Author: David Diego Rodríguez, Ph.D.

I teach Spanish and I am a standup comedian.

Haircuts


“Did you get a haircut?
“No, I got them all cut!”

Photo by Mati Mango on Pexels.com

I have been getting haircuts my entire life. For as long as I can remember. I’m sure I even got haircuts before I could remember them. My mom was my first barber. I am reminded of my haircuts now, because I just got a haircut.

Most of my barbers have been Italian, except for my mom, of course. I had two Italian barbers who were both named Aldo of Italy. I patronized both for about ten years each. My next Italian barber was at UIC, but I cannot recall his name right now. My present barber is Vincenzo who has an enthusiastic sense of humor. My mother’s name is Carmen, and although she’s not an Italian barber, she does have an Italian name–except in Italian, it’s a man’s name.

I found my barber Vincenzo because of my present wife Beata, who also is not an Italian barber, nor does she have an Italian name. I was complaining to Beata about the long wait at the UIC barber shop because the two older barbers had retired and the youngest barber, but not so young anymore, told me after he hired a couple of twenty-something barbers, “I remember when I was the kid of the barbershop!” Tempus fugit!

Anyway, my wife has a half-Yorkie, half-Shi-Tzu dog named Pluto that needs regular haircuts at the dog groomer. So, one day, she comes home after dropping Pluto at the groomer and tells me, “I found a new barber for you!” The barbershop was right next door to the dog groomer. Since I didn’t like the wait at the barbershop at UIC, I went longer intervals without haircuts, which annoyed my wife because she liked me better when my hair was short.

The next time Pluto needed to be groomed, Beata took Pluto and me for a ride. We dropped Pluto off at the groomer and then she walked me next door to the barbershop. This was a real barbershop, a man’s barbershop for the macho he-man. Vincenzo didn’t introduce himself to me, nor did I. He swept his open palm invitingly to the barber chair where I sat down. My wife sat right across from me, as if I would try to bolt out before getting my unwanted haircut. Vincenzo asked me, “How do you want your haircut?” I pointed to my wife and said, “You have to please my wife.” Without missing a beat, Vincenzo said, “No! You have to please your wife!”

My wife laughed, I laughed. Vincenzo laughed. Vincenzo has been my barber ever since.

El velorio


Nadie llamaba de México a menos que fuera una emergencia. No entendía mucho entre los sollozos de su mamá. Sólo sabía que su papá se enfermó la semana pasada, pero sólo lo supo por una carta que apenas llegó esa mañana. Por fin, su mamá dejó de llorar y le explicó a Carmen que tenía que ver a su papá ahora mismo. Sería la última oportunidad. Toda la familia estaba al lado de su cama donde agonizaba. En el fondo, oyó una voz débil, “¡Tienes que venir! ¡Tu papá pregunta por ti! También quiere ver a su nuevo nieto.”

Inmediatamente consiguió boletos para volar a México y su esposo la llevó al aeropuerto. Tenían que despegar de Newark, pero cuando pidieron direcciones al aeropuerto, el vecino puertorriqueño se equivocó y les dio direcciones para el aeropuerto en New York. Nunca oía la diferencia entre Newark y New York.

Cuando llegaron a la puerta de embarque, el agente les dijo que estaban en el aeropuerto equivocado. Corrieron al coche y se fueron para el aeropuerto en Newark. Llegaron justo cuando se despegó su vuelo. Carmen empezó a llorar. Ahora no vería a su papá por última vez. Su esposo trataba de calmarla, pero lloraba aún más. Un hombre la vio y le preguntó que pasaba. Le explicó que perdió su vuelo para ver a su papá que estaba a punto de morir. Por casualidad, el hombre volaba a Texas por avión privado. Le ofreció llevarla hasta Texas y de allí le arreglaría cómo llegar a México.

Cuando llegó a Celaya, ya era de noche y vio la luz por las ventanas de la recámara de sus padres. Miró adentro y vio velas por todas partes. Tocó a la puerta y el perro ladró. Pero nadie le abría la puerta. Se acercó a la ventana de la recámara encendida y lo vio rodeado de su esposa y sus hijas. Tenía una foto de Carmen en sus manos. Todos rezaban.

Carmen fue a tocar a la puerta de nuevo. Esta vez, la puerta abrió y vio a su hermana Laura con una charola con tazas de café para todos. Cuando Laura vio a Carmen con su hijo, gritó “¡Ay!” y dejó caer la charola de café. El perro le ladraba a Carmen que ahora tenía miedo de entrar. Laura corrió a la recámara donde todos estaban, pero no regresó por el susto que sufrió. Volvió la mamá a la puerta y empezó a llorar. Abrazó a Carmen y a su hijo. Les dijo a los demás que vinieran a la puerta para saludar a Carmen y a su hijo. Todos la abrazaban y lloraban.

Por fin, Carmen les preguntó, “Pero ¿por qué lloran? ¿Ya falleció mi papá? Es que llegué demasiado tarde, ¿verdad?”

“No, todavía no,” dijo su mamá. “Lloramos de alegría. ¡Creíamos que estabas muerta!”

Laura dijo, “Me asusté porque creía que vi tu fantasma.”

Carmen les dijo que no entendía lo que pasaba, pero estaba contenta de ver a todos.

Finalmente, su mamá le dijo que cuando fueron por ella al aeropuerto, les dijeron que se estrelló su avión y que todos los pasajeros murieron. Creían que Carmen y su hijo habían muerto. Pero no era así. Y Carmen pudo despedirse de su papá antes de que falleciera.

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Sirius XM in México


Photo by Bruno Ticianelli on Pexels.com

Before I drove to México earlier this month, I searched online to see if I would be able to listen to Sirius XM in México. I guess few people with satellite radio travel to México and then post whether Sirius XM will work in México because I found exactly zero results. Well, I am now posting that I went to México, and I was able to listen to Sirius XM in México while I drove all the way to México City. There were some bad reception areas, but overall, the quality was incredibly good. This certainly made my driving experience much more enjoyable. So, now you know, in case you ever want to drive to México City and want to listen to Sirius XM down México way.

Rompiendo Malo


Rompiendo Malo. Lost in translation. If translation is the correct word to use when describing what the writers for the hit show Breaking Bad do when they write dialogue in Spanish. Perhaps, whoever wrote the Spanish dialogue in Breaking Bad only studied Spanish in high school, or even the minimum required college Spanish.

Breaking Bad has a lot of characters speaking Spanish, but as a Spanish instructor, I couldn’t help but analyze their use of Spanish. When Skylar of Walter White speak in Spanish poorly, it’s understandable because they’re not native Spanish speakers. However, how can you live in the state of New Mexico with so many Spanish speakers and not know at least a little Spanish?

In general, the script writer literally translated English dialogue into Spanish and did so very poorly. In one meeting with members of the Mexican cartel, Gustavo Fring tells his guests to take a seat by saying in Spanish, “Tomen un asiento.” That is a literal translation of, “Take a seat.” If you offer someone a seat in Spanish, you should say, “Siéntense.” This bad translation is unacceptable because the character of Gustavo Fring is from Chile, so he is a native Spanish speaker. However, the actor Giancarlo Esposito, however, does not speak Spanish and his pronunciation in Spanish is lacking. It is even more noticeable because of his otherwise good acting. Esposito needed to rehearse his lines in Spanish a little more.

In another scene, Tío Héctor says to Gustavo and Max while at a meeting with Don Eladio, “Quédete.” This is poor grammar, and no native Spanish speaker would ever say this. “Quede” is a formal command, but the actor Mark Margolis uses the familiar reflexive pronoun “te” instead of the required formal pronoun “se.” He could have used either a formal or familiar command, but Spanish does not allow for a little of both. He needed to say, “Quédese” or “Quédate”, but never “Quédete”.

However, not all the Spanish spoken in Breaking Bad is terrible. When the actors who are native Spanish speakers speak Spanish, they speak much better Spanish. They read the script and said, “Wait. No one would ever say this in Spanish!” because they then say their lines in a more natural Spanish and not a literal translation into English where one word after the other is translated into English. I could tell by the subtitles in English when Spanish is spoken. In other scenes not with native Spanish speakers, the Spanish words follow the same order as the words in the English subtitle.

When Jesse Pinkman is at his new girlfriend Andrea’s house, her mother immediately disapproves of Andrea’s choice of a new boyfriend. The mother immediately begins speaking in Spanish, good Spanish, what she thinks of her daughter and Pinkman, none of it particularly good. Interestingly enough, there are no English subtitles for this dialogue. My theory is that there was no dialogue written for this scene and the actress Virginia Montero merely ad libbed her dialogue in a Spanish language that was very natural to her. I could picture my mother or grandmother speaking like this. Of course, no one from the show was able to translate this into English subtitles.

What does “Breaking Bad” mean? Well, one meaning of “breaking” is changing directions, such as breaking to the right or to the left. Or one can be breaking good or breaking bad, separating from path to another. In this show, everyone is breaking bad. Everyone was good at the start, but then they started breaking bad, especially Walter White.

For the title of this post, I merely literally translated Breaking Bad into Rompiendo Malo. Breaking = Rompiendo and Bad = Malo. I looked up “breaking” and “bad” on wordreference.com and I found “rompiendo” and “malo” for the translations. However, Rompiendo Malo doesn’t mean anything in Spanish. I must admit that this is a very poor way to translate one language into another, but I feel that the writers of Breaking Bad did this for many of the speeches in Spanish.

I suppose I wouldn’t have noticed the Spanish dialogue if I wasn’t a Spanish instructor. But I am and I did. I’m breaking good.

Warming up


Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels.com

The first step is always the hardest. That applies to just about everything in life. Some days, starting a run is extremely difficult. Some days, I have trouble putting on my running clothes and getting out the door. But once I’m outside and I start running, I know I will complete my run. Once I warm up, that is.

Warming up is very important to me. I never stretch before a run like I once did. I reached an age when the warm up alone seemed so tedious that I didn’t want to run afterwards. So, now I never stretch before a run, but rather start out running slowly and gradually settle into my normal running pace. I usually warm up after a mile or two, depending on many factors. But once I’m warmed up, my run is very enjoyable.

When I was younger and I was running a weekly twenty-miler for marathon training, I didn’t always have the motivation to go out and run that long run. Some days, I would feel like quitting at six miles, but I would tell myself that I had to finish my long run if I wanted to improve my marathon time. Amazingly, I could will myself to keep running and then a few miles later I would pick up the pace. Honestly, before I even began some of those long runs, I didn’t think i would finish them. On a few occasions, I felt so good that I ran twenty-six miles. And I could have kept running on those days, but I didn’t want to overtrain.

Over this past winter, I had a few days when it was extremely cold and snowy that I wanted to quit even before I ran the first mile. But, I recalled my youthful determination and willed myself to keep running, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, until I ran nine miles. All I had to do was warm up. Once I was warmed up, running was easy. Well, maybe not easy, but easier.

Warming up also applies to other things I do. For example, I didn’t feel like writing a blog post this morning, but I would not have felt good about it. So, I started putting one word in front of the other until I reached the end. Once I was warmed up, I finished this post.

And now it’s time for me to go running. I hope I warm up quickly.