Large pizza and two draft beers: 10 pesos (USD$3.33)
Full dinner at a nice restaurant, with bread, two entrees, two desserts, and two bottles of wine: 70 pesos (USD$23.33)
Tia Maria coffee liquor, usually $25 or so in the States: 14 pesos (USD$4.66)
Anticipated return to a country where the rare nonsmoking sections aren´t entirely ignored: Priceless.

We´ve been in Buenos Aires for six days now, and are mostly eating and drinking the days away. The excessive smoking is relentless and repulsive, and this blogger is not interested in the nonsensical cultural relativism of those who will defend it as "the Argentine way." It´s merely a triumph of the tobacco death merchants.

The museums suck: as bad, and sometimes even worse, than Balboa Park´s terrible museums. The only decent one is the Museum of Fine Arts, which has some second and third tier Renoir, Picasso, Monet, and other similar paintings. The National Historical Museum is truly an embarassment: it is the most myopic and blindly nationalistic house of propaganda either of us have ever seen.

The one room between the late 1800s and the present is dedicated to the 1982 Falkland Islands war, or, as the Argentines prefer to call it, the war of the Islas Malvinas. To look at the proud displays, photos, and flight suit, you wouldn´t ever guess that the Brits handed the Argentines their asses on a plate in about 72 days, after the Argentines invaded what most other countries agreed was British territory. Unluckily for them, Maggiepoo was having a tough political spell in GB at the time, and the Falklands provided a lovely opportunity for her to flick away a fly with a batallion of fighter jets, and gain some cheap political capital.

The Museo do Arte Moderna de Buenos Aires was pitiful. The main exhibit was a large room of photography from half a dozen or so charlatans, whose only unifying themes seemed to be that badly composed German scenes and poor focus. It did give me good hope for exhibiting my own photography, though, since it was of the quality I was taking with a 120 disc camera in the mid 1980s before I ever took a photography class.

Perhaps the best done museum was the one of architecture and money, though the subject matter was exceptionally boring.

Our hotel is on one of the largest streets in downtown Buenos Aires, Avenida 25 de Mayo, and just a block from what the book correctly calls a "pedestrian nightmare", Avenida 9 de Julio: eight lanes of traffic in both directions, and two fonrtages of three more lanes (sometimes four, when the angry and erratic drivers feel like it, or six when taxis are present.) It´s a but dingy and amazingly loud, but has consistent hot water and a small balcony for storing our empty fuzzy water and red wine bottles.

We are planning a soccer (futbol) game for Sunday of two teams in Argentina´s First Division, River Plate vs. Estudiantes La Plata. Should be interesting. I proposed to the Good Senator at lunch yesterday that the real reason that soccer hasn´t caught on in the U.S. is that it lacks sufficient corporate propaganda (oops, commerical) breaks.

¡Más pronto!

Today´s final note is the absolute fashion train wreck that is Argentine men, especially when they purport to be dressing in business attire. Neither dangr nor the Good Senator have ever witnessed such a shamockery of fashion as these baboons put on every day: sweater vests rule the day; jackets don´t even seem aware that they perhaps should match pants; a single outfit will regularly employ pinstripes, plaid, checkers, and polka dots; pink and baby blue are both in, big.

What makes the male fashion crisis so amazing is how obsessively well dressed Argentine women are, which is inextricably linked to pandemic eating disorders. A quick google search confirmed the clear visual indicators of repulsively and unnaturally skinny women:
http://www.something-fishy.org/cultural/roles.php
and
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1456/16292
both note that "In Argentina the incidence rate of Anorexia and Bulimia ... based on population is almost three times greater than that of the United States."

Salon.com indicates indicates a link between the disgusting and obsessive smoking and eating disorders:
http://www.salon.com/news/news970124.html
"Ironically, in the land of beef and "papas fritas," eating disorders are rampant. Argentina has a higher incidence of anorexia and bulimia per capita than either the United States or Europe. I asked one young woman how the populace remained so thin in a land awash in rich foods. "Young women just don't eat," she said. "They smoke.""

It´s gross.

So I talked to the ltitle prick at Evil Airlines yesterday: he told me to fax him the sheet showing everything we bought, and replacement cost (which I've only been able to do for about 75% of the items since, contrary to popular belief, the worldwidesuperinformationinfbahn does NOT have as good of a selection as your average Guatemalan town.)

I asked if he didn't want me to tell him first what the totals are (more than $2000 for replacement cost). He said no, just fax it. I asked if he was SURE he didn't want me to just tell him. He grudgingly did me the honor of explaining what's ont he sheet. He then mumbled, cleared his throat, and sort of, kind of, vaguely, and in a rather unpleasant tone, said, "Well, I guess if there is nothing else we can do but to replace them, then that's what we might have to do."

Wanna equivocate a little more, jerk?

Sigh. On this happy note, I'm off to my conference in Idyllwild (which as some readers may know, is a long ago worksite). Then I get back with maybe, just maybe, just enough time to catch a final Padres game of the season, before heading off to Buenos Aires. Ahhh, life is rough.

More soon, faithful readers. More soon.

Mr. (oops!) Lastname did not call back. I called at ~2pm, asked for him, was told he’s gone for the day. I asked to speak to a manager or supervisor, and was told, to my surprise, that Mr. Lastname is, indeed, a supervisor. She said the other “senior agent” was busy. I asked for this person to call me back, left my name, phone, and record locater. It’s now 2:40pm, and I have not heard from this person. The woman, however, assured me that I would receive a return call from the “senior agent.”

It is now 3:40pm, and still no return call.
I just called again, and spoke to the same woman who, earlier, had taken my name, telephone, and record locater, and had assured me that a “supervisor” would call me back. She said that the reason, she guessed, why Mr. Lastname had not called me back, was that he must not have spoken to the gentleman who he needed to speak to about my claim; she repeated twice that he would need to speak to “the gentleman” before he could call me back. I asked her who this gentleman is, and she said, “Well, actually, sir I don’t know who it is that he needs to speak to.” I am left with the distinct impression, then, that she was blowing smoke up my ass with her reasoning.

I again left my name and phone number, and found out from her that my home phone number, which we’d given to Mr. Lastname yesterday at the airport, was not in the computer. She assured me that she did put it in the computer. I asked when Mr. Negrete works, and she said from 5:30am to 2:00pm, Monday through Friday. I asked her if I can count on receiving a call from him tomorrow, and she assured me that I can.

I am beginning to wonder if Mr. Lastname, and the Baggage Services at SAN in general, just thinks that I might go away if they ignore me. If so, this is a mistaken impression: last night, as I said I would, I came home and totaled, as best as I can, the amount we spent on the items that Evil Airlines destroyed: approximate purchase price is at least $906, and approximate replacement cost, for the items that I can find for sale online, is at least $1569, which does not count half a dozen items that I have not yet found any similar replacement items for sale online.

I will add to this letter tomorrow, I assume, since I have the distinct impression that I will not be hearing from Evil Airlines, at least with any good news.

(End of letter from Wednesday, September 1, 2004.)

I'm so damned mad at Evil Airlines right now. Below is pasted in a real letter, with identifying information changed (for now). If they don't give me some satisfaction quick, it'll include real names soon.


August 31, 2004
and: ____________

Evil Airlines
Customer Relations
1-888-888-8888 (fax)

Damage record locater: ABCDEF

To whom it may concern:

I am a very, very unhappy customer. I’ll summarize what led to this unhappiness: Evil Airlines apparently submerged three of our four bags in turpentine, or some similar smelling chemical (your Evil Airlines Baggage Service representative in Sacramento hazarded a guess of jet fuel, if not turpentine.) This managed to impregnate the bags, and most of the contents therein, with a fierce, noxious stench.

Unfortunately, we’d spent the summer living and traveling in Central America, primarily Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Belize, and our bags were packed full, as we checked only two for each of us for nearly three months abroad. The further difficulty is that they were primarily packed full of difficult to replace weavings, tapestries, rugs, blankets, and other handmade textiles.

First, I should note that as it was an international flight, we claimed our baggage before Customs at BigIntlAirport, and smelled nothing of the damage at that point. Nor do I think that Customs, or BigIntlAirport personnel, would have so gladly passed and re-checked the baggage with the extraordinary stench it would later exude. Indeed, it was your Evil Airlines Baggage Service employee at SMF who pointed this out, shortly before her supervisor determined that sending two of the three damaged bags to BigCity for attempted cleaning would be futile, since there was no way, in their opinion, that they would clear security to be flown to BigIntlAirport. So strong was this stench that within thirty seconds of her arrival into the Baggage Service office at SMF, your employee needed little verification. Thus, it seems certain that your destruction of our baggage and its contents occurred domestically, between the BigIntlAirport and SMF airports.

I note that two bags were to be cleaned if possible: we voluntarily agreed that the third bag, a relatively inexpensive duffel bag, need not be cleaned or replaced, as it was of little concern to us. However, I think it is important to note that we are discussing the contents of three pieces of luggage, not two, even if only the replacement of two bags.

We noticed the smell upon leaving SMF, but thought it might just be something the bags had been dragged through on their way out from the plane, and would be of little consequence. Upon arriving at my parents’ house, we placed the bags into the guest bedroom, since they mostly did not need to be unpacked until our return to San Diego, where we live. When the entire guest bedroom smelled like a paint removal factory, it became clear that something was very wrong, and I called the Evil SMF Baggage Service office, this being the day after our arrival, well within 24 hours of our arrival. I was advised to bring the bags in by Bob, who was polite and helpful, and sounded concerned about the problem.

We drove to the Sacramento airport, approximately twenty minutes from my parents’ house. By the time we arrived, our minivan also smelled like a paint removal factory. (Incidentally, the guest bedroom at my parents’ house continued to smell, and still smelled by the time we return from an hour or so at the airport, despite the damaged items not having been in it, the door being open, and both windows being wide opne.)

When we arrived at the SMF airport, Bob had apparently just left for the day, and we spoke with a very nice, helpful, polite, pleasant woman, whose name I believe was “Raybeam” or something similar. She was perhaps even more upset than we were with the obvious damage that had been done to our bags. It was here that we noticed for the first time that there were visible lines on the bags where they had apparently been SUBMERGED in whatever noxious chemical did that damage. Raybeam also acknowledged these lines, and quickly ventured her opinion that, while they would send them to BigCity to attempt cleaning, they were almost certainly destroyed, and would need to be replaced.

Raybeam, fortunately, made extensive notes in the computer about the extensive damage done to the items, and the difficulty in assessing value and replacement cost: these amount to approximately 50 damaged items, almost all of them hand-weaved or otherwise hand constructed, which we purchased individually from the craftswomen and craftsmen that created them, and their families. While not unique, they will be difficult to replace without returning to Central America, or quite expensive to purchase from importers. We had a hand-woven blanket that took more than two months of constant labor to create. We had blanket length weavings that were dyed naturally using dyes derived form plants, roots, fruits, and other natural sources. We had scarves which poor, desperate, illiterate women have weaved with skill passed down through literally dozens of generations, and which now provide their families’ only support and income. We have no receipts, as each was purchased from individual artisans, usually within miles or blocks of the place it was weaved; more than one trip was made explicitly and solely to purchase regionally specific designs and color patterns; replacing them will prove difficult short of a return trip to Guatemala and Nicaragua.

At this point, I feel it necessary to provide more praise for Raybeam and the Sacramento Baggage Service office of Evil: her friendliness, competence, and sympathy made us think, for a while, that Evil might actually try to make this right. She was fantastic, and I truly regret that we don’t live in Sacramento, so that we could continue dealing with her. Unfortunately, our file had to be transferred to San Diego, where we do live, and this begins today’s irritation, or more accurately, last week’s irritation.

You see, Raybeam had told us to take the tapestries and weavings to be dry-cleaned, and that Evil would reimburse us for this, in the hope that it would remedy the damage. (The two bags were considered a complete loss by SMF Baggage Service, since they couldn’t be flown to BigIntlAirport safely to have cleaning attempted.) Fortunately, we were driving to return to San Diego, so we could bring the damaged items back with us without worrying about clearing security. Unfortunately, we were driving to return to San Diego, and so go to drive with the chemical stench only partially mitigated by keeping our windows open on the ~500 mile journey.

On arrival in San Diego, we moved in to a new apartment, and had to keep the plastic bags containing the damaged items on the floor in the bathroom, since the rest of the apartment is carpeted, and we didn’t want to ruin our new apartment’s carpet with the unspecified smelly chemical. As a result, we’ve had the privilege of smelling these disgusting bags for the entirety of the last two and a half weeks, first thing in the morning, and practically the last thing at night before going to sleep.

My first irritation last week began with calling the 800 number for EA Baggage Customer Service (800-***-****), as Raybeam had told us to, to provide a physical address for the record. (When we first created the file, we didn’t know our physical address, and could only provide a PO Box.) I provided this to the representative, then made the mistake of thinking that the person who answered the phone at Evil Airlines Baggage Customer Service might actually know something about the damaged baggage process. I asked her a fairly basic question, and she, after only grudgingly taking my new address information, quite curtly informed me that she had no idea about the specifics of the claim, and couldn’t answer a thing about it, and I needed to deal with the airport directly. Silly me. First point of irritation.

After going about the other basic necessities of moving in to a new dwelling (such banalities as phone, electricity, gas, and cable service), I began looking for a dry cleaner. The first dry cleaner I spoke to wouldn’t even touch the job. The second listened at length to our situation, and then estimated that cleaning, which may or may not be successful, would cost $2.50 per square foot. We did the math: the estimate was $637.40. We decided it was probably best to talk to you at Evil before we spent $637.40 of your money for a solution which may or may not work.

I tried to call Evil Airlines Baggage Service at San Diego International Airport (SAN) last Friday, August 27, 2004. I first looked for the phone number in the phone book, a pointless exercise. I then looked for it on evilairlines.com, also fruitless. I finally went to the San Diego International Airport website, and found it several pages in. I called the number (619-123-4567) at around 1:45pm on Friday afternoon, and got an answering machine. I left a message with my record locater, name, phone number, basic case description, and requested a return call, as I had an important question about the claim. (Namely, whether Evil really wanted me to spend $637.40 on dry cleaning which may or may not be successful.) I never received a return call. Second point of irritation.

Today, Tuesday, August 31, 2004, we went to the airport in person. Your Evil Airlines representative in the Baggage Services office at SAN, Firstname Lastname, greeted us by telling us he was supposed to be off shift at 2:00pm. It was, at that time, approximately 1:55pm. We would have been fine with someone else handling our questions, but he chose to do it himself. He proceeded to mostly ignore us every time we opened our mouths. Among the things he told us:

1) There was probably no way we’d be able to get more than a few hundred dollars to settle the claim. He’d have to talk to his “superior,” but he was pretty sure it couldn’t be much. When I explained that this was inconsistent with the Warsaw Convention, if this was treated as an international flight, he backed down on this point, saying something like, “Well, don’t listen to me. I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to my superior. But I just don’t know.”

2) He told us he didn’t think weavings and tapestries would be covered: that usually they only pay for clothes, shirts, pants, and those sorts of things. He really didn’t think they’d pay for tapestries. He really doubted it. Nope, it really probably wasn’t possible, he didn’t think. We, very nicely, told him that we didn’t think this is really the case. He then mostly dropped the subject, but made at least two more comments expressing doubt about whether the non-clothing items could be paid for.

3) He pressed up repeatedly to tell him what we’d paid for all of the items. As I explained above in this letter, and as I explained to him, we are talking about approximately fifty items, acquired over three months. I don’t know an amount off the top of my head, and we explained that in any case, the amount paid did not resemble replacement cost, since to truly replace the items would require a return trip to Central America. I don’t know if this is how he’s trained, or if he does it of his own initiative, but he basically interrogated us, despite both of us saying repeatedly that we didn’t know. I finally explained that a rough estimate was somewhere between $500 and $1000, which he quickly wrote down, but we both reiterated that this didn’t indicate replacement cost. He then began saying that this was way too much, that there was no way we’d get this paid back, etc. Somewhere towards the end of the interrogation, he reminded us that he was supposed to have been off at 2.

4) He indicated repeatedly that this matter could be resolved at the San Diego office, and that it would not need to be referred to Evil Airlines Customer Relations, and said more than once that there was no need to contact Customer Relations. This confused us, since in Sacramento they’d be clear that their discretion for paying for damaged baggage was limited to approximately one hundred dollars, and since Mr. Lastname himself had said that they could only approve payment of a few hundred dollars locally, maybe $300-$400. So problem one is that either there are different procedures in place in Sacramento and San Diego as to what amount can be approved locally, which seems unlikely, or one of the two of them was lying, which seems unfortunate. Given that Mr. Lastname had already mislead us about the nature of the cost of settling the claim, and whether they could cover non-clothing items, and had been fairly sketchy and pushy about forcing a number out of us as to cost when we repeatedly said we didn’t know off the tops of our heads, we were inclined to think that if anyone was deceiving us, it probably wasn’t Raybeam.

He assured us that after he spoke with his “superior” he would call us tomorrow, and tell us how much we would be paid. We both left the airport feeling distinctly like we’d been scammed, or at least, like Mr. Lastname had tried to scam us. Thus, when I got home, I decided to write this all down while it is fresh in my mind. Regardless of how Evil’s destruction of our possessions is ultimately resolved, I will not soon be able to understand Mr. Lastname’s actions and demeanor as acceptable. You can probably guess this, but this is point of irritation number three.

I hope that when I send this letter, it can end with an more acceptable relaying of events. We’ll see what happens when Mr. Lastname calls tomorrow.

(End of letter from Tuesday, August 31, 2004.)