This week on 4 from the South, Steve and Fab talk about a developing immigration crisis at the border with Mexico, the industrial complex of salmon farming in Chile, relevant news from 24,000 years ago and Clint Eastwood's new Latinx movie.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hey, we're back. It's Steve Healey. This is four from
the South, my podcast with my good friend for Britzio
Capono for Britzio. How you doing. But I'm good man,
and I'm really happy to be back in this. This
podcast is really like the melting pot of podcasts, you know,
it's a melting I don't know of another podcast that's
doing the work we're trying to do of introducing the
(00:38):
Anglo sphere to the Latino sphere. Right, Yeah. I listen
a lot of podcasts and not when you're talking about
these stories. This is the only way to learn. This
is the only way to get the stories of big
Latin America. And we have four very good ones today.
I think we're going to talk about the border patrol
horse issue that was a big story this week. We're
(01:00):
going to talk about um salmon farming in Chile. Fab
We're gonna go to your homeland and you're gonna walk
us through the salmon industry, so hold on for that.
There's been some developments there. We're gonna talk about something
the news today that week that in the news this
week was ancient history from twenty four thousand years ago,
(01:23):
and we're going to talk about that a little bit,
and then we're going to talk about We're gonna save
dessert for very last. We're gonna talk about a Latin
a film that's blending the Anglo and Latino worlds. The
movie is called Cri Macho and the director, believe it
or not, is nine one years old and his name
is Mr Clint Eastwood. Yeah, the Latin X clan is
(01:45):
with movie. So this is one of the biggest stories
in the United States this week. It had to do
with the border at Del Rio, Texas. Of course, the
Texas border is something like a thousand miles and below
it is Mexico and at the board or a lot
of Haitian migrants have started to arrive. In the sources
(02:05):
that I read, a lot of these people were working
on the World Cup in Rio. They were involved in
construction crews and stuff, and now they've been let go
from that project, or they're fleeing the ongoing chaos in Haiti,
which we've covered. They make their way through some really
remote parts of Latin America. They're crossing through the Darien Gap,
which roadless area between Panama and Columbia, which was once
(02:28):
you know, very few people had accounts of traveling through there,
and now apparently it's a regular pathway from migrants and
then they arrive at the border in Texas where they
await an opportunity to plead their case for asylum. And
this has gotten pretty out of hand, and the US
Border patrol um has had some guys riding around on horseback.
(02:50):
So fab you you're kind of a casual observer of
this news. What did you hear about this story? Did
you see a picture? You probably saw a picture of
a guy on a horse, like smashing Haitian guy with
what looked like a whip. And the optics, as they say,
we're not good because this looked like something that could
have happened in like the year eighteen forty, a white
guy on a horse with it's really shocking, especially like well,
(03:13):
and we're gonna add deep Dimond, this the horse, you know,
like using that as a part of the technology of
the time. It's it's just like it looks so like
colonialism in his maximum expression is right there in that picture.
That was really the problem here. The horse, the historical
resonance of a guy on a horse smashing down a
(03:36):
guy not on a horse. The distinction of the horseman,
the night and the peasant. I think this one goes
way back into our Western imagination, probably before there were
even horses in North America. And then you know the
people that there were planes Indians who adopted this Spanish horse.
But really like the guy on the horses usually better
(03:56):
off than the guy not on the horse, and the
horsemen oppressing the on horsemen is a theme in our
history and we don't love it. But still I thought
this I thought the story was a little crazy because
the White House responded to the hullabaloo that. I mean,
they got the message that this wasn't a good look
for them, and they responded. And maybe we can play
(04:18):
a bit of the audio here. This is the White
House Press Secretary Jen Saki. I can also convey to
you that the Secretary also conveyed to civil rights leaders
earlier this morning that we would no longer be using
horses in Del Rio. So that is something a policy
change that has been made in response. So okay, fab
(04:39):
the solution here is just no more horses. I mean,
it feels like the government decided to blame the horses.
You know, they're like, you know what, these crazy horses
are doing this horrible thing at the border. Uh, we
shouldn't trust horses to do human labor anymore. Um Now,
I feel like it's it's it's it's just like I
(05:01):
know that graphically and the I can that the thing
that we're talking about, like the picture is horrible, but
it's more horrible because it's just like an inhuman way
of treating immigrants. Not because if they are in horses.
I mean, the horses make you work. But if they
were in a chevy or I don't know, in a yeah,
(05:22):
it will still be horrible. If they were on a
se Yeah, in the top of a panther, still bad. Well,
I thought I thought this story like there's so many
levels to it that I think there's a reason why
I captured the imagination. And one is that the sort
of white house like it's a double crime to use
(05:44):
a horse in a oppression. That's bad both because you're
on a horse and it's not quite fair, but also
because now you're using a horse to do something bad.
You've got you've made a horse evil. Yeah, and then
there's the creatures are beautiful and and hind uh and
now yeah, it's like you remember like you guys watch
(06:06):
The Sorrow. Yeah, oh yeah, Zoro, uh yeah, and he
cuts Katherin cine to Jones's clothes and they fall off
and then it's just her sexy underwear. That that guy
was a jerk like he was. He was colonism in
(06:28):
a maximum supression. He was just like a guy from
Spain pretending to be a hero and you know, like
going against Mexican people most of the time that his enemies. So,
I mean, we have to revisit The Sorrow because he
was like actually being kind of a dick, to be honest.
(06:48):
You know, that's interesting. I haven't thought about Zoro in
a while. And Zoro was like as a character, he
had a long run like Zoro was back in the
radio days, I think, and there were novels and probably
fifty or sixty years and been in our lifetime. They
were making a big budget Zoro movie. I haven't heard
of Zoro in probably ten years. Nobody's mentioned him, nobody
wants to reboot him. So maybe it's because it's a
(07:09):
little yeah, so you think. So he's a Spanish rich
guy basically oppressing other Latinos and he's got a horse
which is always and he's got a we all know
that that's the red flag here, but horrible, horrible news story,
and and and and by the way, this is insane,
Like a lot of people probably don't think this, but
he's like the same way that the US is have
(07:31):
a mass of course with immigration, every countryline America is
also struggling with immigration in their own for their own reasons.
You know, every country Lane America is like, we don't
one more people. So chill is happening like it's happening
in Chilia this week in Ike at the north, the
attack a group of immigrants, most of them from Venezuela,
(07:52):
that they arrived to work and you know, dry have
a better life, and then they were attacked by the
mob that burned their their their stuff, you know, like
the little camps they have. This was sort of like
Chile's equivalent of this photo. Was some guys burning the
the very meager possessions of some migrants. And I've been
(08:16):
to a kik fab I'm sure you have as well.
It didn't it seemed like it had had a hard
time that town. They've been a tsunami, right, or a flood,
some kind of natural disaster had washed the place away
and it was rebuilding but at the same at the
same time, in my mind, it felt like the north
of Chile was more open to immigration because they kind
of like more Peruvian and believiing that they are child like,
(08:40):
it's just a mess. It's just like and it's great
that way, and I felt like there will be more
more open to immigrants. And then no, not really, they
really they were really really angry. Well, just one last
thing before we move on the horses. I did think
it was funny that the White House, like, you know,
she said she met with civil rights groups and they
weren't going to use horse is anymore. And I thought like,
(09:01):
if it were if it came out that the civil
rights groups she met with were horse civil rights groups
and had nothing to do, and it was just like, hey, man,
our horses deserve better than this, and the migrants are
still beneath the level of horses. That would be a
true scandal, and it's possible that's what happened. In right now,
it's like it's all about this impossible meats people. There's
(09:26):
a lot of people and they're going they're trying to
go where it's good, and the people who are already
there are struggling in its tense and it's happening all
over the world, and um, we'll keep an eye on it.
(09:51):
I want to move us on to a more cheery
story because we don't generally like to be bad news podcast.
You know, there's a lot of good news going on
in UH Central and South America as well, and I've
got a good one here, fab This is about Chile's well,
you know what, I tell you what. I'll read you
the first few sentences of the article and then you'll
(10:11):
you'll just know what the article is about. So here's
the first sentence in. Alexis Sanchez, a Chilean footballer, scored
the decisive penalty in the Copa America final against fourteen
times winner Argentina, ending Chile's one hundred year dry spell
in the tournament. Do you remember that? That must have
(10:32):
been an incredible day. I remember that day, and I
remember like we went out on the streets to celebrate.
It was just like a barty on every street of Santiago.
Everyone was so happy, you know, we because we were
not that good as sucker, and we did it, did it.
And Messi was in Argentina and he had like he
(10:53):
started crying, so making messy cry, made a messy cry,
made a mess real. That's that's the real award here. Well, anyway,
that was all a set up in this article in
the Economists, Uh September, it's they've they've got Alexei Sanchez
to be the new spokesman for Chilean salmon fishing. It
(11:15):
turns out he's the face of a campaign launched by
pro chile Um in collaboration with Salmon Chile and industry
body that supports the Chilean salmon industry. So you guys
grow a lot of salmon down there in Chile, it
turns out, yeah, yeah, but I mean, as far as
I remember, we're not doing in a very hygiene equ way,
(11:38):
like they're really yeah. I mean, it's it's like when
you see these farms and you're like, oh, that farm
is discussing and all the chicken the wearing is coming
from there. Now you're gonna learn that all the salmon
that you're eating. It's also like in that kind of
um environment. Yes, well, you know, Chile is very similar
in a sort of place, even though it's on the
(12:00):
U s A hemisphere of the Earth. It's similar in
latitude and kind of style of shape and a lot
of fiords and stuff to Norway, right, And in Norway
they grow a lot of salmon, and on the salmon
up there. In Norway they use um almost no antibiotics
per ton of salmon, and in Chile per ton of
salmon they use at us five grounds they are these
(12:24):
are just they're just pouring chlorox basically on the salmon,
and that of course leads to algae blooms in the
ocean and all kinds of disasters. Keeps the salmon coming,
keeps your salmon flowing, but it has a cost. But
at the same time, you eat one of those salmons
and you're never gonna get sick, you know. Well, but
(12:44):
this was a good news story, uh fab because it
sounds like um Chile is really working on cleaning up
at salmon industry. The under pinot Chet they didn't care
about the environment. This parked the thought in me. You know,
like dictators, among other things, they're bad for the ironman.
Well we Willsonaro. Well he's not technically agitator, but like
(13:05):
he loves those guys and he he hates the environment.
It's part of like the narrative like they you know,
you hate everything and makes sense. So but like that
could be another argument if we need new arguments against
dictators or like to get the millennials so they don't
want to have dictators. He'd be like, hey man, these
guys are really bad for like organic living and all
(13:27):
that kind of stuff. It's proven Democrats at the same
time also using horses so well, so you're damned if
you damned if you don't. But the good news to
take away here is that Chile has decided to work
on improving it's salmon, and that is awesome. I think
we can all be excited about that. Well, you're cleaning
(13:48):
it by not cleaning it as chemically as he used to, apparently,
and I just wanted to congratulate you and your countrymen
on that. I think it's an awesome move. I don't
like eating salmon. I think fish is kind of It's
just not my favorite food to eat. But next time
I'm offered a Chilean salmon, I'm gonna take it. You
know what I was thinking. I was thinking the other
day about like how we were just talking about like
this impossible meals and like all this quote unquote fake meat.
(14:12):
There they're doing. They haven't get to fish. No, no,
the fake fish. There's no fake fish. There's no fish
made of uh. I don't know what's the name of this,
soy you know there's no like the fake fish is
not there yet. No, because I think more people are
okay with eating fish. I think because the fish like
(14:35):
a fish. There's never been in case of a human
and a fish being friends the way there has like
a pig or a chicken or a cow, so you
can always like fish is definitely something else. So I
think a lot more people are comfortable eating it than
are comfortable eating what do you think it's going to
be the last the last fake meat they're gonna do?
Like what you think when when they get to octopus?
(14:55):
Maybe when they get to like I don't know, yeah,
but then it's like people love eating octopus that much
that they want to eat fake octopus. I mean, it
would seem really affectation if you insisted on the flavor
of octopus meat but not octopus. I don't know. It's
an open question for an audience if they were like,
what's going to be the last meat to be faked? Yeah?
(15:18):
Hit us up at four from the South on Gmail
or four from the South on Twitter, if you have
any thoughts on what will be the last fake meat.
I have a pitch right now that maybe we'll get
to a place where, like, um, mushrooms, we decide they're
kind of like intelligent, and we won't eat mushrooms, and
then we have to make Yeah, but they're going to
be made of plants. And then at last we'll discover that. Yeah,
(15:39):
then we'll figure out that we can't eat those, and
then we'll just eat cardboard, and then we'll go to hell.
(15:59):
Let's moved to the next story. Let's move to the
next story. This is another good one. I thought difficult
to interpret this one. It's in a way it's not news,
although it was in the news this week, but they
discovered fab some fossilized human footprints in the White Sands
National Park in New Mexico. New Mexico, of course, well
(16:21):
New Mexico and Old Mexico both covered under the broad
umbrella of this podcast. They're both in a big Latin America.
But at White Sands uh a unique geology down there
in New Mexico, and all kinds of things get preserved
and fossilized, and they found some human footprints. They knew
that there were fossilized human footprints there. However, they finally
(16:41):
took a look at these footprints and they found that
there were some seeds pressed into them, and so the
seeds allowed them to date how old these footprints were.
Don't ask me about the science of dating the seeds
or whether the how they knew that the seeds were
under Just trust me. These guys have been working on it.
They're thinking about it. They dated the seeds and they
concluded that these footprints were about twenty one to twenty
(17:04):
four thousand years ago, which is kind of a shock
because that's maybe double what we thought was the date
for the arrival of people into North and South America.
Obviously there were there have been people in North and
South America for a long time. We don't know how
long they prevailing. Based on arrowheads and stuff. They sort
(17:24):
of thought it must have been twelve thirteen thousand years ago.
That was kind of the leading theory, and then boom,
these guys take some seeds out of some footprints and
people have been here for at least twice that time.
So what do we do with that? How they how
they came here these like ng at time. Yeah, I
mean I think that a lot of the dating depended on, like,
(17:45):
you know, when the glaciers had receded and um, because
they think that people sort of walked across from Alaska
and Siberia in different times of ice age and geological
formation and ocean level may have been like you could
just walk right across us. But to me, I'm like,
a boat is not that hard to think of, you know,
like these people could have thought of simple genies. Yeah,
(18:07):
I think even the twenty four thousand years ago people
could have floated here on some logs, or come on
a boat, or just kind of swam or moved along
the tideline. Who knows, you know, I don't know. I mean,
it's it's so crazy that to think that these people
just like keep walking, you know, like, yeah, it's just
like you, you start something and we don't have that
in mind anymore. You like, Okay, we've finished this thing,
(18:28):
We're gonna just keep walking. Well, I mean, I guess
isn't not exactly what the patient people that ended up
at the border ran into with the horses. I mean,
maybe this is a story about history repeating itself. Walking. Yeah, yeah,
as you're done, move on. Yeah, maybe it is rude
of us even to stay here. Those of us have
(18:49):
been the United States for a long time, Like, Okay,
you've had a good time here, and time to move
on and let some other people come in for a
while and we'll go over somewhere else. And I don't know,
Yeah that sounds like a the anything to do, but
it's never gonna happen. At the same time, when the
thing is interesting about this is like, okay, so uh,
we're talking now that it was even before like the
(19:10):
the they used to think. So American has been around
in a way for so many many more years and
Latin American Lain American generals. So why Columbus still an
important figure? Like he was not not even discover anything.
He was not you know why why he's still around us?
(19:31):
He was nobody at the end of the day. If
we think about how many people were here before, it's
like a guy bringing the first guy to bring a
message from one place to another. I guess that's kind
of significant. But like everybody was hanging out in their
relative place for a long long time, having civilization. He
was just the for it was like it's like when
somebody introduces you to uh, to your girlfriend or something,
(19:51):
and they may not be that important in your life,
but whatever, it was at Marco's party that I met
or so we gotta talk about him. He's gonna give
a toast. Yeah, that's basically I think Columbus is deal. Yeah. Yeah,
he was just there to introduce the world to the
other side of the world. But he was just it's
more on that we all hate in a way. Yeah,
(20:13):
there's you won't find anybody who's really sticking up for
Columbus these days. Maybe Mel Gibson, that's about it. Yeah,
that's about it, you're right, Or maybe Clinton is Wood
Clint Eastwood, Well that's a beautiful transition, fab because I
happen to know. And I've been saving this because I'm
dying to hear your review. You I don't know if
you love the films of Clint Eastwood or what, but
(20:34):
you couldn't wait to see Cry Macho, his latest movie,
and you're here with a review. I mean, first of all,
I want to say that I like Clint Eatwood, okay,
and I think he I love that working. Yes, he's
still working. It's not a bad thing, you know, Like
old people working and doing good. We should encourage them. Yes,
(20:58):
we should encourage people to play do whatever they want.
They don't want to, you know, but in this case,
clearly he want to keep going. The problem is like, um,
it's it's like, at some point in your life, probably
your brain think that you're a certain age that's still old,
but you look like way way older. So very much
(21:18):
you have a lot of problems, have a lot of
problems in it, But the biggest one it's that he
looks super super old and he's acting like he was
maybe his sixties. So there's a lot of women trying
to seduce him. Just a lot of times he's gonna
get into fist fights that people get scared of him
into a fist fight that in real life none of
(21:41):
those things will happen. Um, but let's go back to
the premise of the movie. Crime Macho is about this
really old cowboy that you know, he has a he's
this guy owned him a favor. So he he's telling me, like,
(22:02):
I need my son that he's at the other side
of the border. He's in Mexico City, and I need
you to bring him here to the US because he's
he was his mother, and his mother's crazy. Okay, so somebody,
somebody asked ninety year old Clanswood to do him a favor. Yes, yes,
why is that? Why is he the best guy to ask?
Because he's a real cowboy. He asked that, Like the
(22:27):
guy is like why why me? You know why? This
kid from Mexico City is gonna like look to an
old white man and be like, yeah, I go with you.
So hes because you're the best, and that he's the best.
That's enough for me certainly. Yeah. So he crossed the border,
and there's a lot of things that are complicated about
(22:49):
this because he he crossed the border. Visible the border,
it's it's really like, I don't know, it doesn't feel
like a like a real border, you know. It feels
more of like, I don't know, it's like one guy
waiting for you to say, like, hey, let's go go.
You know. It's not like they didn't film at the
real border. They didn't have a thousand extras waiting there
(23:11):
as you would see at the actual border. They just
sort of on a some some promote stretch of highway.
They just set up a little set to look like
the border, and they did it include these guys. It's
in Texas. So they crossed the border in Texas and
there's people in the line to cross the border, waiting
to go to the beach. Okay, okay, there's like this
(23:34):
car with like hot women crossing to Mexico, going to
like to loom and they are already in there, ready
to go to the water. That the water there got
it like twenty hours away from the border. It's really
it's like in the Yucatan, right, it's not next to
it's so far the map of this movie doesn't make
(23:54):
any sense. And then it is the other way. Clean
is on his way to Mexico City. Well, when when
you get to Mexico City, it's like, I don't know,
it's like a little town and we'll know them. It's
a huge city. Mexico City is like twenty million people,
one of the biggest cities in the world. Parts of
it looks like Paris, parts of it look like Calcutta.
(24:16):
It's just absolutely incredible megalopolis. But you're telling me that
in the movie they just shot like some shocks. It's
like a village. And he goes straight to the house
of this woman that the mother of the kid and
he's like, I'm here to take the kid, and the
woman is like another one. You know how many they
(24:36):
have sent And you can tell in the energy of
the scene that this was like one take scene, a
classic one take cleaning with seen. According to many people,
he just make one shot and he's like, okay, we're
done for the day. Um. So then he's like, I'm
gonna find him. I'm gonna find anyways, and the woman
is like, well, he's always in trouble, you know, you know,
(24:58):
he's always in trouble. He's probably in a cock fight
right now. The Mexican boy, he's at a cock fight,
of course. So then he go to the first cock
fight that he found and the kids is right there.
With the first cock fight, he felt like, how do
you even find a cock fight? There's their cockfight, you know,
(25:19):
racing form of yelp. Wait, like found them on yelp?
Not really, So then he felt a cock fight and
the first one, I mean it's Mexico City we just
talk is a huge, massive metropolitan city. Now now he
just like found the kid in a minute. Um. Right
(25:39):
In the next scene, the cup, the cup shows up.
This is one of my favorite parts. The cup shows
up and everyone escape, but not Clint. He's hide behind boxes, okay,
and then they couldn't find him. All the rest of
the people have to like run, they're fleeing the cock fight.
(26:00):
Clint just hides behind some boxes. The cops don't look
for him. Yeah, that's that's a cut. Put it in
the camp once again. It's like, I think the problem
is like in his mind, he's like a superhero, you know,
he can do anything. But I mean he struggled, like,
you know, get down to hide from the cops. He's
(26:23):
really old, right now, that's part of the problem. Then
we have a lot of problems with this kid who
is aggressive and like, I mean, the whole movie make
you feel like Mexicans are just super aggressive and unpredictive
little people and they can you know, everyone is in
a cop fight, right This is a movie that a
(26:45):
superhuman n year old cowboy dealing with the craziness of
Mexico exactly films. And then he tried, he tried to
get into a fishfag with this kid. He's a thirteen
year old kid. He can destroy Clanes with if you
want it. He can just push him and he will
(27:06):
fall and he will probably break four or five bones.
So the whole, the whole prim is that they're going
to fight, going to be a fistfight between this dude.
It's just absurd. And if the kids is so dangerous,
he will carry a gun. But he's a lot of
things in this movie are just not realistic. So for
the people who listen to Four from the South, just
(27:28):
to tell you, don't watch Cry Macho as a legit
way to understand what's going on in Mexico. I don't
think it's an accurate picture. I feel like you have
completely failed in your mission because the next movie I'm
gonna watch is gonna be Cry Macho. I cannot wait
to see it. You've made it sound so entertaining. And
(27:50):
by the way, just to stick the side of you, imagine,
do you know. Sometimes I think people ask like how
do these movies get made or whatever, But imagine the
world that surrounds Clean East, with the people that are
making the movie, the producers on down to like the
grips and the pas and stuff like, Okay, Clinton, you
want to make a movie. Yes, I want to make
a movie. You're a huge, bankable star. We've seen you
direct many movies before, I see there's Mexico City in
(28:12):
the script. Are you're gonna go to Mexico City? No, No,
We'll just do a couple of houses. That's amazing, Thank you.
And you're not like a perfectionist, right. One take will
be good. One take will be so good, it'll be fine.
We'll be wrapping up everyone. Everyone involved in the movie
is happy. They're pleased the movie comes out. You're happy.
I'm gonna watch it. I'm gonna be happy. This is
just he's bringing joy into the world, and I think
(28:34):
we deserve to give him some credit here. This is
the industry working. This is exactly what Hollywood is about.
This a bad movie with a good energy. Get it
done and have a cleanest wood ninety one years old
being seduced by Lentina woman. That's beautiful. Well, it's always
(28:56):
a beautiful energy. Here with you, fab on our podcast
for from the South. Head us up on Twitter for
from the South. You can find us or at gmail
for from the South, and we'd love to hear from
you and hear your stories from Greater Latin America. Goodbye, audios,
Thank you guys. Bye. Four from the South is hosted
by me Steve Healey and Fabrizio Capano. Robert O'Shaughnessy is
(29:18):
our producer. Original theme song by Amy Stolsenbach. Four from
the South is a production of Exile Content Studio in
partnership with I Heart Radios Michael Tour podcast Network. For
more podcasts from my Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite ships.
Hey, we're back. It's Steve Healey. This is four from
the South, my podcast with my good friend for Britzio
Capono for Britzio. How you doing. But I'm good man,
and I'm really happy to be back in this. This
podcast is really like the melting pot of podcasts, you know,
it's a melting I don't know of another podcast that's
doing the work we're trying to do of introducing the
(00:38):
Anglo sphere to the Latino sphere. Right, Yeah. I listen
a lot of podcasts and not when you're talking about
these stories. This is the only way to learn. This
is the only way to get the stories of big
Latin America. And we have four very good ones today.
I think we're going to talk about the border patrol
horse issue that was a big story this week. We're
(01:00):
going to talk about um salmon farming in Chile. Fab
We're gonna go to your homeland and you're gonna walk
us through the salmon industry, so hold on for that.
There's been some developments there. We're gonna talk about something
the news today that week that in the news this
week was ancient history from twenty four thousand years ago,
(01:23):
and we're going to talk about that a little bit,
and then we're going to talk about We're gonna save
dessert for very last. We're gonna talk about a Latin
a film that's blending the Anglo and Latino worlds. The
movie is called Cri Macho and the director, believe it
or not, is nine one years old and his name
is Mr Clint Eastwood. Yeah, the Latin X clan is
(01:45):
with movie. So this is one of the biggest stories
in the United States this week. It had to do
with the border at Del Rio, Texas. Of course, the
Texas border is something like a thousand miles and below
it is Mexico and at the board or a lot
of Haitian migrants have started to arrive. In the sources
(02:05):
that I read, a lot of these people were working
on the World Cup in Rio. They were involved in
construction crews and stuff, and now they've been let go
from that project, or they're fleeing the ongoing chaos in Haiti,
which we've covered. They make their way through some really
remote parts of Latin America. They're crossing through the Darien Gap,
which roadless area between Panama and Columbia, which was once
(02:28):
you know, very few people had accounts of traveling through there,
and now apparently it's a regular pathway from migrants and
then they arrive at the border in Texas where they
await an opportunity to plead their case for asylum. And
this has gotten pretty out of hand, and the US
Border patrol um has had some guys riding around on horseback.
(02:50):
So fab you you're kind of a casual observer of
this news. What did you hear about this story? Did
you see a picture? You probably saw a picture of
a guy on a horse, like smashing Haitian guy with
what looked like a whip. And the optics, as they say,
we're not good because this looked like something that could
have happened in like the year eighteen forty, a white
guy on a horse with it's really shocking, especially like well,
(03:13):
and we're gonna add deep Dimond, this the horse, you know,
like using that as a part of the technology of
the time. It's it's just like it looks so like
colonialism in his maximum expression is right there in that picture.
That was really the problem here. The horse, the historical
resonance of a guy on a horse smashing down a
(03:36):
guy not on a horse. The distinction of the horseman,
the night and the peasant. I think this one goes
way back into our Western imagination, probably before there were
even horses in North America. And then you know the
people that there were planes Indians who adopted this Spanish horse.
But really like the guy on the horses usually better
(03:56):
off than the guy not on the horse, and the
horsemen oppressing the on horsemen is a theme in our
history and we don't love it. But still I thought
this I thought the story was a little crazy because
the White House responded to the hullabaloo that. I mean,
they got the message that this wasn't a good look
for them, and they responded. And maybe we can play
(04:18):
a bit of the audio here. This is the White
House Press Secretary Jen Saki. I can also convey to
you that the Secretary also conveyed to civil rights leaders
earlier this morning that we would no longer be using
horses in Del Rio. So that is something a policy
change that has been made in response. So okay, fab
(04:39):
the solution here is just no more horses. I mean,
it feels like the government decided to blame the horses.
You know, they're like, you know what, these crazy horses
are doing this horrible thing at the border. Uh, we
shouldn't trust horses to do human labor anymore. Um Now,
I feel like it's it's it's it's just like I
(05:01):
know that graphically and the I can that the thing
that we're talking about, like the picture is horrible, but
it's more horrible because it's just like an inhuman way
of treating immigrants. Not because if they are in horses.
I mean, the horses make you work. But if they
were in a chevy or I don't know, in a yeah,
(05:22):
it will still be horrible. If they were on a
se Yeah, in the top of a panther, still bad. Well,
I thought I thought this story like there's so many
levels to it that I think there's a reason why
I captured the imagination. And one is that the sort
of white house like it's a double crime to use
(05:44):
a horse in a oppression. That's bad both because you're
on a horse and it's not quite fair, but also
because now you're using a horse to do something bad.
You've got you've made a horse evil. Yeah, and then
there's the creatures are beautiful and and hind uh and
now yeah, it's like you remember like you guys watch
(06:06):
The Sorrow. Yeah, oh yeah, Zoro, uh yeah, and he
cuts Katherin cine to Jones's clothes and they fall off
and then it's just her sexy underwear. That that guy
was a jerk like he was. He was colonism in
(06:28):
a maximum supression. He was just like a guy from
Spain pretending to be a hero and you know, like
going against Mexican people most of the time that his enemies. So,
I mean, we have to revisit The Sorrow because he
was like actually being kind of a dick, to be honest.
(06:48):
You know, that's interesting. I haven't thought about Zoro in
a while. And Zoro was like as a character, he
had a long run like Zoro was back in the
radio days, I think, and there were novels and probably
fifty or sixty years and been in our lifetime. They
were making a big budget Zoro movie. I haven't heard
of Zoro in probably ten years. Nobody's mentioned him, nobody
wants to reboot him. So maybe it's because it's a
(07:09):
little yeah, so you think. So he's a Spanish rich
guy basically oppressing other Latinos and he's got a horse
which is always and he's got a we all know
that that's the red flag here, but horrible, horrible news story,
and and and and by the way, this is insane,
Like a lot of people probably don't think this, but
he's like the same way that the US is have
(07:31):
a mass of course with immigration, every countryline America is
also struggling with immigration in their own for their own reasons.
You know, every country Lane America is like, we don't
one more people. So chill is happening like it's happening
in Chilia this week in Ike at the north, the
attack a group of immigrants, most of them from Venezuela,
(07:52):
that they arrived to work and you know, dry have
a better life, and then they were attacked by the
mob that burned their their their stuff, you know, like
the little camps they have. This was sort of like
Chile's equivalent of this photo. Was some guys burning the
the very meager possessions of some migrants. And I've been
(08:16):
to a kik fab I'm sure you have as well.
It didn't it seemed like it had had a hard
time that town. They've been a tsunami, right, or a flood,
some kind of natural disaster had washed the place away
and it was rebuilding but at the same at the
same time, in my mind, it felt like the north
of Chile was more open to immigration because they kind
of like more Peruvian and believiing that they are child like,
(08:40):
it's just a mess. It's just like and it's great
that way, and I felt like there will be more
more open to immigrants. And then no, not really, they
really they were really really angry. Well, just one last
thing before we move on the horses. I did think
it was funny that the White House, like, you know,
she said she met with civil rights groups and they
weren't going to use horse is anymore. And I thought like,
(09:01):
if it were if it came out that the civil
rights groups she met with were horse civil rights groups
and had nothing to do, and it was just like, hey, man,
our horses deserve better than this, and the migrants are
still beneath the level of horses. That would be a
true scandal, and it's possible that's what happened. In right now,
it's like it's all about this impossible meats people. There's
(09:26):
a lot of people and they're going they're trying to
go where it's good, and the people who are already
there are struggling in its tense and it's happening all
over the world, and um, we'll keep an eye on it.
(09:51):
I want to move us on to a more cheery
story because we don't generally like to be bad news podcast.
You know, there's a lot of good news going on
in UH Central and South America as well, and I've
got a good one here, fab This is about Chile's well,
you know what, I tell you what. I'll read you
the first few sentences of the article and then you'll
(10:11):
you'll just know what the article is about. So here's
the first sentence in. Alexis Sanchez, a Chilean footballer, scored
the decisive penalty in the Copa America final against fourteen
times winner Argentina, ending Chile's one hundred year dry spell
in the tournament. Do you remember that? That must have
(10:32):
been an incredible day. I remember that day, and I
remember like we went out on the streets to celebrate.
It was just like a barty on every street of Santiago.
Everyone was so happy, you know, we because we were
not that good as sucker, and we did it, did it.
And Messi was in Argentina and he had like he
(10:53):
started crying, so making messy cry, made a messy cry,
made a mess real. That's that's the real award here. Well, anyway,
that was all a set up in this article in
the Economists, Uh September, it's they've they've got Alexei Sanchez
to be the new spokesman for Chilean salmon fishing. It
(11:15):
turns out he's the face of a campaign launched by
pro chile Um in collaboration with Salmon Chile and industry
body that supports the Chilean salmon industry. So you guys
grow a lot of salmon down there in Chile, it
turns out, yeah, yeah, but I mean, as far as
I remember, we're not doing in a very hygiene equ way,
(11:38):
like they're really yeah. I mean, it's it's like when
you see these farms and you're like, oh, that farm
is discussing and all the chicken the wearing is coming
from there. Now you're gonna learn that all the salmon
that you're eating. It's also like in that kind of
um environment. Yes, well, you know, Chile is very similar
in a sort of place, even though it's on the
(12:00):
U s A hemisphere of the Earth. It's similar in
latitude and kind of style of shape and a lot
of fiords and stuff to Norway, right, And in Norway
they grow a lot of salmon, and on the salmon
up there. In Norway they use um almost no antibiotics
per ton of salmon, and in Chile per ton of
salmon they use at us five grounds they are these
(12:24):
are just they're just pouring chlorox basically on the salmon,
and that of course leads to algae blooms in the
ocean and all kinds of disasters. Keeps the salmon coming,
keeps your salmon flowing, but it has a cost. But
at the same time, you eat one of those salmons
and you're never gonna get sick, you know. Well, but
(12:44):
this was a good news story, uh fab because it
sounds like um Chile is really working on cleaning up
at salmon industry. The under pinot Chet they didn't care
about the environment. This parked the thought in me. You know,
like dictators, among other things, they're bad for the ironman.
Well we Willsonaro. Well he's not technically agitator, but like
(13:05):
he loves those guys and he he hates the environment.
It's part of like the narrative like they you know,
you hate everything and makes sense. So but like that
could be another argument if we need new arguments against
dictators or like to get the millennials so they don't
want to have dictators. He'd be like, hey man, these
guys are really bad for like organic living and all
(13:27):
that kind of stuff. It's proven Democrats at the same
time also using horses so well, so you're damned if
you damned if you don't. But the good news to
take away here is that Chile has decided to work
on improving it's salmon, and that is awesome. I think
we can all be excited about that. Well, you're cleaning
(13:48):
it by not cleaning it as chemically as he used to, apparently,
and I just wanted to congratulate you and your countrymen
on that. I think it's an awesome move. I don't
like eating salmon. I think fish is kind of It's
just not my favorite food to eat. But next time
I'm offered a Chilean salmon, I'm gonna take it. You
know what I was thinking. I was thinking the other
day about like how we were just talking about like
this impossible meals and like all this quote unquote fake meat.
(14:12):
There they're doing. They haven't get to fish. No, no,
the fake fish. There's no fake fish. There's no fish
made of uh. I don't know what's the name of this,
soy you know there's no like the fake fish is
not there yet. No, because I think more people are
okay with eating fish. I think because the fish like
(14:35):
a fish. There's never been in case of a human
and a fish being friends the way there has like
a pig or a chicken or a cow, so you
can always like fish is definitely something else. So I
think a lot more people are comfortable eating it than
are comfortable eating what do you think it's going to
be the last the last fake meat they're gonna do?
Like what you think when when they get to octopus?
(14:55):
Maybe when they get to like I don't know, yeah,
but then it's like people love eating octopus that much
that they want to eat fake octopus. I mean, it
would seem really affectation if you insisted on the flavor
of octopus meat but not octopus. I don't know. It's
an open question for an audience if they were like,
what's going to be the last meat to be faked? Yeah?
(15:18):
Hit us up at four from the South on Gmail
or four from the South on Twitter, if you have
any thoughts on what will be the last fake meat.
I have a pitch right now that maybe we'll get
to a place where, like, um, mushrooms, we decide they're
kind of like intelligent, and we won't eat mushrooms, and
then we have to make Yeah, but they're going to
be made of plants. And then at last we'll discover that. Yeah,
(15:39):
then we'll figure out that we can't eat those, and
then we'll just eat cardboard, and then we'll go to hell.
(15:59):
Let's moved to the next story. Let's move to the
next story. This is another good one. I thought difficult
to interpret this one. It's in a way it's not news,
although it was in the news this week, but they
discovered fab some fossilized human footprints in the White Sands
National Park in New Mexico. New Mexico, of course, well
(16:21):
New Mexico and Old Mexico both covered under the broad
umbrella of this podcast. They're both in a big Latin America.
But at White Sands uh a unique geology down there
in New Mexico, and all kinds of things get preserved
and fossilized, and they found some human footprints. They knew
that there were fossilized human footprints there. However, they finally
(16:41):
took a look at these footprints and they found that
there were some seeds pressed into them, and so the
seeds allowed them to date how old these footprints were.
Don't ask me about the science of dating the seeds
or whether the how they knew that the seeds were
under Just trust me. These guys have been working on it.
They're thinking about it. They dated the seeds and they
concluded that these footprints were about twenty one to twenty
(17:04):
four thousand years ago, which is kind of a shock
because that's maybe double what we thought was the date
for the arrival of people into North and South America.
Obviously there were there have been people in North and
South America for a long time. We don't know how
long they prevailing. Based on arrowheads and stuff. They sort
(17:24):
of thought it must have been twelve thirteen thousand years ago.
That was kind of the leading theory, and then boom,
these guys take some seeds out of some footprints and
people have been here for at least twice that time.
So what do we do with that? How they how
they came here these like ng at time. Yeah, I
mean I think that a lot of the dating depended on, like,
(17:45):
you know, when the glaciers had receded and um, because
they think that people sort of walked across from Alaska
and Siberia in different times of ice age and geological
formation and ocean level may have been like you could
just walk right across us. But to me, I'm like,
a boat is not that hard to think of, you know,
like these people could have thought of simple genies. Yeah,
(18:07):
I think even the twenty four thousand years ago people
could have floated here on some logs, or come on
a boat, or just kind of swam or moved along
the tideline. Who knows, you know, I don't know. I mean,
it's it's so crazy that to think that these people
just like keep walking, you know, like, yeah, it's just
like you, you start something and we don't have that
in mind anymore. You like, Okay, we've finished this thing,
(18:28):
We're gonna just keep walking. Well, I mean, I guess
isn't not exactly what the patient people that ended up
at the border ran into with the horses. I mean,
maybe this is a story about history repeating itself. Walking. Yeah, yeah,
as you're done, move on. Yeah, maybe it is rude
of us even to stay here. Those of us have
(18:49):
been the United States for a long time, Like, Okay,
you've had a good time here, and time to move
on and let some other people come in for a
while and we'll go over somewhere else. And I don't know,
Yeah that sounds like a the anything to do, but
it's never gonna happen. At the same time, when the
thing is interesting about this is like, okay, so uh,
we're talking now that it was even before like the
(19:10):
the they used to think. So American has been around
in a way for so many many more years and
Latin American Lain American generals. So why Columbus still an
important figure? Like he was not not even discover anything.
He was not you know why why he's still around us?
(19:31):
He was nobody at the end of the day. If
we think about how many people were here before, it's
like a guy bringing the first guy to bring a
message from one place to another. I guess that's kind
of significant. But like everybody was hanging out in their
relative place for a long long time, having civilization. He
was just the for it was like it's like when
somebody introduces you to uh, to your girlfriend or something,
(19:51):
and they may not be that important in your life,
but whatever, it was at Marco's party that I met
or so we gotta talk about him. He's gonna give
a toast. Yeah, that's basically I think Columbus is deal. Yeah. Yeah,
he was just there to introduce the world to the
other side of the world. But he was just it's
more on that we all hate in a way. Yeah,
(20:13):
there's you won't find anybody who's really sticking up for
Columbus these days. Maybe Mel Gibson, that's about it. Yeah,
that's about it, you're right, Or maybe Clinton is Wood
Clint Eastwood, Well that's a beautiful transition, fab because I
happen to know. And I've been saving this because I'm
dying to hear your review. You I don't know if
you love the films of Clint Eastwood or what, but
(20:34):
you couldn't wait to see Cry Macho, his latest movie,
and you're here with a review. I mean, first of all,
I want to say that I like Clint Eatwood, okay,
and I think he I love that working. Yes, he's
still working. It's not a bad thing, you know, Like
old people working and doing good. We should encourage them. Yes,
(20:58):
we should encourage people to play do whatever they want.
They don't want to, you know, but in this case,
clearly he want to keep going. The problem is like, um,
it's it's like, at some point in your life, probably
your brain think that you're a certain age that's still old,
but you look like way way older. So very much
(21:18):
you have a lot of problems, have a lot of
problems in it, But the biggest one it's that he
looks super super old and he's acting like he was
maybe his sixties. So there's a lot of women trying
to seduce him. Just a lot of times he's gonna
get into fist fights that people get scared of him
into a fist fight that in real life none of
(21:41):
those things will happen. Um, but let's go back to
the premise of the movie. Crime Macho is about this
really old cowboy that you know, he has a he's
this guy owned him a favor. So he he's telling me, like,
(22:02):
I need my son that he's at the other side
of the border. He's in Mexico City, and I need
you to bring him here to the US because he's
he was his mother, and his mother's crazy. Okay, so somebody,
somebody asked ninety year old Clanswood to do him a favor. Yes, yes,
why is that? Why is he the best guy to ask?
Because he's a real cowboy. He asked that, Like the
(22:27):
guy is like why why me? You know why? This
kid from Mexico City is gonna like look to an
old white man and be like, yeah, I go with you.
So hes because you're the best, and that he's the best.
That's enough for me certainly. Yeah. So he crossed the border,
and there's a lot of things that are complicated about
(22:49):
this because he he crossed the border. Visible the border,
it's it's really like, I don't know, it doesn't feel
like a like a real border, you know. It feels
more of like, I don't know, it's like one guy
waiting for you to say, like, hey, let's go go.
You know. It's not like they didn't film at the
real border. They didn't have a thousand extras waiting there
(23:11):
as you would see at the actual border. They just
sort of on a some some promote stretch of highway.
They just set up a little set to look like
the border, and they did it include these guys. It's
in Texas. So they crossed the border in Texas and
there's people in the line to cross the border, waiting
to go to the beach. Okay, okay, there's like this
(23:34):
car with like hot women crossing to Mexico, going to
like to loom and they are already in there, ready
to go to the water. That the water there got
it like twenty hours away from the border. It's really
it's like in the Yucatan, right, it's not next to
it's so far the map of this movie doesn't make
(23:54):
any sense. And then it is the other way. Clean
is on his way to Mexico City. Well, when when
you get to Mexico City, it's like, I don't know,
it's like a little town and we'll know them. It's
a huge city. Mexico City is like twenty million people,
one of the biggest cities in the world. Parts of
it looks like Paris, parts of it look like Calcutta.
(24:16):
It's just absolutely incredible megalopolis. But you're telling me that
in the movie they just shot like some shocks. It's
like a village. And he goes straight to the house
of this woman that the mother of the kid and
he's like, I'm here to take the kid, and the
woman is like another one. You know how many they
(24:36):
have sent And you can tell in the energy of
the scene that this was like one take scene, a
classic one take cleaning with seen. According to many people,
he just make one shot and he's like, okay, we're
done for the day. Um. So then he's like, I'm
gonna find him. I'm gonna find anyways, and the woman
is like, well, he's always in trouble, you know, you know,
(24:58):
he's always in trouble. He's probably in a cock fight
right now. The Mexican boy, he's at a cock fight,
of course. So then he go to the first cock
fight that he found and the kids is right there.
With the first cock fight, he felt like, how do
you even find a cock fight? There's their cockfight, you know,
(25:19):
racing form of yelp. Wait, like found them on yelp?
Not really, So then he felt a cock fight and
the first one, I mean it's Mexico City we just
talk is a huge, massive metropolitan city. Now now he
just like found the kid in a minute. Um. Right
(25:39):
In the next scene, the cup, the cup shows up.
This is one of my favorite parts. The cup shows
up and everyone escape, but not Clint. He's hide behind boxes, okay,
and then they couldn't find him. All the rest of
the people have to like run, they're fleeing the cock fight.
(26:00):
Clint just hides behind some boxes. The cops don't look
for him. Yeah, that's that's a cut. Put it in
the camp once again. It's like, I think the problem
is like in his mind, he's like a superhero, you know,
he can do anything. But I mean he struggled, like,
you know, get down to hide from the cops. He's
(26:23):
really old, right now, that's part of the problem. Then
we have a lot of problems with this kid who
is aggressive and like, I mean, the whole movie make
you feel like Mexicans are just super aggressive and unpredictive
little people and they can you know, everyone is in
a cop fight, right This is a movie that a
(26:45):
superhuman n year old cowboy dealing with the craziness of
Mexico exactly films. And then he tried, he tried to
get into a fishfag with this kid. He's a thirteen
year old kid. He can destroy Clanes with if you
want it. He can just push him and he will
(27:06):
fall and he will probably break four or five bones.
So the whole, the whole prim is that they're going
to fight, going to be a fistfight between this dude.
It's just absurd. And if the kids is so dangerous,
he will carry a gun. But he's a lot of
things in this movie are just not realistic. So for
the people who listen to Four from the South, just
(27:28):
to tell you, don't watch Cry Macho as a legit
way to understand what's going on in Mexico. I don't
think it's an accurate picture. I feel like you have
completely failed in your mission because the next movie I'm
gonna watch is gonna be Cry Macho. I cannot wait
to see it. You've made it sound so entertaining. And
(27:50):
by the way, just to stick the side of you, imagine,
do you know. Sometimes I think people ask like how
do these movies get made or whatever, But imagine the
world that surrounds Clean East, with the people that are
making the movie, the producers on down to like the
grips and the pas and stuff like, Okay, Clinton, you
want to make a movie. Yes, I want to make
a movie. You're a huge, bankable star. We've seen you
direct many movies before, I see there's Mexico City in
(28:12):
the script. Are you're gonna go to Mexico City? No, No,
We'll just do a couple of houses. That's amazing, Thank you.
And you're not like a perfectionist, right. One take will
be good. One take will be so good, it'll be fine.
We'll be wrapping up everyone. Everyone involved in the movie
is happy. They're pleased the movie comes out. You're happy.
I'm gonna watch it. I'm gonna be happy. This is
just he's bringing joy into the world, and I think
(28:34):
we deserve to give him some credit here. This is
the industry working. This is exactly what Hollywood is about.
This a bad movie with a good energy. Get it
done and have a cleanest wood ninety one years old
being seduced by Lentina woman. That's beautiful. Well, it's always
(28:56):
a beautiful energy. Here with you, fab on our podcast
for from the South. Head us up on Twitter for
from the South. You can find us or at gmail
for from the South, and we'd love to hear from
you and hear your stories from Greater Latin America. Goodbye, audios,
Thank you guys. Bye. Four from the South is hosted
by me Steve Healey and Fabrizio Capano. Robert O'Shaughnessy is
(29:18):
our producer. Original theme song by Amy Stolsenbach. Four from
the South is a production of Exile Content Studio in
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