It's live.

www.kevtronics.blogspot.com

don't miss it. it's totally inane.

see you over there, k?

kevster

there's some movement afoot.

I will no longer be posting to the webaddress guateistrad.blogspot.com.

Guate was rad. It's time to move on. I wonder who's gonna come across any of this new bullshit.

New web address: www.kevtronics.blogspot.com

Something worth posting:

I saw finally The Devil and Daniel Johnston last night. It gets a high recommend.

The movie reminded me that I am kind of crazy. Probably diagnosably crazy.

It also reminded me that I am not that crazy.

Done spellchecking,
-the kevil

A Monster That Lives in My Chest.

First and foremost, I want to say that Meerkat Manor is the most brilliant television show in ten years. Heart-wrenching, charming, furry. Can you think of anything/one else like that? Anyone?

Second and less foremost, I took a trip to Lincoln, NE with my mother on monday. That place has produced a couple of my best friends, and a family that I someday hope to belong to by adoption. It also is home to a disproportionate number of crazy people. This trip, I met a Russian military plane enthusiast who "loved him some gyros", listened to a man talk about stoplights and how they benefit/damage society for a full half-hour, and waited at a crosswalk next to a man flapping his harms like some sort of man-bird. Birdman? I could not resist the urge to glance over. He looked back at me with an expression that really only said, "May I help you, sir?"

Lincoln is way cooler than any place people would expect to find in Nebraska. I love the Midwest. You should too.

Now! To the point!

I had an echocardiograph this morning. Apparently, as I found out before I left the America, I has a hart-merr-merr. Now, this exists concurrently with intermittent emotional pangs, heretofore the only heart murmurs that I was aware of having. An echocardiograph is like a chest sonogram. I have now seen and heard my heart in all of its glorious (?) detail.

Observations of note:
My heart makes some weird fucking noises. My favorite was one that sounded like when you put a finger in your mouth, puff out your cheeks, and pull. But it was happening over and over again alongside other sounds. Basically it was a "whoosh, whoosh, POP" kind of thing. Silly life organ.

The visual representation of those sound waves looks like the continent of Africa.

My heart with its various valves and other pieces looks like a wide assortment of monstrosities. Things I thought I saw included: A headless person whose chest read "v" for victory everytime he saluted with his non-head, a dancing clip-art lady, one of those squishy things that's really hard to hold on to. a potato, a vagina, an amoeba under a microscope, a totally inappropriate symbol for human love, a clapping contest.

A dude also rubbed some pleasant smelling-gel all over my chest. I can't tell if I never want that to happen again or if I should run back to the office screaming about how I desperately need another exam.

Gooooooood Morning!
-kvn

As far as being coninued goes, this is being....

Given an abundance of time and abundance of thoughts, I've decided to continue this endeavor. At some point, I am meaning to change it's name and web-address, but for the time being, it will retain this monicker. I like that I'm referring to IT like it were some sort of closet skeleton monster. Now, on with IT.

Being in Manhattan Kansas makes me anxious. Maybe because of the structure of the town, maybe because of it's population makeup, maybe because of the way my family functions, I'm constantly teetering on the edge of something. For the first week or so of being back, I usually sort of enjoy this feeling of uneasyness, but after two, it becomes unbearable. This town makes me tired, uneasy, and grumpy at all times. I eat in the middle of the night. I fight with whoever wants to fight. I'm mean to babies. That shit's unacceptable.

The winter makes it worse.

Don't work for your mother, if that happens your boss is always around, even at night.

I just watched a kid yell at his mom from across the table about how he didn't need her anymore, and how once he goes to college he won't need them ever again, and how it's gonna feel so good to be independent. How she needs to get out of his face. Good for him. I just had those feelings dissipate sometime within the last year and a half. That's a really good feeling I really wanted to tell that kid that, actually, he does need his parents and the whiny way he's yelling at his mom means he loves her and that he'll feel stupid about all this later. But he needs this now. I at least hope his mom knows that she should just wait it out.

Which reminds me, my parents and I are getting along for the first time in 7 or 8 years. It's very strange and very nice. They buy me stuff, and give hugs. Yay hugs.

If Mitt Romney wins the nomination, I will shoot myself in the face. If he wins the election, I will shoot myself in the other face. What a jerk that guy is.

It appears that everyone in Guatemala is safe and sound. I am glad of that, what a nice experience. However, despite the fact that I have yet to visit other countries besides Mexico and Canada yet, I am pro-USA. It is a nation full of backwards, selfish, xenophobes, but, the diversity of culture and the beauty of the country and the diner food I like. Very much. So there, I said it. I'll say it again. USA! USA! Baaaaaaaaaam.

Speaking of Guatemala, these baby:


have gone to the United States with new parents.

This baby:
will hopefully be in North Carolina with his parents of Puerto Rican and Canadian descent, respectively.

That's too much. This will end abruptly...Now.

Quiero amor y quiero amar,
-kevrick kevman.

it's all over but the flying

Well,

I leave tomorrow evening. This week has been suck-ified. Got some bad news from some people.

Feeling kinda sickly. Spent today in my princess-themed room, listening to Albert Ayler trying to put keys spelling "bad mothafucka" across the homerow of my laptop, realizing very quickly that, first of all, that's way to many letters, and second, there are 3 A's in those words. Whatever though, no regrets. If you don't understand why I would do something like that (I do a lot of things like that) you don't understand me. That, is all I have to say about that.

Some notes on shit that's gone down in the last couple of days.

Alvaro Colom is the new president. I was happy he won, even though he will likely be only a little less sucky than the other guy would have been. I don't think I ever mentioned that the UNE equivalent to the Firm Hand's fist was a cute little dove movement using both hands. I think Bone Thugs n' Harmony used to do something roughly similar.

I went to the polling place with Bryslie and watched her vote. The ballot is a piece of paper wit pictures of both dudes. You draw a big X through the one you want. Something else that was a bit odd about the process is that they televise the counting. With a guy holding up the paper, saying "UNE" or "PP" and putting it in one of two piles. I totally watched for 2 hours.

Nobody was at the polling place. Like NOBODY. The candidates were apparently both so bad that voting was down all across Guatemala. D-pressing

Apparently, to make sure that no one votes twice, they mark your finger with some kind of long-lasting paint. Also, it apparently smells funny. A scenario in which giant masses of people walk sniffing their fingers and onlookers note that it must be election time was easily my favorite part of Guatemala Picks the Less Shitty Candidate 2k7.

I don't think there's anything else that I thought was particular noteworthy about being here for the elections. Except for maybe Hugo Chavez's decision to amend the Venezuelan Constitution so kids under the age of 18 can vote. That guy's a crazy. His country's definitely going to end up as some kind of skateboard dystopia, with all kinds of graffitti, and pizza, and.... Mark Wahlberg.

I ate at a nice restaurant, got some people some gifts, spent all my money.

I don't think the people I stayed with really liked having me around too much, we're not doing anything to note my departure. I haven't been back to the office since I went to live with Bryslie. That's probably ok.

What a weird trip.

First hot shower in a month? Why yes, please!

/kevinnnnn

¡dewey defeats truman!

I feel like I´ve been posting a little bit too frequently as of late, I hope whoever happens to be reading this bothers to read the posts below, they´re better. The reason for more posts is that I have done more things and have about equal access to a computer. So there you go. It´s probably also because I´m about to put this thing out to pasture because I don´t feel like I have much to write about day-to-daily (unless there are requests for continued blogging, I´ve ruled out ultimate blog)

Other things of note.

Every morning I drink either fresh lime-aid or fresh liquified pineapple. If you´ve never done either of these things, make it happen. M-mmmm bitch!

I spent what I´d basically considered my last fun night in Guatemala attending a fancy graduation party for a guy followed by driving around listening to a cd I brought with me with the windows down.

Guatemala city night+high altitude stars+isuzu rodeo+will oldham=e-x-x-x-cellent

otherwise.

Welp, the Guatemalan Elections are today. Some final observations:

-Most of the people don´t seem to have decided who to vote for, even on the day of. Everyone still talks about how shitty the canidadates are, but they´ll vote regardless because it´s a kind of duty.

-Rich people favor la Mano Dura, despite the fact that I have not seen any public announcements of plans to do anything besides boost the security of the country. They´re tired of getting robbed.

-Less rich people seem to want to vote for the other party, the UNE. Up until about a week ago, I hadn´t met anyone who was sure. Then I talked to both of the maids that work in the houses I´ve stayed at. Both voted for Colom in the first round of elections. Reina´s going to again, but Maria changed her mind because the head of this household told her to. On top of that, the ManoDura=dictadura grafitti is pretty abundant. I´d really like to get some fotos of it, but no opportunities to be all turist-i in Guate´s business district.

-A fair amount of people I´ve talked to have very little efficacy regarding their vote because they feel that voting is a farce and the US and other foreign powers do way more to influence the elections than they ever could. There is a deeply ingrained, historically grounded reason for this. Bummer.

-Papers show the candidates in a dead heat, in terms of preliminary polls. Colom would still be my candidate if I lived here.

-Ultimately, I believe the whole thing will come down to who has the best reaggaeton song in their commercials and accompanying their flag waving squads on street corners. Sadly, I think Perez-Molina´s is probably the fresh-er of the two.

I sum up Decision 2007 Guatemala as: 50% repression, 50% corruption, 100% jamz.

Alright, time to go punch that ballot (illegally!)

-kevron.

dirty, sexy money

I have no idea what that is. I saw it advertised on some trains in Chicago. And I thought it looked stupid, so I decided to title this blogpost after it in the hopes that it would be a well-received popular culture reference. Oh well.

To my credit, it does have something to do with the content of this message.

I´ve been meaning to write about the currency here (quetzales) for a while, but I´ve usually forgotten due to wanting to include something more pressing or more (less?) humorous. Two things have struck me about the money here.

Number 1/ (goddamn spanish keyboards have all of the symbols mixed around. The / was near impossible to find. That is not what I´ve noticed about the currency.

Number 1a. All of the bills here look like they´ve been chewed on by all of the babies I´ve met so far (8 of them, full time job). Some of the ones I have been moist. Literally. Moist. Even with all sorts of fancy clear plastic windows, holographic strips, watermarks, and images of Cal Ripken Jr., the money is still incredibly gross. I always wash my hands after I pay for something, and I´m not even a germophobe. I´ve never felt like this about American Dollars, even though I know that they are also totally disgusting (the owner of the Cliquot Club told me about his one time he put a bunch of tip money in his mouth while he was bartending and ended up getting some disease that´s all but wiped out except among infants in thailand).

Number 2. Guatemalan revolutionary heroes are way sexier than the ones from the United States. Seriously, it´s like if Elvis, John Travolta, Captain Picard from Star Trek, Ricardon Montalbán, and Central American Thor all banded together to fight tyranny. What do we have? George Washington´s got that creepy smirk concealing his wooden teeth. Ben Franklin was fat. Abe Lincoln had Marphan´s Syndrome, which doesn´t necessarily preclude sexy, but it doesn´t really help, either. I guess Andrew Jackson was alright.

Anyway, I noticed this and immediately exclaimed something about it to whoever was near me. They thought it was weird. I´m keeping a 20 (Elvis) in case any of you are curious about it.

Man. So sexy.

In real life news, I went to the kite festival. It was rad. The only dissapointing thing was that the kites that were like 40 feet tall were only for display. I had the misconception that they were going to take off at some point, risking the lives of hundreds (one smaller kite thwapped my friend right in the forehead as it was taking off), and made the folks I was with stay there for an extra hour. There are some cool pictures of it, but I´ll show them to you when I get back.

The whole thing took place in a cemetary, which was wierd. I´ll bet there were about 1,000 people, and people were walking over graves, sitting on headstones, spilling ice cream on mausoleums, without seeming to think much of it. Strange that as people pay their respects to the spirits of their loved ones in the sky, they don´t think much of their bodies below. Oh well, empty vessels, you know.

The experience also taught me that it is not wise to venture into the unknown with old people or babies. I was accompanied by sets of both. Both sunburn easily. Both need frequent naps. When the young ones weren´t crying about eating, the old ones were crying about needing to use the bathroom. Buh. Getting lost on the way back to the car was NOT the most pleasant thing I´ve ever done.

Overall, it was a good time. Kites rule. Kids rule. Giant inflatable beer cans rule.

Pinguinos en la cama,
-kebín

PS. I could not sleep last night. Because the sound of turkeys gobbling filled the night air. This was not some preliminary guilt over my eventual thanksgiving gluttony. No, this was actually the sound of the turkeys in the cage outside my window here in San Lucas. The male head of the household keeps them in a chickenwire (turkeywire) fence next to 3 white yippy dogs who apparently have to be fenced in because they´re vicious.

It´s all very strange. And turkeys are very ugly.