Translator: Virginia Dal Lake Reviewer: Sebastian Betti
“Start with something strong, with something that sticks”,
The guys who organize told me.
I never spoke in public and I said:
“Something strong? What do I do? Do I put myself in balls?”
(Laughter)
Bah, I do not know, how do they see it?
(Laughter)
OK, I understood.
But look if I die!
Now, huh? It gives me a stage panic attack and, pff !, I’ll keep it.
They imagine the scandal.
Showing death is of worse taste than showing the parts.
Okay, we have it assumed, we talk about it naturally,
we can even fuck with that,
but while it is something that is there, that someday, something hypothetical.
When he walks around, things change.
We walk on tiptoe, we speak in whispers,
we get serious, serious,
or directly we become the jerks and look for another side:
“It’s going to be all right, you’re going to see.”
Right there, when it comes to us and we have to face it,
right there, death becomes a taboo.
That’s what I came to talk about. Not the taboo of putting on balls, pity,
but about … you know, pff!
And in what quality? Thanatologist I am not. Nor do I have a funeral home.
My contact with death is on this side of the counter,
as a simple user. I’m a widower.
I am the widower of María Vázquez. If they do not know it, they can search for it.
Do not be confused, they will find a re top, re linda, that is very good.
But then there’s the other María Vázquez,
I was a model. Not that one. The one that I said first.
A mine that gained notoriety, precisely,
for his daring to have an immodest death.
A couple of years ago Marie,
in perfect health, healthy life, running, I was training for the marathon,
recent mother, a baby of two, and from one day to the other:
Cancer. Fulminant.
How is a situation like this handled?
How it works out You’re not prepared. There is no manual.
I tell you how it came out to us. Marie, just wakes up from anesthesia
The first thing she does, as they did not let her talk, she writes:
“Tell me everything”. “All” underlined twice.
I told him: “They opened you, it was just cancer,
they removed tumor, ovaries, uterus, endometrium, everything,
they closed you, and you go to chemo. “
And in that fatal hour, facing his cruel destiny,
newly opened and emptied inside, what did he answer?
“Now I’m hollow.”
(Laughter)
It was the kind of mine that in such a situation made you a joke.
That’s why I, a couple of days later, when it was time to talk,
I told him: “Marie, this is like that, you’re going to die, the hand comes that you die.”
One. There was no better way to tell her.
And the conversation that came there, tremendous,
not so much for her or for me as for Nippur, our son …
To finish, I said: “Look, when
be bigger and understand and see him suffer, I know what I’m going to do.
I say, son, I know that this is very hard, now, but trust Dad;
in a few years,
with the little orphan’s chamullo, you’re going to be so big, son. “
(Laughter)
(Applause)
I was listening to all of me,
and he had to grab his belly so that he does not miss the points of laughter.
I did not have to appeal to existential depths,
to be at his height, I had to think jokes.
It became a pattern; because from there it was a succession of bad news,
that always came to me first,
and in the act a wall was raised between the two,
that put us in parallel universes:
I here, in the one of the alive ones, she there, in the one of the “morituri”.
Suddenly we were two strangers. The horror.
But it lasted until he put the cards on the table,
and there that dark, unnamable threat came down to be our new reality,
Let’s see, how we piloted it.
And speaking, that wall began to wobble and creak,
and when it finally arrived, the joke ended up throwing him down.
Because it was not to relax.
Humor was his way of reaffirming himself. To say: “Here I am, eh?
I’m still the turra that always shit with the laughter of everything,
even of myself, I’m still me. “
And in the laughter we were already, again, together.
So it was that at home something that one of the “soldadas” began to reign
– the welders are Marie’s friends,
a dozen great assholes who were there,
(Laughter)
firm as rocks – one of them, Kit, baptized this practice. I call her:
“black tumor”.
The “black tumor” at home was full.
We did not leave, Marie did not leave a macabre joke without doing. It was his thing.
And so, by dint of “black tumor” and, as she said: “emotion, love and gilada”,
He gave us a gift – and I talked to everyone who was there,
and we all felt the same – he gave us a farewell party.
It was not something else.
Until the end, huh? Until the wake. That the soldadas organized it with her!
I saw them, together, putting together the Spotify list,
putting a picture of her in a bikini in an animal print photo frame
so that it was above the drawer.
But it looked like they were putting together a birthday, the boludas, not a funeral.
(Laughter)
It was seven months of surrealism,
in a climate of joda that generated it,
and that the rest of us had to take turns to go out for a while,
cry like sons of bitches, dry our tears,
and go back to laughing with her.
It was like this. And do you know?
Nothing too surprising, for those of us who knew her. We did not expect anything else.
What we could not foresee is that, to all this, Marie was a tweeter
– nobody is perfect –
(Laughter)
He already had thousands of followers when he got sick, and then he continued as he came.
Only now between his subjects were the disease and death.
Her illness. His death.
He spoke of them as he spoke of everything: impious, biting,
zero regret, zero victimization, a pure “black tumor”.
And that went viral, and viralized, and ended up creating such a stir
That took her to the top of the newspapers and to the TV!
So, in addition to all the surrealism that we were already living,
now on fame! This is fuck! It was everything!
What else can happen?
What else can happen …
(Laughter)
Marie, who spent her life writing and drawing, loved it,
during those seven months his masterpiece was completed. Our treasure
To leave something to the baby, he wrote, he drew a notebook.
That having it in your hand, nothing more, already part, because you know what it is,
but inside is the funniest, funniest, most loving, full of life.
Such a beautiful thing, so grosa, it came out, that six months later,
at the initiative of a couple of the soldadas who are writers, with Marie’s endorsement,
they moved it in editorials and it was published by Planeta: “Nippur’s notebook”.
For me it was a joy, to think that one day Nippur will be able to say
that his notebook, that time was also a book. How cute no?
It sold out in a week! Best seller!
Again cover newspapers. Again the TV.
They walked me through all the channels. They called me from all the radios.
And the second one was sold out, and the third one goes through the fourth edition.
He just left in Spain. Now he’s going out in Mexico, Central and North America,
and all this is already a delirium that I do not understand anything else.
But I love it. For Nippur.
Because as I always say: since he’s going to be an orphan,
that is an orphan of a legendary mother.
And it is, because this daughter of a bitch, in her agony,
instead of going off like a candle, it exploded. Like a supernova.
It shone like never before.
By doing what exactly? What was your feat, to see?
He saw death coming, he shit on his legs like anybody,
but it came out to squeeze what was left, to the maximum,
being herself. Point.
Why does something in the background so simple end up generating so much quilombo?
Because in her case, being herself, involved shitting herself in solemnity and breaking the taboo.
And that is not done.
It’s not the only one. There are people who come to me and tell me similar cases.
But the vast majority expresses amazement, admiration.
“I did not know someone could die like that!” They tell me.
The decorum, avoid the issue, become the jerks, that’s the norm.
And if you allow me a little theory that I have,
It is not so much a matter of denial as a communication problem.
So boludos we are not, we realize what happens. What it costs is talking.
I understand, huh? You feel the envoy of the Grim Reaper. It is fucked up.
But with her attitude, she left you with no other choice.
And thank goodness, eh! Good thing, because it served.
Of consolation? I’d love to say yes,
It’s a consolation, but I’d be lying to you.
This is crap
Marie is missing it to Nippur, Nippur is missing Marie,
that’s a dagger stuck in here. Consuelo is not there.
But the harshness, having closed the door to the comforting falsehoods
He opened it to truths that we would not have told ourselves.
Marie died in peace.
Marie died feeling re surrounded by love.
Marie died immensely sad that she was going to lose him to Nippur,
but much more than that happy that he had it first. In time, before!
And she died convinced that Nippur and I are going to know how to get ahead,
We are going to do things well.
And how do I know all that? Because he told me!
Do you know what it is worth now?
The notebook itself! I now have to instill the kid
that the infinite love of the mother does not expire with death. It transcends
He has to accompany him throughout his life. It’s forever.
The insurmountable tool that he left me to fulfill that mission
I would not have existed!
If we had played what was going to come out well, I would not have written it.
And what he left to me,
that I saw her suffer horrors, that I saw her die.
I did not have that left. Because he went through it from end to end
without stopping to laugh. What will I have left but laughter?
Laughter does not take anything away from the pain, huh?
On the contrary: it adds up. It adds a dimension, puts it in perspective.
It reminds you that you are not so important. That your tragedy is not the only or the worst,
and that never ceases to be comedy too.
When the phantom of self-pity stalks me – poor thing, the widower! –
the echo of Marie’s laughter puts two steaks and puts me in my place.
“Stupid, you’re alive, what do you complain?”
I hear it. When the other brat, the very son of his mother someone says:
“Oh, how nice baby, tell me, and your mom?”
“My mom died.
(Laughter)
Yes, he died. Do you have a candy? “
(Laughter)
Literally…
(Applause)
I literally hear the mother’s laughter.
When things like, like …
Sebastian? In TED?
They laugh out of the grave! What if.
However here I am, I accepted the challenge, because I feel
spokesman for his teaching, his message.
What … what would it be in the end?
Let’s take advantage of her tweeting,
and let her be herself with her own words to tell us.
Let’s ask: Marie, what did you want to tell us?
What would you like to have taught us, Marie?
[María Marie: I would prefer not to teach them a cock
and keep living, but thanks for all the love.]
(Laughter)
(Applause)
I beg your pardon. I tried to get serious, but with this mine you can not.
(Laughter)
Same, sign the foot, huh? Let’s be clear: I did not come here to teach anything.
Not even there that I intend to come to tell you how you have to die.
Please. All of you, all of you, be damned if you sing them, huh?
Yes? I came to say that.
That when it touches them, if they want,
You can die doing what the hell you sing them.
It can. I’m witness.
I wish it were not.
I wish I did not have this story to tell; but I have it
And how they brought me, and you listened to me, I told you.
And now Nippur is going to have a mom
a little more legendary.
What more can I say? Thank you.
(Applause)
“Start with something strong, with something that sticks”,
The guys who organize told me.
I never spoke in public and I said:
“Something strong? What do I do? Do I put myself in balls?”
(Laughter)
Bah, I do not know, how do they see it?
(Laughter)
OK, I understood.
But look if I die!
Now, huh? It gives me a stage panic attack and, pff !, I’ll keep it.
They imagine the scandal.
Showing death is of worse taste than showing the parts.
Okay, we have it assumed, we talk about it naturally,
we can even fuck with that,
but while it is something that is there, that someday, something hypothetical.
When he walks around, things change.
We walk on tiptoe, we speak in whispers,
we get serious, serious,
or directly we become the jerks and look for another side:
“It’s going to be all right, you’re going to see.”
Right there, when it comes to us and we have to face it,
right there, death becomes a taboo.
That’s what I came to talk about. Not the taboo of putting on balls, pity,
but about … you know, pff!
And in what quality? Thanatologist I am not. Nor do I have a funeral home.
My contact with death is on this side of the counter,
as a simple user. I’m a widower.
I am the widower of María Vázquez. If they do not know it, they can search for it.
Do not be confused, they will find a re top, re linda, that is very good.
But then there’s the other María Vázquez,
I was a model. Not that one. The one that I said first.
A mine that gained notoriety, precisely,
for his daring to have an immodest death.
A couple of years ago Marie,
in perfect health, healthy life, running, I was training for the marathon,
recent mother, a baby of two, and from one day to the other:
Cancer. Fulminant.
How is a situation like this handled?
How it works out You’re not prepared. There is no manual.
I tell you how it came out to us. Marie, just wakes up from anesthesia
The first thing she does, as they did not let her talk, she writes:
“Tell me everything”. “All” underlined twice.
I told him: “They opened you, it was just cancer,
they removed tumor, ovaries, uterus, endometrium, everything,
they closed you, and you go to chemo. “
And in that fatal hour, facing his cruel destiny,
newly opened and emptied inside, what did he answer?
“Now I’m hollow.”
(Laughter)
It was the kind of mine that in such a situation made you a joke.
That’s why I, a couple of days later, when it was time to talk,
I told him: “Marie, this is like that, you’re going to die, the hand comes that you die.”
One. There was no better way to tell her.
And the conversation that came there, tremendous,
not so much for her or for me as for Nippur, our son …
To finish, I said: “Look, when
be bigger and understand and see him suffer, I know what I’m going to do.
I say, son, I know that this is very hard, now, but trust Dad;
in a few years,
with the little orphan’s chamullo, you’re going to be so big, son. “
(Laughter)
(Applause)
I was listening to all of me,
and he had to grab his belly so that he does not miss the points of laughter.
I did not have to appeal to existential depths,
to be at his height, I had to think jokes.
It became a pattern; because from there it was a succession of bad news,
that always came to me first,
and in the act a wall was raised between the two,
that put us in parallel universes:
I here, in the one of the alive ones, she there, in the one of the “morituri”.
Suddenly we were two strangers. The horror.
But it lasted until he put the cards on the table,
and there that dark, unnamable threat came down to be our new reality,
Let’s see, how we piloted it.
And speaking, that wall began to wobble and creak,
and when it finally arrived, the joke ended up throwing him down.
Because it was not to relax.
Humor was his way of reaffirming himself. To say: “Here I am, eh?
I’m still the turra that always shit with the laughter of everything,
even of myself, I’m still me. “
And in the laughter we were already, again, together.
So it was that at home something that one of the “soldadas” began to reign
– the welders are Marie’s friends,
a dozen great assholes who were there,
(Laughter)
firm as rocks – one of them, Kit, baptized this practice. I call her:
“black tumor”.
The “black tumor” at home was full.
We did not leave, Marie did not leave a macabre joke without doing. It was his thing.
And so, by dint of “black tumor” and, as she said: “emotion, love and gilada”,
He gave us a gift – and I talked to everyone who was there,
and we all felt the same – he gave us a farewell party.
It was not something else.
Until the end, huh? Until the wake. That the soldadas organized it with her!
I saw them, together, putting together the Spotify list,
putting a picture of her in a bikini in an animal print photo frame
so that it was above the drawer.
But it looked like they were putting together a birthday, the boludas, not a funeral.
(Laughter)
It was seven months of surrealism,
in a climate of joda that generated it,
and that the rest of us had to take turns to go out for a while,
cry like sons of bitches, dry our tears,
and go back to laughing with her.
It was like this. And do you know?
Nothing too surprising, for those of us who knew her. We did not expect anything else.
What we could not foresee is that, to all this, Marie was a tweeter
– nobody is perfect –
(Laughter)
He already had thousands of followers when he got sick, and then he continued as he came.
Only now between his subjects were the disease and death.
Her illness. His death.
He spoke of them as he spoke of everything: impious, biting,
zero regret, zero victimization, a pure “black tumor”.
And that went viral, and viralized, and ended up creating such a stir
That took her to the top of the newspapers and to the TV!
So, in addition to all the surrealism that we were already living,
now on fame! This is fuck! It was everything!
What else can happen?
What else can happen …
(Laughter)
Marie, who spent her life writing and drawing, loved it,
during those seven months his masterpiece was completed. Our treasure
To leave something to the baby, he wrote, he drew a notebook.
That having it in your hand, nothing more, already part, because you know what it is,
but inside is the funniest, funniest, most loving, full of life.
Such a beautiful thing, so grosa, it came out, that six months later,
at the initiative of a couple of the soldadas who are writers, with Marie’s endorsement,
they moved it in editorials and it was published by Planeta: “Nippur’s notebook”.
For me it was a joy, to think that one day Nippur will be able to say
that his notebook, that time was also a book. How cute no?
It sold out in a week! Best seller!
Again cover newspapers. Again the TV.
They walked me through all the channels. They called me from all the radios.
And the second one was sold out, and the third one goes through the fourth edition.
He just left in Spain. Now he’s going out in Mexico, Central and North America,
and all this is already a delirium that I do not understand anything else.
But I love it. For Nippur.
Because as I always say: since he’s going to be an orphan,
that is an orphan of a legendary mother.
And it is, because this daughter of a bitch, in her agony,
instead of going off like a candle, it exploded. Like a supernova.
It shone like never before.
By doing what exactly? What was your feat, to see?
He saw death coming, he shit on his legs like anybody,
but it came out to squeeze what was left, to the maximum,
being herself. Point.
Why does something in the background so simple end up generating so much quilombo?
Because in her case, being herself, involved shitting herself in solemnity and breaking the taboo.
And that is not done.
It’s not the only one. There are people who come to me and tell me similar cases.
But the vast majority expresses amazement, admiration.
“I did not know someone could die like that!” They tell me.
The decorum, avoid the issue, become the jerks, that’s the norm.
And if you allow me a little theory that I have,
It is not so much a matter of denial as a communication problem.
So boludos we are not, we realize what happens. What it costs is talking.
I understand, huh? You feel the envoy of the Grim Reaper. It is fucked up.
But with her attitude, she left you with no other choice.
And thank goodness, eh! Good thing, because it served.
Of consolation? I’d love to say yes,
It’s a consolation, but I’d be lying to you.
This is crap
Marie is missing it to Nippur, Nippur is missing Marie,
that’s a dagger stuck in here. Consuelo is not there.
But the harshness, having closed the door to the comforting falsehoods
He opened it to truths that we would not have told ourselves.
Marie died in peace.
Marie died feeling re surrounded by love.
Marie died immensely sad that she was going to lose him to Nippur,
but much more than that happy that he had it first. In time, before!
And she died convinced that Nippur and I are going to know how to get ahead,
We are going to do things well.
And how do I know all that? Because he told me!
Do you know what it is worth now?
The notebook itself! I now have to instill the kid
that the infinite love of the mother does not expire with death. It transcends
He has to accompany him throughout his life. It’s forever.
The insurmountable tool that he left me to fulfill that mission
I would not have existed!
If we had played what was going to come out well, I would not have written it.
And what he left to me,
that I saw her suffer horrors, that I saw her die.
I did not have that left. Because he went through it from end to end
without stopping to laugh. What will I have left but laughter?
Laughter does not take anything away from the pain, huh?
On the contrary: it adds up. It adds a dimension, puts it in perspective.
It reminds you that you are not so important. That your tragedy is not the only or the worst,
and that never ceases to be comedy too.
When the phantom of self-pity stalks me – poor thing, the widower! –
the echo of Marie’s laughter puts two steaks and puts me in my place.
“Stupid, you’re alive, what do you complain?”
I hear it. When the other brat, the very son of his mother someone says:
“Oh, how nice baby, tell me, and your mom?”
“My mom died.
(Laughter)
Yes, he died. Do you have a candy? “
(Laughter)
Literally…
(Applause)
I literally hear the mother’s laughter.
When things like, like …
Sebastian? In TED?
They laugh out of the grave! What if.
However here I am, I accepted the challenge, because I feel
spokesman for his teaching, his message.
What … what would it be in the end?
Let’s take advantage of her tweeting,
and let her be herself with her own words to tell us.
Let’s ask: Marie, what did you want to tell us?
What would you like to have taught us, Marie?
[María Marie: I would prefer not to teach them a cock
and keep living, but thanks for all the love.]
(Laughter)
(Applause)
I beg your pardon. I tried to get serious, but with this mine you can not.
(Laughter)
Same, sign the foot, huh? Let’s be clear: I did not come here to teach anything.
Not even there that I intend to come to tell you how you have to die.
Please. All of you, all of you, be damned if you sing them, huh?
Yes? I came to say that.
That when it touches them, if they want,
You can die doing what the hell you sing them.
It can. I’m witness.
I wish it were not.
I wish I did not have this story to tell; but I have it
And how they brought me, and you listened to me, I told you.
And now Nippur is going to have a mom
a little more legendary.
What more can I say? Thank you.
(Applause)
Please follow and like us: