In my days of being stationed in Lima, I had a friend whose girlfriend networked with the Lima improvisational comedy community. Every now and then she’d drag us kicking and screaming to one of their shows, which would be invariably terrible.
Now, this girl was problematic anyway. She was of the type that simply didn’t have a sense of humor. I know, because I would say funny stuff all the time and she wouldn’t laugh at it. I knew she was listening, because her face would twitch and her head would tilt towards me as I spoke like a sunflower looking for light. But then she just stared blank faced at me failing to drink from the well of pure comedic genius that rolled off my silver tongue.
I came to realize, that since she didn’t have any natural sense of humor, she’d go to these improvisational comedy shows and then “fake” that she understood humor. She was comfortable there, and when the audience laughed, she laughed, freed from the tyranny of having to make her own decisions on what was or was not funny.
But these comedians were terrible. This was around fifteen years ago, and I think I remember seeing one of the guys as a judge on “Yo Soy,” which is possibly the worst show ever conceived for any kind of network television in any nation on any continent. The improvisational community was clearly getting this girl’s attention not because of their particular talent, but because they were connected to a certain rich class that she wanted to be a part of.
Around 2006, due to some changes in tax laws, B-list recording artists started coming to Lima in order to have one last shot of glory. Actually, most of Lima’s radio stations play music from the 80s in any case, so the nation was ripe for invasion from the likes of Peter Gabriel, Men at Work, Air Supply, and Kiss. A lot of my friends who live in Lima are involved with some big money businesses and, when attending conventions in the states, it’s common that they will book a musician for entertainment purposes. One of my friends in particular works in the mining industry, and he regularly makes a trip to the US so that he can scout groups for these tax-write off kind of industry bashes.
But the musician culture isn’t that big in Lima from my perspective. I remember once going to watch a live band perform, but this was at the behest of somebody’s girlfriend who knew somebody in the band (I can’t remember the details). I usually just went along like this to hold a lighter up in the air and drunkenly cry for “Free Bird,” much to everyone’s outward annoyance (but inwardly I know they all thought it was fantastic).
Hiring live music for high scale events is kind of a natural pairing, and with the excellent hors d’oeuvres that can be obtained in Lima, you’d think the posh music wouldn’t be too far behind (not guys like Pisko—he’s too loud, you need a single person with an acoustic guitar that knows to strum and shut up). So you heard it here, the next time you want to really impress with your event either in South America or back in the States, hire some live entertainment! You don’t want to go with flamenco though if you’re pairing it with eating. All that stomping is bad for the digestion.
