The Oyster Cocktail & Others

Decalogo del Perfecto Futbolista [Spanish]

2010-07-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

Este es un homenaje a Horacio Quiroga en virtud de que Uruguay juega hoy su partido de Semi-finales en el Mundial 2010. El original se puede leer aquí.

I

Cree en un maestro -Pelé, Maradona, Cruyff, Stoichov- como en Dios mismo.

II

No creas que vas a ser el próximo Maradona. Cuando lo logres, ni siquiera te darás cuenta.

III

Resiste cuanto puedas a la imitación, pero imita si la gambeta de Zidane es demasiado bestial. Más que ninguna otra cosa, el desarrollo de tu destreza es una larga paciencia.

IV

Ten fe no en si tu equipo puede ganarle a Brasil en el Maracaná, sino en cuanto deseas que ocurra. Ama a la pelota como tu novia, tratándola con todo tu cariño.

V

Ten la jugada en la mente antes de dar el primer paso. En un partido bien jugado, los primeros toques tienen la misma importancia que el cabezazo del gol.

VI

Si quieres hacer la jugada "centro al segundo palo", no hay otra forma que sea llevar la pelota al lugar indicado. Una vez que cayó en el sitio, no te preocupes si fue con pierna derecha o zurda.

VII

No hagas demasiados toques. Es inútil añadir pases sin estrategia. Si encuentras la correcta, brillará por si misma. Pero hay que hacerlo.

VIII

Si capitaneas a tu equipo, hazles recordar que el juego dura 90 minutos. No te distraigas viendo el resultado de los otros partidos simultáneos. No abuses del fanático. Un partido es un entrenamiento depurado de malabares. Esto es verdad, aunque nadie te crea.

IX

No chutes bajo el imperio de la emoción. Piensa y pasa la pelota. Si tu equipo es capaz de ganar el partido, habrás llegado en el Mundial a la mitad del camino.

X

No pienses en la prensa al driblar, ni en las camisetas que venderán con tu nombre. Juega como si el partido fuese para los 22 jugadores del campo, del que eres uno. De otra forma no se obtiene el flujo del partido.

The Oyster Cocktail - Chapter 5

2008-05-05T19:09:00.001-07:00

Here's the link to the fifth chapter from The Oyster Cocktail - A Venezuelan Novel.

The Oyster Cocktail - Chapter 4

2008-04-30T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here's the link to the fourth chapter from The Oyster Cocktail - A Venezuelan Novel.

The Oyster Cocktail - Chapter 3

2008-04-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

Here's the link to the third chapter from The Oyster Cocktail - A Venezuelan Novel.

The Oyster Cocktail - Chapter 2

2008-04-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

Here's the link to the second chapter from The Oyster Cocktail - A Venezuelan Novel.

The Oyster Cocktail - Chapter 1

2008-04-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

As promised, here's the link to the first chapter of the book. Enjoy!

The Oyster Cocktail - On Sale!

2008-04-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

My book "The Oyster Cocktail - A Venezuelan Novel" was made available for purchasing online at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. For those that want to take a good read before considering buying the paperback, I will be posting each one of the chapters in this blog.

When Eggs Sue

2008-01-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

When eggs sue,
there's not much you can do.
Although we prefer them in a stew,
they have their rights, too.

"We don't mind ending up poached,
in a salad or dying hard.
Fried is not an issue--your honor,
even if it's with butter or lard.

It's the whipping we decry,
baking us in bread; wheat or rye.
Eggs in a cake we say,
are not whole in any which way.

A sunny-side-up speaks of joy.
An omelette has a foreign gist.
But eggs with rice, chicken or soy,
are just ingredients on a list.

Our integrity is destroyed, your honor,
when we are put up to speed.
Yellow blending with white: Oh, the horror!
just to serve a different kind of treat.

At least Ovaltine gives us credit,
even if the chocolate is the hook.
Children everywhere have said it,
eggs are the best food in their book.

What we demand with this lawsuit,
is a compensation of sorts:
a bigger E in the alphabet soup,
and a library full of egg reports."

So I tell you my friend,
as I tell the common folk.
When eggs sue, they never reach an end,
because deep inside, they're just a yolk.

The Other David

2007-05-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

My agent told me that Argentina would be a good country to visit. I'm not such a world-savvy person and most of the miles that I have traveled have been from one ballpark to the next. We once had to play the Los Angeles Dodgers and I think that was the longest flight I had ever taken. It was also the saddest one, as we had just lost a game to the New York Mets.

But Argentina? What was I going to do there? Sign autographs to a bunch of kids that were still enjoying the victory of their soccer team in the World Cup? The person at the airport would talk lengths about Mario Kempes and a goalkeeper called Fillol, but didn't even know how baseball was played. After he told me that the British tried to import a game with wickets, I explained to him that baseball was a different sport than Cricket. I was definitely wasting my valuable time. At least Buenos Aires was warm in December.

I don't remember who told me to watch out for the meat in Argentina, not because it was of bad quality. Precisely because it wasn't, I would have to watch out for an indigestion. I ate too much of the chicken hearts they served on a stick at one restaurant and had to rush to a local hospital. I was in the waiting room in pain when I heard my name.

"David Concepción, Dr. Morales is waiting for you", said the pretty nurse. Too blonde for my taste, but beautiful indeed.

And then somebody else got up.

A bearded man, who had been covering his face by reading a newspaper, stood up quickly and rushed into the Doctor's office.

I was completely baffled. Not only did anybody know who I was, but there was somebody else with my name in Buenos Aires. I stood up and showed my face around to see if somebody would recognize me. Nobody did. I was so ashamed of my lack of fame that I decided to follow this person instead of heading towards the bookstore, where I was to sign a book on the Cincinnati Reds.

After following him through lonely alleys, I discovered the other reds, the real ones. His true name wasn't David and his last name wasn't Concepción. The comrade at the door of their hideout just told me that I was lucky to have been recognized by one of them that happened to like baseball. He even asked me for my autograph, which was flattering, even if I had no respect for communists. I just appreciated their will to fight against an oppressing regime much more powerful than them. The other "David Concepción" was a man stronger than I and with more balls than a batting practice.

Today, as I wait for Cooperstown to come calling, I can share this short story with you. Hopefully, the other David is alive to read it.

Bob The Brain

2007-02-05T18:17:00.000-08:00

Bob Flyer was born in a small town in the middle of nowhere. His farmer parents saved enough money for young Bob to secure a place in the most exclusive College of his small town. He was to Major in "Adding 5+3", the most sought-after career of his time. Bob was a lucky young man. Not everybody could enter into that College and much less to study "Adding 5+3".

As the years went by, Bob made his best effort to absorb all the learnings of the "5+3" career. The small town put their best money to make sure that only the most qualified teachers could show up in classroom to explain the intricacies of the difficult addition of the number five and the number three. Bob grew in stature, at least figuratively, when he explained to his family and friends how he was advancing quickly towards the eventual conclusion of his studies. His diploma would include an enormous and stylish eight and the town certification that one of its favorite sons would possess such valuable knowledge.

Bob could just feel the eyes upon him on his graduation day. Eyes green with envy. Eyes from people as distant as the uneducated can be from those sporting a black toga and making their speech in full gratefulness of their recent increase in stature.

Something terrible happened after graduation. Bob loved his hometown but there were no openings for people that were specialists in adding five plus three. The newspapers were full with vacancies, but for those that could add four and four. There were even some openings for seven plus one and for six plus two, but none for Bob's profession. The town government, blinded by the beauty of the rectangular top shape of the number five and how it melted subtly into a semi-circle, did not take into account that there were probably too many people in the market with such a career.

So Bob made the announcement to his family. Standing on the pedestal that was given to him by one of his mentors, he told them that he was headed out to the great city in the middle of somewhere. "There", he said, "I will be appreciated like the professional I am." While he kissed his tearful mother goodbye, he looked towards the horizon, eager to meet the new challenges in the addition of five and three. Maybe he could even study a post-graduate course in adding three plus five.

While Bob is enjoying the same praise in the great city that he received while studying; back in his hometown, the people are still looking for those that can add four and four. New job postings have come and gone with few takers, most of them retooled professionals eager to obtain any job, even if they didn't study for that. In the meantime, the town Mayor reads the new list of five plus three graduates and dreams about the plus sign: an element of aid and hope between two very odd numbers.

The Tuna Sandwich

2006-11-04T05:46:00.000-08:00

Barrio Carpintero is not what you would precisely call an affluent neighborhood in the city of Caracas. In spite of not being one of the worst slums around, there's no way you could confuse it with the Caracas Country Club. I have no idea why they named it after a carpenter and everybody I've asked is as dumbfounded as I am.

Through 9th Grade of Elementary School, William would walk every morning by the bus stop in which Iraida would wait. He hadn't noticed her until his pal Juan Carlos shoved his elbow into his rib to alert him of the black eyes beaming his way. Following the standard procedure of young men who want to leave an ounce of mystery in their first contact with a girl, William pumped up his chest, smiled at her and kept on walking. Luckily for William, this strategy actually worked. Although not yet an adult, he had developed enough muscle by helping his father, a mason, lay bricks across the shacks that littered the barrio. For the record, Iraida noticed the boys as they walked by, although on that specific day, William never knew if she was smiling back at him, at Juan Carlos or at Cheo, who was walking some steps behind.

The next weeks were all about corner-of-the-eye glances and direct smiles when the observation became too obvious. The stained glass of the lottery ticket store was an excellent mirror for looking at other parts of Iraida's ever-improving anatomy. One day Cheo broke the unusual silence by leading off with tried-and-true ice breaker.

- Hey Miss! My friend William wants to meet you.

As usual, this forced encounter was unexpected for both William and Iraida but it still allowed him to say something nice enough to zero the clock of their fledging relationship.

The next years flew by as fast as they do in retrospect. William's first conversation turned into an invitation to a party. The party turned into a place in which he could present his theories on how the dark-haired Iraida reminded him of a silent cat; one that listens and smiles. A cat that shows comfort with the person in front of her by slowly closing and opening its eyes. Cats would usually keep their claws hidden in lieu of using them as self-defense, an instance that the young man was expecting to never occur with Iraida. William was able to get away with comparing his girlfriend with an animal thanks to the excitement he put into describing the beauty and mystery of the common house cat. Once when walking down the stairs that connect a vertical row of shanty houses in his neighborhood, he heard a distant meow. After uncovering some corrugated boxes, he found a black kitten that had been dumped some hours earlier. The cat's coat was still shiny and his overall health intact. William grabbed it and raced upstairs to present Iraida with the living proof of his otherwise forgiving poetry.

High School graduation brought William and Iraida to the fork in the road that their young minds had not anticipated. Although he was admitted in an elite public university, the needs of William's family forced him to choose the short-term rewards of working with his father in his masonry business. As expected from most painfully beautiful women in Venezuela, Iraida was eventually offered a modeling career that interrupted her journalism studies. All kinds of photo shoots, the Miss Venezuela beauty pageant and a string of beer billboards turned the silent and sweet Iraida into a celebrity of sorts. Whenever the truck with bricks passed by such a billboard, the driver could only smile at his co-pilot and tell the stories of a youth well-lived.

It was not long until the multiple events and cocktail parties led Iraida to the man she would marry. A businessman with a keen sense of humor and enough confidence to fill a small room, Alberto would eventually make Iraida the Mrs. González that would never again have to wait for a bus under the sun. Life became a constant trip between photo shoots, special events and vacations with her husband skiing in the snow of Bariloche or in the waters of Margarita. She was additionally equipped with a personal trainer to help her tone the parts of her body that needed the additional firmness and a nutritionist to recommend the right amount of tuna sandwiches to avoid putting on the excess weight.

It was one morning while "enjoying" such a sandwich that a cat jumped onto her windowsill. For minutes, the cat just stared at Iraida. He stared and stared. Iraida opened the window for him and shared the rest of her tuna sandwich. While he separated the tuna from the bread, she started thinking about the simpler times of her youth. The times when a kiss was a kiss and not something she would give her husband to remind him that she was his. She thought about the time when the only requirement to meet and love somebody was your interest in that person, when there was no talk about the future, about career paths, budgets nor cash, just the present. It was the time before spontaneousness and affection turned into loyalty and acceptance. Somebody had sent me this cat to haunt me, she thought. Or maybe it was a test. Whatever was the cause of her moment of doubt, her determination had reigned supreme. With the doorbell ringing in the background, she swore once again to herself that although she missed some aspects of life, she was never again to return to her pre-marriage status. The doorbell rang and rang. In a distant room, Iraida's husband was resting unaware of his wife's encounter with the flashback cat.

- Alberto! Honey! - she shouted - Can you please open the door for the mason? he came to install a fountain. I'm quite busy.

I'm very sorry. Please accept my apologies. I do recall I had promised you a happy ending to this story. On the other hand, you still haven't let me describe the tuna sandwich. It was the most delicious dish I had tasted in any of my nine lives. Oh, yes, the girl was OK, too.

Hickory-Dickory

2006-10-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

Luiz Castro is a pretty stout man. His big frame looks like a packed taco when he wears his lab robe. It's a quite unusual sight to anybody who looks at him for the first time. Sometimes he looks like a construction worker that happened to find a robe to wear. He decided to shave his head some years ago because it helped him save time combing his hair while allowing him to look a bit more intimidating. Personal appearance and hygiene were not what would first come to mind when thinking about this scientist. The only indicator that Luiz actually saw his face at all in the morning was a small stub on his chin that he would pet whenever he had some unresolved problem wandering in his bald head.

As a researcher and teacher at the Department of Nuclear Science in the University of Sao Paulo, the first years in his post were filled with excitement. The politicians of the time had decided that nuclear was the way to go for powering the Brazilian electrical grid. Luiz had been assigned to investigate new ways of controlling radioactive waste and had devised a method to use mice to locate leaks in small areas inaccessible and too dangerous for human workers. However, after the next government decided to pull the plug on nuclear energy, Luiz's research funds dried up and left him with an empty lab and a teaching post. The depression from those years brought him closer to the Cachaza liquor that he stashed in flasks around the lab and further from his beloved Rosa who eventually walked off with a healthier man. He was able to keep sober enough to deliver the memorized speech to his students, but not more than that.

Then one day the Dean showed up with a major project for Luiz. A European non-profit who's name he couldn't recall was offering to pay for a Spectrophotometer and other expensive lab equipment in exchange for preparing search mice for expeditions into circular ducts. The mice had to run with a small salvage payload through a system of pipes within a specific time. The problem that was described was very much in line with Luiz's previous work. The only issue that he faced was making the relatively small mice run fast enough with the heavy weight. He was finally able to overcome that hurdle by making timed adrenaline injections into the mice to boost their strength when they most needed it. Luiz was on the top of his game. For the first time ever, his research was going to be used in a salvage operation somewhere in Europe and his mice, not other mice, were to be the heroes. Just imagining a critical operation within a power plant, the tension in the air and the adrenaline flowing through their small bodies as they rushed to save tens or hundreds of lives was making Luiz smile and giggle in a seizure-like form. He was ecstatic and it showed.

On the delivery day, Dr. Castro packed his favorite mice, Pelé, Robinho and Zico into special cages with detailed instructions on how to position them in the pipes and on how to signal the start of their search run. They were to wear collars with micro-Geiger counters for detecting the source of radiation. These collars were carefully placed in separate plastic Zip-Loc bags bearing the name of each mouse. Not all collars were the same. Pelé and Zico were more intuitive than Robinho so their Geiger counters would buzz them less frequently. The simulated payload that Luiz used for training the mice was not packed since the acquiring institution was to replace it with the real salvage equipment. Luiz gave them a final pet goodbye and headed to the cafeteria to celebrate a job well done with a nice hot and dark coffee.

CNN reported this morning on the accident at the South Texas Nuclear Power Plant. A state-wide operation had been enacted to establish the extents of the disaster and to determine the radiation levels in the surrounding areas. Firemen and plant officials stated that it was too early to determine the cause of the first explosion in the empty maintenance ducts of the main reactor that led to the larger explosions in the rest of the plant. The President appeared shortly on TV to address the nation and deny any possible terrorist attack. The search for bodies within the areas closest to the reactor had not started but estimates were signalling 20-30 people.

And me? Although I enjoyed the Pelé name, I agree with Luiz that the payload was too heavy for me to carry. Other than that, I have no major regret. Oh! Yes. It wasn't as bad as asphyxiation on sticky paper, but I still would have preferred a more honorable death.

The Electric Car

2006-10-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

- Lung cancer? Is that what he has? Tell me doctor that you can make a mistake. Tell me doctor that it could be something else.

- I'm very sorry Graciela, but I've spoken with the pathologist. He confirmed my first diagnostic.

- It can't be.

- I've also spoken with the oncologists who told me how we can work together to help him get out of the sickness. I don't want to give you false hopes but cancer CAN be treated. We just have to work together.

- But Dr. Luis, you know my husband. He doesn't smoke cigarettes and hasn't done it since we were 20 years old. I told him once when he showed up in my house that there were children nearby that could start crying. I hadn't finished explaining how the smoke bothered them when he took a good look at my baby brother Miguel. He just froze and looked back at me. He looked at Miguel again and quickly looked at me. He did this several times and just started smiling. While he smiled, the cigarette slid from his mouth. He probably didn't realize when it fell into a crack of the laundry floor and was put off by the foamy water. He just stood there smiling and his eyes watered. After some seconds, he came back to senses and cleared his throat. Then he realized that he had gotten too excited, smiled back at me and changed the conversation. Dr. it can't be.

- As I said before, we are going to work on this together. We believe that Don Enrique may have acquired this disease through all of his years as a taxi driver in el DF, swallowing the polluted air.

- Sebastian!! Sebastian!!

- Fredo, mi pana. "Tutto posto", how the italians would say. :-D

- What did the teacher tell you?

- She approved the project of thesis. She just didn't want us to make a stunt out of it. Patricia Requena's project is just too famous in the University for us to treat is as a sick joke. :-|

- Cool!! We're gonna work on the great Requena.

- Yes, the great and sad Requena. :-S

- Gracie, pass me some water.

- Try not to talk too much, dear. You'll start coughing again.

- Gracie, I look thin. I think I won't make it.

- We all will dear, we'll all make it.

- Who's that beauty Fredo? Ha!, you rat! You told me I'd be the first to know about all your "extra-curricular" activities. ;-)

- I'm Angélica. Mucho gusto

- What are you studying, Miss Angélica?

- Social Sciences. Fredo told me you guys were gonna take the Requena project. She's a legend here. Too bad she can't tell you guys what to do.

- A damper that produces extra power for an electric motor is not that hard, at least in theory. People are just scared of the project because they're superstitious. :-(

- Honestly, I think you par de malandros are both incapable of fixing anything, but it's gonna be fun and creepy to see you trying.

- The only bum here is your boyfriend. He's lucky he has a partner like me. 8-)

- Graciela, you're beautiful.

- Save your words dear. The doctor said that the sickness was spreading more slowly than before.

- That means that it has no where else to spread. In this cuerpito you can only fill it that much with badness.

- Stop, please.

- When it's all full, the last piece of goodness will leave with me to wherever Dios wants me to go.

- Please stop.

- Patricia was a f****** genius! :-O

- Why is that Fredo? Why Sebastian?

- Fredo and I took this project because of how obvious her discovery was: she said that all the energy that is liberated by automobile shock absorbers could be transformed into electricity using a coil system and some transformers and then used for recharging the battery and powering the car.

- Right, it's obvious: cars don't just go forwards and backwards. If you remove the shock absorbers (have you seen those old broken-down cars?) then the car will go up and down. =D>

- Wow.

- Yeah!! You and Fredo can run out of power on a cold night in the mirador and recharge the battery doing the you-know-what. ;-) :-P

- Hahaha.

- Don't laugh Fredo or you won't get any "you-know-what", "you-know-how" or whatever's on your dirty mind.

- Gracie, do you believe in love?

- Of course, all my life.

- For a while I didn't. Then one day, about six years ago I picked up a couple near the Sheraton María Isabel. They were from Venezuela and had come to DF for a University exposition or something like that. They were just a normal couple. A bit fresa if you ask me.

- ...

- They asked me to take them around the city. They couldn't afford a formal tour so I gave them the usual: El Zócalo, Plaza Garibaldi and the Zona Rosa.

- Honey... ... talk little.

- I don't know why I still remember them. It was maybe the expression on the girl's face. Her eyes were into the man. The man was like walking asleep or something like that. The rhythm of their words was perfect. She said she was an electrical engineer and gave classes. Her boyfriend was also a teacher in the University and wouldn't stop talking about how important her current project was.

- A project?

- Yes, it was something about electric cars. But those things never work. I thought it was just plain love of the man that made the project seem like it was for real.

- You're my project.

- If you said that you were building a restaurant to cook for all of the city, I would show my love by telling you "yes it will work". I would never tell you it wouldn't.

- The only thing I don't like about this cafeteria is that they take three hours to serve you the coffee. When it comes it's already cold.

- Fredo, you always complain. Angelica, what happened finally with Patricia's ex-boyfriend?

- I think he stayed in the University of California or Stanford, don't remember. It didn't make sense to come back after he had already left her. It really doesn't make sense now. He probably got some counseling there and overcame the situation. For all we know, he probably has a family and he's living the "american dream".

- Sucks to think that everybody's leaving or has already left. :-(

- I'm not leaving and Fredo says he's not leaving either. But if Fredo leaves and we're still together, I'll follow him. I won't even think about staying even if I had the most important project in the world. We can always come back to visit. No way!! My name is Angélica, not Patricia Requena.

- Mrs. Graciela Fernández!! Mrs. Graciela Fernández!!

- Yes.

- Dr. Luis López wants to see you. He's at Intensive Care now.

- No, it's not today. It's not today. Tomorrow is September 15th. He just wanted to hear El Grito the last time. Please let me know that he'll hear it!! Please!!

- Doña, please. The doctor is waiting for you.

On October 4th, the sun shines through the windshield of a green and white Volkswagen beetle. The front seat of the taxi has been removed to allow easy entry to the occupants in the back. The taxi company was debating the name of the new driver to replace Don Enrique Fernández. While the car was parked, the delivery boy dropped the "Diario de La Reforma" newspaper onto the driver's seat. The automobile section of the paper featured a story in which the Andean Development Corporation was to provide a loan to a Venezuelan University for the development of a booster system to the electric and hybrid cars currently in the market. Renault and Nissan of Latin America were co-sponsors to the so-called Requena project, named after the late Engineer. The project had been archived for years after her unfortunate suicide. The Reforma article welcomed such a technology and added that this could be the turning point for making electric vehicles in Mexico, a city so affected by air pollution. Taxis would be the first vehicles to be converted.

For the DF, it was an exceptionally clear day.