Mr. Al Cries For Madman Nicolas Maduro

There aren’t any good Venezuelan restaurants inside the MDC Brooklyn where Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his lawyer wife, Cilia Flores are locked up. I feel really bad for them. They’re used to the high life. They used to be very cosmopolitan. Now they’re in a place packed with lowlifes.

                Poor Nicolas Maduro. Poor Cilia Flores. I mean where are they going to get a good arepa? Those cornmeal pockets stuffed with meat are to die for. No pabellon criollo-a hearty plate of shredded beef, rice, beans and plantains. No cachapas. Who wouldn’t love those sweet corn pancakes with cheese?

                No more Cuban cigars after a good meal. No ice-cold Polar Pilsen.  

                No trips to exotic Margarita Island. And Aruba is certainly out of the question for the foreseeable future. No new dresses designed by Carolina Herrera for Cilia. Do female inmates even have access to sewing machines in MDC Brooklyn? I doubt it. It’s hard to find a good seamstress in the lockup. Sorry Cilia. No designer perfume for you either.

Do you think the corrections officers serve Cilia pink cosmopolitans at MDC Brooklyn? The ladies on Sex In The City made pink cosmopolitans popular back in the day.

                Venezuela has produced some of history’s most compelling figures. There’s Simon Bolivar, who in the 1800s freed a whole bunch of Latin American republics from Spanish rule. He was of noble character. That’s not you Nicolas. You are definitely not him.

                Bolivar fought for independence for Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia (so named in his honor). No one of sound judgement would use the word honor to describe you, Nicolas, or you Cilia.

                Nicolas you’re also going to miss the playoffs of the Liga Venezolana de Beisbol Professional. Baseball is even bigger in Venezuela than the U.S. Like I say I’m really sorry for Nicolas and Cilia.

                Venezuela has been blessing the United States with great baseball players for many decades now. There have been more Venezuelan players in Major League Baseball than you could ever imagine.

Hall of Fame shortstop Luis Aparicio. Man was he fun to watch. I watched him as a kid. Ozzie Guillen was another great Venezuelan shortstop. They called him “The Wizard of Oz.” Unlike you Nicolas, he truly was great. More recently Miguel Cabrera has made history with the Detroit Tigers and Jose Altuve with the Houston Astros. And I bet every one of them is a better guy than you Nicolas.

                Now Cilia you’re a great mouthpiece for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. You’re good at it, but life for most Venezuelans is no party. I used to know this woman who fled your country Cilia, because life there was so hard. Almost 8 million people have left Venezuela because of the food shortages, lack of medicine, the hyperinflation, the political repression and other problems.              

What follows is kind of a funny story. The Venezuelan lady I knew was a street performer on the Las Vegas Strip. As far as I’m concerned, she was way classier than you Cilia. I had a security job at the outdoor LINQ Promenade. It’s basically an outdoor mall with a bunch of fancy shops and restaurants and a huge observation wheel. The LINQ Promenade is between The LINQ Hotel and the Flamingo.  That was where I met her, on the street. A prettier woman than her, I had never seen.

She was extremely popular with horny male tourists who would pose with her on the wide sidewalk for cell phone photos. Her going rate was $20 a photo. And such was her beauty that she got it. She did quite well. She included her sister in the act. And like a good daughter she sent some of the money back to Venezuela to help family.

                She didn’t wear clothes on her upper body but always looked like she was wearing a bikini top. That’s because her particulars were covered in body paint. She wore Daisy Duke shorts. She and her sister, who was also pretty, wore cowboy hats and cowboy boots. I mean how American is that? She made Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell look puny.

                Personally, I’m glad Venezuela has had so many problems because of you Nicolas. If it didn’t, she never would have ended up on the Las Vegas Strip. I never would have gotten to look at her every day for a year.

                Sometimes she would turn around and playfully wave her finger at me as if calling me a naughty boy when she caught me staring. She had a sense of humor. One blistering summer day I ducked into the Flamingo to get some water. She and her sister were sitting at a table getting a cold refreshment as well. They saw me and waved hello.

                “I don’t recognize you with clothes on ladies.” They laughed. I laughed. You take the laughs wherever you can find them when you’re scraping for a living. I never did learn her name. I was always too embarrassed to ask when I got caught staring, which was basically all the time.

                It’s hard to talk when your tongue is hanging out of your mouth, your heart is pounding and your eyes are popping out of your head.

                To be honest when I think of Venezuela, I’d rather think of her, than you Nicolas or your wife.