Check out a few days in the Quito life.

- REMPTION -

                                              HEAVY BUTT TOUCHING

     If you like to rub butts amongst other parts of your body then the trollies here are where you need to be. There’s nothing like squeezing together with 2 elderly woman and 1 elderly man and have that topsy turvy ride turn into a slow dance at your high school. Personally I hate the trollies here. It always smells like the stray dogs you find in every corner and you also have to hold your belongings like Frodo with the ring and everyone on that bus is Gollum. Not only are the bus the drivers who Ill assume are drunk 23 hours of the day slams there brakes at every stop causing babies, old people, or guys with too much gel in their hair to collide into you. But the plus side is you can take it from one side of the city to another for a quarter. I guess you get what you pay for.

Yes i got arrested although it wasn’t the tough kind.

So there we were, just a couple of men doing what men do best…refusing  to go home and pretend there is something better to do when there isn’t. Evan and i continue to lie to ourselves and say that we can find something going on tonight (we both knew we couldn’t).

We stand at a fork in the road, one leading to possible fun excitement and treasure who knows, and the other leads to an immigration bus and really mean cops oh ya also a soon to be friend (Andy) who I meet on that rolling prison. So being myself and having the best luck known to human beings I choose the bus. I do an awkward dance between the two- unsure and unaware of what’s to come.  But eventually and I guess inevitably I choose route B.

As I make my way down the B route Evan (cameraman) and I are stopped by a wall of police officers, at first only looking at Evan and I thought to myself “ ya you’re camouflaged Ryan your golden.”  I was golden until I opened my mouth assuming no one spoke English, “couple tough guys eh.” Now I’m still not 100% sure if they spoke English but after Evan showed him his copy of his passport all eyes were on me. All I could do was lift my eyebrows and do a weird smile. I knew I didn’t have my papers but pretended to look anyways thinking they might get bored and leave. Eyes still on me, we try to explain to them my papers are at my apartment and it would take a second if they wanted to follow us.

After trying to negotiate for a few minutes, they gesture me to follow them. And what do I do …I follow them. Evan tagged along just to see what was happening. At this point we’re walking down the strip and approach the most depressing bus I’ve ever laid my eyes upon. You know when you go to a pet shop and there’s a few puppies who have no newspaper to lay on and they have their dried food in their water and it looks really gross and they just stare at you as if they are saying “I want to die” ….well picture that with people through the windows of a bus…So I thought to myself “the hell I’m getting on that sad thing.”

There we stand in front of the doors.  One of the police officers calls over the head honcho of the whole operation.  At this point get the song from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in your head….okay this man slowly walks off the bus as if he wanted me to sweat…the whole way staring into my soul with those eyes made up of only pupils. The man didn’t blink and he smelled like aftershave and cigarette’s (a man’s scent). As he approached us everyone shook his hand. He began to talk to Evan and before I knew it he was talking to me…I had to get that song out of my head. He pointed at me and then into the bus and proceeded to make a sign with his hands like handcuffs.

Now at this point Evan had already negotiated a deal that if he was back in 30 minutes with my papers they would let me go. After I was told that I was relaxed I walked in that bus like it was taking me to prom.  Although this was no prom party bus… oh no…as I glided in that thing every kind of race was on it and the whole lot of them stared at me…I could see there was a tight group of friends in the back so I stayed in the middle when Head Honcho yelled at me to go to the back. So I was obviously excited to do so… so that I could get stabbed in the neck.  A little more on my toes, I still had those words in my head: You have 30 minutes. We lived so close it would take 10 tops so there I sit with my new friends awaiting my Freedom until I feel the engine start….Now at this point I might have peed my pants just a tiny, tiny bit like it wasn’t even a big deal and my hands clammed up and I could see my “friends” getting angry.

So being that my Spanish is still not great I did the universal arms up shrug thing to the guard who threw back a shoulder shrug without an expression on his face. I noticed one of the creepy guys hanging next to me was on his phone yelling something fierce at the person on the other end and I couldn’t help but feel it was directed at me. But given the situation I asked if I could use his phone when he made a noise kind of like pshhhsshflredas. I took it as a no and began to look around for other phones and nicer looking people…we made our rounds picking up different people when I saw a guy who resembled the big guy off of Blood Diamond who helps Leonardo  through the thing.  He was speaking in okay English and was on his phone.  He hung up and I asked him if I could use it and at first I got the cold shoulder which was better than spit in my face but I attempted to try again. The second time he asked for the number and dialed it for me…SUCCESS…I called Evan and explained where I was…Next thing I knew I was talking to Andy about his family and how the police threw his papers away…I gave him Evan’s number and told him to call if he needed help with anything and we’d do what we could.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Freddie and Evan running through traffic splitting up looking into buses. When Evan got to mine Honcho was hanging in front of it harassing some cute blonde girl who had her papers and was getting more and more mad. Evan showed them my passport but was told to make a copy, so he ran to the end of the block. My shrug friend waved me to the front as I said see ya to Andy and after some more unnecessary talking Honcho man waved me out. Freedom was mine and we celebrated by meeting our English friends Sara and Alice at a place called Dragonfly where I celebrated with a chair kick…..

p.s. i’ll put up what i filmed of it soon

-REMPTION-   p.s.s my friend Neal at San Luis Art supply is awesome and has everything you could want and more at his shop right…man that guy is so cool….you guys should go buy things from him and become freinds on the inter web or in life. 1120 Morro St
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

http://www.sanluisartsupply.com/

(805) 787-0348

Like yourselves I’ll assume, I myself am on a quest. Although not just any sort of quest. I’m sure you’re asking yourselves: Ryan, what kind of quest is this you speak of ? And I would simply answer, the greatest quest since Atreyu’s and Falcor’s (The Never Ending Story for those of you who don’t know anything about classic masterpieces). Unlike certain quests some of you guys and girls are performing, or simply making miracles happen. Examples: delivering babies, putting out fires, or teaching our youth of tomorrow. Noble indeed, but not nearly as important as mine. I am on the hunt for a heavy metal band called VOMITORIUM! As we do most nights, the crew lurked the filthy streets of Quito for something exciting, or for Evan (camera/cinematic/videographer/supervisor/manager ) and I, somewhere we probably shouldn’t be. Anyways we ended up in this place called Canelazo…(I could be spelling that wrong and that might not even be what it was called) where you get two for one of these deceiving devil’s juices “Caneolazos”. When I took a drink of what I thought was just warm tea ended up being in my opinion gasoline mixed with rubbing alcohol.

Back to the quest- we ended up sitting with these two girls, one from Connecticut (Andrea), who by serious discussion by Evan and I resembled the girl from Ferris Bueller’s Day off. The other was her friend (Fernanda) and she was from Quito. After the almost mandatory small talk- Where you from? What are you doing here? How long you here for? We got to the good stuff and found out that Fernanda’s boo was in the band Vomitorium. This is something that is tagged everywhere in Quito and we just couldn’t find out what it was, until those very seconds those beautiful words spilled out of her lips. Just like the party bus IT was ON. I was told the last show they played was under a bridge and my heart stopped for maybe two seconds and shortly after realizing I was not dead I was ready to climb down some bridges…So I would like to invite all four to six of you reading this to be a part of my quest and let’s find VOMITORIUM.

-REMPTION-

But there they were Freddie, Laurene, and Evan the filmer. As we got more acquainted in the taxi back to the apartment we made small conversation as I just looked in aw as I new I already loved the city, because it looked like the after effects of Armageddon. I was shown the apartment and we went out to buy knives!

Being something I would have done anywhere I was pumped to get my blade. We walked in the store and within 15 seconds I found my baby. Black with a little silver button that flipped that blade open as if it were happy to see me. After I bought Jasmine we went back to the apartment to get ready ato go out. Freddie and Evan ran into some guys saying they were putting on an art show. So they threw that idea at us and I was in. So off to No Lugar (no place) we went. We caught a taxi which by the way drives 87 miles an hour through tiny narrow streets honking at everything. Another mile an hour and we would have ended up in 1955 playing Johnny Be Good at our parents’ Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

We were walked through a small set of stairs leading into a small alley way….I held onto Jasmine pretty tight. The alley way lead to an amazing view of the city light up like thousands of gold coins spilled and sparkling. To the left of the alley was an open door which had posters that had porn covers painted on in a different aspect….Although the art was pretty good I think that little Colombian artist was just perving as he drew it all. We went back out to the deck area and mingled with the locals. Well Freddie and Evan did; I just stood there pretending I knew why they were laughing. After about an hour we decided to take off and go get some food.

As we headed back to where we lived – Santa Clara – I started to get tired until I read a sign that read pizza and a coke $1.50. As we ate our pizza Evan began to give me a rundown about these party buses you can rent out basically to just show off and drive through the city. We finished our food and left walking aimlessly through the town. My mind was still on this damn party bus and wouldn’t you know it here one comes blasting awful music and people shouting. I could only stare because I was in shock. My dream for the night was about to come true, well I thought so at least. We crossed the street and before anyone said anything I ranced (ran danced) after the bus as it stopped on the side of the road. I stared at the “security” guard with confidence and a huge smile making gestures to let me on.

Then BOOM I was on and IT was also on. I looked back just to see if anyone else wanted to share my excitement when I see Evan with a big smile running after the bus. The bus stopped but I sure didn’t. Like I said it was on I just danced in the middle of everyone. As Evan climbed on so did Freddie and Laurene. Not thinking and not meaning to, I danced on some girl who turned out to be a fairly large man’s lady. Still filled with euphoria I was Johnny noodle legging that entire bus up and down until I felt a bear claw on my shoulder. Smiling I looked back – at the moment I thought it was Satan – but ended up just being the girl’s boyfriend. Yelling at me in Spanish I couldn’t help but laugh because of the situation. Satan didn’t like this and pushed me. As Evan began to reach for the camera, Bear’s girlfriend and a few others began to kick us all out. We turned around in defeat until Evan saw a girl he met the previous day and she was pumped and invited us all back on. But the damage was done and Satan bear was not having it.

Although that night was a lost battle the war of the party bus has just been declared by yours truly. And if Bear satan is on again he better be prepared for some Johnny noodle legs. -REMPTION-

Dear people of internet, Hello my name is Ryan Preciado and I was told to write an introduction about myself. I Like long walks on the beach, ice tea, smooth jazz and fireplaces. My spirit animal is a sabertooth tiger and I am a Sagatarius.

I think you should know up front I will most likely be the dumpster fire of the show, and here’s why. Although I have a deceiving appearance I in fact do not speak any Spanish. Also unlike Everyone else on this cast I’ve never been on an airplane much less out of the country. Another reason is everything that could go wrong has, as far as getting my passport expidited , losing my birth certifacate and driving to LA to get it, forgetting about two tickets I have to pay off, having problems with my car right before I am selling it, and currently my ankle resembles a really bruised mango. So things seem to be going awesome.

I leave to Quito in what should be a week. Lets see if I can make that happen.