Ahhh, the New York Times. Protector of the downtrodden. Champion of the little guy. For years, I’ve been longing for a “day in the life” piece of a typical Venezuelan, and today, finally, they come through. The profile manages to capture the essence of life, the triumph of the human spirit, the noble ordinariness in the life of your average Venezuelan boy.
His name is “Thor.”
His is a heartwarming immigrant story. Our protagonist’s grandfather leaves everything behind for a new life, traveling to Venezuela as “the Norwegian king’s consul,” scrimping and saving for the day that his sons, Thor’s uncle and beloved papi, could date Candice Bergen and seduce the ladies with “his pet lion, Petunia,” respectively. And then fly to Paris on the weekends to fuck French chicks.
Still after all that adversity, our hero manages to make it to the States, where he can live out his dream: a film studio that produces documentaries about the evils of Communism, Women’s Studies classes, and ultimately, “the world’s first anti-environmentalist documentary.”
“What ‘Sideways’ did for pinot noir,” says young Thor, “I want to do for freedom.”
