By Patricia Mántaras
Galeria Magazine – Montevideo Portal
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What is it like to be on the side of the interviewee? Do you feel comfortable? Is rare. Whenever I have been interviewed, it is difficult for me. But it is a good exercise in short, because from this place one feels what the interviewee feels when one is permanently requesting it for different issues.
He is a native of San José. At what age did you come to Montevideo? Not from San José, from the independent and autonomous republic of San José (laughs). From Ciudad Rodríguez, which is about 18 kilometers from San José. I was born and raised there and after finishing high school I came to study and work in Montevideo.
Is it true that when you first arrived you worked in a parking lot and car wash? Yes, because my parents helped me, but they had nothing to spare. I had to pay for part of my stay and I had to find a job whatever it was. I lived in a large house in the commercial area and two blocks away there was a garage that had cars on board per month and at the same time had a laundry room. A possibility arose and it had to be entered. You do not know what it is to wash cars in winter, we had tremendous cold. But they are spectacular experiences. I had started my degree in Communication, it was a fairly incipient moment in my career and there were a lot of semesters that you were not assigned teachers because there weren’t. So, in order to get onto the pitch quickly, I signed up for the IPEP, which was two years, and I had to pay for those studies as well. From then on, some professors offered me the possibility of doing internships, and from there I didn’t stop.
For quite some time he made mobiles on television. What was the strangest thing that happened to him? I started making mobile phones when I entered Channel 10, on Arriba Gente, the day after José Mujica took office. It is incredible to work making mobiles for television, because you have imponderables of all kinds. You go to a place because something happened, but you don’t know what, and TV isn’t waiting for you. You don’t have an agenda, you don’t have a routine. Suddenly you go out on the street with a note scheduled with a deputy, and you have to go to a riot in the Comcar. You have to have a lot of waist, because it is also not easy to stand in front of a camera with the Comcar behind setting himself on fire and all the relatives of the prisoners on the other side, two meters from you, seeing what you say. You have to have a lot of respect for work and stick a lot to the profession to say what needs to be said, without going overboard.
How was the change of routine when leaving Up people and go to Underlined Noon? On a personal level my battery changed, because I was practically 12 years getting up at 5:30 in the morning. Now I arrive at the channel at 11 o’clock, I do the noon, then I do the afternoon flashes, and I do Special Highlight 18:30, and at seven I am leaving. I have more time to myself in the mornings. I get up at seven and go for a walk along the promenade of Ciudad de la Costa, which is divine, and it clears my head a lot. And now my daughters are with virtual classes, but in March I had the pleasure of taking them to school at 10, which during all these years I could not.
He is a fanatic fan of Nacional. What was the craziest thing you did for the painting? I remember one day that Chino Recoba scored a wonderful goal, on April 19. It was the early days of Recoba, there was half an hour before the game started and I don’t remember if the cable didn’t transmit it or it had been cut in Ciudad Rodríguez that day. I was with some friends and we had an hour and a quarter to get to the Centennial Stadium. If we left at that time, we arrived for the second half. It was raining and we went by car violating some traffic regulations, but we got to see Chino’s goal, which was crazy, because he eluded all the players and put it in the Amsterdam goal. I also have a wonderful memory with my old man, who passed away last year. Only once did I go to see Nacional with him, it was the final of 88, in the Centennial, when Nacional was champion of America. That memory is no longer erased.
He has a dog, Nina; a weimaraner, seven years old. Is it true that he waits for you to go to lie on your side of the bed? When I got up at half past five, he would stay in his room until I left, and when he heard the last cling of the key, as soon as I disappeared from the horizon, he would run to bed and take my place. That was until a few months ago, now he has lost respect for me. I get up and when I go to the kitchen to make mate, he goes straight to my bed, he doesn’t care anymore that I’m home. It’s awful.
He got married 12 years ago, on Friday the 13th. Presumably he’s not superstitious. Nobody wanted to get married on Friday the 13th, so the catering and the venue were cheaper (laughs). People were running away from Friday the 13th, but I don’t believe in any superstitions.
When he was married for 10 years, he gave Lorena, his wife, a ring. Are you good with dates? I do not forget the dates and I always try to have some kindness, some detail. I am a disaster, and I confess, when it comes to choosing a gift. It costs me a lot. When the time comes I say: Why didn’t I pay attention in the previous weeks? Surely some signal must have reached me. Anyway I do them and they come out well, I did not have resounding complaints. The worst gift I ever gave my wife was for Christmas. They had robbed our house and some things had been taken, and we thought that if they stole our computer we would lose all the photos, so I bought a removable disk from a Tera and gave it to him. Nothing romantic for sure.
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