good talk

James Harrison who did so well for the Steelers this past season and in the Superbowl is from Akron and is so is LeBron James, ha, both like me born and raised there. Old, broken-down Akron, they make few if any rubber products in the Rubber City these days, for about fifty years Akron's population was around 300 thousand but as of 2007 it was 208,000. And I'm suprised that they have that many people, when I left the Akron area 30 years ago due to little economic opportunity people were leaving Ohio like Rats deserting a Sinking Ship. Place was cold as heck during the Winter, too. But still they've cranked out these great athletes (tough times make tough people?). I'm gonna go see "the Wrestler" today at the Palms, bet that's good. A good movie from 20 years ago with Mickey Rourke was "Johnny Handsome." When Mickey Rourke became a professional boxer 15 years ago he seemed to go into a funk actingwise, quite possibly he's out of it, good. Everybody is getting down on Michael Phelps for smoking loco weed, right after his break-out Olympics 4 years ago he had a D.U.I., there's no perfect people. Phelps is about the greatest competitor you're ever going to see, most would have faded under the pressure of the expectations from this past Olympics and his out-touching that one guy where for sure it looked like he had lost is beyond words. Phelps is a good Kraut like me and I don't want anybody getting down on him, got it? After getting in from Ushuaia I was able to explore Buenos Aires a lot better than I had time for previously. I got a nice, big hotel room downtown over Easter Weekend for $17, those cheap prices that we like so good. I went to a really great Art Museum, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, I liked it a lot. I went to the Museo Evita which is devoted to the life of Eva Peron. A famous actress in Argentine Movies she married Juan Peron, the President of Argentina, and became known for championing the destitute and Women's Rights. A beautiful woman, she died from Uturine Cancer at the age of "33," on July 26, 1952, strangely the same day that my younger brother, Tom, was born. A Right of Passage for tourists is to go to her family crypt at Cementerio de la Recoleta and of course I did this, she was born Maria Eva Duarte and she's there with other family members. The Bife Loma is reputed to be the best steak in the world, from cows nourished on the Pampas grass. I went to the Confiteria Ideal, a hundred year old Tango palace, it has 2 big floors and looks just the way that you would hope it would. The Tango was spawned in the 1890's in the Brothels in and around Buenos Aires, regarded as too sensual for Polite Society it gained Popularity in Paris in the 1920's. During the daytime they have Tango Lessons at the Confiteria Ideal while at night the Upstairs and Downstairs dance floors are packed with people doing the Tango. A lot of tourists hang around Buenos Aires just for this. My Tango Lesson lasted two and a half hours, it was in a group of about 30 and I hopefully learned a little bit. I myself am going to have to hang around Buenos Aires some for this purpose. I see where James J. Kilpatrick at the age of "88" has retired his popular column of English Usage, I would begin reading his feature article every Sunday thinking that by the time I had finished I could have well learned something.