Looking around flashing everyone I could with my journalist badge, which I received in an online internet course for $50 bucks (not), I came to the conclusion that the Carnival celebration (Americans experience it as Mardi Gras, surely Carnaval’s French third cousin) in Panama is the most incredibly unique experience anyone will ever have. Sure, we don’t have barely-clothed, glittered dancers dancing up and down a strip like they were being exorcised for their sins, but it is a confirmed notion that Panama has one of the best “Carnaval” celebrations of our blue marble. In recent years measures were taken by the government and dubiously necessary Carnival Office to ensure that carnivals in the nation’s capital, Panama City, lived up to the hype garnered in no small part by the country’s dashing strides in tourism and real estate, and whoever lives near this murder scene can grab their complaints and shove them up their sour-trout asses… myself included.

Make no mistake: carnivals in Panama are incredible. You’d be hard-pressed to deny that no matter what you’re into, the carnival spirit is infectious and its spirit is going to get you. Arguably more important to the Panamanian than their birthday, Christmas, their families, and Jesus, this celebration is one that people plan months in advance. This is specially true for the aforementioned Carnival Office, which starts plotting the festivities as soon as the current ones are done on Ash Wednesday. The irony of this celebration, looking at it with my zoom far out into the stratosphere is that it’s often very close to Valentine’s Day, which is supposed to be about union, companionship, loyalty and all of those wonderful thingies Disney movies tell us when we are kids (though that particular holiday has been a victim of date rape, if you ask me); even more hilarious is the fact that “Carnaval” reaches its screeching halt the day marked by Christianity as the beginning of Lent, a practice brought forth from the Holy Bible that asks its believers to have a pretty shitty forty days. If you’ve never experienced Carnivals, allow me to provide the theories for its origin so you can then go on with yo’ bad self:

The origin of the name “carnival” is disputed. According to one theory, it comes from the Greek prefix carn (“Meat eater”), referring to a cart in a religious parade, such as a cart in a religious procession at the annual festivities in honor of the god Apollo. Other sources, however, suggest that the name comes from the Italian carne levare or similar, meaning “to remove meat”, since meat is prohibited during Lent. Another theory states that the word comes from the Late Latin expression carne vale, which means “farewell to meat”, signifying that those were the last days when one could eat meat before the fasting of Lent. Yet another translation depicts carne vale as “a farewell to the flesh”, a phrase embraced by certain carnival celebrations that encourage letting go of your former (or everyday) self and embracing the carefree nature of the festival.

This last definition is the one you’ll see every time you walk out of your house during the festivities. The Wikipedia entry for “Carnival” is quite extensive and gets into detail about celebrations all over the world but most of them have one thing in common: they use these days as an excuse to let go. There are plenty of articles written about the debauchery and abandon that runs rampant through Carnaval (including those written by yours truly), but I must quickly point out that there are other options. I don’t know how it is in your part of the world, but there tends to be some peer pressure about doing the Ultimate Carnival Experience: save a month’s paycheck, break up with your significant other but make sure it’s something that can easily be patched up once you’re back, buy an ass load of alcohol, take a pillow and ship yourself out to the Lion’s Den of Carnival. Once there, proceed to drink yourself retarded, make out/have sex with the first remotely attractive person you can find that actually sees something in you worth the embarrassment despite the vomit stains on your shirt, wake up not knowing where you are, who you’re with or how you got there (if you check A, B, and C you attain Carnaval Nirvana), rinse and repeat in any order you see fit. Mix it up a little. Odds are you won’t remember doing much of it anyway.

Of course, there are other ways to spend Carnivals without having to go full retard. Some people go to the beach. Others camp out, some even hop on a bus or plane and visit other countries; finally, there are those who take advantages of the free days off work to sleep, catch up with work or personal projects, or simply chill out at home. Before, I couldn’t even imagine what it must be like for someone to stay in for Carnivals since I always made it a point to flee from this particular murder scene as swiftly as I could; this year though, due to a series of unfortunate events I chose to stay in Panama City and chill out. Of course, as it is with most things that are ruled under the tyrant, iron fist of Murphy’s Law, I overlooked a couple of poignant things that have changed since the last time I stayed home for Carnivals, back when I was 13 and pre-pubescent:

1. The “official” carnival celebration, held in Panama City, was changed from the farther-off Via España avenue to the considerably closer Via Transistmica avenue, which is a minute away from my apartment building. This was thanks to former morning show host Mingthoy Giro, President of the Carnival Committee ’til mid-2008, when she was accused of stealing some copper statues that were originally placed at the entrance of a dubious museum that is considered one of the most balls-out dastardly acts of corruption of former President Mireya Moscoso’s administration. Somehow, these 1,000-ton statues of kids were removed from the entrance of the museum when someone realized they could actually put the museum to good use and stashed them in the warehouse of a municipal park. One fine day, someone remembered said statues existed and decided to check up on them, only to realize that they had disappeared. The blame game started, and Mingthoy Giro was ultimately nailed to the cross. Somehow everyone believed that this 5ft-4-in, 150lb woman who looks like she’s had one too many quemo treatments put these heavy-ass statues on the back of a pick up truck, melted them and sold them off for a couple of million dollars. Mingthoy cried bullshit but it was too late; the damage was done, and her time in the committee was cut short when she resigned. She hasn’t been heard of since, but the White Hand of Mingthoy continues to cast its shadow upon our lands, as Panama City’s carnival celebration is still in Transistmica, albeit a messier version of what it was when she was in charge.
2. Panama City has become somewhat of a metropolis, and all of the wonderful things that come with such a claim also inspire negative elements. As it is with everything, when something grows, its benefits grow exponentially… and sadly, so do its setbacks. Enter a new kind of crime: when I can turn on the TV and hear on the news how an armored truck was hijacked and millions of dollars stolen because the culprits used military-grade weapons (including a rocket launcher), I wouldn’t be surprised to see the first cape-wearing vigilantes piggybacking on the roofs of buses in the next few years. Since we don’t have our very own Batman as of yet (if it were up to me, he’d be call “Rataman” and that way not only would it be appropriate but it’d also be an obscure reference to Panamanian history!) and we’re still stuck with criminals that apparently have balls the size of watermelons, people are forced to fend for themselves. This is a prime example of the Escalation hypothesis at work. That’s how World War II started, y’know?

I might be exaggerating on the whole “I was 13 the last time I stayed in the city for Carnivals” thing. I went to Via España way back when, just to say I did and have some degree of first-hand experience on the matter. Getting out of there required an understanding of the human brain’s most basic survival instincts, since it was your worst nightmare wrapped up in barbed wire dripping with tetanus and Hepatitis A. I don’t mean to generalize, but it’s a pre-conceived notion that the citizens from the most dangerous areas of Panama City come to the capital’s Carnival to get their groove on… as well as fund their shenanigans. I hear it’s worse now, but the last time I went to Via España I almost had my wallet stolen, almost got into a fight with a ten-foot, drunken Magila Gorilla who swore I stared at his girl for too long (in fact, staring at anything for more than a second was like flirting with the possibility of getting into a tussle) and left with the sense that I was being targeted for robbery, and they would use any excuse in the book to do so.

Things are different now; back then there wasn’t a third of the police presence that there is now, and there are even checkpoints before every crucial spot of the Carnival where they check you for weapons and the like. There are also plenty of police barricades in adjacent roads with random breathalyzer checks. Now, this should comfort the populace, but it doesn’t do the trick as well as it should. You see, more often than not the police is just as bad (if not worse) than the criminals they’re supposed to apprehend. To many (including me), having more cops out often feels like there are now even more crooks in uniform looking for the slightest fuck-up so that I give them the bribe that’ll pay for their breakfast. and now, with the rubber dildo that is the penalties for driving under the influence super-sized and motorized, they can up their rates. Where you could weasel yourself out of a ticket with $5 bucks, now it’s $10. You still hear of cops that take pity in you and stick to the previous rate, but the point is that if the cops want to steal from you as much as the crooks do, then who do you turn to?

But I digress. Having established that Panama City’s carnivals aren’t the safest in the country, you can avoid incidents if you know what you’re up against beforehand; this goes for pretty much anything, anywhere. If you know that there’ll be people more prone to mug you since you’ll be smack-dab in the middle of a massive crowd, you’re bound to be more careful. This is specially the case for foreigners, who have been painted a wonderful scenario of fairy tale grandiosity thanks to Ruben Blades’ Tourism Master Plan. The flaw with such a plan, gargantuan and all-encompassing in nature, is that it ignores the cultural and social aspect entirely; I get the sense that Blades thinks that by ignoring the fact that the “Juega Vivo” or “me first” culture is hardwired into the Panamanian genetic code, it’ll go away. In the end, it’s an excuse for both cops and robbers to take advantage of the foreigner’s naivete; If you have someone who is used to paying $20 for a cab ride and goes to a Latin American country such as Panama totally convinced that it’s the paradise all the glossy commercials say it is, when said tourist gets scammed so much and so often he/she won’t be able to sit down without the help of a donut cushion, watch as how he/she will never come back to this place ever again.

The Via Transistmica format of the Carnival, its current incarnation, is a bare-bones version of Mingthoy Giro’s original plan: 4km of the avenue have been blocked off for the celebration, with more than a dozen performance stages peppered across the strip. These stages show national acts (reggae, salsa, merengue, rock, you name it) all throughout the day, while the big acts are saved for nightfall. The main stage, located at the end of the strip, is where the biggest names in Panamanian music as well as international artists do their shows for thousands of people every night. The stuff you want to do happens during the day, though: there are Carnival queens, and they parade down the strip in the most spectacular displays you’ll see all year. People usually support their favorite queen by marching behind her car/chariot/whatever it is, chanting songs and making noise. While this happens, there are others who go to the sectioned area of the Carnival strip for the famous culecos, known as the “Culecodromo.” If you’ve never been to a culeco, the gist is this: container trucks full of water (sanitized, though I wouldn’t drink it if I were you) park on the sides of the road as far as the eyes can see, while people whose everyone who walks in between them for hours upon hours until the sun comes down. Throughout the day, plenty of freebies are handed out by all sorts of companies, but you want to be there because it’s generally hot as hell and getting douched with water is just what the doctor ordered, and what surely sounds like a stupid way to have fun is turned awesome when you add alcohol into the mix. When you have a bottle of vodka working its magic in your system, the idea of jumping about with reckless abandon sounds perfect. You meet people, you hang out with them, you bump n’ grind if you’re into it, and so on. To put it in perspective, think about that one hobby you have that you’re aware is silly (and even embarrassing) but you enjoy it so much that you don’t care what I or anyone else thinks; if you can conjure that up, then you can understand the appeal of culecos.

Choosing to avoid the hardcore carnival experience for something more relaxed this year, I went out to the beach a couple of times, played Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4, and basically chilled out. I was still forced to go to sleep at 3AM however, because as I mentioned earlier in this piece I currently live a minute away from Carnival Central, and the music wouldn’t let me sleep. Don’t get me wrong; I’m the type that’ll stand next to the speaker at shows but that’s because I choose to, not because I’m forced to try and sleep when there’s muffled nonsense blaring through my window for 5 hours straight. I’ve slept on beds where I could clearly hear speakers the size of buildings blasting Hip Hop straight into my ears, music underwhelmed only by the sounds of gunshots and ruckus (and this was a posh neighborhood, too. Funny story, really), but really, who would willingly want to put themselves in a situation like that knowingly? Again, that’s what you get when you don’t know what you’re getting into, I suppose.

The premise is simple, and even though you might or might not be able to connect with the analogy I use to illustrate my point, hopefully I’ll make you see the underlying principle of it. So, I brought back the gamer in me back from the dead, and we’re both happy about it. Problem is that being a gamer in this day and age is expensive as all hell. Every game is $60 and up, controllers are $40, and in order to juice out a video game console’s full potential you have to buy a bunch of little gadgets, nuts and bolts in order to really feel like you’re in the cutting edge of technology. Well, even if you have been told otherwise, I don’t shit cocaine bricks that I then sell for $2,000 per white, powdery turd. I write my witty fingers off and earn my keep, the one that keeps this boat rockin’. Now, because all work and no play is an act punishable by death in the House of Rob, there must always be a distraction and said distraction, at the moment, is video games. But alas, we return to the conundrum for the ages: it’s all too expensive. Now, imagine yourself as a Panamanian gamer that’s in college, working a regular job that gets you buy and have passive knowledge of how the Internet works. You save up, sacrificing yourself for that hulk of pixel goodness brought to you by Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony (whichever you prefer) and when you finally have the money to spend on the console and a game, you play it until you beat it. So, what now? Onto another game. But how, if every game is worth $80-$90 in Panama?

Since Panama is the land of the “Juega Vivo” and will forever be known for it, what a lot of people do is they hack into their consoles and place all-region chips so that they can play pirated games. It voids the warranty, but sending off the console from Panama to the manufacturer in the United States if the console check out in a firey blaze is cost-productive anyway. The sacrifice for doing that though, is getting banned from each console’s online playing community… FOR LIFE. Being that online play is one of the better aspects of the VG deal, the average gamer is up shit creek without a paddle. This very predicament was one that yours truly was presented by right after beating his first game. What to do, then? Even in Amazon, $60 bucks for a new game seems a bit pricey.

Enter PayPal.

PayPal recently opened its digital doors to accept Panamanian users, rolling out the myriad of features that make the service great one drip at a time. Now, having PayPal allowed me to forego Step 2 of my consumer nirvana: eBay. Within the first 3 weeks of using eBay, my game library expanded to 5 games, the eBay games in mint condition. The combined value of the 3 games from 3 different sellers add up to the grand total of $87.03, shipping included. Now compare this to the $84.50 I ponied up for Halo 3: Poor Man’s Edition. Something is amiss!

As Panama steadily becomes the darling of both tourists and businessmen alike, my country has been adding services in order to bypass the shoots and ladders US commerce has placed upon us. In my particular case, I don’t buy a thing off retail stores… I buy everything online. I can state several reasons why that is a monumentally bad idea, prime among them being that I’m the poster boy for consumerism, but the benefit here is that I can get exactly what I want, cheaper. This is particularly so when it comes to electronics: ask any person living in Latin America how much an iPod will ring them and they’ll tell you that you’re better off buying one in the US, if you get a chance to go sometime.

What I’m trying to get to here is that, and I’m sure of this, the Internet will eventually phase out retail in Panama (not to mention the world), just like DVD phased out the VHS. Yes, this is a no-brainer for a lot of you out there on the Internet, but that’s because the Internet, believe it or not, is still a niche market. The latest surveys say that around 17-21% of the world’s population uses the Internet on a daily basis, and even though that percentage is growing steadily over the passage of time, there’s still a lot of people in that demographic that don’t even understand the world wide web that well. They have no idea of its full potential, and since most people fear what they don’t understand, they stick to what they know. What they know is celebrity gossip sites, YouTube, e-mail and Facebook. In regards to the Panamanian number of that demographic, it’s a pretty big one considering we’re a couple of years behind in the technology bandwagon: I look at Panama’s network page on Facebook and am amazed that it registers more than 28,000 people, and that’s without counting the other thousands that are subscribed in college networks and the like. Even though the numbers are remarkable, I still get asked where I get my wonderful toys all the time, and every other month I instruct some poor sir or madam on how to shop online because they have been presented with the huge array of possibilities online stores offer to the consumer.

The more people wise up, the less sales retail stores will ring up. Aside from the fact that half of the stores I see in these malls are empty more often than not (and I could provide a thesis for why they’re still in business regardless as hell. Here’s a hint: money laundering) and aside from supermarkets and department stores, I really don’t see specialized business venture doing anything else that’s not going the way of the Dodo. Of course, there is much to consider and the intricacies of Panamanian commerce are much more complex than the picture I’m painting for you now, but Panama still has some road to travel before it can truly call itself First World. We’re certainly on our way up, though.

People will always like the notion of trying before buying. This is especially true when it comes to clothes; I buy all of my shirts online, but everything else is bought here at department stores, because they’re dirt cheap and I can try them on beforehand. In a lot of cases you get what you pay for, but I’m not going to go mountain climbing to fight dingos wearing my $4.99 denim jeans. The knockoff market is huge here, and unless you’re a fashionista (we have them too, and even when Panama is not 3 million people full they still manage to come across as complete douchebags) nobody will bat an eye if your jeans are real or not. Again, the “juega vivo” factor comes into play. The overall sentiment is that “we’re all on the same boat and I’ll be a damn fool if I pay more than $15 for a decent pair of pants when I know I can get them for a third of the price somewhere else.” This principle, my friends, is the exact one I apply in terms of online shopping and that’s why I believe that eventually everyone will jump on the digital bandwagon of commerce… once everyone knows how to work with the system, that is.

Getting stuff faster, better and cheaper. It’s the Panamanian way. It’s also why our traffic system is screwed, drug lords love to use our tax haven sensibilities to store their goods/money, why being a politician is so blatantly lucrative as it is corrupt, why people hack into their game consoles to play games for free, why knock-off products are sold as novelty and no one cares, why pirated movies, music and porn is sold on the street and nobody denounces the sellers, why our beaches are slowly being sold off to multinational companies that have a morbid fascination with resorts, and, ironically, it’s also why there is a company that allows me to comply with said Panamanian way to a T. This is the part of my thesis where I state that the Internet and Panamanians have a lot more in common than I thought.

With the Panama-United States free trade deal all but a given, I’m curious to know if it’ll affect fees in terms of shipping to-and-from Panama. It’s a toss-up, but I imagine I would want to slip something of the sort into the negotiations if my country and yours will be exchanging goods on a regular basis. As our quest for getting and accomplishing faster, better and cheaper becomes increasingly easier thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I imagine that the online-saavy Panamanian (like me! Hi, mom!) will find it irresistible to migrate and leave retail behind. The prospect of having more than 28,000 buying their stuff online though, a lot of them the same people that go to malls and consume there, could bring the economy to a choke-inducing collapse. Of course, it might take us a number of years at the least to be up with the times, considering that Cable & Wireless, our de facto telephone/internet provider despite the “free market” facade they’ve set up for themselves, sells their high bandwidth internet for a ludicrous price. In fact, Panama has the highest internet connection fees in the region, and we’re supposed to be the Mack Daddy of every country in the continent that speaks Spanish (I’m still on the fence about Mexico). There’s so much injustice coming at the regular Joe from all angles that it’s easy to develop a Tom Joad complex… but that’s a fight for another day.

I see all of the changes happening around me, both on a personal and a societal level, and I never thought the day would come where I feel that we are finally getting somewhere. Maybe it’s a trait of 3^rd World countries to be so pessimistic about their outlook, but at the moment things are happening that make Panama the best country in the region, for better or worse, not just in terms of industry but also in a cultural sense. We’ve still got a long way to go, but we’re so much better than we were 10 years ago. Hell, we’re better now than we were a year ago, and looking around a little I notice that it’s all because some people had the delusion that we, as a country and as a populace, are worthy of more. Another inherent character trait of people who are delusional is that, in order to become the megalomaniac they turn into by proxy, there must be a leap of faith involved. There has to be a moment in this megalomaniac’s life where he says “enough is enough” and takes a leap of faith, no questions asked. Whether his motivations are right or wrong is left to the history books, but leaps of faith come from a belief that something is wrong and, even though no one else is pointing it out, someone has to jump in and do something about it. Just as with changes, leaps of faith are very uncommon; it is my conclusion from personal experience that very few like a change of the status quo. Nobody likes a gamble. Nobody takes leaps of faith. It’s not safe, even though what’s safe is not something that nobody seems to be happy with. Still, they would rather suck it up and live in the situation they are in instead of fighting to change things. It’s too hard to do, though. These types of people are not delusional, and are not prone to making a move unless they can sense something tangible they can fall back on. No gambles, no risks, even though we are all taught from the very beginning of our lives that we have the right to scream, cry and complain when we don’t like something so that we never have to go through it again.

Just like it is when you throw a party and tell everyone you know you’re having it, you always have that smidgeon of hope that whispers in your ear, giving you the delusion that everyone you called will show up. Of course, that’s never the case because everyone is very much into their own lives to remember how much it means for you that they drop by and say “hello.” Everyone is so into their own lives that they forget how they impact others when, going by the birthday principle, it’s all about the birthday boy/girl. Megalomaniacs ignoring other megalomaniacs is a way of looking at it, and it would also explain why there are so few leaps of faith across history, both past and present: it’s so rare these days for someone to go out of his/her way for someone else out of goodwill that others are generally afraid, suspicious and oftentimes expecting a catch. The concept of “the catch” is especially true for the Panamanian, since “the catch” is one of the cornerstones of the “Juega Vivo” or “Me First” culture we’ve become ambassadors of.

Seriously, Panama’s government should have the phrase copyrighted.

The root of all Panamanian society’s ills: the “Juega Vivo” culture. It’s become so inherent of Panama’s identity that to think we can weed it out is considered delusional by many. Why is that, though? Why is a change of attitude so difficult to do? People do that all the time. Being in a relationship with someone is about changing your attitude, and letting someone else lead the charge of that change. Doing something for a friend is also a change of attitude. Doing the right thing, even though doing the wrong thing will let you get ahead faster, is a change of attitude. Why is that the status quo? Why is doing the right thing such a Scarlet Letter nowadays? Just like being delusional will have you turn heads, many will see you as a leper for doing the right thing. Doing the right thing is then a very delusional thing to do.

It takes a very delusional person to believe that our traffic and public transportation systems can be revamped, making them efficient. Delusional people are the ones who believe the Panama Bay can be sanitized to the point of it becoming a public beach. Companies investing millions in us must be delusional to think that our banking systems are amongst the best in the world. There are people so delusional that they think we’re an attractive tourist destination. According to most Panamanians, whoever believes that there are reporters out there in search for the truth is someone that’s delusional. Those who think there is potential for greatness in Panama in terms of art is delusional, and whoever believes that Panamanians can’t come up with a good idea to save their skins is also out of their mind. The truth is, though, that everything stated above is now unraveling before our very eyes.

For many of these non-delusional types, the shit is so thick you can’t run away. They use this as an excuse to stay there, instead of coming up with ways to get themselves out. There is hope, though: as long as there are excitable ones, people who take leaps of faith, are delusional and are, in the end, megalomaniacs of their own ideas, there will always be progress. Be it man, group, community, city, country, continent or planet, to take a chance on them even though they will never take a chance on you is the beginning of all great discoveries.

As for this hardly-coherent stream of consciousness, like all liberating experiences, this too must have an end.

In a city where the public transportation sector sees itself as the king of the road, running red lights and doing hit-and-runs like nobody’s business, and no fines issued for jaywalking, being a pedestrian can be a very dangerous proposition. I saw on the news that a 2007 report done by one of the local news channels has that at least 10 people per year die because they got run over by some rogue bus driver. I heard that a lady got run over after literally jumping out of the bus because it was her stop and bus drivers generally want to make as much money as possible during their shifts, so often they won’t brake on bus stops as much as they slow down so that passengers can jump off. The bus in question stopped in the middle of the avenue because the driver couldn’t have the common decency to veer and stop at the bus stop like you’re supposed to. The lady died. And that’s just the busses; I think it’s a given that for every 10 car crashes you see on the street, 8 of them involve a cab. Those guys are bus drivers with sedans.

We had a bus behind us in the stoplight, honking like a sailor who’s just seen land, and my attention is diverted to the cop that’s directing traffic. Cop uniforms are of a light chocolate cover and don’t seem very weather-resistant. Adding insult to injury, most cops tend to wear the bright yellow vests that make them such easy targets. This lady looked visibly upset directing traffic, as if she had lost a bet and was stuck there for a week as penance; an ordinance from early 2007 gave regular cops the faculty to issue traffic tickets where they saw fit, as well as perform other traffic-specific functions like… you guessed it: directing traffic. The populace saw this as another method for cops to bribe the life out of them, and so far it’s worked wonderfully well… for the police. The cop wants to get off her shift quickly, and as if she was capable of controlling the flow of time by buffering traffic flow, she would make hand gestures, signaling drivers to hurry up. Add to this the lovely voice commentary she would accompany her hand movements with, with gems such as “are you asleep at the fucking wheel, you mental retard?” and “Hurry. The. FUCK. UP.” In case you’re wondering, we could hear what she’d yell because, even though she was a good 10 meters away, we were at the front of the line and had Dolby Surround sound on the proceedings. My dad and I just marked it off as funny and chose to ignore it.

That’s when the sir with a lunch bag over his shoulder thought it’d be a good time to cross Via España while we were held, the cop letting cars from the intersecting street cross.

The mister waits until the Via España traffic stops to begin trekking the white line in order to cross the street (Panama doesn’t have many green/red walking lights, and it’s not until recently that people pay more attention to the ones we do have). Everything’s going fine, until the cop signals cars wanting to turn left into Via España (we were at the intersection that breaks the two-way/one-way legs of the avenue), and since everyone that drives is in a constant sense of urgency, the cars speed off to make the turn while the mister is still crossing the street. So, the first driver stops to let the very scared sir pass, and as he walks hastily the cop screams at him for holding up the traffic. Let me write that again for you: the police woman screams to the top of her lungs, calling this sir an idiot for crossing the street USING THE WHITE LINE LIKE HE SHOULD for holding up the traffic. The sir ignored her until he crossed the street, and that should’ve been it; even if that lady was having the worst day of her existence, she had much more pressing matters to attend to like, for example, the potential traffic jam she had in her hands. But no, she wouldn’t have that guy ignore her so she took it up a notch with her thick Colon accent. She screamed louder.

“What kind of a fucking idiot crosses the street when there are cars driving on the street?! Juega vivo, idiot! You would have gotten run the fuck over if it weren’t for me! What the fuck are you doing on the street? You’re an idiot and I should fine you right the fuck now!”

The mister picked this moment to stand up for himself because the amount of verbal abuse was becoming ridiculous. “I don’t want to die, so I stopped! You wanted me to get run over?!” he said, only to be dealt back this cute nugget of pep: “I wish you had been!!! Go the fuck home you fucking cholo!”

My dad correctly pointed out that if this was Canada, she would have been fired. Actually, he said: “if this was Canada, that cop would’ve been shot to the ground for what she did! She’d be fired, Robert!” I don’t know how Canada works in terms of this kind of offense, but I know for sure that other parts of the world don’t treat pedestrians as bad as they do here. Crossing these big avenues sometimes feels like a death wish, especially with public transportation as rampant as it is. Do you think I’ll want to walk to work when people who are supposed to protect and serve treat me like shit for wanting to save my own life?

Of course, there are two sides to every coin; I don’t mean about the mister in the story just now, because he had every right to rail on that dyke cop’s ass hairs. For every person that uses traffic signs correctly to get from point A to point B by way of walking, there are 3 idiots that let the Juega Vivo culture blind their common sense. It happens often that people get run over right next to elevated bridges built to avoid that sort of accident. Even though cab drivers can be fined for not accepting clients, people still ask to be taken to their destination instead of simply hopping in the back and say where they’re going, no matter what the circumstance. Public transportation unions do whatever the hell they want and no one stops them because no one, not even the government, stands up to them. Good ideas are shot down because the people don’t trust the government, so in their reasoning everything that comes out of there is lies and deceit. Everything done affects everything around, and as a result of all this, I don’t make a habit of walking anywhere because I value my life enough to not make such a fundamentally stupid decision as crossing the street during rush hour. The sad fact is, though, that even though it’s a bad idea, we are often forced to take those decisions and that, my esteemed reader, is the fundamental flaw.

Sometimes it seems that, in Panama, doing the right thing is actually the worst thing you can do.

After a rather upsetting Super Bowl XLI, I’m back to talk about something I’ve been meaning to get around to for about a week and thankfully it’s managed to stick in my head this long so that tells me it’s important that we talk about this. I’m not great with snazzy introductions when I’m not in “marketing mode” so I’ll just cut right to the chase: Back in around 2004 I was asked to write a piece by the then-editor of “Weekend” magazine for “La Prensa,” the country’s most highly circulated newspaper. Now, this “Weekend” mag is an insert you get with your paper every Thursday and it’s a variety-themed publication with a focus on fashion, cinema, books, hit parades and what’s happenin’ in the capital’s nightlife. Since my reputation of being a “party guy” preceeded me, I suppose, the lovely girl in charge of the publication scoured the earth to contact me and when she did, she asked me to write an article that would be social commentary on Panama and its people for her magazine. Of course, she didn’t know what she was getting into as all that was known of me back in the day was my book and some short story here and there. I saw this as an opportunity of course, but since I’m not the type to sell out like a bitch I kept my integrity while I wrote, resulting in “Deconstrucción del Panameño.” If you read the article, you will realize why it was never published.

I was very frustrated with the way we Panamanians did things at the time (Still am now, but I’ve indulged myself in the gray area since them… I was much more idealistic back then). I saw the game we play and I wanted to part of it. So, I was given this opportunity by a big publication to speak my mind and I ran with it using my unfiltered way of ranting you know and love… of course I’d get canned. Never heard from her again.

So, a couple of years later Porto Diao is born and with it, this here site. One day I was lazy about writing an editorial and looking at my special drawer where I keep my goodies I found the article… then I decided I’d give it a quick clean up and publish it, rabid anger left intact because even though I’m not as pissed off about it as I was back then it still irks me because things haven’t changed in that regard. A lot of things would happen here since then and more and more I’d realize that the people this society has birthed and are in need of a cultural reboot were finding the site and promtly showcased what was wrong with them by ways of very demeaning and insulting comments, I felt realized. I was getting to the very same people I wanted to do something about. Thing is, I was so focused in getting these people’s attention that it seems I overlooked other readers who understood what I was talking about… which brings me to what I wanted to talk about today. On the “Deconstrucción del Panameño” entry, reader Dan left a couple of comments that seriously left me thinking about my approach in regards to my chunk of the Internet… you’ll need a translator if you can’t read Spanish:

Dan Said:

January 28th, 2007 at 1:25 am

Hey Rob. Hey Rob. He estado viendo tu site y me parece bastante interesante. Bastante atractivo para la juventud de hoy día y algunos aldultos open-minded. En realidad estaba buscando música de Señor Loop en internet, y a través del link que tienen ellos allá… llegué a tu website aca. Te quiero felicitar por tu tenacidad y disciplina en seguir adelante con tu creencia y proyecto (proyecto que me parece lo más grandioso que puedas lograr y ojalá así sea). Para no ser tan extenso en esta ocasión, sólo pequeño comentario que quiero hacer, con respecto a este artículo. Primero que todo me parece interesante tu manera de tratar de llegar al público. En relación a los panameños, te lo juro que todo lo que dices es cierto, muy pero muy cierto hermano. Pero también te juro que cuando ojeaba tus artículos y ví uno sobre “Los Panameños”, me hubiese gustado mucho ver algo un poco más positivo, o por lo menos no tan trillado la verdad. No offense please, en serio. Lo que pasa es que a mis 30 años hermano he leído y escuchado tanto pero TANTO sobre lo negativo y lo malo de los panameños, que es como un círculo vicioso del que no salimos. Una y otra vez vemos escritos, unos de autores simples y de poca estructura y educación. Y otros de gente culta y educada como tu por ejemplo, gente que de veras tiene algo en la cabeza, que de verdad se preocupa, y de verdad quiere marcar la diferencia y lograr que todos abramos lo ojos de una buena vez. No se, no quiero que eso te llegue como crítica sino más bien como una petición, para que con tu educación y conocimiento literario, nos presentes tu punto de vista ( con tu sangre artística), de las cosas buenas, las virtudes, caracterísicas sobresalientes, bondades, rasgos y actitudes que son envidiables sólo de los panameños. Utilicemos la psicología del compliment en vez de la del regaño. A mi hija de 3 años, que entiende todo perfectamente, créeme que las correcciones que le hago antes sus errores o travesuras, siempre son con un gestos de entendimiento, amor, compresión y una sonrisa… y recordándole lo buena, inteligente y capaz que es… y que lo es mucho. Te invito a ti, quien ya he visto que tienes esa misión de culturizar nuestro país, para que utilices la herramienta de abrirnos los ojos, más bien con lo bueno que somos, y lo bueno que somos capaces. Utiliza ese periscopio artístico, esa ventana o microscopio virtual que lleva al artista a explorar.. más alla… de lo que los robots-ciudadanos no vemos en el rush de nuestras vidas. Dicen en psicología y en motivación personal, que si te enfocas que en lo negativo, hacia alla te vas a dirigir. Que si te dices “no debo pisar esa línea, no voy a pisar esa línea”…. te concentras en la línea y tarde o temprano la pisas.
Personalmente, estoy hasta ahora entrando en la disciplina de la lectura, a traves de temas que me interesen, mi tema es la ciencia y tecnología, pero últimamente estoy enfocado en las finanzas, psicología y motivación personal. Y creo que sería de mucha utilidad tener gente que comparta estos gustos para compartir opiniones, etc. etc. lo que se hace en grupos de lectura. Más que nada por esto admiro tu esfuerzo en hacer llegar a “Desinteresados” la cultura a través de la lectura… sin prejuicios… excelente de verdad. Quizás más adelante pueda iniciar grupos literarios y/o culturales. Y sé que de seguro te recomendaría a mis conocidos, al igual que te contactaría para apoyar tu “Proyecto”.. Felicidades. Dan.

P.S.: me gustó mucho tu creatividad en la manera como atraes la atención hacia Mada Faká Online… qué mejor que…. una boca…. qué mejor que…. labios…
Eso es sólo un detalle. Sigue explotando tu creatividad.
By the way… me hubiese gustado ver el programa con David Robinson y de qué manera le planteas el método para llevar “la obra” al público

First off, I’d like to thank Dan for reading the site! It’s good to know I have readers that enjoy my rants as much as they enjoy the porn they can get here. Reading is a great habit and the cheapest way to travel, learn and experience things you would otherwise never go through. Down to business, then: his comment got me to think about something I had been overlooking ever since I started and I’d have to agree 100% with him… maybe giving Panamanians shit for their ways is not a good strategy to inspire change. I can do as many Zombie Walks as I want but calling people out on their shit on a a scale as big as this might not do as much as if I were to pamper them. Culture is a very subjective thing, and if we base ourselves on that principle then there is no right or wrong construct for it… hell, the Spartans where one of the most despicable civilizations in known history but if it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have the freedoms we enjoy today. Any which way, we have to fight our battles in order to get what we want out of life and in the spirit of having people wake up from their auto-pilot a knee jerk reaction is necessary every now and then… but there are measures. Now, out of sheer luck I’ve been presented with certain things that make me who I am that it seems other people have problems with and it should illustrate Dan’s point very well: I am the type who sleeps a lot. A LOT. It’s well documented that I get very cranky when I haven’t had my evening nap, and if I don’t get my proper sleep (which is deliriously plentiful) bad things happen to good people. Now, the lovely Jenny and I got into a discussion about my sleeping habit and how I slept too much… so much, in fact, that it turned out to be a real problem for her. Now, if she wants to convince me that sleeping so much is a bad thing then, what’s the best approach? Knowing myself, I know that telling me I sleep too much and that I’ll miss out on whatever and that I’ll get fat and lazy is not going to accomplish much because I’m carefree like that and it makes me difficult to negotiate with. Having said that, I thought about what she should say or do in order to get me to cut back, and I’m pretty convinced that stroking my ego could do wonders to my sleeping habits if she has such a problem with them. Whether I let myself be conned into it is a whole different deal that would start another rant more appropiate for another day, but the point to this exercise is that telling me all of the bad things I have within my construct doesn’t do a thing in regards of changing me, because no one I know anywhere has the right to tell me I should change or not… what you see is what you get, y’know? So when people get upset with me for being unflinching I inadvertedly add insult to injury by laughing because the mere fact they take something as trivial as my sleeping habits (not their own) so seriously they get upset is something I find peculiar and downright adorable. Caring is great and I appreciate it very much, but unless it’s killing me I think I’m good, thankyouverymuch.

THAT is the attitude of someone who’s so comfortable with who he is that he doesn’t see what’s right or wrong inside of himself, and that’s who a Panamanian is. I read about Dan’s little daughter and he’s absolutely right; in my family, my grandma would chase me down with a flip flop and spanked my ass whenever I fucked up, but my parents never did that. I can count the times we’ve had screaming matches with half the fingers of one hand, and as a result I’ve become this carefree, cocky guy who thinks he can do anything and would do it if he weren’t so lazy. Encouraging people makes them realize how great they can be while pointing at their faults only fuels the lazyness, I believe. I’m not one to be hypocritical when I encourage, so the only way I’d allow myself to be encouraging is to treat people as if they were friends no matter who they were, and I always figured that when and if I make the travesty of bringing children into this world, they’d be more of my partners in crime rather than my kids. I’d be the cool dad, because nobody wants to listen to people that bog you down, even if all they want is the best for you.

Dan is very much on the money with his comments, and it got me to think about exactly why I had chosen the angle I have when there are better ways to inspire change in your fellow man, and perusing the subject I’ve come to the conclusion that pulling someone out of their comfort zone in order to better themselves is a very risky proposition; everyone takes their chances here, and in a way… in a way, calling out Panama on its shortcommings is my way of convincing myself that all of this I’m doing is not in vain. Allow me to get into it more… in the post where I talked about me being part of the problem, Roberto Cerrud left a comment that pretty much encapsulates Panama’s M.O:

Roberto Cerrud Said:

February 3rd, 2007 at 11:50 pm

How can an observer of any war massacre be “part of the problem”? But we panamanias got the pretty tendency to indulge ourselves in long futile conversations about the solutios to “the same old suspects”, but “juega vivo” or corruption is in our veins, in our methons, it should be in written procedures of the goverment AND private offices…

Its start in school, very very early, when kids start copying, then it wont stop, because, you are a “PEndedjo” if you dont “Juega vivo”. And no one wants to be a “pendejo”, to be pointed, judged and isolated by the those around you… even your family?!

In my beatifull piece of paradise, trying to learn is considered almost stupid (see the irony?), just yesterday i got a argument with my sister in law, cause my wife wanted the last harry poter book (july…) for her birthday, and my sister in law said “you get excited just for a book?”, and i said “thats why we are third world.”, since in Panama, you CANT be wrong, it ended in discusion… beacause i was insulting her…

so, dont take it so hard on you with those who Cant or WONT understand what you write…, like and old say sais “No hay peor ciego que el que no quiere ver”, not sure if there is a proper transaltion…

Sad but true; I like the Harry Potter books very much since I’m more in tune with fantasy and crazy situations when it comes to what I read but people who get obssessed over the wizard are all over the world… I think that going overboard over the book is a little ridiculous, but then again I was on a 3-month geekgasm carnival as Star Wars Episode III loomed closer to its opening date. Personal tastes are as various as there are people on the planet but if there’s something we can all agree on here is that the reality of how we do things is learned when we’re children, just as Roberto said. Trying to be straight-arrow after you’ve learned otherwise since you learned how to walk is very difficult, but not impossible… it’s easier to destroy than to create, if you will. I get a cynical high whenever I piss somebody off because that means I’m getting to them, and I’m pretty sure there’s no other website out there that talks about the ways of Panama like I do so if I get the crazies then come and get it… I like the attention. But then again, what does that accomplish other than give me live examples of all the things I talk about here? How does someone erradicate this much ill will? Dan’s proposition is incredibly noble and in practice I try my best to live by it… doing any less would make me a hypocrite. But when the reality of things is so uninspiring as the one posted above, how discouraged can a person get? This reminds me of Action Comics #775. I would click on the link if I was you; in a single issue, Superman loses his innocence and wholesome values in order to honor and preserve them in light of a new superhero team that chooses to play dirty when it came to taking care of supervillain threats… it’s regarded as one of the top 10 Superman stories ever told.

Anyway, all of these projects, like the Cupido thing or the Zombie Walk as well as all of the other things I’ve got planned are experiments to see if people would open themselves to new experiences in a variety of levels… get to know each other, do something different with their leisure time, seek out new cultures and topics, have fun in a whole new way… the list is too long to mention here. It’s good to know that there are people out there who see how bad the situation is with Panama in a socio-cultural way, but it’s very encouraging to see people come up with ways to actually solve the issues that cripple us. It makes one feel that he’s not alone, and as long as there’s support then ideals are always worth fighting for, no matter how utopic they seem to be.