Almost two months after his death (September 22, at the age of 97), the biography of Carlitos Balá is out in bookstores. Your friend for 25 years, producer Esteban Farfán, has been recording conversations for two decades and decided to honor him with a first-person text.
“Ladies and gentlemen, and why not lactántricos”read the opening pages, like a welcome from the man who invented a language. The prologue is signed by the actor Alfredo Casero, in a tone of protest: “I know that the bad guys on television have canceled all his work to reuse the tapes. That’s what they did to Balá.”
Carlitos Balá, the best of my repertoireis the name of the text (more than 320 pages) that Galerna has edited and ranges from the birth of Carlitos in a butcher shop to milestones that include a chapter on the creation of Angueto, the most famous invisible dog.
“The day the time machine is invented, I will be the first volunteer in the experiment to go back, if only for a minute, to drink milk with Carlitos,” Farfán writes in his introduction.
Next, snippets of some sections:
Chapter Balabasadas:
I believe my absence from television was due, in part, to the fact that during my military period I continued to work. There must be some who came up with my idea, others out of a kind of snobbery. Most of the comedians continued to work during those years. I had no contact with the military, nor did I flatter them like other people who continue to work in television today. I did my usual job. If in any song I called the flag Argentina, it was because I’m Argentinian. Someone on a bus told me this once:-Remember when you used airplanes for the military?
People who think like that don’t know me, they’ve never spoken to me. I have always worked, with all governments. I have to work like any other parent.
At one time, most of those who came to report to me were friendly with questions. They started out with good questions, but I quickly understood what they were getting at. Eventually they came out with politics.
My career spans more than sixty years, I have worked with every government, like any worker in the country. But of course there are people who see what they want to see.
Bala’s Tent
Pepsi hired me to do it a Sunday show at the World Cup stadium in Mendoza with Raffaella Carrá. Namely whatand I opened with my show and closed the evening Raffaella Carrá. I was with Oscar, my secretary, having a quiet dinner at the hotel.
It was then that a certain Pérez arrived and offered me to work at the Club San Martín, forty kilometers from Mendoza.
– Mr. Balá, I come on behalf of Aurelio Gaumont Productions. We’d like to count on you to put on a show. We have already hired Raffaella Carrá…
-Listen, sir, I came to Mendoza hired by Pepsi. They took me, they paid for my company’s trip, I think they have exclusivity. Unless they allow me to work elsewhere. Let me know from the businessman who brought us here. If you wait a minute, I think that man is here.
I asked the guy. I told him how the situation was.
-Balá, as long as you’re there for the Sunday service, that’s no problem.
-Fine thanks a lot.
We got together to make the contract. We asked the hotel for a typewriter and got one. We agreed they would pay me before the show.
-Hey, is the room covered?
-Yes Yes Yes. He is not suspended by bad weather.
– What time would the service be?
– At 21.
-Well, I want payment at 7pm. But I don’t want checks.
-No problem, Mr. Balá.
In the meantime, everything was written in the contract: 1000 (one thousand) dollars which will be delivered at 19:00, in cash, before the show. We did all the firm stipulations, no checks, cash payment, because I didn’t know the guys. We signed and said goodbye until Saturday.
Saturday: It was seven in the evening and no one showed up at the hotel. A quarter past seven, half past seven… Raffaella Carrá was supposed to perform after me, but since I didn’t introduce myself, stay alive, she says to the boys, she puts on her show and leaves. You know how it was that after the den I went to work. He ran his own show, which was crazy. Spectacular light show, dancers killing each other on stage.
It starts to drizzle. Eight or so boys arrive.
– Well, here I bring you the check…
– Huh?, check no. In the contract it is written in cash. I’m right to work. If it’s free, I work for free, but if it’s paid and in cash, you must bring the payment in cash.
Very angry boys leave. After a while, a certain Sierra appears.
– Bala, how are you. I am Raffaella Carrá’s representative in Argentina. I learned about the situation that was generated by the object of her contract. If you want, I’ll cash the check, give you the cash. Then I’ll take care of the check.
-You are the owner to do what you want.
Finally, when everything was settled, and it was almost ten in the evening, we went out.
The guy He took us to the “cuetes” in a brown Torino. By chance we arrived safely. I am received by a certain Rubio, the president of the club.
-What is the living room?
-No, no, no, it’s here on the football field.
-No. I signed the contract which says indoors, not suspended due to bad weather and drizzle.
-Hey, Raffaella Carrá worked here!
– He can do whatever he wants. Me too.
– But who told you that barbarism?
– Mr. Perez.
I don’t know any Perez.
They sent each other to the front, and Signor Rubio wanted to wash his hands of it. Well, in the end, yes, no, I had taken the company with me on the bus. Fifteen people. I couldn’t leave them alone. And the court was packed with people. It was already about half past ten in the evening. There were families with small children, it was drizzling. A cold! Me with anorak and boots, because it was cold.
I go on stage with “Here came Balá”. At that time I was used to people’s love, applause, shouts of joy. Three cheers. I wanted to die. When the song ends I go to the audience.
I know why I am like this. Because I was late, I was late. And I will explain why I was late. As I broke a contract we did so and so…we agreed the cash would arrive at 7pm and the businessmen arrived at 8.15pm with a check.
I was a bit wrong in the way of expressing myself but the fact is that I had a quarrel… Whistling and whistling began to be heard. Everyone from the club committee was there. And the boys took it out on me.
– Chantun! one yelled at me.
-Don’t hide in the shadows, why don’t you come and tell me up here?
Then a gentleman takes the stage.
-Look, Bala, me I am Commissioner so-and-so. Please, I advise you to get off from here. They can throw something at it, to see if they take out its eye. Leave, come with me.
Me with a hell of a fight, before leaving I grab the microphone again.
–I don’t get dirty for a thousand pesos. I will donate the money that has been paid to me to the children’s hospital here in San Martín.
And a jeton jumps.
-We don’t have a children’s hospital here!
-But I guess they have a hospital. Is there a hospital representative here?!
-Well, please, I ask you to come with me because I want to give you the thousand pesos.
Then comes the president of the club, Rubio, who had a wholesale toy store.
—You can’t donate something you haven’t earned!
I got the contract.
-I didn’t earn it because you didn’t let me. They didn’t honor the contract I signed here.
They had lawyers, notaries, police, all in favor. They all ate together. I felt like I was from another country. The bitch, I’m in Brazil, I’m in Chile, I thought. No, it was my country. The bad time they put me through with people. How helpless.
We had to go from San Martín to the city of Mendoza, where the hotel was, and with a typewriter I declared that I had donated all the money to the hospital and handed over the thousand pesos to the authorities. Some time later they told me they never made it to the hospital.
Two months later, I read in La Razón: “Members of the Greco group have been arrested and imprisoned”, Among them was this Rubio. The whole city knew the truth. God punished them.
Source: Clarin
