Dos De Mayo, Bootleg Movies

Bill Maher Quotes I Randomly Wrote Down In September 2006

 

"I know many of my Republican friends got very excited when all this talk started recently about adding three new planets to our solar system because what could be better in all of life than having three new things to name after Reagan?"

 

"Pluto's out, Pluto's in. You let planets swing both ways like that, next thing you know, people are marrying their pets."

 

(Is his show on HBO still on?)

 

Dos de Mayo

 

Dos de Mayo.  The lesser known of Mexican national holidays celebrated by their white conquerors.  Actually, it's just the way the dates worked out since Cinco de Mayo fell on a Monday and my friends could only come the Friday before.

 

Jen and Kate came down from Guider and environs as part of Jen's farewell tour of the north, she COSs at the end of the month, and Harvard popped in from nearby Ngong.  On the menu: tortillas, meat, beans for Harvard because he's a veggie, guacamole, and lots of fake cheese.  With some bottles of beer, a better menu at a PCVs house cannot be found.

 

Tasks were doled out, and after much discussion, the job of making tortillas was forced onto Harvard, who decided that he would make flat bread instead.  Whatever.  As long as I'm not making enough tortillas for four people.  Harvard fit the "human tornado" nickname that Kate has given him.  I found dough and flour in places in the kitchen the next day where only dirt and bugs live.

 

The fake cheese was the best part of the meal.  Jen, who has received nearly 50 huge packages during her two years here, shared some of her booty and brought some jalapeño cheese dip, which coupled with half a bar of Velveeta that I'd been hoarding, created joy in food items that none us would have eaten a couple years ago.

 

Bootleg Movies

 

Bootleg movies are the best.  Sure, they hurt the small-time directors and actors like Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise who can't cash in completely on DVD markets in poor countries, but as a customer, who can resist such a deal!

 

"Bootleg" in Cameroon really isn't bootleg at all, it's normal.  It's not like these guys selling the movies and music videos are hiding in a back alley.  They have their tables set up on main thoroughfares, streets, and in markets in all the major cities across the country.  (The only bootleg guys in Lagdo come on the Saturday market day and usually just have music videos of poor quality.)  This contrasts greatly from Spain, where African immigrants sold bootleg CDs and movies on blankets, so when the fuzz came, they could pack up and aller fast.  I'll give some examples of what's available on the "black" market.

 

Since Cameroon is a bilingual country and also in close proximity to Nigeria, PCVs here benefit from a good selection of English-language bootlegs, especially those PCVs in the Anglophone part of the country. Apparently, PCVs in the North-West and South-West (and I guess if you're in Yaoundé, too) can pretty much get anything they want, TV shows and movies released since we've been gone, in English.  A volunteer in my province came back from a trip in Limbé, which is Anglophone, with 18-in-1 and 24-in-1 discs.  (The discs have English and Chinese subtitles, so I'm convinced the Chinese will somehow use their control of worldwide movie piracy distribution as a facet in their plan to conquer the world by 2100.)

 

Up here in the North, there is a guy in Garoua in the grand marché, let's call him Raul because that's his real and funny name, who has a movie boutique.  He has the usual stuff that Cameroonians love, kung fu, Jean Claude Van Damme, Bruce Lee, etc., but he also has a collection of English-language DVDs, five-in-one.  These five-in-ones, which only cost 2000 cfa ($4), have some gems on them and are usually organized by actor or theme.  Of the several I bought, one was a Clint Eastwood special with the first two Dirty Harry movies and some obscure shit 80s movies that he directed.  (I don't know what he started doing, but given the crappiness of a couple of those 80s movies, it's remarkable he was even allowed to make Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby.)  Another disc has all three Karate Kid movies, Sidekicks (Chuck Norris), and Kung Pow!: Enter The Fist.  Other discs PCVs have bought: all three Indiana Jones movies; mutant animal movies, including King Kong, Jurassic Park, Congo, and Lake Placid. 

 

I'm about the fifth volunteer in our province to visit Raul, and we've pretty much bought him out.  Right now, he has sent out his "deuxieme" (second in command) to Nigeria, where all stolen goods go to be resold on the black market, to find and bring back more English-language stuff for us, promising 24, Prison Break, and The Unit, as well as whatever movies he can find.

 

As you can see, the quality of the movie or TV show is hit or miss (The Unit?), but how can you pass it up?  It's like a mixtape but movies instead of songs.  It also shows how much downtime PCVs have.  It's really going to suck paying $15 for one movie again in the States.

 

The 18-in-1:  Includes the three Rush Hour movies; the five Harry Potters; the three Walking Tall movies (This is hilarious: it includes the remake with the Rock and two sequels starring Kevin Sorbo, TV's Hercules.); some kung fu stuff; Ocean's 13; Bug; and The Reaping.  (Rush Hour 3 and Harry Potter 5 were just videotaped from the theatre, always a possibility with the bootlegs.)

 

The 24-in-1:  Spider-Man 3; Blood Diamond; Firewall; In The Line Of Fire; Vacancy 1 and 2 (They made a second one.  Wait, they made a first one?); My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which actually was entertaining; a couple Van Damme's and Seagal's; all three Ocean's 11s, and some Mark Wahlberg movie called Shooter.  (Now that I've seen The Departed, I think about why Mark Wahlberg isn't as good in any other movie, the exception being Boogie Nights.  He obviously has the potential to take it up a notch past Shooter.  "That would make us c***s.  Do we look like c***s to you?"  If he can deliver gems like that when he feels like it, we need to get him reading better scripts or put him in more Martin Scorsese movies sporting bad haircuts.)