Every night on CBS, right before Letterman comes on there is the Carribean weather report featuring Joey Stevens. It is perhaps the most wonderful thing i have ever seen in my entire life. There is a tropical title screen that comes up and then some recorded steel drums, then joey dances on with a parrot on his shoulder. It is hillarious. People send him photos of their birds, and then he makes comments about how they are his parrots girlfriend, then his parrot, which is also very horny apparently, makes some comment relating to tail feathers or something. His vantriliquism is perhaps the best part, because ususally he puts his hand on the side of his mouth away from the camera, and then leans into the camera to make the joke. They have full conversations with him blatently showing that he is doing the speaking for the bird, always with one of those 'this is hillarious' smiles on his face. When he starts doing the weather two things really make it amazing, 1- his occasional spanish over pronunciation (SAAA- HOSEE- for san jose for example.... you really need to hear it) and 2- his shoutouts. To every other island he gives a shoutout for somebody to "Have one on me tonight," or he just says hi to his "friends down at Burt's." Its funny because he does it in the most steriotypically bad way and he says it like that EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. The other joy comes from finding out that the weather is usually nice in Guantanimo... joey likes to give al-queda hope....he is just politially unbiased like that. Also he calls it G-bay.Also, when the weather gets in to the high 80s or 90s he does a big windup and then with three big downward punches between his legs he says "its gonna be hot hot hot." I am not sure if this is supposed to be sexual or just a Harry Belefonte refrence, but it's pretty rediculous.
He also beggs you to watch him everynight, and says like 3 times "hey come back tomorow, please bring your friends, i'd love to meet them." Now, i dont know if he knows that you cant really tell how many people are actually watching your 5 mins of weather, but its pretty funny how he is constantly trying to to be your friend, despretly saying things like " dont forget your old pal joey," and "tell em joey sent ya," knowing that nobody actually says that. I really really really wish i could tape it.
2. The Pickpockets
Overal Costa Ricans are kind of paranoid about crime. Like, there is certainly more crime here than in Canada, but people here get so freaked out about it it is crazy. Around almost every house there is a fence with barbed wire, or razor wire if you are well to do. Even the poorer folks top the 6 foot walls surrounding their houses with tar willed with shards of broken glass. It is pretty extreme. I was talking about crime in one of my classes the other day and one student said that if you have locks and a dog you'll be ok, but a whole bunch disagreed saying that if a guy broke in he could just shoot the dog. So i said, if he shot the dog, eveyone would hear and call the cops, but they insisted that the guy could just get a silencer to take out the dog, that way nobody would hear.The thing is, they were serious. A silencer. TO STEAL A TELEVISION!
The only real crime that has happened to us so far have been guys trying to pick my pockets, but really the attemps have been so bad it's almost endeering. We are usually in a crowded place, and generally the only tourists around, and from a mile away you can see the guy start walking over to you. When they get within 10 feet or so they act really excited to see you saying thing like " AMIGO.... PURA VIDA!!" They then try really hard to get you to give them a high five, handshake or "props." I just keep my hands in my pockets and keep walking, but they keep trying to give you a high five. Its so bad that is is amazing.
3. French Guy
Its kind of weird living in San Jose, because most of the time people think we are tourists, but after being here for so long its funny how you see the same people all the time. In our first week here we were walking downtown and this guy came up to us and asked us if we speak french, and we said a little, but then he started speaking english. Anyways, he had this whole story about how he lost his passport and he needs 5 bucks to get to the french embassy to replace his passport. Now it is obvious that this guy is scamming, but over the time we've been here we have seen him pulling the same scam sooo many times, and he has approached us a bunch more times now, and usually when he asks us if we speak english we say no. However, the funniest part is that where he is always scamming is about 3 blocks from the french embassy. Its pretty rediculous.
-more to come
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