Dear Hugo:
You know I don’t like writing very much, I prefer to talk, but since everyone seems to be writing letters all around me and you have not appeared again in the form of a bird since I got rid of your friend The Monk, I have decided to write this open letter which I hope you are the only that ever reads it. If my wife finds out about it, she will get really mad, because she keeps telling me to forget about you and start my own dynasty. But while I watched that TV series when I was a bodyguard for the Venezuelan rich and famous in the 80’s, I really don’t want to replace you and start a new anything.
In any case, you know I never wanted to be sitting here in this chair, but you insisted and look at the mess I am in now (Not to mention the country). I knew when you came back from Cuba for that last time, that you were really sick and not functioning well, when you told me that you had decided to name me your successor. While you dismissed my objections, I should have known your illness was getting to your brain. And for once in these fifteen years I was right, and you were wrong: The military does not like me because I am not one of them, the communists hate me, Godgiven thinks you should have picked him, the Garibaldis hate my guts because I am uneducated, the Francesitos look down on me and only the civilian jalabolas seem to like me. But they have little power and may not even like me.
So here I am.
But it is really hard to understand why you liked this guy The Monk so much. I still don’t get it. I know, I know, he was your thesis adviser, but like my wife says, you never finished your thesis, so why does it matter at all? While people think I got rid of him because he was disagreeing a lot with the rest of the Cabinet on what to do, the truth is that I don’t hold many Cabinet meetings anyway, they are long, boring and Rafael and your son in law want to talk all the time. I only like them when they are live on TV and they end fast when Jorge’s (the other Jorge) sister says people are turning their TV’s off.
In any case, I got rid of him because he was really boring. He would come to Miraflores unannounced and sit outside my office waiting for me. Most of the time I would sneak out, but he would sit out there for hours waiting to talk with me. Even other Ministers began complaining that they would come see me and while waiting for me, The Monk would bore them to death. And the days I did receive him, he would just blabber and blabber about stuff I don’t understand, like social metabolism and the dimensionality of capitalism. And he would talk for hours. So much so, that I installed a switch so that when I pushed it, the Minister of the Interior would call me and tell me we had a national emergency, like another magnicide attempt. That is why we have had so many press conferences to announce them. I just needed to get away from The Monk.
The problem is that I am not sure what to do now. Everyone gives me advice, I am supposed to make the economic decisions, but what do I know? Rafa says we need to devalue, Jorge (number 3) says no way, inflation will hit 100% and I would be given #lasalida, Meanwhile the Monk’s buddy in Washington seems to agree with Rafa, but says we should keep the price of gas where it is.
The wife says we should do nothing. It has worked for a year, she claims, why not push our luck. But I really don’t know Hugo. I like being President. I can be very funny, talk for hours, just like you, but I don’t seem to scare anyone. And some of those Generals are really scary. I don’t like going to the interior like you. I am a Caracas kid, as you know. So, I stay put, Teresa Carreño is as far as I go.
And the World Soccer Cup has been a bummer. Everyone wants to watch the games with me, but they all go for crummy teams, like Algiers or Bosnia-Streptomagma, the one I can’t even pronounce. I like soccer, I wanted Spain to win, now I want Gremany, but apparently this is not politically correct, I am supposed to go for Brazil or Argentina. But I am mad at Dilma, and you know Cristina was never very friendly with me. You never minded that she wore too much make up, but I told her she did. She said that is something a Foreign Minister does not say to a Lady. Go figure, I was only talking to her. I was just trying to be constructive. The make-up never seemed to stop you though.
So Hugo, things are tough. I need some guidance. The first thing I am going to do is like what you used to do when things were tough: announce the restructuring of something. I think that if I say of the whole Government will be restructured, it will sound really Presidential, don’t you? I can do it while the World Soccer Cup is going on, so that people will not follow it in detail and in the end I will leave everything the same. Nobody will remember by then.
But I really need a hand. You really screwed up leaving this revolution in my hands, so you better help. I propose the following: Tomorrow at noon (ok, ok, 11:30 AM because of that fool Navarro convinced you to change the time half an hour, which totally confuses me), while everyone is watching Brazil-Chile, I will go out to the small garden in Miraflores with my Ouija board. You show up in your bird form and I will ask simple questions, like devalue, increase gas, fire someone and you just push the Ouija in the right direction. OK? It’s the least you can do for me, now that you got me into this mess.
Hope you are fine, wherever you are. If you see Sai B., please say hi and ask him to given me a hand if he can too. I need all the help I can get.
Venceremos!
Nico
P.S. I am still curious why you picked me, maybe when we are at the Ouija board, can you try to tell me? Thanks buddy, Patria and all that!.
P.S. #2: BTW, all these years we admired The Monk because he was born in San Pedro de Macoriz, where all great Dominican baseball players come from. It turns out he is from San Francisco de Macoriz not San Pedro (Did you read the letter?), different towns, no Pedro Martinez from there! What a fake! I bet he is not even a monk.
The Devil's Excrement 
July 4, 2014 at 8:44 am
WTF ?!? …
ND / 3 jul 2013 (actualizado 9:44pm).-
La reconocida periodista Sebastiana Barraéz aseguró
la tarde del jueves que
Rafael Ramírez fue destituido ??????????
de la presidencia de PDVSA.
Así lo dijo vía Twitter.
July 2, 2014 at 4:41 am
Miguel,
I would appreciate to see some of your analysis with charts and forecasts.
Try to play the futurologist with some hard data if possible. I am curious about what you have to say in spite of so many unknown variables.
June 29, 2014 at 4:46 pm
[…] Via The Devil's Excrement: […]
June 29, 2014 at 2:43 pm
Venezuelans have very creative protests. How about everyone send a dead little birdie to Maduro and demand a funeral with full honors for El Commandante Presidente Chavez.
Maduro will likely create a law protecting little birdies with imprisonment for anyone saying anything negative about little birdies.
June 29, 2014 at 12:47 pm
OT for the Miami folks http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/06/28/4208089/forum-on-venezuelas-crisis-future.html
June 29, 2014 at 12:26 pm
None of the parties involved are likely to give back any of their stolen loot. The best we can hope for is that they cut back on the looting; with the oil price rising that would at least give the government a chance to pay some bills.
I wonder where the gold is?
June 28, 2014 at 10:24 am
Is the poor grammar a part of the joke?
June 28, 2014 at 11:45 am
poor grammar or simple language? I tried the second not the first
June 28, 2014 at 4:39 pm
That’s the problem. Every Proforma or contract I ever got from Venezuelans was written with very simple words to describe very technical issues that required specific Spanish words with the correct grammar and syntax. To make it worse, the spelling was very bad and did not conform to the LatAm or Spanish dictionary.
From what I read from his cadenas, I doubt that he can read and write beyond basic levels. Anything Nikie sez translated on the web or by hand reads like crape. Of course its hard to write like crape in English even to get the point across!
June 28, 2014 at 9:57 am
Dear Nico,
Why you bumbling nincompoop! What the hell are you doing? The whole freaking world is doing nothing but talking/writing about our silly economy. You need to stop this right now and change the subject. Now! Do you remember my spellbinding UN speech a few years back? Ya know, the one about the smell of sulfur permeating the UN podium? Remember how I stood there, raised my head and sniffed around for the camera’s? Great stuff. My God! …we had em rolling in the aisles, didn’t we? Every newspaper, magazine and political opinion show had us as their number 1 news story for a week! Every other day Mephistopheles stops-by and kids me about it. The boys down here loved it!
Now, listen-up you Colombian jug-head. Here’s the plan. Who has the weirdest looking choppers in your cabinet? Jaua of course! So, you send the little guy down to Brazil for the Belgian-US soccer match on Tuesday and have him unexpectedly jump-out onto the pitch prior to the first half, seek-out the first American player he can find, grab hold of his leg and then chomp-down on it as hard as he can. Every camera in the world will have replay after replay of this now infamous incident. Nobody will talk about our economy any more. No one! You, Jaua and Venezuela will be the talk of the world! Didja see the reception Suarez got when he returned to Montevideo? Did you see the love, the warmth from all the people of Uruguay? They love him for what he did! You betcha. Just imagine how we can turn around Venezuelan public opinion! Oh boy. The parades! The continuous Cadena’s on TV and radio. The posters depicting ‘the bite’ spread all over the country. But, but,…if you screw this plan up, Nico, I’ll haunt your sorry a$$ and leave another disgusting bird dropping on your shoulder like the last time.
Hugo
June 28, 2014 at 2:08 pm
“Evidenciando su resentimiento social, el dictador de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, se solidarizó hoy con el futbolista uruguayo Luis Suárez y criticó la sanción que le impuso la FIFA por morder al italiano Giorgio Chiellini que calificó de “desproporcionada” y aseguró que al jugador “le inventaron todo un expediente”.
“Muy doloroso el castigo desproporcionado que tomó la FIFA contra Luis Suárez, gran delantero de América del Sur, nos pertenece Luis Suárez a toda América del Sur, desde aquí le enviamos un saludo de solidaridad, de hermandad”, dijo Maduro durante un acto de Gobierno que encabezó en Caracas.
El títere de la Habana comentó que a Uruguay “no le perdonan” que “un hijo del pueblo haya eliminado a dos grandes del fútbol y entonces le inventaron todo un expediente”.”
Atta boy! That’s the spirit…..
June 28, 2014 at 6:03 am
Dear Nicolás:
I know your intestines knotted and your head spun around full circle when I decided to name you President. It could have been somebody else, but you were the only one I felt would be unable to make a decision without consulting with Raúl.
But I didn´t realize that Raúl himself would be turned into an indecise old man because the communist cadres in Cuba would put up resistance, and refuse to accept Fidel´s Revolution had failed.
Do you know who is to blame for the mess I left behind? Rafael Ramirez. That son of a gun kept telling me year after year oil production would go higher and higher, and we would have all the money we had to have. Fidel, Raul and I didn´t know that much about the oil business, and we believed him…we thought he could deliver the cash, and all we got was excuses.
Now all you can do is clamp down on the people and hang on. You just keep getting rid of the communists, jail the troublemakers and encourage the others to leave. And have patience because this is going to take a little time. You have to wait for Fidel to die so Raul can straighten out his own people and then you can have the new version of Socialism of the 21st Century. When I was dying Raúl told me he decided he had to go the Chinese route all the way, because Chinese style market socialism and the alliances with multinationals sure seemed to work.
Signed: Your Eternal Leader
PS: Don´t forget to rub Bolivar´s finger bone on your forehead every morning.
June 28, 2014 at 2:57 pm
That was epic. The last line was worth the price of admission. Better than the BlogOwners Post and that was pretty good in its own right.
June 28, 2014 at 5:45 am
Hilarious, but truth is hidden in humor: Maduro is definitely riding the tiger these days. Are “Garibaldis” and “Francesitos” referring respectively to Italians and the French?
I find it interesting that Maduro is a Sai Baba fan, because some hometown friends made the pilgrimage to Sai Baba;s ashram in India, many years ago. It appears to me that Sai Baba had as beneficent an influence on Maduro as he did on them.
June 28, 2014 at 12:20 pm
Garbaldi group is Giordani’s group. The francesitos are Temir Porras and his freinds.
June 28, 2014 at 3:50 am
Very funny!
June 28, 2014 at 12:16 am
Beautifully done, Miguel. Thanks.
June 27, 2014 at 10:13 pm
Miguel, are you sure is imaginary? This needs to be translated and spam