Rock on!!

Sunday. It's Sunday afternoon. Michael is experiencing a late Sunday afternoon and he's all reflective, so reflective that his third person diatribe, always suggestive of a reflective mood, implodes into regular, non-head-up-his-arse first person mode, and with a little less vitriol.


Last night I experienced less reflective-related times at Kefren, the coolest (that non-cool coolest - in fact I'm changing that to "grooviest"... no, hang on... that's kind of dumb too. Hmm... well whatever, it's a great place) rock venue in Cochabamba. Some people may snigger or possibly even laugh without restraint when I say that something is the apex of Cochabamba, because they may know that Cbba isn't really up there with Santiago, or Buenas Aires, or even La Paz in terms of attractive attractions but some places here are really fun and unpretentious, possibly - and I can't comment with full authority here - but possibly difficult to find in other cities. Anyway we (three Bolivians, two Australians, two Septic Tanks, and a Pom (just to express cultural diversity) enjoyed the two fastest guitar players in Latin America. The first fellow, Marcos de Ros is a heavy set Brazilian who mixed his own music with various classical composers transforming Villa Lobos, Paganini and Bach's masterpieces into rock gems. And the next fellow, whose name I can't remember (because he didn't have an enormous 8 foot picture of his face on a poster with his name down the side next to the stage like de Ros...) was a long haired throwback to the seventies. Faster than de Ros, and who, after a dizzying array of loco antics, in one of his encores, doused his guitar with fuel and set it alight!

So, last night was a feast for the eyes and the ear (only one because the loud rock music prematurely killed the battery in my hearing aid...) Then our Bolivian fellow got the DJ to play Beds Are Burning, which when in a club and with an audience, after a 1 litre glass of beer is even more intoxicating than jumping around my bedroom with my MP3...

My blog was commented on recently from a fellow round these parts who suggested that I needn't worry about supporting the growth away from traditional culture here in Cbba, given that the city has been fully, irrepairably westernised. It might be true but I had fun last night, and the crowd certainly weren't advocates of mainstream North America. I dunno.

I had finishing up drinks at ECLA (to further bolster to that fellow's comments) on Friday after class with some of my students (pictured). The fellow in the rear is the wild-card Andrew, the Englishman taking over my class. I was surprised that so many came in... it IS just next door to the Institute, but still...

I particularly like the woman's excitement on the right, at the other table. She's cool!