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Also in this section:
The restored tower at Panama Viejo is now open
Sympathy for the Big Bad Wolf: a bus ride to and from Colon

Taking the bus to Colon and back

Sympathy for the Big Bad Wolf
by Eric Jackson

A surprising number of people presume that because this reporter is a gringo, or at least a panagringo, that he naturally owns and drives a car. Don't they all?

Hah! You're dealing with a journalist, operating as a micro-enterprise in the Panamanian economy. I use public transportation like most other people here.

So when the time came to review progress on an old promise of jobs for Colon by essentially the same people who are promising a phenomenal increase in employment with their latest project, this Colon buay headed to the Atlantic side by bus, as he habitually does.

Have things changed? Well, some things have, starting with a 25 percent increase in the fare. It now costs $2.50 to take the bus from Panama to Colon or vice versa.

Ah, but they still have movies on the video screens. Sometimes these flicks are truly awful, pirated versions of the worst things you will see on TV. But sometimes you get independent African-American movies that you won't find elsewhere in Panama, or genuine Hong Kong kung fu chop sockie action, and almost all of the Israeli action thrillers I have ever seen have been on the Colon buses.

I sat down and looked up. Oh, no! Spanish, English and Spanglish reggaeton videos! If you aren't familiar with the genre, don't let the name fool you. This isn't the sort of stuff that Bob Marley and Peter Tosh did. It's Panamanian-Dominican-Puerto Rican-Neoyorquino Hispanic gangsta rap, with all the mosogyny and sadism you'd expect. Some of it was actually good, but I wan't in the mood for this all the way to the other side.

Saved by the conductor! He ejected that disk, and put in a Spanish-language version of Terry Gilliam's "Brothers Grimm."

Then came a cop in green fatigues and black beret --- which desperado were they looking for on this bus? But when another officer, and then half a dozen more, stepped up and looked for seats (one of them sat next to me), I realized that this was the National Police using public transportation to send reinforcements to Colon.

The Brothers Grimm is a fun movie, in whatever language, not a Monty Python comedy but a mostly dramatic twist on old European folklore in something of a similar vein as Monty Python and the Holy Grail was a comedic twist on the King Arthur legend.

But was it a sign of some illness between my ears that this particular movie by this renowned British resident American actor, writer and director would cause my mind to twist another work by an equally renowned British artist who works in different media? So be it. The thought that kept occurring to me was an unhealthy desire to hear Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones do "Sympathy for the Big Bad Wolf."

Going into Colon, we passed the site of the new Four Corners bus terminal under construction. Besides being a completely corrupt and offensive conflict of interest in favor of the former Mireyista governor of Colon province --- endorsed by the Torrijos administration in sneering violation of the infamous "zero corruption" pledge  --- it will also be quite consumer unfriendly because getting to downtown Colon will require an additional bus or taxi fare beyond the new station, something that's not now required.

In Rainbow City (Arco Iris, as it is more officially known these days), the El Rey has closed. But in Cristobal a bunch of new stores have been built near the soon-to-be-abandoned bus terminal. There is new stuff in the Free Zone. All in all, Colon looks about as miserablty poor as it ever was. I love this, the city of my birth, but it also sometimes scares the hell out me.

My photographic mission accomplished and the science fiction novels I brought with me delivered to a friend, I boarded the bus back.

This time they were showing a movie upon which I had briefly happened upon watching cable at someone else's house, a flick from which I diverted my attention after a few minutes.

And why would a person who in large part learned to read via comic books tune out a cinematic project in part realized by the legendary Stan Lee?

Because "The Punisher" is pure sadism, a vicious flick that is no less racist about Latin Americans for having a Puerto Rican "hero." Though this opus antedates 9/11, it's in tune with the current hysteria blowing this way from the north. It's a revenge film, one that glorifies torture and mass murder. If they had drive-ins these days, it would be the sort of thing that Sergeant Graner and Private First Class England would want to go out and see.

It was much more interesting to listen to the conversation of the mother and daughter in the seats in front of me. As in the mother starting in with Jamaican-accented English, the daughter responding in Spanish, the mother picking up the conversation in Spanish, and the daughter switching over to Caribbean English.

The ride back was prolonged by a traffic jam near Chilibre, but mercifully it was close to the turnoff to the Madden Dam, so we were able to detour that way and get me back to the capital in time for my next assignment for the day.

But my mind tends to wander when on a bus stuck in traffic, and this time was no exception:

"Please allow me to introduce myself --- awoooooooooo!"

Also in this section:
The restored tower at Panama Viejo is now open
Sympathy for the Big Bad Wolf: a bus ride to and from Colon