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I am tired of the radio stations I normally listen to. If I hear Ozzy Osbourne’s "Crazy Train" one more time, I am going to go "offa da rails" myself. If I hear "Life in the Fast Lane" by the Eagles one more time, it will surely make me lose my mind. So, I scanned the airwaves for something else. The song I stopped at had a jazzy feel to it and was something I had never heard before. Just when I started getting into it, the singer began singing in Spanish. I kept listening because it was a good song.
I had accidentally tuned in to KLUB. LUB, I discovered, is the Spanish word for love. I listened to more songs and sat through some commercials. This has happened more than once recently. I have this secret hope that if I keep listening to Spanish radio, I will, by constant exposure to it, learn to speak Spanish. It’s not a secret hope any longer because I just told you about it. Now, it’s a publicly stated wish that is obviously flawed in several ways. Regardless, I have picked up some Spanish, and it hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. This is because some Spanish words are exactly the same as some English words. For example: "El grande accidente esta en Cucamonga" means "There is a huge wreck in Cucamonga." "Tu adaptar la familia de nueve en el Land Rover" means "You can fit a family of nine in a Land Rover." "Me gusta el frappucino de Starbucks" means "I would like a frappucino from Starbucks." "Del Taco empleados comer a El Pollo Loco" means "Employees from Del Taco eat at The Crazy Chicken." "Que quesadilla?" means "What quesadilla?" And "Jose Quervo es mi amigo" means "Jose Quervo is a friend of mine." Words that are pronounced the same in both Spanish and English should not be confused with Spanglish, which is when English words that have a Spanish counterpart are mixed with actual Spanish words. For example: "Manana is a banana." Which means, "Tomorrow is a banana." This is all very loosely related to the idea of Cinco de Mayo. One of my favorite jokes, come May each year, is to ask people what day of the month Cinco de Mayo is on. "Isn’t it on the sixth?" I’ll ask. I work in an office where any time we can think of an excuse to party and have a potluck, we do. It was because of this that Gary, a coworker of mine, came up with the idea of celebrating "Cinco de Junio." Cinco de Junio is celebrated exactly like Cinco de Mayo, except we do it on a different day and we drink more. Cinco de Junio, incidentally, comes two days after my birthday, "El Progresso Older de Brucino." This all ties in together. On my fortieth birthday (a celebration), we hung a piñata (something Spanish) from a tree, and I was allowed to hit it with a baseball bat. I had always wanted to do the piñata thing, but not in the traditional way, because, if you ask me, blindfolding a person and making them stumble around trying to poke the piñata with a stick is kind of sadistic. At my party, I stepped up to the piñata, swung the bat, and knocked the "crapisto" out of it. The body of the piñata went flying across the yard while the head remained dangling from the rope. I chased the body across the lawn. Screaming "Die! Die! Die!" I smashed it into a ragged tattered mess of tootsie rolls, crepe paper, cardboard, and bubble gum. Everyone wanted to run up and grab the candy, but frankly, they were terrified. Now that was fun. My wife observed that maybe I was a little stressed out about turning forty. I have no idea what she was talking about. Para yo digresar (but I digress). At least, that's what I think it means. It could also mean that my parakeet is trying to digest a yo-yo. I'm not sure. In keeping with the Spanish theme, let’s talk about Antonio Banderas. Here’s a list of some movies he’s been in over the past few years: The Mask of Zorro with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Original Sin with Angelina Jolie, Femme Fatale with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Frida with Salma Hayek, and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever with Lucy Liu. He’s not choosing movies based on scripts; he’s choosing them based on the leading women! I refer to his top five leading women as the Cinco de Antonio. For him, it’s probably reason to celebrate. For us, well, it’s a good enough reason for a potluck. Bring your favorite dish! Antonio will. |
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