On Virgins and... not virgins

Medellín, COLOMBIA--A few days after I started writing for Colombia Reports, our readership more than doubled. We’d been floating at around 600 visitors a day (selfish self promotion: you could be one of those!) and suddenly it was nearly cresting 1,400. It was 1,644 the next day. Then 2,031. My head might have swelled a bit had I not known what Adriaan had published right before the climb began. Tucked among the latest drug raid and a fresh accusation in the ‘parapolitics’ scandal, was this gem: “Colombia loses only pornographic channel.” The extra kick? Playboy News Online picked it up.

These days, virtually any newspaper you visit offers a list of most emailed stories. It wasn’t always this way. I remember going to the San Francisco Chronicle’s website in the early days of newspaper websites—in other words, not long ago. They too had a list, but it was of the most read stories. I’m pretty sure there was some major news breaking that day because otherwise I wouldn’t have gone to the site. Yet the list, well, might as well have been the lineup for Star magazine. Michael Jackson led off, with Brittany following and Madonna in the three slot. Something about O.J. Simpson batted cleanup. (If it sound like an unlikely array, I plead pop culture ignorance.) It was a mirror to our priorities and it wasn’t pretty. It was a lot like looking at our site traffic.

On the second day of our pornographic channel-inspired explosion, I found a story about Viagra sales in Colombia. I didn’t even have to confer with Adriaan—I knew I had a winner. I banged it out right away and we put it up. In the next 24 hours, it barely made a ripple. However, a story I’d written a few ticks before, a breather after hammering out two exploring the latest ‘parapolitics’ cases—clearing the vice president of charges and calls for a top minister’s resgnation—brought a second wave. “Virgin appears on bucket near Cartagena” got picked up by SpiritDaily.com, a kind of religious DrudgeReport.com, and became a runaway success. Religion triumphs over sex.

Actually, sex usually wins. In our all time top ten, which is more of a top eight because one is the homepage and the other is the news homepage, you get right to the end (my Virgin) before you see an article unrelated to sex or, well, sexiness—Miss Universe results hold the number 4 spot, while speculation on Miss Colombia’s chances is firm at number seven. Our all-time non-homepage leader, with nearly a thousand more views than the nearest competitor, is “Yidis Medina”—a former congresswoman who says she was bribed by Uribe’s supporters to vote for his reelection—“poses nude in magazine.” Number nine is a tag search for Yidis Media—draw your own conclusion. The remaining two is our recent porn channel triumph and a Shakira-and-boyfriend sex tape rumor piece. We like to stay astride all Colombian news.

Given what has been going on in Colombia—a ‘parapolitics’ scandal is reaching further each day up the current administration’s ladder, demobilized paramilitary leaders are spilling the beans about their crimes, a steady flow of negative human rights reports, Uribe fighting for a currently unconstitutional third term—the top ten list is a little disheartening. It’s not that I don’t understand the draw—I too was fascinated to learn that with the loss of Kamasutra TV, Colombians will no longer be able to watch “Erotic Cuisine,” “The Other Side of Sex” and “The Porn Guru.” I just thought things were a little more high-minded. On the other hand, Adriaan and I have been discussing a running series on the strip clubs of Medellin. We’re businessmen.

[First, I realize that by linking them I only entrench their positions. Well, let the mirror be accurate. Second, if you got this by email, it's because I added your email to an automatic send function. If you don't want to receive it, just tell me. Same for if you don't, but you'd like to. Also, I've started using datelines because the first question you all ask me is, 'Where are you now?' That said, retrospective blogs will dateline from where I was. So I guess the real reason is just because I like the false sense of professionalism. Finally, Adriaan and I have yet to do any research.]

What I do here

Medellin, COLOMBIA -- Work usually starts with Adriaan knocking on my door. Although most nights he's out with one of his parade of girlfriends or playing billiards until late, he always manages to rise before me. I chalk it up to countless cups of tinto--coffee, Colombian style---and cigarettes. So, my boss is also my alarm clock. After the knock--which I usually respond to in Spanish, despite both of us being more comfortable speaking English--I rise, dress and shuffle to my desk in the living room. I mumble a sleepy 'Buenos dias' to Giovanni, who is also inevitably already in the desk in front of mine. The gringo is the lazy one in the house. Work begins.

We scan the morning news for about half an hour. I gamely begin at the bottom of the list of new articles that my RSS feeder (if you don't have one, get one; if you don't know what they are, look them up, then get one) has culled from nearly a hundred sites, but am quickly overwhelmed by the pop-up notifications of the latest news. The feeder will accumulate more than 500 new articles in the course of the day, mostly in Spanish, which is several hundred more than I could ever review in 30 minutes. Ultimately, I choose a couple stories from the bottom of hte list, where I started, a couple from the top, where I end up, then check Google news to make sure I've got the big stories. Simultaneously, Giovanni is talking to me in a foreign language--it starts sounding like Spanish after about an hour--and sending link after link over MSN messenger. After 30 minutes, or really whenever, Adriaan walks in and we have our editorial conference.

Almost all stories fall into two categories: serious or odd. (Nevermind, for a moment, that some of Colombia's regular political stories are seriously odd.) Ongoing developments in the parapolitics scandal, which has found nearly a third of the country's legislators--primarily pro-president Alvaro Uribe ones--were in league with the country's rightist paramilitary groups, have taken a few spots each day. Next up are random business or weather stories--volcano erupts, coffee harvest down, etc. Finally, are the silly ones, like the 26-pound yuca, or cassava, and the virgin that appeared on a water bucket (but more on these in a coming post). When we can combine these two, like doing a textile sales story with a lede about underwear, we are happy men.

Decisions made, me and Adriaan bend our heads and let our fingers fly. I can usually do five to six articles in the roughly four hours--pretty slow considering we don't make a single phone call. My process goes something like this: skim entire article, realize you can't skim in Spanish, read entire article, find there is a word you don't understand a word in a key sentence, paste article into Google translator, waste more time comparing "translation" to Spanish words and working out the real meaning, open Google news to find other stories on the same topic, repeat process. Break for lunch.

As you may now realize, despite our office sitting a block off the dead center of Colombia's second largest city, our work involves nothing you couldn't do with from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. There are a number of reasons for this. Yes, Colombia's low life expectancy for journalists is a unseen, but acknowledged deterrent. Yet more than that, however, is that besides our sports man in Madrid, there is just two of us writing, so just getting the days news out is a struggle. And even more debilitating is that, for me, the local paisa accent often leaves me in blinking uncomprehension. But above all, it's our niche. We get the news out fast. Bite-size summaries are what our readers want. Except when they want to read about virgins...

Written without my glove

On a rainy evening in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala a few months ago, Zoe and I went to shoot pool at a dimly lit place a few blocks off the main square. The small hall was only mildly attended that evening, but the table next to ours was occupied. It was at least half an hour before I realized that the other table had just three balls. And no pockets.

Billiards is a odd game. Well, it's an odd game to a former pool player. In an evening of pool, you have a series of climaxes. The balls are racked, broken, pocketed and then you start again. The conclusion of each game offers an opportunity to quit. Yet with billiards, there is no natural stopping point. The balls are still there, tempting you to try again.

For those who don't know, the point of billiards is to hit one ball so it hits the other two. And then do it again. And again. This is harder than it sounds--and I'm not just talking about the again part. I first tried about a week ago, on my first night in Medellin. (Adriaan, my boss, housemate and drinking buddy, who to "prepare for my arrival" bought me a billiards glove, enjoys billiards just as much as you would expect of someone who buys people unsolicited billiards gloves.) I made three in a row--then one more in the next hour. It's not just odd, it's fucking hard.

[Oh yeah, happy birthday me!]

Day Four (Three is on the way)

My first few clips at Colombia Reports:

Killings of ex-paramilitary leaders continue - I was making lunch in the kitchen when I happened to glance through the doorway at our new TV. "Ex-paramilitar asesinado," I read, alongside a dateline of Medellin. 'Hey, that's where I am,' I thought. 'HEY!' Ironically, the killing took place in the ritzy part of town, far from the reputedly dangerous but actually quite sanitized city center where I live. Not that it matters: I'm too stuck to my laptop to leave the apartment.

Two Colombians dead, three survive Spanish plane crash - I suspect that none of our readers cared about this. Of course, the site's greatest daily hit number came today, after Playboy.com discovered Adriaan's story that Colombia's only porn channel had shut down. Cue my 39-part retrospective. (I forgive those who don't get the SF Chron humor).

More than 600 displaced by Cauca violence - This was actually the very first thing I wrote for CR. The first hard news story I've written in more than 8 months. And the first thing on deadline in that same period--explaining why freelance ideas are so abundant, but my bank account so slim.

Guerrilla faction gives up arms - I know you didn't even get this far, and if you did you're probably not reading the articles, which you shouldn't really. We specialize in quick news briefs, not in-depth or narrative work. This is partly because Adriaan is physically revolted by drippy writing and partly because until now he was responsible for all the content. So I may yet beat the pavements of Medellin, instead of just the websites of Colombia's newspapers.

Day Two

Adriaan threw his half-smoked cigarette on the pavement and stormed up the steps. We were taking a spin on the Metro and there was no smoking allowed. Or eating. Or, it seemed, anything which might leave a trace. The train’s platform was—and I looked hard for trash, scum, anything—as sterile as a hospital ward. As Adriaan put it: “If the actual action didn’t dirty the place, you could eat off the floor, if you know what I mean?”

The train—which I noted ran on rails unlike Mexico City’s rubber tire and guide line system—was equally spotless. But as the city started rolling by, I quickly forgot about cleanliness. In every other city and town I’ve visited in Latin America, walls are generally made of gray cinderblocks. In Medellín, while the cinderblocks have gone nowhere, they’ve all turned to a light maroon. It is as if all the houses that climb up the sloping walls of the valley, large and small, finished and unfinished, were made of brick. It is beautiful.

A few stops after we got on, a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother boarded the train through the door closest to us. In the otherwise crowded train, the space immediately between the inner and outer doors was clear, but the design of the train—near the doors the low roof bars curve up to the ceiling and out of reach—left the daughter grasping for a hand hold. She couldn’t reach the curving bar and as the standstill time ticked away, her even shorter mother started looking around in a mild panic. To the mother’s relief, as the doors closed a man relinquished part of a vertical pole, and the daughter, after a slight stumble as the train started, wedged herself into the crowd to get a handful of the lower hanging portion of the pole.

The whole episode, recounted here in far too much detail, made me naturally focus on the actual running of the train. And wow! In addition to being undoubtedly the cleanest metro system I have ever ridden—Atlanta’s system a close second, London’s interiors a very distant third, and New York, Paris, Miami, Boston, Mexico City and the Bay Area all not making the charts—it is easily the smoothest. (It likely helps there is really only one line, a long stretch along the length of the valley, with only one or two arms.)

Day One

MEDELLIN, Colombia--Since beginning this trip in late January (or mid-November, if you count my one month language program) in Mexico, I’ve bused my way, sometimes reclining in comfort, sometimes crowded four to a bench seat, through Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. More than a few journeys have been made over winding, unpaved tracks hacked through jungle or out of a hillside, but most of the real point-to-point trips on my slow creep south have been by the Pan-American Highway. This was not to be in getting to Colombia. Despite its name, the artery ends without ceremony in southern Panama, at the head of a jungle controlled by nothing but lawlessness.

Thus I decided, after much research, agonizing, calculating, hair pulling, and kicking myself for not planning ahead, to take to the air for the first time in my journey. The price of the next-day, one-way ticket had a clean kind of justice to it: the $377 total ate in almost a single gulp the $425 I had recently received for a handful of articles. My consolation: the alternative, busing to the Panama coast, taking a 5-day yacht journey to Cartagena, Colombia, then busing to Medellín, cost as much on paper and undoubtedly more in reality. Yes, I missed an adventure, but I get even more time to enjoy my unexpectedly expansive, if bare, quarters here in Pablo Escobar’s hometown.

The third floor apartment from which I write is in part bare because my new boss, Adriaan, and his roommates only moved in about 48 hours ago. As such, they’re still hurrying to do furnishing—we stopped on the way back from the airport to buy trays for their potted-plants. Yet it would take a large greenhouse to really fill all the empty corners. Even with two armchairs, two couches, a kind-of high foot rest, a low bureau and, of course, the potted plants, the vast living room feels vacant. A long, wide veranda holds only moving boxes. The hotel-like garden—a tiled plaza adjoining two rock gardens holding richly planted concrete planter boxes—has just a backless director’s chair sitting at its entrance. My room is empty but for an air mattress, a few odds and ends I haven’t yet put in one of the three built-in floor-to-ceiling cabinets, and myself. One of the few fully occupied spaces is Giovanni’s room, a smallish thing off the kitchen that, indicative of the apartment’s former grandeur, was once the maid quarters.

Clips: Popping My Freelance Cherry

Yup, this is the one that did it. You may have already seen it, but in order to drag this out (trusted sources say actual posts are on the way) I'm going to post all my articles, one by one, starting from the very beginning. Ironically, I hadn't even gotten paid for this article before day pack portion of the backpack was stolen.