Communist Dog Hair & Bourgeois Clouds (or, “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere, Macho Man”)
Nobody has really asked me how life is in El Salvador, which I understand as a clear request to tell you how life is in El Salvador. Here are a series of vignettes that offer a flavor of the Abu Halen family’s life over the past couple months.
Mostly what I do all day is walk around looking at the clouds. Actually and truthfully, mostly what I do all day is sit in the windowless basement of an embassy and write emails that contain witty aphorisms like, “Hope this email finds you well,” and “per updated regulatory guidance,” and “how much, on a scale from one to ten, do you miss Randy Macho Man Savage.” I only use that last aphorism when I’m sending an email to very low-ranking diplomats.
“Clouds” by Debussy is one of my favorite songs. Just kidding, it’s dumb. (Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador; July 2021)
But when I’m not sitting in the windowless basement, I am walking around, looking at the clouds. Clouds are one of my favorite things, along with constitutional monarchy (I like democracy too, but I feel like constitutional monarchy is oft and unjustly overlooked, especially when the monarch is Punky Brewster). El Salvador has the best clouds of anywhere I’ve ever lived, and I never tire of watching them and imagining they are giant scoops of miscolored refried beans.
I used to be quite a Moody Blues fan. My mom had a few of their tapes and when I was 11 I stole them, listened to them ad nauseum, and hid them under my bed, which was wholly unnecessary because Mom kept her tapes in the tool drawer underneath the grout sealer, which gives you an idea of how much she used them. I also stole her Xanadu soundtrack tape, which I thought was pronounced “ex-an-uh-duh,” but which is, in fact, not, according to Mr Patton, my 5th grade teacher, with whom I tried to find common ground one day after class by suggesting we might appreciate similar music. He laughed at me for awhile before assuring me we definitely did not like similar types of music, and that Olivia Newton-John sucks, which I felt was a bit harsh, seeing as how he knew full well I had a magazine clipping of Olivia Newton-John taped to the back cover of my Trapper Keeper.
Many Septembers — far too many — passed without my thinking of the Moody Blues (Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador; September 2021)
I sort of lost touch with the Moody Blues at some point. It was inevitable that we would grow apart as I got older and they got hypertension and osteoporosis. Decades passed during which I literally and regretfully never once thought of the Moody Blues. Then, recently, I was standing in a Salvadoran convenience store when “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” came over the speakers, and I just stood there beside the jerky and sunflower seeds and tried not to weep when Justin Hayward sang, “somehow I’ll return again to you.” I whispered, “I’m so sorry I ever stopped listening, and also that you continued releasing new material after 1990 because it was subpar, to put it nicely.” I have been regularly listening to the Moody Blues since then. My joints suddenly ache more, but I doubt there is any connection.
Our dog’s name is Che and he is a communist. He refuses to do anything for himself, instead insisting that “the State” provide him with food, water, a fuzzy blanket to sleep on at the foot of someone’s bed, and at least one-fifth of all buttered microwave popcorn flakes produced in the household. Also, he is aggressive and bellicose with less radical dogs, constantly yapping in a shrill, declarative tone that can only mean, “¡Viva la Revolución!” Or, possibly, “Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!”
A sentinel against capitalists (Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador; August 2021)
His hair got too long — unsurprising for such an uncompromising and doctrinaire comrade — and began matting, so he required a full buzz cut. None of us talked to him or even acknowledged him for several days because he looked ugly, stupid, and bourgeois after his grooming. However, he did contritely stop crapping in the entryway, so we’ve rechristened him a member of the household proletariat.
Ashamed and bourgeois (Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador; August 2021)
