Relax, the only connections that the guy has, are a modem and a Company provided e-mail address. Tango passion is not a substitute for good sanitary practices, so also forget about sucking the mate brew from the communal metal straw. If the bacteria doesn't get you, the laxative effects of the green concoction will.
Take what Tango brings to you in stride and accept the fact that it has taken over one hundred years of evolution for the music, the poetry and the dance to reach us at this stage of our lives. It does not matter what others do or have done before. Nobody can really improve their dancing by pretending to be someone else. What counts is your own experience, how you live your life and how the Tango is now part of it.
This had been the subject of a conversation with La Mariposa a.k.a. Valorie, as we were cruising along I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley in California on a scorching August afternoon. This is the fastest way between Northern and Southern California, and it is also the gateway that connects you via I-10 to Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston and New Orleans.
We had done the trek upand down I-5 many times passing the time and watching the straight line of asphalt dissapear as far as the eyes can see. CD after CD was being popped in and out of the car stereo by the best DJ on wheels any man can hope for. She has a knack for picking out the right set to go along with the scenery and the time of the day. Rodolfo Biagi in the early hours of the morning when the eyes sneak in a few treacheous winks after an all night ride. Osvaldo Pugliese in the middle of the night under a star studded sky bathed in a milky mist by a silver dollar size full moon, as the Joshua trees of the Arizona desert wave their petrified salute. Carlos Di Sarli early in the evening, when local commuters slow down our pace
unaware of our eagerness to get swiftly to wherever it is that our Tango travels take us. But I digress...
Long car trips have given us the opportunity to catch up with the music we haven't had the chance to listen to for a long time. Such was the case one evening when the thundering voice of Edmundo Rivero filled the air with the quintessential lunfardo lyrics of El ciruja. "What does 'ciruja' mean?" she asked. A couple of hours later she was still writing the story of The Surgeon after having listened to Rivero countless times while I tried to interpret the lunfardo content of the lyrics into a context of English that even Lucy Ricardo would understand.
For inquisitive minds, there is a Lunfardo Dictionary written by Jose Gobello, who is the founder and president of the Lunfardo Academy in Buenos Aires. I have used it for many years because contrary to popular belief most Argentines of my generation only picked up a few words of lunfardo here and there as we grew up on the streets of the city. The language originated as a fusion between the dialects brought to Buenos Aires by the rogue elements from all over Europe, and a code of words used by thieves and criminals in jail in order to confuse the guards. With the passing of time new generations of tenement inhabitants incorporated a characteristic dialect which became the unofficial language of the slums. For the cultural elite,
lunfardo represented the idiom of the uneducated and the lower class. In spite of all their prejudice, popular theater plays, known generally as sainetes, the circus and the encounters of the rich and well-to-do with the populace at seedy bars and brothels, began a steady migration of lunfardo words into the mainstream of popular jargon.
In 1917 Pascual Contursi wrote some verses for a melody already in existence. The music had been around for a while under the name of Lita composed by Samuel Castriota. Contursi's ironic account of a sappy pimp in love bleeding over the flight of a whore began with the lunfardo expression, "Percanta que me amuraste..." (Woman who abandoned me...) They say that Gardel fell in love with the song, risked his reputation as a Creole Crooner, and going against sound advice, he presented it it on stage under the name of Mi noche triste. It was the beginning of a new era for the Tango. Tango lyrics had arrived. For years to come, popular bards burned the midnight oil pouring out chronicles of love, hate, pain and sorrow.
A fledging middle class just loved the vocals which somehow reflected their own lives. Everybody could identify with infidelity, treason, broken hearts, blind ambition and revenge. In 1926, Alfredo Marino had the brilliant inspiration of writing the lyrics of a Tango with a heavy lunfardo content. It has become the quintessential lunfardo Tango lyric. The story is very simple and predictable, but the talent of Marino has made El ciruja a classic.
The word 'ciruja' at first brings the image of a hobo, a vagrant, a scavenger, and that is what probably our friend with the connections would try to impress you with, but the truth is that Marino uses a pure lunfardo expression to nickname his protagonist, the surgeon, because of his knack for the handling of the blade. Not only does he call him the surgeon, but he uses a shortened version of the actual Spanish word 'cirujano,' ciruja.
de rabo de ojo a un costado,
sus pasos ha encamindo
derecho pa'l arrabal.
Lo lleva el presentimiento
de que en aquel potrerito
no existe ya el bulincito
que fue su unico ideal.
Recordaba
aquellas horas
de garufa
cuando minga
de laburo
se pasaba,
meta punga
al codillo
escolaseaba
y en los burros
se
ligaba un metejon.
Cuando no era tan junao
por los tiras
la lanceaba
sin tener
el manyamiento,
una mina le solfeaba
todo el vento
y jugo con su
pasion.
Era un mosaico
diquero
que yugaba
de quemera,
hija de una
curandera,
mechera de
profesion.
Pero vivia engrupida
de un cafiolo
vidalita
y le pasaba la guita
que le chacaba
al maton.
Frente a frente
dando muestra
de coraje
los dos guapos se
trenzaron
en el bajo,
y el Ciruja,
que
era listo para el tajo,
al cafiolo le cobro
caro
su amor.
Hoy ya libre 'e la gayola
y sin la mina
campaneando
un cacho
'e sol en la vereda,
piensa un rato en el
amor
de la quemera
y solloza en su
dolor.
through the side of his eyes
he has directed his steps
straight for the slum.
He just knew what was going to happen
his intuition took him to that place,
to that vacant lot, where he just knew
his little shack, his idel little place, no longer existed.
He remembered
those hours
of great parties
when "lacking"
"work," he
spent his time
"pickpocketing" and
"playing
cards"
and he had a passion
for
the "ponies."
When he was not
"well known"
by the "cops"
he could "rob at
knife point"
without "knowing"
that a "girl" was
"robbing"
all the "money" from him
and toyed with his
love.
She was a "common
woman"
with "airs of grandeur"
that "toiled" around
as
a "burning dump scavenger"
she was the daughter
of
a quack woman,
"shoplifter" by
trade.
But she was
"delluded"
by a pimp of long
standing
who's got all the
dough
that the bully spent
on
her.
Face to face
showing big
courage
the two brawlers
crossed
knives in the dark
the Ciruja who was
fast
with the knife
made the pimp pay
too dearly
his love.
Out of jail now and
with
no maiden
staring at the sun
on the
sidewalk
thinks awhile in the
girl's
love
and sobs in his pain.
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