mr. worldwide

or: how i learned to stop worrying and love pitbull

photo by ben hicks

NOTE: I made a little something to keep you company while you read.

A pair of Canada geese moved into my neighborhood last month. Harold and Maude are eccentric, raucous, and bellicose. They plant themselves in the middle of the street, black eyes glittering, heads thrown back to bark at the airplanes passing overhead.

Every so often I pause to tune in to my surroundings and realize that I’ve been hearing indignant honking for at least ten minutes. 

Just so: in the quiet moments, when I am adrift in my sadder thoughts or staring out the window, I come to and actually hear what’s been playing in my head.

My girl got a big ol’ booty (Yeah!)
Ya girl got a little booty (Oh no)

*

Armando Christian Pérez was born in Miami in 1981. His early life was hard, shaped by poverty and loss. After a brief and unsuccessful stint dealing cocaine, he turned to music: reggaeton, Latin hip hop, and crunk at first, and then…everything. These days, his songs play in grocery stores and are pumped into reception halls at bar mitzvahs.

He took the name Pitbull because, he told a reporter in 2004, They bite to lock. The dog is too stupid to lose. He also called himself Mr. 305, after Miami’s area code. Then his music began to spread; now he’s Mr. Worldwide.

Pitbull’s lyrics are asinine at best, crammed with crude innuendo and bewildering exclamations. There’s a lot of giggling. In one song, he compares himself to “Albert Hitchcock”—yes, Albert, not Alfred—presumably just so he can say “cock” on the radio. 

Pitbull’s music is not good, in any objective sense of the word. But it is great.

*

[6:47 PM] Kate: i'm just in the beginning stages of an essay about pitbull

[6:47 PM] Kate: not clear yet whether/how much it's going to get sad

[6:47 PM] Kate: it would be quite a feat, to make that sad, but i bet i can do it

*

I tie the rhythm to my wrist like a child’s party balloon. There is a lightness, here, and I need it now. Everything else feels so damn heavy.

*

The Spanish word “dale” (dah-lay) originally meant “give it,” or “go ahead.” It now means basically anything Pitbull wants it to.

In Mr. Worldwide’s world, dale is “let’s party.” It’s “get over here, beautiful.” It’s “fuck it, we ball.”

*

The happiest moments of my life have been dancing at weddings with my friends and siblings. Years ago, one of us* created and implemented what became known as The Pitbull Rule:

No matter what you’re doing, no matter how tired you are, if the DJ starts playing Pitbull, you get your ass on the dance floor.

*

My father’s father was a generous man, funny, smart, affectionate, and hedonistic. He doted on his grandchildren and told lewd jokes at parties. When I was very small, he taught me a funny song about suicide, and another about butts.

Grandpa would have loved Pitbull.

*

Dancing is my favorite medicine. Whether it’s goofy hip hop cardio, tango, or ballet; Pitbull at weddings; or a three-minute dance party in the middle of a difficult workday, movement makes almost all of my chronic illnesses better. But it also makes my long COVID worse.

Tye and I used to practice tango in the evenings. As dinner ended, one of us would say to the other, “Maybe a little dancing?” I’d buckle into my glittery dancing shoes while Tye cleared the kitchen floor and turned out every light except the dim lamp above the stove. Regardless of our mood when we started, by the time we finished, we’d be happy.

We haven’t danced after dinner in a long, long time.

*

In childhood photographs I often look serious, concentrated. I was a consummate square, chastising my classmates for swearing, judging them, later, for smoking and drinking while underage. As an undiagnosed autistic kid, I clung to the rules—in part because my brain craves order, but mostly, I think, because I needed a handbook on how to fit in among human beings. I was never human, in my own mind. I was something else.

At some point in my twenties, I began to loosen up. I discovered the incandescent satisfaction of fucking hell! and what a shitass.** I started listening to pop music. I remembered the rude songs my grandpa taught me and sang them with gusto.

*

Last June, my sister Abby called to tell me she was engaged. My happiness for her was profound but soon overtaken by grief. I was, and am, too sick and high-risk to travel to California. I would have to miss her wedding, as I have missed, now, five Passover seders, the funerals of several loved ones, and countless other moments of life-sustaining connection. There would be no Pitbull with my siblings, no laughing til our stomachs hurt while tearing up the dance floor.

*

I wake each morning already exhausted. On extra-hard days I grope for my phone, my eyes bleary, and press play. The reggaeton beat is a crowbar, prying my leaden body from the mattress. Pitbull’s giggling is an outstretched hand. Dale.

I don’t know how much my neighbors can hear through our shared walls, but it is not quiet.

*

Times are hard, and I am low. I could use some intervention—earthly or cosmic, whatever comes first.

I go to the dollar store and find a Velveeta-yellow prayer candle. At home I plaster it with Pitbull-inspired stickers: palm trees for Miami; lurid, happy mushrooms in sunglasses; keys dangling on plastic tags for his song “Hotel Room Service.”

I put on my Mr. Worldwide playlist and open a window to let in the fresh, bright air. I light the Pitbull prayer candle, close my eyes, and try to imagine that things could be different.

*

One night, I feel just a tiny bit stronger. I say, “Maybe a little dancing tonight?” Exerting myself is a risk, but I need it, and tonight I feel as though maybe I can. We make it through three short songs, with a break after each one to monitor my heart rate and symptoms. We’re laughing, tripping over each other’s feet, delighting ourselves with what we can still do. Between breaths I say, “One more.”

I find “3 to Tango” in my music app and set my phone on the counter.

Pitbull’s voice bounds around the kitchen and lifts us both.

I like them and they like me
It takes three to tango

And we are dancing.

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another good thing

photo by rodrigo eduardo

I got to interview my friend Jenny Holland about her wonderful new book Dog Smart: Life-Changing Lessons in Canine Intelligence. You can read our conversation here.

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workshops!

Registration is now open for the first of my 2024 mini-workshops. (I’m so excited!!!)

Hello, Snail: Writing Comic Haiku

Saturday, June 22 at 1 p.m. ET 

• Description: The best-known haiku are startling, immediate, and moving, but these tiny poems can also be a great vehicle for comedy. In this class, we’ll learn the basics; read some poignant and silly 3-line poems; and practice skills like observation, timing, and precision. Each student will leave the class with a teeny book of their own poems.

• Duration: This class lasts 2 hours and includes a 20-minute break for rest and writing.

• Venue: Google Meet

• Cost: $24 via Venmo or Paypal

Sign up here. 

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tenderness toward existence days

CW: food mention.

photo by katie smith

The theme for this month’s tiny holidays is Things That Made Us Happy in Third Grade. There’s one observance every day for the next week, so we can really get in there and show our inner weird little kids a great time.

• National Chicken Dance Day (May 14! today!)

• Dinosaur Day (15)

• National Sea Monkey Day (16)

• National Pizza Party Day (17)

• Do Dah Day (Salute to Silliness) (18)

• Plant Something Day (19)

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Thanks for reading all the way to the end. Pitbull and I are so, so glad you’re here.

*Ok, fine, yes, it was me.

**All credit for this one goes to the late Lucy Ely, my friend Sarah’s beloved and sailor-mouthed grandmother.