky deal if Smulian wasn't able to pick out CS-2 and CS-3 from the photographs? I mean, it's the whole point of the test. Why do the test at all if you ignore the results?

Mother Jones magazine ran a more detailed story about the Bout arrest, and apparently Smulian failed the test yet managed to convince Bout to move forward with the deal anyway. Which I'll wager is very probably true, and CS-2 and CS-3 were just random DEA guys. But maybe the Mother Jones writer was fed some disinfo, and CS-2 and CS-3 really were top FARC leaders working with the DEA.

Which, if true, would suggest the FARC is about to fall apart. As the organization collapses, it makes sense for the leadership to take what they can and get out. My guess is the $20,000,000 rumor is true, but it was paid to these top guys in exchange for not just releasing the hostages, but also for Bout and who knows what else. But with the release of their most valuable hostages, and as they continue to bleed leadership, membership and territory, indications are the longest-running, most powerful rebel army in Latin America is coming to its end.

Even Chavez recently pulled a sudden public about-face and called on the FARC to give up. "The guerrilla war is history," he said. "At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place." It may only be a statement for public consumption, but on the other hand, who knows, Chavez may actually feel this way. And if Big Daddy Chavez pulls the plug on his support for the FARC, that's one big nail for the coffin.

What I expect to happen will be the official demobilization of the FARC, and the smaller ELN will likely follow. This will officially end Colombia's civil conflict and open the country up even wider to tourism and foreign investment. Foreign investment will be of particular strategic value as Colombia has a whole lot of oil that has, up until the near future, been off-limits due to guerrilla activity. It may even be the last place on earth with cheap, easy-to-get oil that hasn't been exploited yet.

Unofficially, the FARC will likely follow the AUC model – demobilize as an umbrella organization and break up into smaller, quieter independent groups, focusing their efforts mostly on the production of cocaine. The Colombian police and army will take a larger share of the production as well, and as long as there are mountains of cash to be made from drugs, all these groups will continue to fight over it and not that much will ever change. But for Uribe's government it'll be a spectacular achievement, and Colombia will be portrayed as a tremendous success story.

The changes will come even faster, but it will always be Colombia.

Melgar is a dirty little scumhole of a town a few hours south of Bogotá, the only Colombian town I've ever seen that I actively dislike. It's an army town, built around a big military base and helicopter flight school. The town is hot and filled with the equivalent of white trash.

Manuel Teodoro, the host of Septimo Dia, invites me to Melgar with his crew and a model, continuing our hunt for douchey military guys. I try to explain that our best shot at finding douches is finding the Marines, and there's no Marines in Melgar… but they want to take the shot anyway.

We roll into the central plaza of Melgar. The sun is overwhelmingly bright, and I forgot to bring good sunglasses. Within an hour, my eyes are fucked – red and puffy and watering, and I can barely see. Seems like everybody who passes recognizes Manuel. He introduces me as a gringo who's looking for his child – the story we invent on the fly is that I'd gotten a girl from Melgar pregnant three years earlier, and I'd just now returned to find her. I'm the good gringo, the redeemer, come to set things right. People come out of the woodwork to help look for women with children from deadbeat gringos. We find three within the hour.

One of the women has a ridiculous hourglass shape, so exaggerated it seems impossible. She wears fashionista sunglasses and too much makeup. She tells her story, but Manuel and I agree she's a predator. After her interview, she asks the crew about me – obviously one deadbeat gringo wasn't enough.

The other two women tell heartbreaking stories. One of them brings her daughter, a toddler who's far too adorable. My blond model stands with me and asks what's wrong when I walk away muttering. I can't watch the interview. The kid's too cute and the story too fucked. I'm feeling more righteous in my undercover gringo-hunting, that the least I can do is expose a few assholes.

We go hunting in the clubs of Melgar that night. Pollo, Manuel's cameraman, picks up another girl with an impossibly hourglass shape and they help us hunt. Since my vision is fucked, the blond acts as my seeing-eye model. We don't find any gringos at all and we call it an early night, so everyone can get properly trashed and laid. It's the Colombian way. The next morning Manuel comes to my room, and then Pollo, and then the model and the driver and everyone else, and Manuel leads a round of hilarious, naughty confessions about the previous night, which for some of us is still ongoing.

On the drive home, we decide we're not likely to ever get any useful footage – go figure, a douchebag drought. We had some fun, though. In the end, the producer tells me she'll call me to explain about submitting the invoice for my time, so I can get paid.

But it's still Colombia.

I never get paid.

My friends Tom (Ginger Tom, from England) and Sammy (Shazam, from Australia) have released the first in a series of short films called "Let's Do Colombia." Ginger Tom plays Tommo, a traditional Aussie marinating in the local culture. Or in their words:

-----

G'day cunts.

Ever wondered about what life's like in Colombia? Of course you haven't, in fact behind The Great Wall of China, Colombia is statistically the most mysterious country on earth.

So sit down, shut up and fucken learn with "Let's Do Colombia," the cultural travel show that "does" countries so you cunts at home don't have to.

Watch with giddy amazement as Tommo from Tumbarumba totally immerses himself in this land where you can't move for all the fucken culture. We'll learn all there is to learn about how life is in Colombia from the national sport to salsa dancing to street mime all set to a blazing soundtrack from the heavyweights of Australian rock.

"Let's Do Colombia" is coming cunts. Get in to it, anyway you can.

----

They premiered this episode at a party last weekend, where they told me how happy they were that I showed up, as my opinion of the show is the only one that matters. Not that I have such exquisite taste - it's just part of my official duties as the unofficial gringo ambassador.

You might say, but wait, I already have a Lonely Planet Colombia, what do I need Tommo for? Turns out, the guy who wrote Lonely Planet Colombia just made it up from home, which explains why it's known here as the Lying Planet (this is delightfully true and actually quite appropriate on a certain level). So turn on the YouTube and enjoy Colombia from the perspective of someone who's actually been there:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-TNGOHxnK8

Paul asks me what I think, but I wouldn’t know. Paul’s a six-foot-plus Chinese guy with long hair – distinctive, to say the least. "See that black guy up on the stage next to the DJ?" he says, "He just came down and told me to watch out for the girl, it could be a setup."

The girl? Oh, yeah, the tall girl. "She’s cute," I say, "Seems to be all into you. But I haven’t really been watching. I’m busy trying to keep Lee from being dead."

Lee is Asian, too, not as big, but Lee’s suicidally drunk. I was standing behind him when the bald narco told him to back off his friend’s girl. I know the narco is a narco by appearance, how he carries himself. The bald narco is short but easily the most muscular guy in the bar, and he didn’t get those muscles to impress a flock of gym queens. I bumped by the bald narco earlier and noted how he passive-aggressively defended his personal space. It’s a habit I picked up years ago, get a feel for the place, what’s what and who’s who, and this one, he’s not too far from not being nice. And he’s not the only narco in the bar tonight – there’s something thick and ominous in what is normally one of the nicest clubs in town.

The bald narco had wrapped his leg-of-lamb forearm around Lee’s neck and pulled him close to give him some finger-in-face ’splaining. That girl, off-limits, see?

Lee went sideways around the time we entered the bar. He told me about how he got in this mood once before, and my bad luck to be a witness tonight. I know the girl had approached Lee, not the other way around, and I know Lee’s likely to say anything. I wish I was the sort of guy who’d simply walk away, leave Lee to his own deathwish. Instead I’m standing behind him, wondering just exactly what would I do with this empty beer bottle if it came down to it. Wouldn’t be good. Fortunately, Lee took the lecture well and backed away… but I still wasn’t placing bets on his longevity.

And now Paul with this tall girl. Gotta admit, I’ve never had a random person walk over to warn me a girl is a potential setup. This club isn’t normally big on narcos and setups. What a bizarre night. The stabbing didn’t help my mood, either.

"OK," I tell Paul, "I’ll keep an eye out. What’s your gut tell you?"

"Danger. But…"

"Wait, stick with that. So here’s what you don’t do - don’t let your drink out of your direct sight for even a second, don’t drink anything but your own drink, don’t kiss her anywhere except the lips, and don’t go anywhere outside this central bar area with her. Get it?"

He got it.

"Read Comics" - yeah! Downtown Bogota.

The stabbing, a few hours earlier. Several girls and a guy, beginning the night, decided to go back to their hotel before heading back out. One girl stayed behind to chat with some friends for a few minutes, and then went to catch up with her group at the hotel around the corner and two blocks up. My friend Jeff from New Zealand walked the girl back to the hotel, but with all the people and police around, that seemed unnecessary to me. Good thing no one consulted me on that.

As the girl was talking with us, her friends - one beautiful French-Canadian girl, two other girls and one guy - were ambushed on Gringo Alley, the infamous intersection, by eight teenagers with knives. The French-Canadian girl tried to hold on to her bag and got a good stab in the forearm for it. By the time we caught up and noticed the blood on the sidewalk outside the hotel, the girl had already bandaged her arm and seemed in good spirits, but Jeff still tasked me with finding a place to get her stitched up. She gamely refused, but seeing the wound later, she’ll end up with a lovely scar on her forearm.

The next day, a self-nominated delegation of gringo tourists went to the mayor’s office. The French-Canadian was only the most serious in a string of nightly attacks on tourists. The delegation explained to the mayor’s office and the police chief that with all the tourists flooding in and the half-dozen new hostels popping up in the neighborhood, they needed to do something about the crime wave. The tourist boom has only just got rolling, and if this continues, it’ll put Colombia’s reputation right back where it used to be.

The police responded by sending letters of apology to the complainers’ families back home. They didn’t send a letter to the girl who got stabbed. But they did also step up patrols - for a few days, anyway.

Fin and I encountered Wolf Boy, the unofficial homeless mascot from the Platypus heydays, until he got caught trying to steal a fire extinguisher from the hotel. Wolf Boy reported things on the street weren’t good, the police were on a rampage since that girl got stabbed in the arm. Word gets around.

The police caught the kids who did it, but since they’re under 18 and they didn’t, y’know, do anything really bad, there’s not much they can officially do. I started to ponder: maybe right-wing paramilitary death squads aren’t such a lousy idea.

Fin told me a story from five years ago: two European girls vacationing on the Colombian coast who had the nerve to be lesbian in public. Some of the locals took offense at the gayness, so they abducted them, raped them, mutilated them, and murdered them. The area paramilitaries, who appreciate the fruits of tourism, took offense back – they caught and killed not only the men who did it, they killed their families, too.

I told Fin – I’m not really sure how to feel about that story. In a country that’s essentially an outsized version of HBO’s Deadwood, a boomtown where the law manages a shaky arthritic grasp only on its best days, it’s sort of reassuring that someone’s watching out for the tourists. And sort of not.

Shaun from Australia nodded at my confusion. He confirmed the story was absolutely true, as he happened to have been staying at the same campground as the girls those five years ago. He said one night they just never came home, and the paramilitaries had caught the killers with the girls’ personal effects in their possession and slaughtered everyone who even lived in the same house. It kicked off a cycle of retribution which eventually took some 80 lives.

One of the three teenagers who later attacked me one night had a knife, but he didn’t use it on me, not even while I was brutalizing one of his friends. I figured them for the same kids who’d stabbed the French-Canadian girl, as they seemed to have been warned not to injure the foreigners – weirdly, I walked away from a prolonged street brawl with nothing worse than sore muscles, and I’m not what you’d call a brawler. At first, I didn’t want to hurt the teenagers, either, but then I did. These kids are free to rob and pillage however they please as long as they don’t kill anybody, and that’s just fucked. I wished the paramilitaries would clean up the town, dispose of all the punks roaming the area lately. And then I felt sick for even thinking it.

The land of contradictions, there’s the fun. Figure it out: how could you be anti-death penalty and at the same time consider the benefits of right-wing death squads? This is the value of a Colombian education. You can’t hide behind easy political or religious platitudes – go ahead and dig in the dirt, boyo, find where you come from.

On the other hand, you can also simply cruise on the good times: I met Lars from Sweden toward the end of his very first hour in Colombia. He was lanky and mop-headed with an easy-going grin, and he was trying to ask in broken Spanish where to go to buy cigarettes. Come with me, I told him, I’ll show you around. He was fearless and game for adventure, doubtless he’d do well with the women, and he didn’t have a firm exit date from Colombia.

"Oh boy," I said, "you are going to have a great time here. A fucking fantastic time."

"Just remember two things," I advised, "first, if it looks like a girl is with her boyfriend, use your judgment, but don’t be surprised if the boyfriend doesn’t mean shit. Second, if a girl tells you she’s pregnant, don’t panic, it’s probably just the drama chromosome kicking in."

Lars went with us to a club on his second night. I introduced him to some of the other Swedes in town, and when I left him in the bar there were a couple of pretty girls giving him the treatment. The next day, he came to me, amazed… he ended up making out with a stunning girl in the back of a taxi while her boyfriend sat on the other side of her and fumed. You were right about the boyfriend thing, he said, I couldn’t believe it.

Later, he slept with the daughter of an army general, which entailed spending a few nights skulking around an army base, and by coincidence met a Colombian girl friend of mine on the coast. She later told him she was pregnant, which turned out to be nothing but a desperate cry for attention.

Two for two. And Lars did indeed have a fucking fantastic time. He had nothing to lose.

Carl, an old friend from Sweden, also spent some time showing Lars the ropes. Carl had just returned to Colombia, partly for the love of madness and partly for a girl. The girl didn’t pan out so well, but Carl had returned to Bogota with ideas for a couple of books, a gorgeous new Thinkpad laptop, a new top-end Nikon digital SLR, and a smattering of other goodies. These magically disappeared from his locked hotel room one afternoon. The owners of the hotel, friends of ours, no less, couldn’t even be bothered to fake an interest in his loss, let alone offer assistance of any kind.

Carl, not having as fine a time as Lars. And he was with us when Sam nearly got into a brawl.

Sam ordered a shot of tequila at the bar and turned his back on it for only a few seconds to say something to a girl. When he turned back around, the shot was gone.

The Colombian guy sitting at the bar next to him had the shot cupped in his hands. Sam frowned and took his shot back with a "gimme that, punk," attitude. The guy gave him the "so what, whaddaya gonna do about it," so Sam squeezed his lime wedge in the guy’s eye. "Yeah?" said Sam, "You wanna take this outside?"

"Yeah!" the guy said.

"Well, I don’t," replied Sam. "I’m gonna stay here and drink my shot and then - go talk to some girls."

End of the night, the guy and four of his friends caught Sam alone right outside the door. Words were exchanged. "Slow down," said Sam at one point, "I can’t understand when you speak so fast."

So the guy switched to perfect American English. Not many Colombians have that level of English, and that’s pretty much an upper-class thing - a sign that the person’s spent some time living abroad.

A Ukranian girl who knew both Sam and the Colombian guy stepped in between them. "You know this dickhead?" asked Sam. "Yes, and I know, he is a dickhead," said the girl.

"You’re gonna pay!" said the Colombian.

"For what? My own drinks?" said Sam.

"For coming out tonight!" said the Colombian.

Sam walked away. But it’s one example of how douchebaggery isn’t somehow limited to the underclass, and even Colombia’s outrageous economic disparity is no excuse.

Cuentero in El Chorro

So anyway, what about Lee and Paul?

I had mainly gone out with Lee and Paul to meet a girl, one of Lee’s friends. This girl, she’s one of the few around these parts with what we old-timers call the "moxy." After seeing her at the club she owns, we got into a taxi whose door was opened for us by the guy who, in hindsight, I think is the guy who stole Jason’s shoes – and you’ll have to ask me in person for that story – and dammit, that guy deserves a good battering. I desperately want to turn the taxi around and go back to kick all of his teeth out, but I can’t be sure it’s the same guy, and wouldn’t that be an embarrassing boo-boo. So we ended up at this club, where the heaviness in the air is making my head hurt.

Lee shoves a random girl in the back for no apparent reason. Fuck’s fucking sake. The girl’s friends try to calm Lee down, and I maneuver him off to the side where he isn’t a threat to anyone and try to keep him occupied. He tells me I’m one of the few Americans he’s met that are actually cool. I wish no one would ever tell me that again. I try to keep an eye out for Paul and his girl. She is into him, alright – she’s already hanging on him and kissing him.

Lee grabs another one of my friends by the face and asks who he is. I grab Lee by the shoulder and tell him, in that particular way, how he doesn’t want to be aggressive like that. I have to tell him twice, but then he suddenly cools out and I lead him to a barstool.

Paul comes to sit beside me at the bar. As good as it’s going with the girl, he’s still a little wary.

"Where is she now?" I ask.

"Right there," and he nods across the bar. The girl is with two guys.

"Those the friends she’s here with?" Christ. They’re two of the guys I’d picked out earlier as being point sources for the bad vibe in the club. They’re wannabe thugs.

"Yup," says Paul. "I’m really not sure about this girl."

"Yeah, that’s not good," I say. I try to be diplomatic. "At the very least, you’re definitely not taking this one back to your place tonight, OK?"

I sit at the bar and watch Paul go back to the girl. Lee goes off to the bathroom, where he gets the phone number off the girlfriend of the bald narco’s friend and triumphantly flips off the bald narco from across the club. I’m relieved that no one seems to notice.

Then I see a third thug wannabe come out from the sidelines and offer to take a picture of Paul and the girl. I don’t exactly get the picture thing – maybe it’s just a minor trust exercise, or maybe there’s a practical use for Paul’s photo - but that looked all kinds of wrong, and now I have no doubts at all.

Lee says, hey, let’s go to Las Cascades. I laugh. This is a good club, one of the best, and I’m already worried about his survival. Las Cascades… even tough guys get the fear in that joint. It’s exactly the right place for Lee to end his suicide trip, and at this point, I probably wouldn’t stop him. I tell him, you go, you go alone, and can I have your camera? Lee laughs – yes, that was a silly idea.

A few nights earlier, I’d run into Niels in a bar. I don’t know Niels very well, but I know Niels is a genuine madman. "Niels," I’d said, "I don’t understand why we’re not hanging out together more often."

"I know!" said Niels. "You’re the kind of guy that enjoys trouble, and you’ll push it right up to the point before it becomes a real problem and then back off."

Niels meant trouble in the sense of, you like to get stupid and have adventures. This night, however, is nothing but the no-fun kind of trouble.

Paul comes back and sits next to me.

"So," he says, "wanna go to a bachelor party?"

"Excuse me? Is that what they said?"

"Yeah. It’s at a brothel."

I laugh. Goddamn, like that’s not obvious.

Paul tells me the address. It’s not a good address. In fact, if I were to choose a place to do what they’re planning, it’s exactly the address I’d pick – shady enough to do, but not so shady as obviously shady to a foreigner.

"Alright," I say, "let’s just play this off the top. You’re by far the most noticeably foreign-looking person probably in this entire city. And this hot girl is out with her three male thug-wannabe friends and she happens to like you enough to make out with you practically immediately, and then she invites you to a bachelor party at a sleazy brothel. There’s no part of this that doesn’t smell like crime-in-progress. So what do you think would happen if you go?"

"Well, I obviously wouldn’t go without you guys."

"Which would be really interesting, in fact, and I’d love to do it if I wasn’t already really tired and generally sick of nonsense tonight. But… no."

If I didn’t have such a headache, I think about how fun it would be to talk with the tall girl and explain to her how she and her friends blew the deal.

"So what would happen?" asks Paul.

"Probably – and this is important to qualify, because there’s always something new and amazing in Bogotá, and you really never know – but probably, you’d get scopolamined."

Alice stencil

"What’s that? Drugged?"

"Yeah. Scopolamine is a drug that sounds like urban legend, but I’d wager you’re about a half-hour away from seeing it true first-hand. They’ll usually slip it into your drink, or maybe apply it on her nipple for you to lick off. I’ve heard it can also be blown in your face, but that seems risky to me. It’s somewhere between a knockout drug and a truth serum – it makes you semi-conscious and susceptible to suggestion. So they’ll slip it into your drink and take your wallet and ask for your PIN number, which you’ll probably be happy to provide. You’ll wake up tomorrow god-knows-where and if you still have so much as your shoes, you can count yourself lucky. And that’s assuming they get the dosage right –they fuck it up too badly, you’re gonna be in bad shape for awhile. Well, if you live. You know, after all this time here, this is actually the first time I’ve ever knowingly seen this scam in action. Pretty fascinating."

"But why the brothel?"

"Well, obviously they can’t take you back to their place in case you remember where that is later. You wouldn’t let her back to your place with three of her guy friends. They can’t spike your drink and haul your semi-conscious body out of a good club like this – questions might get asked, and besides, your friends are here. Better to get you drunk first and then convince you to go off to a shady place – and hey, bachelor party! Brothel! Whee! - where people can be paid very little to not notice a half-dead foreigner being carried out. Not to mention, if all goes well, the next day when you go to the cops to report, ’I got really really drunk at this sleazy brothel and I woke up and all my money was gone,’ yeah, they’re gonna get right on that."

 "I asked the guy if I could bring my friends along to the bachelor party, and he made an unhappy face for a second, but then he said sure."

"There you go. Much safer and easier for them if you go off alone, but he doesn’t want to say no. And notice how it was the guy who invited you? Here’s a handy rule of thumb – and most Colombian guys are decent people like anywhere, but the rule is, never trust a Colombian guy for anything. I wouldn’t trust a Colombian guy to walk my dog. Even if he didn’t try to steal it or fuck it, he probably isn’t competent enough to walk it anyway."

"Um – that’s a bit harsh, don’tcha think."

"Yeah. That’s harsh. Hey, you know what I did last night? I was working at this Colombian guy’s office, and I asked if he had wireless internet. He said yeah, but it wasn’t working. Turns out, this guy had paid a Colombian technician, some kind of friend of friend deal, a known guy, to come to his office not once, not twice, but three times to set up his wireless router. Literally, literally, days were spent. Money changed hands. And it still didn’t work. I asked the guy, how much did you pay for this service, and he refused to answer. So I said, fuck it, I want wireless internet, I’ll just do it. I had it set up and running in about ten minutes, and most of that time was spent waiting on reboots. It was pretty much plug and play. I told this guy, look, there’s only two possibilities here – either that guy you paid the first three times is functionally retarded, or he flagrantly ripped you off and rubbed it in your face. Incompetent, criminal, maybe both – as far as I know, the technician didn’t try to fuck the guy’s girlfriend, so he missed the trifecta. But what’s the guy’s response? He just shrugs and says, eh, Colombia. So, yeah - harsh.

Or here’s a story I just heard this afternoon. Buddy of mine from England, opening up a sandwich shop, he hires this homeless guy we’ve all seen around for years. Pays him very generously for a few hours work, just hauling stuff around. End of the day, guy asks if he can sleep inside the unfinished restaurant. My buddy figures sure, what’s the harm, it’s practically nothing but bare walls anyway. Next morning, anything of any marginal value whatsoever is gone from the restaurant. Gone. Dude stole my buddy’s tools, building supplies, he stole the fucking gas meter off the wall. The gas meter. And the best part? Homeless guy turns up later in the afternoon asking if there’s any more work to be done. Now that’s some glorious fucking chutzpah, my friend. I could go on for hours like this with just the stories I remember. Hours, man. Harsh ain’t nothing but reality.

Now, I know plenty of Colombian guys who are great, so don’t take it too literally - but the many exceptions to the no-trust rule are probably not going to be random guys you meet in a bar or on the street who suddenly want to be your best friend. I know Colombia has something magical about it, and part of what makes it great is how cool and friendly and fun the people are, and somehow it all makes sense in the moment – especially with a little bit of alcohol mixed in, and there’s always a little bit of alcohol mixed in. But hopefully, next time you’re soused, you’ll remember that not even in Colombia do guys go to bars to invite complete strangers to fuck their hot female friends and go to their bachelor parties. Well… OK, come to think, that is actually possible here, but probably not."

"OK, so what do we do? You wanna walk out right now? The girl and her friends aren’t looking. Let’s do it. I don’t want them to follow us or anything."

I look at Lee. He’s ready. We break for the exit. I’ve never been so relieved to get into a taxi.

On the ride home, Paul feels a little embarrassed that he didn’t see the scam from the get-go.

"Hey," I tell him, "doesn’t matter how smart you are, fact is, this place is all about getting caught up in the moment, not thinking it through. And it’s not like I showed up in this country with this miserable prick attitude. You know how I learned it? First the Colombians tried to teach me, and then I still had to learn it over and over and over again through experience, and shit, I still get suckered sometimes – I got a fake 20 just a few weeks ago, and I knew better. It happens, shake it off. Hopefully you get an amusing anecdote out of it. Now, you notice the cool thing that happened tonight?"

"Something cool happened?"

"I know, but stop and think - there’s a beautiful exception to the dogfucker rule - the black guy who warned you the girl was a setup. He wasn’t trying to be your bestest pal ever, but he was a decent guy who genuinely went out on a limb for you for no reason at all, and then walked away expecting nothing in return. Fuck, that guy’s the definition of a hero. Shoulda bought him a drink. If I’m harsh, if I exaggerate, if I hyperbolize, it’s because the people are so nice and it’s such a party culture, it’s easy to get suckered – and when it happens, not if, but when it happens, the Colombians will shrug and politely explain how you’re an idiot for giving papaya. See, it’s not really the fault of the bad guy for doing something bad here – doing bad is simply natural. It’s your responsibility to always be on your guard, always looking over your shoulder, always looking for the angle… and if you slip up and something gets by you, bang, there’s nobody to blame but you. All I’m saying with the dogfucker thing is, keep your eye out for the douchebag, don’t be a sucker, and appreciate the good guy when he comes along."

The taxi stops. The ride should cost 8,000, maybe 9,000 pesos, tops. The meter, one of the newer, high-tech jobs, shows 12,900. Jesus, talk about making my point for me. This never happens when I’m alone. Looks like the driver figures the Asians for easy marks. Paul looks at me – what do we do?

"Who cares?" I say, "we throw him 10,000, we get out and walk away and if he says anything, ignore him. No reason to communicate with this dildo at all."

Nice theory, but none of us has exactly 10,000 pesos. We’re going to have to ask the cabbie for change. Paul shows him a 20 and asks if he has a 10.

"No, no, no," the cabbie says, pointing to his snazzy new meter. "Look here, it’s 12,900. 12,900!" He even says it like a prick.

Another night, I’d be nicer about it. I lean forward so I’m in the cabbie’s ear, stone sober, icy and irritated.

"Yeah? You know what, I’ve lived here for three years, I’ve made this exact trip a hundred times, and this taxi is not special. Twelve thousand nine hundred - is pure bullshit."

Swearing is still delightfully offensive in Colombia. The cabbie tries to talk back - "No no no, twelve…"

"It doesn’t cost more than eight, nine thousand, maximum. I know it. You know it. But I’m going to give you a twenty and you’re going to give me back a ten – very simple and more than fair."

The cabbie starts arguing as if I’m the asshole in the car. "What, you think the meter lies? How could the meter lie? What’s your problem, look at the meter, blah de blah…" In my head, his voice trails off until it sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher. I’ve seen this before – it’s not hard to set the meter to go a little faster, and fine, fair enough setting it 50% faster for what look like rich drunk foreigners at 6AM… but once you’re called out, you’re called out, and I’m already offering this douche a generous tip that he doesn’t deserve. How hard is it – you tried a scam, you failed, shut the fuck up and be glad what you get. The more he jabbers at me like a moron, the more I feel perfectly justified in pulling out my pocketknife, opening the blade, and using it to smash in his pretty new meter. Oh, I’ll say quietly, no, I don’t think your meter is lying, I think your meter is broken. You should have someone look at that. For the record, this would be a remarkably poor course of action.

Right before I actually go to pull my pocketknife out, the cabbie is waving his hand in front of me in resignation and saying, OK, OK, OK, ten thousand, ten thousand.

Well, there you go, see, we can come to a reasonable agreement like adults.

We get out of the cab and the driver whines something like, it’s nothing compared to what you guys make.

Ah, that explains it.

I'm a fan of street food. I say, take a mediocre hot dog and cook it in a cart next to some dim alley at 3AM and it becomes a magic hot dog... which I imagine is literally possible given enough strange bacteria. Tom was from Yellowknife up in Canada – imagine the iron gut this guy has – so when he bit into a hamburger from a street cart and swore it was the worst hamburger he'd ever tasted, I thought he was overreacting.

"No, seriously, take a bite of this – it's incredible. How did he do this? It's not food. Try it!" he said, waving it in my face. I declined, although it was tempting.

He kept eating it anyway, wincing with every bite, and between swallows loudly announcing how terrible it was, dancing around, holy sweet fuck, why am I eating this?  Halfway through, he gave up and threw it on the ground. I felt embarrassed for the hamburger seller, who presumably didn't understand English but surely noticed what was happening. Pretty rude there, Tom.

A scruffy, scrawny stray dog had been lingering near us, and he immediately made for the dropped hamburger. He sniffed at it cautiously, a whole hamburger, meat, bun, lettuce, the works – and decided against it.

A hamburger so bad, not even stray starving dogs will eat it. 

I didn't feel so bad for the hamburger vendor.

---

It was maybe midnight and I was walking home alone when I saw a cat. In between kitten and cat, actually, a teenage cat, and it was sitting casually on a stoop. Odd - in La Candelaria the streets are owned by dogs while stray cats live on the rooftops. Seeing a cat at ground level is rare, and even more rare, it let me approach and pet it. I must have sat playing with the cat for five minutes before a voice said: hey!

I turned. Across the street, sleeping on a piece of cardboard in the cold drizzle, was the crazy homeless lady who hassles me for sex. Whoop, time to go. She tried to call me over but I waved her off, looked wistfully at the cat, and hustled away, trying to move quickly before she could fully wake up and assault me.

I'd seen her a few times recently. In the Zona Rosa, she grabbed me and tried to prevent me from walking up to an intersection infested by hippies selling hippy trinkets on blankets. "Don't go that way," she insisted, pulling heavily at my arm, "come back this way with me! The hippies are gossipy!" She peeled off before I reached the hippies, but sure enough, as I passed they sniggered and said, yeah, go with her, gringo. The next time, in La Candelaria, she clawed at me in a way that was even more unsettling than usual. "Just give me one kiss," she said, grabbing the back of my head and trying to pull it towards her, "I washed my mouth today!" Well, that is thoughtful, but still. I ducked into a hotel where I knew a friend was staying and told him I needed to speak to him urgently for about fifteen minutes, until the crazy lady forgot about me and wandered away.   

I don't feel weird about it anymore, though, because I know it's not just me - Richie from Scotland got the same treatment, so dollars to donuts there's plenty more spooked-out gringos.

I left her and the cat behind and turned the corner, grateful that I'd escaped cleanly. But I felt like shit. I was happy to give love and attention to a stray cat, but a person sleeping on a piece of damp cardboard on a cold dirty sidewalk, get stuffed. What kind of fucked-up world is it, anyway?

Back home, wherever that is, you can probably coast. I always say I appreciate Bogota because you can't. Walk out your door and you may have to consider who you are and what it all means, on a daily basis.

I was walking and thinking about what a douchebag I must be when, a block later, I bumped into Eamon and his girlfriend. Eamon's American but his girlfriend was born and raised in Colombia, only living in the US since her teen years. They came back to visit and see her family, and she was appalled that her rose-colored memory of Colombia didn't fit the reality she found – her parents obviously cheating on each other, her old friends using drugs, the deep distrust between everyone, she went on and on - "oh, infidelity is only one color of the rainbow of fucked-up here," she'd said. Let's go for a beer, Eamon said, and I said, great idea. I told him what had happened with the cat and the homeless lady and how douchey I felt. Why would I pet the cat and then fuck off a woman who obviously needs help? Shouldn't we be trying to care for other humans first? Crazy and obnoxious or not, can't we at least be decent to one another?

"Wait a minute," said Eamon, "yeah, the homeless woman who attacks gringos for sex. She's hit me up, too. One time she started pulling all this lingerie out of her bag and offered me 500 pesos to do her. Crazy, man." 

500 pesos, about 25 cents.

"Goddammit!" I said. "That slut! She never offered me 500 pesos!"

---

Walking at 3AM with a friend who trains special forces troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He takes off his belt, attaches a padlock to the buckle, wraps it around his fist and tucks his hand inside his jacket pocket. I share my street wisdom with him, and he shares his with me.

"See," I say, "the streets here are narrow and sometimes it's dark. You walk in the middle of the street. Only get on the sidewalk if a car comes. Makes it harder for someone to ambush you from the sides. Plus, it makes you look at least twice as badass - I mean, Chuck Norris? Not using no sidewalk."

"How'd you learn this stuff?" he asks.

"Just worked it out," I say.

A scraggly guy approaches us and babbles for spare change. My friend sprints across the street and tells him to keep his distance. I've got a different take. Somehow - body language, instinct, experience, something - I know this guy isn't a threat. I take another approach I figured out on the street: talk like a parent.

"Listen," I tell the guy, "I was talking with my friend and you interrupted me. It's very rude. I already told you no. You're done here."

Take a polite but authoritarian parental tone with these guys, and three times out of four they react like a chastised child. Go figure.

This guy walked away and we didn't even have to beat him with our belts.

---

Two guys dressed like mid-80s-era Prince pass by, flanking a girl holding an umbrella against a starry night sky. They flash big smiles beneath goofy Elvis shades and I swear they tell me "que futuro!" as they pass. I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, and it pleases me.

---

Sam nods toward a group of big guys loitering outside the store. I stare. Fuck, they're gigantic for Colombians, and all sporting clean shaved heads. Sam jabs me and tells me to stop staring. We have to walk out through these guys, and sure, our matching bald heads may buy us passage, but you don't antagonize the local Nazis unnecessarily. Sam points out they even have Doc Martens and little red emblems on their jackets.

Sorry for the stare, gents, but I never expected that the first real live white supremacists I ever saw wouldn't even be white.

This blog has been brought to you thanks to the generous support of many good people. Now, friends and neighbors, I'm gonna try passing the hat all the way 'round – there are some interesting things developing here and it'll take a few grand to see them through, and dough like that don't come easy in these parts. Plus, daddy needs pants. So - posts have been scarce (cough) this summer and fall, but things should improve soon, and you can help! If this blog has made you giddy, amused, awed, terrified, and/or nauseated in the past few years, ain't that worth a shiny nickle or two?

If you donate, be sure to send me your email address. I'll send you an extra-special, shocking, all-true, too-hot-for-blog story about a hooker and a plastic bag…  see how much I love you? PBS gives you a crappy tote bag, I bring you filth.

Your pennies will also help keep me alive whilst I finish the book. Book! Yes! In a few more months, god willin' and the creek don't rise...

The Donate button should link to my pal Sam's PayPal account. He's got the Colombian bank account, so it's easier to actually, y'know, get money. If the button doesn't work and you have a PayPal account, you could just throw a few quid to samshaban@hotmail.com.

C'mon, toss that buck in the hat, you know you were only going to waste it on food or rent or car insurance anyway.




OK, pledge break over... here's a little somethin' somethin' just for reading this far:

Her dirty blond hair spills in curls over razor cheekbones and diamond eyes, the beauty mark pointing to full lips over perfect teeth. She is breathtaking, startling, something you wouldn't expect to ever see outside of movies and magazines, unusual even in this country, and in a better world she wouldn't be in this place. There's that immediate electricity again, the charged particles of instant recognition between us, the irresistible warning. I know the look in her eyes so well, so fucking well, that heroin draw, rare and comfortable and poisonous. We dance. It is what it is. She backs me against a wall and kisses me and tells me to wait while she goes to the bathroom, where, it's a good bet, she does another line. 

But I'm talking to another girl by the time she returns. She flips her hair and gives me the cold shoulder as she brushes by and sits alone on a sofa. I return to my friends and sit and look over at her. As soon as she sees me looking, she points her chin away, nose in the air, pretending to ignore me. I pretend to ignore her back.

She changes sofas, but is sure to leave an empty space next to her. I get up and wander casually around the bar. She turns her face side to side, keeping track of my movement from the corner of an eye buried under a jumble of hair, sure to show me that she's definitely not watching. I move slow, as if I'm looking for someone that's definitely not her. Finally, I sit down next to her, but facing away. She jumps up and goes to another sofa. 

I repeat the dance. I sit next to her, facing away, and after a beat, I tilt my head in her direction as if to say something out of the corner of my mouth, and she leaps up again.

I smile to myself. I'm hooked. Bad trouble with this one. I don't move for a few seconds while I contemplate how completely screwed I am, that stomach-crushing mixture of attraction and alarm, you can't trust anything that isn't contradictory in this country, and you can't trust anything that is. I know that look, I know her, I know what she is, so where does this chemistry come from? I'm factoring the equation when she throws her arms around my neck from behind and kisses me on the cheek and laughs. She tries to pull me up to the dance floor, but I pull her back to the sofa. The moment is perfect and dazzling and terribly wrong.

My friend comes by. He leans in close to tell me that the girl he's talking to knows my girl, and she says my girl is a cocaine addict and completely insane and watch out. 

I try to quickly brush my friend off with his obvious and useless information, but she overhears the conversation and it's clear this game is over. I could salvage it, and later she tries to, but instead I let her go, a little sad, a little grateful.

At least and unfortunately, I know, there will be others.

Approaching midnight and the cell phone, it speaks to me.

Henry rents a huge old hotel-sized house for a price that would make you green. The central courtyard has a glass roof and is perfect for showing movies, dancing, and partying. They use the house as a filmmakers' collective and regularly have screenings and parties. We're waiting to get in for a party one night when Sam spies a cute girl on the sidewalk nearby.

"You should invite that girl in," he advises.

"Nah," I say, "why bother? I always do well at Henry's parties."


16mm US Information Service training film found at the flea market.

Inside, I get a beer from the back bar and stroll into the packed courtyard, where I notice a familiar face leaning against the wall. Oh, yeah, it's the drunk girl from that one party months ago, the painter who woke up crying from the pain of existence and told me she loved me. She's staring at me. Such full lips, half-awake eyes, wild black hair spilling everywhere, and that cleavage – wow, she cleans up in a dirty way.

"Hey, do you remember me?" I ask, thinking probably so, and we can have a little chuckle about how drunk she was that night.

"Obviously," she answers, and obviously, she's equally as drunk tonight.

Oh, boy.

I haven't even finished my first beer and she's all over me. Grabbing me, biting my cheek, biting my chest, kissing me in every way she knows. I push her off, but she won't stay off. We're making a spectacle, and I'm enjoying the high wacky factor of the situation. Finally, I disentangle myself from her to get another beer. Sam looks at me like: what the fuck is that.

Hey, man, like I said – I do well at Henry's.


Clothes for sale near the flea market in Usaquen.

But really, fuck's sake, I need to drink a lot more in a big hurry if I'm going to shut down the proper judgment centers to continue with this. I'm trying to weigh how sexy she is versus how crazy, and how likely she is to stab me in my sleep, and if you want to have an interesting life, you don't want to make this sort of calculation sober.

Joseph arrives. He's brought this girl he's been seeing, after convincing her to meet his gringo friends – his nice gringo friends, we're different, good people, not like the regular foreigners who are only here to get fucked up and fucked. He pushes his way through the crowd with the girl in tow, eager for her to meet the decent fellows he calls friends…

And there I am, the first one he finds, and there's a drunk girl ramming her tongue in my mouth and lifting up her shirt in the middle of the jammed dance floor, guiding my hands to her exposed tits… uncouth doesn't even begin to cover this breach of social contract. I'm expecting Henry to tap me on the shoulder any second and say, uh, Christopher, what are you doing? Maybe it's time you took  your playtoy home. And there's Joseph, plowing through the crowd to proudly introduce his new girl to his… his friends… oh, fuck. How embarrassing.


Apparently the enormous flood of foreigners arriving in Bogota doesn't suit everybody.

The drunk girl whispers in my ear. Let's get out of here, she says. I start to lead her off the dance floor when Sam calls to me – hey, man, your window of opportunity is going to close soon – decide what you're gonna do quick!

Yeah, man, I know, I know… but then the girl turns. She doesn't know what Sam said, but she thinks it was about her and now she feels like a slut and doesn't want to leave. Yeah, I know, now she feels like a slut. Well, what the hell, I could certainly use another beer myself. I stop and chat with a few friends in the hallway, and by the time I return to my drunken princess, she's sitting against the wall, head resting on knees, passed out cold. Her friends are attending her. That's the end of that, for better and worse.

I find Sam. "Way to go, cocksucker, you just blew that deal for me," I bitch. "And, well, thanks. That deal was eight kinds of wrong. Might've saved my life."

There's never an easy answer in Colombia.


Mr. Death has the power but not the reason.

A couple of weeks later, Saturday afternoon, I'm in my room quietly working when a party arrives at the house. Full-tilt full-on, a small pack of Colombian guys and girls led by Flash, some nutbag gringo that's latched onto Dave, one of the housemates. Flash has always been nice to me, but he seems to irritate people pretty easily. One night, Flash leaned heavily on our doorbell and staggered in, fucked-up, wearing sunglasses, and tried to put his arm around Karl, our Swedish housemate. Karl is calm to the point of being sedate, and it was the only time I ever saw him raise his voice. "Get the fuck off me," he yelled. Flash, all smile: what's wrong with you, bro? Karl jabbed a finger at him – "you are a twat," he announced. Flash can rankle anyone.

So this day, I'm irritated – there's no call for Flash bringing a pile of fucked-up douchebags into my house at 1PM on a Saturday. I would say they gotta go, but what the hell, I'm leaving for a meeting anyway, and Chappy and Ben sound like they're enjoying the madness. Chappy, of course, is a standup guy and good housemate, and Ben, another Englishman, is only staying with us a few days while the airline searches for his missing luggage – I'm not gonna be the spoilsport.

When I walk downstairs, I see a familiar wild head of black hair. She's got her back to me and doesn't see me, but I know it's her. Swell, now she's going to know where I live.   

I sit down next to her and she hardly registers surprise, just gives me a big kiss. She's off her face again – three for three, every time I've seen her, blackout drunk. But she still remembers me. I tell her I have to leave, and she grills me about my girlfriend status and pretends to be jealous that I'm going out to meet another girl.

Ben and Chappy have no idea that I already know this girl. All they see is me stride into the room, sit down next to the sultry girl they're both eyeing, and immediately she kisses me and complains about me going to see another girl. They look at me wide-eyed, assuming I've just pulled some sort of pickup magic the likes of which has never been seen.


Yeah, I think I know where the guy on the left works.

That night, Ben and Sam go out and run into some of the same partiers, three drunk girls – including my black-haired temptress - and one Colombian guy named Juan Carlos. Sam calls it an early night and heads home, but warns Ben first: don't bring these people back to the house.

But Ben gets drunk himself, and he decides to take the girls back home after the bar closes. Their guy friend tags along, name-dropping mutual friends to gain Ben's confidence. Back at ours, two of the girls fall asleep and Ben takes the third upstairs, leaving the guy alone in the house. But he doesn't stay long.

In the morning, Chappy's guitar and Dave's iPod are missing from the front room, where Ben had left the guy.

Pascal's from France and owns a little bar down the street. He used to be in the French Foreign Legion, and now he spends nights spinning electronic music in his little bar. His raised DJ booth takes up a considerable percentage of floor space, and I rarely see anyone dancing, but Pascal enjoys playing DJ. He's intense. When you see him, he'll shake your hand between both of his, and he looks as genuinely delighted to see you as a puppy. He'll grab your shoulder and lean in close and tell you something valuable in heavily accented Frenchified Spanish, and you won't understand a word of it, but at the end he'll smile and grip your arm and give you the "eh? eh?" and you have to smile back and laugh and vigorously agree with whatever it is. He's a hell of a guy, and we all like him, as far as we know.

Ben wanders down the street and finds Pascal cleaning up his joint to the sound, of course, of electronic music. He asks about Juan Carlos the thief.

"Juan Carlos?" says Pascal. "Yeah, I know him. I can show you where he lives. Hold on, I'll call a police sergeant friend of mine, he'll help you out. Just make sure you keep me out of it."

At least, we think that's what Pascal said.


Paint. Wall.

We talk with the police and we all agree that the best course of action is for me and Ben to go to Juan Carlos' apartment and try to sort it out ourselves while the police wait around the corner. If we need them, we'll call out the window for them. Which is the weirdest sort of police work I've ever heard of, but somehow this does makes sense in Colombia. No one really wants the police involved in any situation, not even the police.

We knock on the door and a red-eyed girl answers. I assumed I'd have to play bad cop to Ben's good – he's tall, thin and slightly effeminate, non-confrontational, not your standard tough guy material - but Ben's angry. He practically forces his way past the deer-in-headlights girl and we make our way upstairs. The apartment is a big hippy crash pad with stoned people laying about everywhere. Ben rants at them all, we're here for Juan Carlos, tell us where he is, you motherfuckers, we want our stuff back.

OK, so I play the good cop. Someone offers me a joint. No thanks, man, but I appreciate it.

We stalk through all the rooms of the apartment, barging past whoever's in the way. Juan Carlos isn't there. The girls from the previous night are there crying and pleading, including my black-haired vixen, but there's no smooches for her today. Everyone claims to want to help us, but no one knows where Juan Carlos is staying. He comes around the crash pad sometimes, but he lives in random hotels. They all know he's a douche, and they tell us he won't be welcome there anymore – which could be true, hey, the last thing stoned hippies want is pissed-off gringos careening through their pad. The nominal leader of the hippies agrees to go out and look for Juan Carlos for us, and he'll let us know if he finds anything out. Bullshit, but there's nothing more to be done for it.


Stray dog sniffing around our picnic.

A few hours later, Chappy comes home and Ben has to tell him about his missing guitar. Chappy's displeased, but then he goes into his room, the only room on the main floor near the living room… and nearly all of his things are gone. His backpack with all of his clothes has vanished. The window to the basketball court is open for no apparent reason. There's a dirty old denim jacket on the bed, and underneath, all of Dave's big fuckoff kitchen knives are there, moved from the magnetic rack in the kitchen.

Ben doesn't understand where the jacket came from – it wasn't Juan Carlos'. And what's the deal with the knives?

Chappy is a reasonable fellow, but you don't steal all the clothes off the third-hardest bloke in Middlesborough and not expect a battering. And he's got Matt, another big Englishman, and Sam, who packs a couple of hammers into a kit bag.

"Hammers?" I say, eyebrows raised.

"Where I come from, this is how we deal with thieves," he says.

Hammer to the hands. I'm a fan of excessiveness in general, but still I talk Sam out of packing hammers.

All of us return to the hippy nest, an angry mob of foreigners hellbent on revenge. A guy comes to the door and claims to be close friends with Juan Carlos, and he's sorry, but he hasn't seen the guy and doesn't know where he is. His attitude is a shrug of the shoulders and, hey, you shouldn't let people you don't know into your house.

Which is always the undercurrent with thievery in Colombia. If you "give papaya," that is, give someone the opportunity to take advantage of you, it's your own fault. You let someone in your house who turns out to be a crook, then you can't blame the crook for doing what comes naturally. It can be an infuriating concept, but on the other hand, it does remind you to look after your own self.

There's an air of menace – do we give this guy a kicking just on principle? But then Matt comes up with a stroke of genius.

"Hey," he says, "we'll give you 300,000 pesos right now if you take us to where Juan Carlos is." That's a good two weeks wages for the average Colombian, a pretty good bounty, and good thinking.

The guy apologizes and swears he'd do it if he only knew where Juan Carlos was.

So we give up. That's the end of it.


Had to take this photo for my boys. Spring Break! SPRING BREAK!!!

That night, Dave goes to the store at 2AM with another friend. On the street, just a block from our house, he spies a couple of homeless people, and one of them is shouldering a familiar-looking bag. It's Chappy's bag of clothes. He grabs it off the homeless person and walks away, and the guy yells back that he's lucky.

Best we can figure is that Juan Carlos took the iPod and left, but didn't close the front door. A bum found the open door, came in, and decided to ransack Chappy's room. He took the knives out of the kitchen both to defend himself in case someone woke up and to keep one of us from getting them, but he didn't steal them because the police would beat him even harder if they caught him with knives. He left his old jacket and split.

Chappy was grateful to at least get his clothes back.

The next day, two of the girls from the hippy den knocked on the door. Juan Carlos had been heard from, and apparently the tale of an angry mob of big foreigners offering money for his head had spooked him. He was going to leave the iPod with the owner of another bar if we'd call off the manhunt.

Of course, he didn't actually do this.

Weeks later, Ben and I ran into the same girls on the street. My black-haired girl was with them, and it was the first time I ever saw her sober. She took charge of the conversation, explaining to Ben how the owner of the bar encouraged Juan Carlos to sell the iPod instead of giving it back. We parted ways, and the black-haired girl and I exchanged smiles. I saw a flash of vitality and intelligence in her eyes I never saw before, and for a moment… yeah, fuck that.

And that was the end of it. Until one night, Sam and Doggy, another Australian friend who knows Juan Carlos, found him walking on the street alone. Doggy pointed him out – hey, Sam, there's that guy you wanna kill.

Sam picked Juan Carlos up over his head and slammed him on the ground. He gave him a fine little battering, and with that, at least, a bit of righteous justice was dealt out in this godforsaken country. Or so we suppose. Juan Carlos admits to being a thief, but only for big things – an iPod? Please. Beneath him. He protested that it was the girls who stole the iPod, and really, who knows. Much later, Ben and Doggy agree that they actually like Juan Carlos and get along with him perfectly well. The only thing we can be absolutely sure of is that we'll never know what happened, and so it is a perfect Colombian story.


At the flea market. Clearly, this book's work is done.

A few weeks later, maybe ten o'clock at night, I passed a girl standing on the sidewalk, leaning drunkenly against a wall and crying into her hands. Two cops were standing around her, looking confused as to how to proceed, while a police van rolled up with more cops. As I passed, I recognized that familiar wild black hair. It was the last I saw of her.

Yeah, it's been a long time, I know. Due to a case of aggravated fuckery, there is no internet in my house at this time, and seeing what these people do to computers at internet cafes makes my nerd soul ache. I'll get this internet thing sorted sooner or later. In the meantime, Amazon has launched a new print-on-demand system called CreateSpace that seems cool... how does this look for a cover?



Coming soon now...

Thanks to Hale Sayton - you don't mind if I use your testimonial, do ya?

Here's a preview of what I've been working on for two years. We're still not done, but this here is Joseph wearing the first successful prototype of the most perfect leather jackets you'll ever find. Joseph very graciously and patiently worked as a model for my attempt at a fashion shoot, and ended up buying the jacket. He's been all over the world and says he's been looking for the perfect jacket for eight years.


A failed attempt to give a rose to a nun.

A Colombian guy at the Pub looked skeptical when I said this jacket was made here, but after careful examination compared it favorably with his $1700 fancypants made-in-France jacket. He pointed out a detail to his attorney/girlfriend. "See this? This is very difficult to do," he said. He was impressed. I was relieved.


Is this too JC Penny or no?

I've got another five styles hanging up on a rack in my room, waiting for photography. Or rather, waiting for just the few damn dollars it takes to do it - we're not bootstrapping this thing, we're shoelacing it. Anyone want a jacket? For you, cheap!


Yeah, "working" as a model.

Cool thing about our jackets - lambskin. Thin and light and super-soft, cool in warm weather and warm in cool, and we managed to get stuff here that's the equal of anything, anywhere, at any ridiculous price. It's been a real challenge at times - don't get me started on Colombian-made zippers. On my early-prototype jacket, the first zipper broke the first time I used it. The second zipper broke the second time I used it. Even when they're not breaking, they're only marginally operable on a good day. How much expertise and expense could it possibly take to make a zipper that, y'know, zips? I'm almost curious enough to visit a zipper factory to see, but after everything I've been through, I'm liable to taser the foreman just to even the score. But on the other hand, the leather we're getting is superb and the quality of construction is top-notch, so as long we order our zippers from developed countries, we're solid.

It seems odd to not think of Colombia as a developed country, though. I've never considered that term before today, when a Peruvian guy kept referring to the US and Europe as the developed countries. There's so much wealth in Colombia, on a surface level, parts of it are as stylish and sophisticated as you'd please. Hell, one of the many new shopping malls here has a food court where you're seated by a waiter and you can mix-and-match off the menus of a dozen or so fine restaurants - gotta admit, much as I dislike malls on principle, that's pretty cool.

But I now define a developed country not by the surface flash, but as a place where the floors are level. And indoor plumbing does what it's intended to do. As a point of reference, I believe one of the basic functions of indoor plumbing is actually not to rain liquified human shit down the ceilings and walls of your home, nor force it up through a sink, nor from under a sink (!). And if it does, this is exactly the sort of problem that someone who sells his services as a plumber and charges accordingly would be capable of resolving, especially given a month's time. I'm hoping such a situation would be regarded among the local professionals as being due to, say, an insoluable poltergeist infestation, instead of the more terrifying idea that indoor plumbing is simply that hard.

Sam and I went out the other night. A guy from California, fresh off the boat, saw us on the street and asked if he could please join us for a few beers. Sam and I looked at each other, but the guy said, look, I just want to find a place where I can drink a ton of beer and stagger back to my hotel, can you help me out?

You're our boy, I said.

He was a decent guy, but, well, he wore his bright red baseball cap backwards and he wrote college papers about the biographies of hair-metal bands. He probably would've been wearing shorts if it weren't so cold. He spoke with authority on the history of Guns'n'Roses. A touch of frat-boy meatheadedness, let's call it - not as bad as the standard-issue Midwestern meathead, but still. It was kind of fun to see, for a change, but Sam and I weren't sorry to see him go at the end of the night.

Walking home, we crossed paths with the Canadian and his always-wacky girlfriend with the lovely green eyes. That's a little splash of madness at the end of the night right there, but then while I spoke with them, I became aware of shouting further up the block. Action! Mayhem! Yes!

I caught up to Sam, who'd continued walking. We were nearly a full block behind a group of guys and girls who were walking in the same direction as us, but one girl looked like she was walking backwards and yelling at one of the guys, waving her arms drunkenly while the guy tried to restrain her. Cool, I said, what's she on about?

Uh, she's yelling at us, he said.

What?!?

Yeah, listen...

Sure enough, the girl was yelling down the street, "gringo motherfuckers!"

I don't know why. And I don't know why this sort of thing only happens when Sam and I are together. If there ain't no love in the world for a bald man, then there doubly ain't for two bald men. We laughed our asses off. Yes! We fully agree, throw the meathead gringos out! While you're at it, throw 'em all out! Now that you've mastered the arcane secrets of how plumb bobs, zippers and indoor plumbing work, there's nothing more we can do here!

Yeah, yeah, I know, so I bitch about Colombia. But blow me, unless you, too, have lived with liquified shit. Just be grateful I don't post pictures. Instead, see what a swell guy I am:


I know. And she's single, if that's important to you. Plus, she's rich. Plus, she's willing to date goofy-looking foreign guys. And you wonder why I don't wanna go home.

George at rest.

Last week, she found me in the Zona Rosa, the upscale nightclub district. I was sitting on the deck outside the Bogota Beer Company, and I turned around to look at a girl walking by, and there she was – looking straight at me, smiling and waving. I gave her a nod. That's curious, I thought, and promptly forgot about her. A few hours later, we left the bar and there she was again. She grabbed me by the arm and demanded a kiss.

Normally, this sort of thing wouldn't be a problem. But normally, I don't have crazy homeless women stalking me. Or at least, I didn't used to.

Chappy on the deck of the Bogota Beer Company

She walked close to me, clutching my arm and telling me how much she likes me and she's always liked me and she wants to kiss me. She looked like she was in her 30s, short and thin, dark, and she tried to dress as jauntily as a homeless woman probably can. She was dirty and rough, high or just crazy, and she smelled terrible, and this from a guy who barely has a sense of smell at all. No sex, she assured me, she just wanted a little smooching. She definitely seemed to remember me from somewhere.

I tried to politely deny her while my mind worked through the confusion. She did seem vaguely familiar. Sweet jesus fuckstick, have I been blackout drunk and done unspeakable things in the doorway of a shuttered arepa stand? Seemed possible, but then I haven't woken up with scabies recently.

We went into another bar and I left her standing outside. I made it extremely clear that I wasn't interested in making out with her, but the entire scenario was so completely bizarre, it was hard not to smile and be gracious at the same time. Yes, thank you, that's very flattering, but it's most certainly not going to happen, nope, have a nice night now.

Later, in the bar, I remembered. My god. It was a year ago. It was the homeless woman I wrote about in my blog - there's even a picture of her. I'd bought her a piece of bread, and she'd sniffed a freshly-painted wall for fumes. Rumor had it she'd slept with Roland, the Antichrist from Switzerland I'd also written about. It was amazing what a year of hard living can do. She was barely recognizable.

When we left the bar, she found me again. I was stumped for how to handle it. I believe we have to be kind to each other, and there's never reason to be cruel. But she wouldn't accept no. She wouldn't accept a polite excuse. And she wouldn't leave. She asked for my phone number, and I told her I didn't want her to call me. She asked again, and I told her my wife wouldn't like it.

You're not married, she said. I don't believe you. I see you walking with different girls.

Cripes. Two and half years in Colombia, and I still can't lie decently.

It was rapidly becoming not so amusingly odd.

Doesn't matter, I said, look, you and I are not going to hook up. Never happen. Sorry. Take care of yourself. Bye.

We cut through the shopping mall to lose her.

The whole thing makes me feel kinda creepy and weird just writing about it, like I'm in a Dan Clowes story. I did something nice for someone a year ago, like the nice guy I used to be, and it hasn't gone unpunished.

---

Something good is always going on in Bogota!

I've written before about how I handle myself on the street. I'm usually pretty good at it. Once, while walking home alone at night, a guy ran up behind me, asking for a smoke. I don't take that well here. I turned my head to look at him, and without even consciously trying to give a fuck-off look, he skidded to a stop like a cartoon character and turned and ran the opposite direction. Cool, I thought. I wonder how I just did that.

Sam, Pontus and I were walking near my house, looking for a certain bar. None of us could remember exactly where it was, but Pontus thought he knew. We stopped on a corner to try to work it out. Two guys approached. One tall and holding a full can of beer, one short, both young and dressed normally. Not homeless. They asked for money. I ignored them completely, but Pontus reacted badly. He backed away and sputtered at them. No, no, he said, I don't have any money. The guys pressed him. 

Sam stepped around to flank them. I held my ground and tried to continue talking to Pontus. You think it's down this street, Pontus, or down one more? But Pontus was too flustered. He just wanted to get away from these guys.

And he was right. There was something distinctly different about these two. Out of all the encounters I've had on the street here, I've never had such a strong and cold reaction. The guys ignored me as much as I ignored them, but they weren't leaving Pontus alone. I unfolded the pocket knife in my pocket and worked out, from the corner of my eye, which one I'd try to stab in the throat if they made a move for Pontus. I knew Sam would take the other if it came to it. We managed to walk away and a half-block later, they yelled "fuck you!" in English at us. Sam gave them the finger. 

I didn't think much about it afterwards, but later Sam commented, man, I thought I was going to have to pull you off those guys.

And there I thought I'd been calmly ignoring them. I told Sam about the pocket knife. 

You've been in Bogotá too long, he said.

Fuck. He was right. What the hell was wrong with me? Sticking a pocket knife in someone's throat? How stupid and completely psychotic is that? 

A friend's boyfriend was stabbed on the corner next to our house. Two guys tried to rob him, he refused, and they tried to kill him not fifty feet from our front door. Apparently an approaching taxi scared them off before they could finish. I thought about those two guys that night with Sam and Pontus. Same two guys, I'd wager. All the sketchy motherfuckers I've encountered on the street, all the bad guys I've met, the criminals and assassins… I've never gotten such a weird and sinister vibe before, like a pure reptile brain fight-or-flight instinct, and apparently I'm not as wired for flight as one would hope.

---

Met a guy from Wales who actually had "fuck you" tattooed on the inside of his lip. He swears he got really drunk one night in Tijuana and simply woke up tattooed. Usually you hear something like that and you think bullshit.

But it was true.

---

George and Peter on the deck of the Bogota Beer Company

Andrew called one day. He used to be a professional football player in England, now he's thinking about buying property here. Good guy. Listen, he said, my girlfriend is part of this new charity organization, and they want to hold a party and they're looking for a place to do it. Do you think we could use your house? About 200 people, DJs, cash bar, we could set up in the back courtyard, and they'll pay 500,000 pesos.

I dunno, I said, we'll have to talk about it. Our neighbors aren't fond of parties in the back courtyard. Aside from the obvious loud music and dozens of people milling about, they've complained about the late-night basketball games, which is understandable given that the courtyard directs the sound right at their bedroom windows. And I don't like being on the neighbors' bad side. It turns out that the apartment that directly overlooks the back courtyard is owned by the leader of the band Sidestepper, one of my favorite bands. And another neighbor told me a great ghost story once. Nice people. 

I told George about Andrew's proposal. Oh yeah, he said, his girlfriend is a model, and her charity group is like underwear and swimsuit models for peace or something.

You know, I said, you'd think he would've mentioned that part of the equation.

Dave shuffled into the kitchen. He was sick and wrapped in a blanket, cowled like a monk. Even sick, Dave's still sharp as ever. I told him Andrew wanted to fill the house with underwear and swimsuit models and give us 500,000 pesos for it. He squinted. 

A million pesos, he said, and shuffled away.

---

Chappy and Jess

I don't much care for models, generally speaking. The beauty level in a bar full of Colombian models isn't so much higher than a bar full of Colombian non-models, and with non-models, you've got fewer lurking, uptight boyfriends and a much better chance at an interesting conversation. Still, one can scarcely turn down the invitation to an anniversary party for one of Colombia's top modeling agencies, if only to see the train wrecks on display. And the invitation came from Richie's wife, who works for the agency and is an exception to any bad generalization I might make about models.

We were there to make idiots of ourselves in spite of the imperious, self-consumed model types. Mayhem did, indeed, ensue. Chappy, the third-hardest bloke in Middlesborough (followed only by Snowy Jackson, the hardest, who also plays a mean game of golf, and Cheesy, who Chappy reckons could take him), is naturally wired for funny. Part of it's the amazing accent and unexpected English – for example, "I ain't gonna fookin' graft with this bird when I'm knee-deep in flap, like." And part of it's what the French politely call "joie de vivre." 

A girl wandered too close to the monkey cage of our section of the bar, looking for her lost cell phone. Sam expertly got her into conversation. She sat down and was clearly engaged for a good ten or fifteen minutes, until Chappy wandered by in a fit of dancing. His jacket was wrapped around his waist and one arm of the jacket flailed like a giant cock flopping between the girl, Sam, and Chappy's legs. It's just as possible as not that Chappy even realized it. He didn't remember it the next day.

The girl looked up at Chappy, looked back at Sam, and said, "is he a friend of yours?" 

Sam said yeah. 

And the girl stood up and walked away without a word.

---

Dave and Jess

George has been whittling a small wooden totem for a few weeks. It's 4AM in the cavernous living room of our house, and everyone's asleep except us, me writing and him carving, and the only sound is the tap of my keyboard and the scraping of the knife on wood.

"I could've sworn I just heard a turkey," he says, out of nowhere.

---

A Lada seen from the hill of 20 de Julio, a neighborhood in the south of Bogota

Even among the expats of Bogotá, Shane is special. Shane's a builder back home in England, he was educated at Cambridge, he's sharp and funny and completely sane and yet, I'm certain, could've out-consumed the late Dr. Thompson in any substance he cared to name. He's been here six months and is about to go back to work for a spell, but oh yes, he'll be back.

He spent some time on the coast. He came back with a girl. He's not entirely sure how. Shane was renting a room in Sam's apartment, and the girl just tagged along and stayed with him. She was beautiful, of course, but Shane wasn't impressed. 

Sam had a hooker staying with him for a few weeks. Well, she did work as a hooker, but she was the black sheep of a good family, and a fundamentally decent person. She liked hanging out with Sam and the rest of us foreigners. She told me that even though she couldn't understand us when we spoke English, she just enjoyed being around for the pleasant, laid-back vibe.

"Not like Colombians," she said, "where people are all like ehhhh," and she mimed a leering motion. "And no one's trying to get over on anyone else." She could relax with us. And we felt relaxed around her. She was part of the family, and a great source of advice and information, especially when it came to the sleazier side of life. Once, Sam went with her to an after-after-after-hours bar, a place Shane and Chappy went to once and said they thought they were going to get killed for sure. I declined to go, as I had some work to finish, and it was Sunday afternoon. Later, I received a text message from Sam: "I am in the underbelly. It's beautiful." And ten minutes later, another message: "now police raid." You have to appreciate a girl who'll take you places like that.

So when she needed a place to stay for a few weeks, well, that's how Sam ended up with a prostitute paying him rent to sleep in his bed. Which is still one of the best things I've ever heard. 

When Shane moved in, she only needed one glance at him. "Oh," she said. "Colombian girls will love him. He's a foreigner, he's good-looking, he's built, he's fun, he's got money. He's the Prize."

Which isn't exactly what you might think if you've seen him in the depths of a hangover that would put a lesser man into an irreversible coma. But you could see her point. And Shane knew how to operate. I've never seen anyone adapt so quickly and so thoroughly to the Colombian game. 

So he was due to go back to England to work, and he was stuck with this girl hundreds of miles away from her home and living in his room, and he couldn't even remember having invited her. What to do.

He went to book his return flight. He printed out the itinerary and hid it. He made another, fake itinerary for a flight two weeks earlier. He put the fake itinerary in the outside pocket of his bag, sticking up ever-so-slightly, and he went home. He put the bag on the floor of his room and left, knowing full well that the girl would snoop around and find the fake itinerary. Sure enough, she found it. 

The girl would have to go back to the coast, after all, because Shane was leaving. "And that," he explained, "gives me another two weeks to enjoy the spoils of Bogotá."

I was awed. "Sensai, you have much to teach us," I said. 

Sammy from Australia was renting the third bedroom in Sam's apartment. He's absolutely hilarious and one of the most genuinely nice people you could ever meet. Unlike the rest of us, Sammy works his ass off and loves it. He rides his bicycle at 5AM every day to a school in a poor neighborhood to teach kids for a wage that doesn't even pay the rent. His walls are covered with drawings from his students, who obviously love him as much as he loves them.

He and I talked for a long time about a girl he was trying to hook up with. She was such a nice girl, he couldn't even figure out how to kiss her. I gave him the sage advice of an elder. Weeks later, I found out that he'd been successfully romancing The Lovely Natalia, an artist that Matias and I had feuded over for months. We both thought she was beautiful and pretended to fight for her attention, but at the end of the day, we were both too cynical and bitter to even contemplate bespoiling such a pure, wonderful girl. She's delightful and sweet and funny, and as much as I played at being upset that Sammy finally won her (with my unwitting advice!), I was thrilled he did. She deserves a guy as good as Sammy. 

So when we told Sammy about Shane's brilliant ploy, he was confused. "If he wanted the girl to leave, why didn't he just politely tell her it's time for her to go home? Why go through all that?"

I shook my head slowly. "Oh, Sammy," I said. "You still have so much to learn."

---

Downtown Bogota in the background from 20 de Julio

The Instant Coffee Manifesto
(from an art show in Medellin)

With wavering clarity we understand that what we do is confined to the limitations of representation and we are okay with that. This understanding is in the name of Instant Coffee. As a product Instant Coffee is an effective substitute. It mimics the real thing without the pretense of being better. It isn't that much easier to make, but that much is reason enough to justify its particularities. Taste is a factor, and to those with taste is an important difference used to mark quality and define preference.

But quality is too particular and preferences change.

They are superfluous really, misnomers that distract from the fundamental reasons for ingesting either the real thing or its substitute. Value is in their effect. In its taste.

Instant Coffee barely resembles the real thing, but its effect is equivalent.

Regardless of taste it still works. Quality is beside the point. And in this disregard Instant Coffee becomes a medium to be used.

(thanks to Joseph)

---

Death goes shoeless in our house

You never know what might be happening in our house. You walk in and Karl from Sweden is dancing salsa, shirtless, with a Colombian guy. He claims it's his salsa lesson. Irish Joe might be visiting and playing his trumpet. Miami Joe is holding forth brilliantly in the living room about economics and, as an aside, 70s porn, while Oxford-educated Edward spars with Richie from Scotland – "laid off the smack long enough to come out tonight, then?" Jess is in the backyard teaching English. Dave Landsberg is falling down the stairs, renamed the "Landsberg Landing" in his honor. I've discovered a small blue butt plug in the corner of my room, which I snuck into George's pocket while he was distracted and has since gone missing.

Notice I leave out the part where the butt plug sat in a dish in the living room for a month before vanishing, as that would remove the dreadful insinuation against George's character. I also made up the "shirtless" part of Karl's dance lesson, although I failed to mention how their torsos are not, in fact, oil-slathered. 

Still. Mayhem abounds. People come around, an extended network of expats and hangers-on. We don't need to plan a party on a Friday night, don't need to go out. Just sit and wait, and someone will come and something will happen. If it's not the everchanging social scene, it's something else.

The bathroom is across the hall from my room. I'm in the habit of simply wrapping a towel around my waist in the morning when I go for a shower, knowing that only George and Dave also share upstairs rooms and would hardly be offended. Well, and Jess, too, but she's a stout-hearted woman from Cornwall. 

I sleep like a brick and it takes me a few hours to wake up, so I didn't think so much of the commotion I heard outside my door one day. In a house like this, there's often noise of some sort going on. But I wasn't expecting to wade, in my towel, through two dozen people in the middle of a film shoot on my way to the john.

A film class from a university were making a short film in Dave's bedroom about a child who has cancer and is playing Scrabble with Death. George's absurdly large bedroom, where it somehow makes sense that he actually sleeps in a tent indoors, was the control room. Of course, in Colombia, it's quite rude to not greet everyone when you walk into a place. Fortunately, I'm not shy. 

If you can successfully navigate that level of surreality, you'll do fine here.

Some of the film crew set up in George's room

The World-Famous Author is a good friend of Dave's. He's working on a new book about Colombia, and he's interviewing former child soldiers. As the Author also has a ridiculously well-paid job with a prominent construction company (that he scored by randomly meeting some guy on a flight), the company pays for him to live in ludicrously posh apartments in the rich northern part of town. He changes apartments every six months for security, you see. So when he needed to meet with these former child soldiers who live far in the poor south, our house was an obvious middle ground to meet in.

George and I sat on the rooftop deck of a nearby restaurant, by the fireplace, having a drink and watching the sunset. I told George that as much as I liked the idea of having the Author and his interviewees around, I could think of a half-dozen ways it could go sideways just off the top of my head. It was a bad idea. Most Colombians have never seen a big old house full of "rich, dumb gringos," and former child combatants may not be the sort of people you want lingering in your home. But what the hell, I figured, whatever happens is bound to be interesting. 

The first two former soldiers were decent enough fellows. The third I only saw for an instant, brushing by him on the way out the door. I picked up a bad vibe off the guy immediately.

Later, Dave, who's wise to this sort of thing, told me he picked up on the guy as well. He caught the way the guy was looking around the living room, like he was casing the joint. 

Two days later, I came home around midnight, and Jess and Dave Landsberg were sitting in the living room. It was a quiet night. George had gone off to the Amazon for a week. Shortly after I arrived, we heard a strange noise outside, like someone banging on the door.

The hell's that, I said. 

I don't know, said Dave, but we've heard that a couple times tonight.

Not cool. I got up and walked across the courtyard to the front door and looked out the peephole. Nothing. I opened the door and looked outside. Nobody on the street. Looked at the door and nothing looked out of place. Huh. Must have been something next door or out on the street. 

A while later, we heard it again. Not our door, we figured.

Everyone went to bed late, around 3AM. I stayed up until 5AM, when Dave went to work. At 4AM, I went to the bathroom. All was perfectly quiet. 

I never even thought about the garage door. The creepy garage, tucked into the far corner beyond rooms that are not used. The landlord kept the garage for himself as workspace, so we never go in there. It's out of sight, out of mind. But of course, the garage door opens onto the street. And the garage door was not very secure.

The strange sound was the sound of someone hacking off the padlock.

Filming in Dave's room

At either 4 or 5AM, that someone snuck into the house and started looting the place, but was almost immediately interrupted by the sound of either me or Dave getting up. The guy had time to unplug the DVD player, but when he had to flee the house, the only thing he managed to grab on his way out was George's laptop. I felt like an asshole, explaining to George how I'd let his computer get stolen literally from under us, when I knew better.

---

She was gorgeous, and she did a double-take when she saw me on the bus. I grinned at her and she smiled back. She sat in front of me and glanced over her shoulder when the bag I was carrying rustled, checking to see if I was still there. No, no, I don't have time or energy for this right now… but then we got off at the same stop. At that point, it would almost be rude not to say something. We walked together and chatted. She lives a few streets over from me, and she's a professor of anthropology. When we got near her house, I invited her over to the plaza for a glass of mulled wine. She ordered juice. I had her read my palm. She talked about my eyes. We left the bar at closing. Do you believe in destiny, she asked?

I believed I'd just pulled an amazing girl, traffic-stopping and smart and fun, off the motherfucking bus. What a country. 

So you're a professor of anthropology, I'd said over wine. Tell me something. I've never been in a fight. I don't believe in violence. I'm a humanist. Even if I believed in violence, it's still stupid. So what it is about this country, where the people are so friendly and warm, why would I be so willing to fight guys on the street? I've never been like this before. I feel like the longer I'm here, the meaner I get, and I don't like it.

She smiled at me, perfectly, her eyes warm in the candlelight. You have to be a warrior to live here, she said. You wouldn't make it if you weren't. 

And she cocked her head and played with her hair and never took her eyes off mine.

---

My homeless stalker found me again on the street, just blocks from my house. She grabbed my arm and tried to kiss me, then explained that she needed sex.

Listen to me, I said, this isn't going to happen, and you need to stop. I have to go now. Take care. 

She trailed after me. Where do you live? What's your phone number? Tonight, we can meet for sex?

I flagged down a taxi to get away.

So I moved into a new house. It's a rental - me and four English people sharing a semi-ramshackle old mansion - so I'm hesitant to call it "mine," but take a look at my living room:



(clicking the photos will take you to Flickr where you can see them bigger)


Special appearance by Sam's Jack Russell terrier, Bruno.

It's pretty much exactly like Scooby-Doo. Dave, Jess, George, Chappy and me, all keeping our eyes peeled for ghosts in the spooky old colonial mansion. It's pretty much ridiculously huge. I think there are 11 or so rooms that could function as bedrooms, and some of them are laughably big. Everyone who comes to the house - and oh, yes, there are many - either gasps or giggles. More pictures will come soon. Right now, I'm too busy searching the house for the secret passageway to Narnia.

The only downside, for me, has been the rather fine how-do-you-do that's sprayed on the neighbor's wall:



"Death to the bald." I swear, it was there before I moved in.

As if bald people need more grief in their lives. It's like I always told Aaron - ain't no love in the world for a bald man.

I'm assured that this graffiti refers to skinheads rather than bald people in general. Still, I'm looking both ways when I walk out the door.

The owner of the house is another Englishman, a delightful older man who restores houses for a career. He bought another house nearby that's in awful condition at the moment, but will be spectacular when he's finished. Here's a few photos from his place:





George Bush stunk up the town the other day. He and his entourage, including Condy and Tony Snow, had lunch at the president's palace, mere blocks from my house. Laura Bush even read to children at a library a few blocks away. It's a creepy feeling, knowing those goons were driving around my 'hood. Fortunately, I had a terrible flu and stayed in bed for most of it. Or, as I prefer to believe, their malignant nearby presence actually caused me to fall ill. Sure, I bet you've got your fancypants germ theories... me, I believe in evil.

Not that I missed much by staying in bed. There was nothing to see. The various army and police units kept people blocks away from the entourage. A couple kids threw bricks at the riot cops, but the rebel armies - ARMIES, mind you - couldn't even be bothered to make a token trashcan go explodey. Even if you caught a glimpse of a faraway motorcade, for all you knew it might have been one of the dummy motorcades. It was a spectacular non-event in every way but one - Dubya's visit instigated another ley seca, a dry day where no alcohol is allowed to be sold. Ain't that a bitch.

First he fucks up Iraq. Then he fucks up my weekend. I call for impeachment.


Dubya's visit closed down my neighborhood... but these people gave it a run a few weeks ago. Are they protesting? No, it's hundreds and hundreds of sports fans celebrating the anniversary of some football team's founding by stumbling up Avenida Jimenez with a mile-long banner, fouling traffic and irritating pedestrians all the way. Further evidence that no matter where you go in the world, you can always hate sports fans.


Here's another graffiti I caught somewhere in Bogota. Kinda odd that it's in English. Kinda poignant that way.


According to the label, boxed white wine is great for children's parties.


There may not be any love in the world for a bald man... but a bald man wearing big goofy shades...

And now, your photo blog for Wednesday:


Stilts and fire, New Year's Eve, Las Aguas, Bogota


Maybe not so open, downtown Bogota


If you're wondering where the future went, it's in the car park to the right.


One of my favorite coffeehouses in a park in the north of Bogota.


Girl. Mules. Calle 18 with Septima.


Headlight, old moving truck still in use.


Advertising.


Working on it, thanks.


There's something sinister about the Abbott & Costello bar.


Street salsa.


Valentine's Day.

17:43

S: Sometimes we blow off some steam, hit the town...

L: And that's what you're going to do tonight?

S: No, no, I don't know, no, yes. Yes.

G: But it's still early, so we might actually be in our jim-jams and in bed at a sensible hour.

D: Oh, shut up, you're gonna be out tonight until stupid o'clock.

M: Good point. Best get back to the Batcave to prepare.

G: Yes, back to the Batcave... utility belt... tights, then underpants...

19:51

S: OK, you're in charge of getting us home at a reasonable hour.

M: You know, people back home have designated drivers, but we actually need a designated sober person just to keep things from spiraling out of control.

S: And that's your mission tonight.

M: Um... isn't there anyone a little more qualified?

21:08

G: She looks unintelligent to the point of being retarded, but retains an animal-like cunning that knows no moral boundaries.

M: Yeah. I wonder if she'd marry me.

21:51

H: Will you buy another bottle of rum?

M: No. Run along now. Go with him.

G: Umgawa!

22:34

F: The owner is my uncle. Come sit in the special seating area. NO ONE gets to sit here unless it's authorized.

M: Awesome. Can we slide down the pole?

F: Sit here, I'll bring you a girl.

M: No, that's not...

S: What's that guy's deal?

M: I dunno, but this is all shady as fuck.

S: Yeah, well, that guy over there just took a swing at the bouncer, and that looks like a massive brawl about to happen. How do you feel about leaving?

23:42

H: Are you guys brothers?

S: No, we're in a band.

00:37

M: Listen, instead of sitting here with us, maybe you should go, y'know, be with your friend. She looks pretty rough. She says her kid died today.

A: Nah, don't worry about it, she's half-crazy.

M: Okee-dokee then.

01:40

M: Look, I know it looks like she likes me, but she's a hooker, not my girlfriend. The proper thing to do here is for YOU to take her upstairs and let her make some money tonight.

STUPID O'CLOCK

M: Chris Morris is batshit insane.

G: Heeheehee!

09:30

S: Time to wake up! Get your ass off the couch!

M: ... but it's cold out there. And there may be monsters.

S: So much for getting home early last night. You failed your mission, man.

M: I know. I'm a bad commando.

S: You know, this "are you brothers" shit is getting old. Next time we go out, one of us has to change our looks.

M: OK. Next time, I'll be the black one.

G: What kind of food does a Hungarian ghost prefer?