It's one of those weird things that doesn't translate exactly. Like Spanish subtitles on TV. For example someone will say, "You pee sitting down" and the subtitles put it simply as "Tú eres gay." Takes all the fun and pageantry out of our refined English expressions, especially the insults.
So back in the day when Joe and I were studying abroad, fresh out of the comfortable layer of filth and jello of 1914 for the first time in months, growing freakishly fuzzy mullets, and unable to grow facial hair (which I think is still the case) and still sticking our dingalings between our legs so that it looked like a . . . well, I think you get the idea, back in those days, we used to laugh every time we saw a a Nuts 4 Nuts stand in the streets of Chile because it makes no sense in Spanish. Nuts Cuatro Nuts? Suckers, must be just some savvy American business man selling his old beat-up stands to a poor Latin American country.
However, it turns out that is not the case . . .
Meet Luis Martínez, the face behind the mystery of Nuts 4 Nuts. After seeing his photo one of the many reasons I hope to never use a comb-over/forward and would actually consider hair surgery.
Luís Martinez is known in Chile as El Conejo, which means The Rabbit. I don't know how he got that nickname or why because rabbits are "
herbivores that feed by grazing on grass, forbs, and leafy weeds" aka they don't eat nuts (unless forbs are nuts). Anyway, El Conejo is kinda local legend down here, everyone knows of him and his story.
Dramatic recreation of El Conejo looking for work in the US:
Now for the real story . . . the Behind the Music . . . The E! True Hollywood Story if you will (if you only read the first sentence and watched the above videos you'll get the basic idea):
El Conejo basically did what these guys did except with a nut cart by his side. He arrived in New York at the beginning of the 90's and found work at a horse track through his father, who did something useful with his life and was a famous Chilean jockey. (Sidenote: If you can name from what Matt Damon movie comes the line, "Why don't you do something useful with your life, like be a jockey?" I will never pass gas in your presence again.) The work at the racetrack was not long-lived because while under the care of El Conejo, a multimillion dollar racehorse took a false step and broke its leg ending both his career as a race horse and El Conejo's employment at the racetrack.
However, that multimillion dollar mistake turned into a multimillion dollar business for El Conejo.
After leaving the horsetrack a friend found him work selling nuts on the streets of New York and in his first year as a vendor, El Conejo set the single day records in sales, selling a total of $1,962 of NUTS.
El Conejo realized that with a little organization and planning, street vending, especially nuts, could be quite a lucrative business and El Conejo began the quest to build his nut empire. By the year 2000, El Conejo had 20 Chileans selling nuts on 15 street corners of New York City and made the decision to move back to Chile and expand his business.
Closing facts:
- El Conejo is now a millionaire.
- When he started in New York he was illegal and was forced to use a spotter to watch for the police. He had his cart seized numerous times and was under the constant threat of deportation under Rudy Guiliani's 0 tolerancy policy.
- There are now 160 Nuts 4 Nuts stands in Chile and it has expanded to cities across South America and Spain.
- Down here a small bag runs about 60 cents and a large bag about 1 dollar.
- No, I don't have any fun nut facts, only that peanut butter does not exist in Chile.
- No, I don't know how El Conejo feels about peanut butter.
- I think there are plans to make a movie about El Conejo, it probably won't be that good.
- This is the second time I wrote this post and I took absolutely no joy in doing it.
- There are always going to be competitors and imitators out there in the business world and not all of them will necessarily make sense. Joe and I saw this gem in the south of Chile:
The one up. A proven succesful business technique. We brought you Duck Tours, they bring you Super Duck Tours, they brought you 4 Hour Energy, why stop there? Boom, Five Hour Energy. Nuts Cinco Nuts? And you are selling pop corn? What kind of world are we living in? Upon further thought, I actually don't think it is any reason to panic and we can officially conclude that people down here don't understand the play on words "Nuts 4 Nuts."
(I wrote this post about a week ago, but it got deleted by the website. I think the content was too racy. I walk a fine line. Anyway I tried to reconstruct it but I don't really remember all of it.)
