I’m Rick Powell, an American serial expat living with metastasized colorectal cancer in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I graduated from Southern Illinois U with a degree in Cinema & Photography. My first Super-8 film was called The Way Love Moves. My senior film project was called Pictures of Maleness. I was naked in it. It also featured my straight roommate Janet in male drag. (No one noticed.) I lost all my films somewhere along the road.
I like movies. I was in and worked on one called Go Fish. Finnish documentary filmmaker Markku Heikkinen made a movie about me called Public Service.
I’ve been blogging for years. I wrote about my adventures in Prague in a blog called The Rent Boys Of Prague. I wrote almost a million words in diary form.
My last project was Juanele AR, a bilingual blog and non-profit org covering the arts and artists of Buenos Aires. I founded, wrote, edited, designed, art-directed and photographed for Juanele. Lots of other cool folks did too. I hope to bring it back someday. You can find some of the old posts living on My Beautiful Air. (Open your eyes in Buenos Aires.)
I created this online literary journal about English-speaking life in Spanish-speaking countries but it turns out there aren’t very many good writers who want to get paid for that sort of thing.
I also founded the San Telmo Art Walk, a 3-hour walking tour of Buenos Aires’ oldest and most bohemian barrio. Later I sold it to another company and bought myself a MacBook Air, which I eventually had to sell to pay for a huge bar tab at a hostel. Not even kidding.
My current project and main source of income is Fascinating Monsters. I do still make WordPress sites.
For about six months I ran a Tex-Mex kitchen out of a craft-beer bar in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. My most proud moment was when visiting folks from Guadalajara praised my food and ordered another plate of tacos. A quote about my hot sauce: A gringo made me cry!
Right now I’m waiting out this pandemic in Mexico City. I was cooking for a living but the virus shut that down. I’ve started teaching English online.
I’m also watching a lot of movies.
Buy from Amazon to help me out.
Featured photo by Nicolás Pizarro. Puerto Limón Hostel, San Telmo, Buenos Aires, 2016.