Where's Paul McPherson?

Pizza L'Avia Round 13

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:44:00 +0000

I've wrote about Pizza L'Avia here before. And there (slightly) before as well. But I still don't feel like I've done the place justice.

So here's a collection of Mario-related tidbits that I need to have documented on this blog.

• Of all of Mario's books ranging from the Voynich Manuscript, Pythagoras, Free Mason Society, as well as a collection of short stories he collected while the Barcelona metro system. I chose the surreal subway adventures figuring it would be easier to read short essays in Castilian rather than trying to decipher an analysis of the Voynich Manuscript.

Upon signing my copy, he asked me what my favorite word was. I froze for a second realizing that I didn't have a favorite word, then I looked around for inspiration and said, “Empanada.” With his massive arm already resting atop the display case, he put his hand on his forehead and began writing a poem about “empanadas” with the most serious resolve I’ve ever seen a human exhibit.

The poem reads:

Desde el Mexicolindo, las fiesteras muchachas, los guacamoles y mas al sur donde el sol cambia con las nubes, las empanadas, un mundo atrasado, que nos recuerda, que hacimos sin hogas, sin cueva, los sobrevivientes, los analfabetos, los olvidados. Luego las aspiraciones de escritor del mundo desarrollado.

Which I can roughly translate to:

Since the beautiful Mexico, the party-loving girls, the guacamole and more to the south where the sun changes with the clouds, the empanadas, a backward world, that remembers us, what we did without homes, without cave, the survivors, the illiterate, the forgotten. Then the writer’s aspirations of the developed world.

• Mario told me that during the 1992 Olympics, then Texas governor George W. Bush ate at his restaurant three days in a row. He said that W always ate a Napolitan-style pizza and would bring his plate to Mario when he was done. Despite the fact that Mario hates W's politics, he was a kind guy. I've told this story to friend who doubt that W would be wondering around the Raval neighborhood in 1992. But dammit. I want to believe.

• If I had to rate the service at Pizza L'Avia, I would give it the best .25 star ever. It's always the same waiter, a man whose name I believe is Gabbi. He's just as tall as Mario's at-least-six-foot-frame, but Gabbi is every bit as lanky as Mario is wide. Even my native-Spanish-speaking friends find it almost impossible to understand a word he says. When you ask for a bottle of cava, he'll bring it to your table, unopened, because at 4.50 a bottle, you have to open it yourself. Then once you have opened it, you're faced with the tough task of flagging down Gabbi to ask for some glasses to drink from.

• Paying the bill at Pizza L'Avia has never been done in less than 20 minutes time. The process normally goes like this:

- Ask Gabbi for the bill.

- Wait 5 minutes

- Go up to the cash register to ask Mario for the bill

- Wait at least 5 minutes

- Finally get Mario's attention

- Wait 6 minutes as he gets distracted by something else

- Tell Mario what you had

- Wait 4 minutes for Mario to confirm this with Gabbi

- Receive your bill and give Mario the money

- Look in awe as Mario pulls out a 8-inch thick wallet from his pants pocket and gives you the change.

- Thank Mario and be on your way

• Mario claims he is responsible for bringing hot dogs and American-style hamburgers to Barcelona.

• On my way out I would normally bullshit with Mario for a few minutes on politics, the neighborhood, and whatever else he wanted to discuss. At the end of each conversation he would thank me then hand me a tin-foil-wrapped alfajor.

People I Will Miss

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 13:57:00 +0000

Sure there's a lot of friends and Pakistani shop owners that I'll miss when I leave Barcelona. But here's a few people that I also don't want to ever forget about.

• The old guy at the gym
A few times a week I go to the "gym" at the beach. I quarter-to-half-ass work out, almost never count how many reps I do and spend as much time stretching as I do working out. But it's all just a damn good excuse to go sit on the beach for an hour a day and take in 360 degrees of beauty.

If I go early enough there's one guy who make me look fit, the 80-year-old, pot-bellied yayo (that's catalan for grandpa, and yes I count him in the 360 degrees of beauty).

Every day he shows up wearing a speedo, un-buttoned button up, clear plastic sandals, and, if I'm lucky, a Gilligan hat. He spends most the time bullshitting with other old guys who sit around and he spends 5 minutes wildly swinging his arms around.

If I'm really, really lucky I'll get to see him play tennis with another old guy. They don't use a net or any sort of boundaries. They just hit the ball back and forth at a very, very slow speed. Each time they hit it they make the pro-tennis player UGHHGHGHGH grunt though. God bless them.

• The fake Terry Crews at the gym
He looks like Terry Crews except I'm pretty sure this guy might be more ripped. If he ever fought the real Terry Crews it would go down in history as the greatest fight since Vin Diesel v. The Rock. Unlike my routine, this guy works in hyper drive. He shows up, somehow rips his shirt off while not taking off his reflective aviator shades, and jumps from one exercise to the other. I've seen him do a weird push-up walk/worm thing for 50 meters across a scalding hot concrete then finish it with 40 push-ups before going straight to pull-ups.

• The weird fisher person
She/he walks around the beach year-round in nothing more than a speedo. I think it's a woman, but I'm not 100% positive. She's either anorexic, bulimic, on heroine or all three. She has a really faded tattoo on her shoulder blade and closely-trimmed hair. I'm fairly certain she sleeps on the beach. The only possessions I've ever seen her with are: a snorkel, flippers, a knife the she keeps strapped on the side of her shin, which I believe she uses to fish and/or murder mermaids.

Mercaders

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 12:26:00 +0000

No picture of Mercaders exists on the internet, and I don't have one either, so here's an unrelated pic.

I don't normally go out to bars at night because when you have seasons three through five of 30 Rock, well odds are that a night out is not going to beat that. However a few weeks ago I was... gasp... trying to find somewhere to drink at midnight on a Tuesday night.

I always assumed the Catalans who don't dare open up shop until 11am were out drinking the night before, but I couldn't find anything open. Until my friend pointed me to Mercaders, a grungey hole-in-the-wall that's open until about 4am most nights of the week. My first visit was right around Halloween, which explained the skeleton that hung from the ceiling just above a record player that spun two magnets, that interact with the magnets on the skeletons feet in a way that makes him dance.

Two months later the skeleton is still there and on the rare occasion, so am I.

Last time I was there I ran into my friend Pierre, who was deep in a sketch exchange with another patron, who was an artist/basketball player/old guy dressed in a suit three sizes too big for him. The latter gentlemen then called his friend, who was purported to be the best artist in Barcelona. Pierre (not a bad artist himself) opted to go home with his girlfriend instead of engaging in an art duel with a man who showed up looking like the most tortured soul in the universe.

For a few minutes I sipped my beer and watched as Sr. Crazy just sat there shaking refusing to talk to his friend who called him. Then grabbing a nicely drawn sketch and crumpling it up.

Then I was interrupted by a guy in a jacket with built-in backpack (imagine this but more 80s acid wash denim) searching the floor with a zippo for a black jewel that fell from his ring. I offered to help him, but instead he asked if my friends and I were indeed friends. I told him yes. He made us put our hands together and close our eyes. Then he blessed us, or something to that extent, before he walked off screaming the lyrics to Culture Club's "Do you really want to hurt me?" in a heavy Spanish accent. He sang the lyrics eight times over, trying to get others to join in. Nobody did. Eventually he stopped.

Once 2 am hit, the bartender rung a bell, which apparently signaled that everyone was allowed to smoke inside (a rule that applies only to Mercaders). Then he closed the gates that cover the window to make sure no smoke escaped and to maximise my ability to second-hand smoke three packs her minute.

Later I complimented the man's built-in backpack because I'd never seen anything like it. His natural response to offer us cocaine for 2 euros a gram (which we declined), then he yanked out a piece of paper from his backpack and made us all sniff it before walking away.

That was our cue to pay the bill and leave.

Pont de Suert & Bristol Bucks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 11:28:00 +0000

Hiking in Pont de Suert

A few weeks ago my friend Tom came down to Barcelona from the People's Republic of Stokes Croft, which is the wannabe autonomous region located in the wannabe autonomous region of Bristol.

He came bearing gifts.

• Two "Think Local Boycott Tesco" coffee cups made of fine Stokes Croft China. Obviously these are beautiful mugs and I'm not even showing you the beautiful blue flower on the back. But they're also great because it's very easy for Sarah and I boycott Tesco since grocery store chain doesn't exist in Spain or are future home of the San Francisco.

Interesting side note in a blog post full of unrelated side notes: Tom bakes cakes for a local Stokes Croft restaurant that is all about the "think local, boycott Tesco" movement. Pretty much all of Tom's ingredients come from Tesco. If there are any Tesco rioters who aren't in prison and who are reading this, feel free to email me and I'll give you Tom's address for future destruction.

• The kind soul by the name of Tom also gave us two Bristol pounds, which is the city's new currency backed by rather legitimate planning and a fascinating website. Currently the pounds are 1-to-1 to Sterling Pounds. But as soon as they become 1BP to 2,000USD, Tom is going to come visit me in San Francisco.

After ample time was spent sipping tea from anti-Tesco mugs and marveling at the new currency, we romped around Barcelona until continuous eating, drinking, and cycling got to be a bit stressful and we needed an escape.

We then headed to the visit Tom's friends in Pont de Suert a tiny town in northern Catalunya, where continued to eat, drink, be merry, but we swapped out cycling for hiking.

We stayed with Tom's friends, Maria and Eric, who live in a breath-taking house on top of a mountain that overlooks a picturesque valley.

Every room in Maria and Eric's house had insanely stunning views that made me wonder why I'm not living in the mountains. They both work at a bank 8-3 five days a week and spend the rest of their time relaxing with their 4-year-old daughter who babbles in French, Catalan, and Spanish. They pretty much live the dream.

Eric also plays the accordion, which I was hoping to get a chance to try out, but I never worked up the courage to ask him. Once the bustling town of Pont de Suert and it's population of 2,000 got to be too stressful we headed to a tinier town (whose name I forgot) to attend a horse festival. Tragically we just missed the brunch and our opportunity to eat horse for the first time in our lives.

No accordion playing, no horse eating. I know. I know. Why did I even go on this trip?

On the way back to Barcelona we visited Tom's friend in Lleida (Tom has a lot of Catalan friends), where we ate at a restaurant that was so old-school that the menu was in euros and pesetas (Spain's currency before they switched to the euro in 2002).

la casa

el coche y fall colors

cows on the trail

nature, man.

mas nature

picnic

Lleida castle

Memoir of a Paperboy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:55:00 +0000

I always wanted to write for the Tucson Weekly, I never wanted to be a paperboy in Barcelona. Somehow I made the two work together. Go read my guest commentary for Tucson's most-esteemed alt-weekly.

Thanks to the editor Jimmy Boegle for letting me write in his newspaper, even though I turned down his internship after my sophomore year. Thanks to BCN Mes for giving me a paperboy job. And thanks for TXJesse for the article's lone comment.

Actions of Thanks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:48:00 +0000

Just like the Indians taught the pilgrims about growing corn and constructing giant Mr. Potatohead floats, we showed 10 European friends the greatness of Thanksgiving. We picked up a 8.6 kilo turkey from la Boqueria, then I struggled to find something to brine it in, then we struggled to squeeze it into our tiny oven, but eventually everything was perfect.

The turkey was delicious. The gravy was bonkers. We had stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, three pies, the works, really. The most heart-felt moment was not when we got everyone to go around the table and say what they were thankful for, or when I made my mother happy by making everyone make turkey hands, but when our French friend Pierre, looked at Sarah and sincerely said, "This is the first American food I've had that's not shit."

Also, thanks... I think, to Pierre for the nice sketch.

FC Barca

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:23:00 +0000

I made an effort to get into FC Barca football/soccer in the spring, then I stopped caring shortly thereafter. But I wasn't leaving Barcelona without going to a game so Sarah and I went to a not-so-heated match between FC Barca and Celta de Vigo (a team who had not won in Camp Nou in the past 40 years).

Barca won 3-1. Honestly our seats were so high that we couldn't tell any players apart when they were on the far end of the field, so it really didn't matter that it was Jordi Alba putting the ball in the net instead of Messi.

Sarah and I pretended to really understand the game while were more intrigued by the silly teenagers sitting next to us who were super-chalantly looking every which way for security guards as they smoked throughout the entire game.

Sarah was enthralled the whole game.

Mes que un Kindle

Badalona

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 10:05:00 +0000

I bike to Badalona at least once a week, not just because I like paying homage to Ricky Rubio’s hometown, but because it’s the best bike route in the city... and also because that whole narrative of a middle-class Catalan making to the NBA is so inspirational. Timberwolves shenanigans aside, it's the only ride in the city that has no stoplights and an endles stunning view of the Mediterranean shore.

Some times I push myself and ride the 35k out to Mataro, but most the time I’ll just be lazy and slowly bike through Badalona’s tiny streets discovering eccentricities in the Barcelona suburb that’s rich in basketball heritage.

It’s the only place in Europe that I know of that has a basketball-themed mall.

There’s also this monkey guy who sits outside the Anis del Mono factory. The other day I sat next to him, ate a tasty jamon y queso sandwich and spent some quality time thinking about the monkey sitting in the pose of the company’s logo, while looking at a bottle of anis with a label of a monkey looking at a bottle and how great it is that it repeats infinitely.

Since that last line barely made any sense, here’s a photo of a cute mini favela.

Badalona is also home to the greatest outdoor court in Catalunya. The elevated viewing area makes up for the fact that the court bends 90 degrees and that one hoop is three feet lower than the other.

My favorite art in the city:

Avionspotting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 13:11:00 +0000

Whoever decided to make a little park at the edge of the airport's runway is a very thoughtful and kind person.

Roommates Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:07:00 +0000

The second half of the list of airbnb guests who stayed with us.

Sara & Allesandro | Zurich, Switzerland | Both low 30s
These guys were just the best. Allesandro was a super-talkative Italian, whose knowledge of US sports and pop culture was mind-blowing – like he could name random NBA 90s role players and any celebrity ever kind of mind-blowing. His English was 99% perfect, partly as a result of the fact that he once worked as a nanny (or as he joked “child technician”) in the States. Sara was much more reserved and not as confident in her English, despite the fact that she would correct Allesandro when he said tiny grammatical errors like “I work on a bank” instead of “I work in a bank.” They also brought us Swiss chocolate. They really could not have been nicer.

Christelle & her friend | Paris, France | Both low 30s
Our only guests to speak to us in Spanish. Nice people.

Victoria & Anna | Moscow, Russia | One was 23, the other was 30

We fucking hated these girls, even though at the end of the day they were decent guests. They smelled like old spaghetti and because of the cultural differences and their poor comprehension of English they just laughed at us all the time. It was meant as a way to diffuse uncomfortable situations, but it always came off as rude, even though they did not mean it to be. They’d never had a BBQ in their lives and they requested a BBQ dinner with the really, really shitty grill on our roof. Despite our efforts, Sarah and I couldn’t get out of this dinner and it was just a terrible experience that involved them laughing at me, adding to the frustration as I tried to light some damp charcoals.

In the end everything went OK and they even gifted us a kitschy Moscow fridge magnet, but we still hated them.

Alena & Alena | Prague, Czech Republic | Daughter: 25ish Mom: Normal mom age

Really sweet mother and daughter who told me they were both named Alena so I rolled with that. They brought us a mini bottle of Becherovka, which was a nice gesture despite the fact that it has sat unopened in my pantry for the past three months.

Rozenn & Sami | Nants, France | both late 20s
The door to our guest bedroom is very narrow because the room is small and the only way to fit everything is for the bed to block one of the two thin entry doors. This was never a problem until a rather-large Sami showed up had trouble fitting through the door even when he tried to squeeze in side ways. It was awkward, because saying “Oh, I’m sorry you’re so fat, let me try to help your thought the door,” isn’t really a nice thing to say and there was nothing we could really do.

Tanya & Rhonda | Carrboro, North Carolina | late 40s
They told us that in North Carolina they live in a housing co-op thing that I barely understood, but I pictured to be like the “others” commune in Lost. They were super nice, but it was weird that they brought Tupperware of eggplant parmesan lasagna from their home in NC. One kinda looked like Terry Gross, the other looked like a jolly lesbian aunt that I always wish I had.

Kateryna | Moscow, Russia | early 20s
She had a really weird profile picture. She wasn’t that weird in real life, at least from the 10 words we exchanged.

Linda & Florence | Lyon, France | early 30s
If we could have, we would have kept them as roommates forever. They were just two very kind girls, I don’t even have an example of their kindness, they were just so appreciative and nice to be around. They gave us a set of small windowsill cactus plants.

Lau & Anna | Copenhagen, Denmark | 29 & 25
The initial airbnb messages were a bit shady as they claimed they didn’t have a credit card so they wanted to pay us in cash. They also had zero reviews and their profile picture was just an image of a bottle of Coca-Cola, but for some reason I automatically trust any Scandanavian who isn’t named Anders Behring Breivik, so I accepted their request to stay with us.

They were pretty much the exact type of super-race I expected Danes to be. Spoke perfect English, couldn't have been nicer, and they were both very good looking. Lau was in the process of completing his Master’s degree and opening his own coffee/wine bar decorated with vintage Norwegian furniture. Anna was younger and just finishing her undergrad degree in Danish studies, she was not sure what she was doing in life, which was reassuring to see even that even Danes can have uncertainty in life (although when they do, they attach themselves to legit people).

Nicole & Milo | Melbourne, Australia | 31 & 30
They were an Aussie version of Sarah and I. They had just finished spending a year in London for the main reason of traveling around Europe. Nicole loved supermarkets, which is also Sarah’s pastime. Milo was a former Quicksilver backpack designer. I really like backpacks. We all love 30 Rock. We had some great meals together, played some Qwirkle, went out dinner, it doesn’t get much better. Sarah and I were devastated when they left.

Monica | Sublimity, Oregon | 50 something
She was visiting her daughter and son-in-law in Belfast before she decided to pop over to Barcelona. For someone who lives in a tiny town 60 miles southeast of Portland, Monica had some good stories. Her daughter grew up in Oregon and was always fascinated by the IRA, so the second she could, she split to Ireland. There she met her future husband, who as fate would have it, is actually a member/former member of the UDA. Monica told me he had spent 8 years in jail and she tries not to ask him about it, even though her daughter told her he was sentenced for trying to smuggle bomb-making material into Ireland to kill some pesky IRA members.

Yasia & Sasha| Minsk, Belarus | Our age-ish
Yasia’s brief airbnb profile says she’s a LARPER. A quick wiki later and I accepted her request. Unfortunately – and fortunately – Yasia and her boyfriend were almost never in the house so I never got to ask her about her LARPing career.

Roommates Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:55:00 +0000

Starting July 1 we put our extra bedroom on airbnb to make some money and friends. Here’s a list of our past roommates:

(Names | Where they’re from | My guess at their ages)

Bev & Neil | Griffith, Australia | In their 50s
Our first guests were celebrating their second honeymoon because they said their first honeymoon sucked. Since they were staying at our modest place, I can’t imagine what their first honeymoon was like.

They were both great people, but Neil would talk forever. While we were sitting on our roof drinking beers, Neil went on for 15 straight minutes about his friend’s candle holder. I dazed off at one point and when I returned to paying attention he was still going about the candle holder. In all, he was a great guy and not nearly as weird looking as his profile picture depicted. Also one of his profile reviews said “Neil is like boy enthusiastic (…),” which meant to say that he was enthusiastic like a young child, not that he was enthusiastic for young boys.

Bev stumped our BCN knowledge when we didn’t have a good response to: “Do you guys know a good spot to rent a segway?”

In Barcelona when a building is torn down within a dense city block, the remaining wall is either left in tact with a fascinating outline of different wallpapers, interior walls, and fixtures, or the remaining wall is covered in a thick burnt-orange-hued paint, that I assume is a foam to keep the wall from deteriorating more. The orange walls are rather common. Yet Bev was blown away by their beauty and asked me several times where she could find more.

Ilona | St. Petersberg, Russia | 25
She was a professional hairdresser who exchanged a total of 5 words in the 2 nights she stayed with us. She was nice though. These were her profile pictures. I really enjoyed clicking back and forth between them.

John Cox | San Francisco, California | 50
Man. We fucking hated John Cox. He ate all our cashews without asking (he later replaced them) and he broke the door on our laundry machine (which he paid us for). But those are two big offenses none the less. He stayed at our place for a week, after he had lived in San Sebastian for a month, as he was on a sabbatical according to his airbnb profile. Over a meal I asked him what he was on a sabbatical for. He gave me a vague answer. Later on Sarah yelled at me and claimed that it’s not OK to ask people why they’re on a sabbatical. I thought it was fair game since he publicized it on his profile page. Truthfully, I’m still not sure if reasons for sabbaticals are OK to discuss or not. However, if I’m ever on a sabbatical, please feel free to ask me why.

Behnaz & her boyfriend whose name I forgot | Lund, Sweden | Both 27ish
The girl’s profile said she was a professional badminton player. This really intrigued me; I had a million questions for her and I had dreams of taking her to the beach and hustling people in games of badminton (despite the fact that nobody plays badminton on the beach). Unfortunately they were just at our place for two nights and we never really got the chance to hang out. Also Behnaz wasn’t really Swedish, she was Iranian, but I guess it made for a better transition to our next guest.

Hila & Gal | Haifa, Israel | Both 30ish
Gal was as awkward a Jew as they come – a real great guy, just quite uncomfortable to be around. I was cool with it though because it had been months since I had seen a real life Jew (aside from the half-Jew in the mirror), so I took what I could get. His wife/girlfriend/whatever was real nice and she told us she lead woman’s circles. They also brought us these peanut butter puff snack things that were insanely delicious. Hila was the only guest to cry in our house (at least within an ear’s shot), but that was a result of their rented car towed, which is a reasonable reason to cry in my book.

A Nice Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:32:00 +0000

Sunday was a nice day. Sarah and I went to an airshow, which was enjoyable but not quite as amazing as I remember them being when my parents took me to airshows as a child. Then again perhaps I'm just remembering the shows from my childhood to be a lot better than they really were. Maybe they were actually over-greased and kinda soggy (metaphorically speaking), like those Chili's chicken fingers that 10-year-old Justin thought were the best on earth, even though they were over-greased and kinda soggy (literally speaking) the entire time.

Or maybe it was because the Festa al Cel didn't feature any Blue Angels¹ or Angeles Azules or Angels Blaus². However there were some stunt planes, a big commercial jet that did some cool stuff, and some squirrel suitters who we missed until they had deployed their parachutes. That was OK because I'm a squirrel suit snob who only likes them when they do extreme base jumping, not pussy-ass jumps out of a plane.

Once the airshow ended, we met up with our friends Axel and Gabby to join them for a ride to the top of Montjuic³, to watch Gabby practice archery.

Gabby is good enough at archery that there's a chance she might qualify for the 2016 Olympic team for her home country of Paraguay. This would obviously be incredible for her and just as incredible for me, as I could brag about personally knowing an Olympian, which corresponds nicely with my 2016 goal to have more friends interested in Paraguayan archers.

Watching Gabby practice was more enthralling than I anticipated. I was wowed by the sharp wooshing sound of every shot and the quick thud noise of each arrow hitting the target. I was also pleased that my first archery viewing experience was happening on the grounds of a mountain-top 17th century castle, allowing me to feel like royalty despite the fact that I watched from a cracked plastic lawn chair.

After Gabby finished practicing, she let Sarah and I hold the bow (sans arrow so we wouldn't maim anyone). Pretend shooting was a lot harder than I imagined. I barely possessed the strength to hold the bow out fully extended and the string was much harder to pull back than on any bow I had won from Peter Piper Pizza. Even though my form was god awful, I made pitch-perfect wooshing and thud sounds (albeit with my mouth). After five imaginary arrows my back was already getting sore and I didn't want to push myself too hard on the first day. Because of that work ethic (and a myriad of other reasons), I probably won't be making the Paraguayan Olympic archery team.

Just a little archery humor, you guys.

Imaginary bullseye.

Imaginary arrows.

___________________________________________________________
(1) Ninny told me that he writes down preposterous "special requests" whenever he takes reservations for the restaurant he works at. He told me his best was a note reading, "Guest wants a Blue Angels flyover between the appetizer and main course."

(2) Note to any high-ranking Catalan government officials reading this: If you ever do get independence from Spain, your first order of business better developing some kind of Blue Angels or Angels Blaugranes stunt team — other wise what was the point of fighting for independence in the first place?

(3) That's medieval Catalan for "Jew Hill," an underrated fact about Barcelona in my opinion.

Homesickness

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:31:00 +0000

I'm kinda homesick. Recently I catch myself dazing off more frequently and dreaming about the good ol' US of A. I realized just how homesick I was when I read this article, which begins with "a toddler decapitated, a 6-year-old stabbed in his sleep" and all I could do is look at the sidebar map of Camden, NJ and long for the Delaware River and I-95.

And that's not anywhere close to anywhere I once lived. It's just a river bordering a city I really like and a freeway that I once drove on with Tar while listening to Freeway.

I can't even imagine how I'd feel if those unspeakably horrible tragedies happened within a sidebar map of the Rillito River.

H/T to Seplosion for the NYT link.

Merce Merce Me

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:57:00 +0000

It's a rainy day in Barcelona, which is a good excuse to post all my pictures from last weekend's Merce festival. Apparently it's not a good enough excuse for me to think of anything entertaining to write about the festival.

This 3D mapping wasn't as good as the show we saw in February (which was a repeat of 2011 Merce), but it was still mind-blowing. We saw the Sagrada Familia 3D mapping, which was impressive mainly because they had giant cranes holding and moving the projector, but . Here's a video of the Sagrada Familia show and full video of the Sant Jaume show.

Here's some castelleros:

Gigantes.

And some more correfoc photos:

I'm not actually hitting this girl. I swear.

Haircuts & Gangsta Baby Tees

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 04:00:00 +0000

I wrote a post on the blog of my favorite alt-monthly Barcelona newspaper, BCN mes. Check it out if you want a very quick read - or if you want to know what 3 euros will fetch you in Barcelona's grimiest barrio.

Q & A

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:33:00 +0000

Question: Let's say I'm too lazy to walk to my garbage can and/or I find it more gangsta to carelessly throw a small piece of trash out of my fifth floor window. That's OK because it will burn up in the earth's atmosphere before it hits the ground. Right?

Answer: (as I experienced the other day) Holy shit. What the hell was that?! Can I still see out of my right eye? I really don't think so. What type of asshole would throw a tiny piece of plastic from his balcony? How did this piece even manage to land between my glasses and eyeball. OK my vision is starting to come back. I guess the earth's atmosphere doesn't disintegrate stuff at this level. So I think the answer to my initial question is, No... Unless that nearly blinding piece of plastic came from the fourth floor or lower, then I'll never know.

Best. Photo. Studio. Ever.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 05:52:00 +0000

Yesterday I was stopped in my tracks by the photo above, which was in a studio's storefront window. I spent a solid 3 minutes staring at it, as well as other almost-as-amazing productions in the shop. After a good night's sleep (that was not spent thinking about those two little boys or their micro-family), I've decided these are my top five favorite things about the photo:

5. The skeleton shirt on the kid on the left.
4. The negative image of the flowers in the upper left hand corner.
3. Both kids looking in opposite directions. It's like a two-man version of being cross-eyed.
2. The fact that both kids survived (and danced through) a lightning tornado (see picture below).
1. The out-of-the-box thinking required to come up with the concept of shrinking down a different family photo and balancing it on the kid's knee. Bravo.

Dead Turtles & Airports

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:35:00 +0000

How many dead pet turtles does it take for the Catalan government to put up a sign instructing people to stop abandoning turtles in the park?

At least twenty.

That’s what I’m guessing based off some elementary reducing and deducing of the sign’s fact that says: “95% of the turtles abandoned in the park end up dead.”

After that sobering fact the sign concludes: “Don’t abandon turtles, think before you buy them.”

...Unless you're a lucky 5 percenter who buys an invincible turtle.

+++

In July the New York Times wrote about Castellon’s ghost airport. The entire article is fascinating, but in short it profiles the completion of a $375,000 statue honoring the project’s founder Carlos Fabra. He’s the same man who was the “driving force” behind he airport project which cost $183 million and has still not had a single flight. Also the same man who, "was placed under judicial investigation this year in connection with several cases of corruption and tax evasion."

The entire project was a microcosm of the incredibly wasteful spending that landed Spain in its recession. Oh and the guy who built the statue, Juan Ripollés, "is saying that he was forced to spend $155,000 of his own money and 'empty the pockets of my children' to complete a work that, he said, ended up costing about $600,000."

In a hilarious follow-up yesterday, Barcelona’s La Vanguardia reports that in two months time, the statue is covered in rust.

Correfoc-ing Without Ninny

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:11:00 +0000

Last night I attended my second fire run.

There was only one correfoc team participating, as opposed to billion that came out for Gracia's festival. This meant there wasn’t as many chances to dance around with the fire runners and wonder if the fun actually outweighs the pain as any square-centimeter of exposed skin is repeatedly singed by hundreds of flickering firework embers.

There also wasn’t a dude walking around with a 2-liter bottle of a mysterious flammable liquid that he would gulp, then spit in the air to form massive fire bombs.

There also were no floats covered in an obscene amount of fireworks that would somehow sneak up behind you, then detonate with enough decibels to keep your ears ringing for a solid 24 hours.

And tragically, there was no sparkling Ninny (RIP, Rest In Phoenix).

But this run took place 100 yards from my front door and aside from a date with an icecream sandwich, I had nothing else going on at 11 pm last night.

The performers known as the Diables de Casc Antic put on a solid show that also doubled as a recruiting performance.

How can I join these guys? Do they have practice runs? How knowledgeable are they about fireworks? How does one join a correfoc team? Exactly how fun is it to wear cheesy 1980s-neon-green-shades, go up to two homeless guys and spray them with sparks? So many questions.

Also on Saturday night Sarah and I attended the kiddie-run-fire-run. Turns out they give any kid old enough to hold a pitchfork (Sarah’s expert eye estimates there were 4-year-olds) the exact same fireworks they give adults.

The little tike in action.

The tike-ito prepping on the left.

Grown adults.

Sarah shielding herself and ruining my picture.

Correfoc supernova.

Correfoc-ing With Ninny

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:19:00 +0000

A while back my friend told me that during Barcelona’s Merce festival people run down the streets with massive sparklers while non fire-covered-pedestrians try to tackle the fire runners.

My friend greatly exaggerates a lot, but I figured that even if 30% of that was true, I should try to convince some of my friends to come out here because in the United States we’re deprived of parades of fire.

Unfortunately there’s no Bolt Bus that goes from NYC to Barcelona. Plus most my friends have real jobs and/or lives.

Fortunately my brother Ninny barely has either, so he was able to come kick it in Barcelona for a month and a half. Yet somehow he booked his ticket so that he would tragically leave just before Merce.

I was upset for him, for me, and for Xavier Trias. But then I learned that the neighborhood of Gracia would be having their own correfoc (fire run) while Ninny was here.

So we checked the schedule. Fire run for kids at 8 pm. Adult fire run at 9. (I’m kinda pissed that I missed the kiddie fire run just because I wanted to see what a kiddie fire run involves.

But the adult firerun was more insane than I could have imagined, even if the rules prohibited the tackling of fire runners.

Good news is that my neighborhood is hosting a fire run this weekend and then next week, we’ll have another for Merce.

I’ll let the picture describe the rest.

I don't always fire run, but when I do, I wear a Brimley bandanna.

They don't play around.

This is Diddy in a Hype Williams video. It's also how I felt when people would spit fire bombs in the air.

This is how I actually looked (me crouching in the left corner).

A sparkling Ninny.

AI, Watermelons & Toothpaste

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:56:00 +0000

My brother and I recently went to Naples, Italy. It was hot. The city was gross. The pizza was amazing. Here's an even quicker photo summary of my trip.

I didn't really enjoy Pompeii, but it was worth it just to see this guy wear a goofy Iverson jersey.

I don't like watermelons, but I imagine this little girl dislikes them more than me.

One night we came back to the apartment we were renting and there was a lanky African dressed in only his boxer briefs eating pasta at the dining room table. Apparently he lived in one of the bedrooms that we weren't renting.

We introduced ourselves to Ali through a mixture of English, Italian, and Spanish that didn't work at all. He was extremely kind and really anxious to talk to us, so he raced over to his laptop and spent a solid 2 minutes typing something into Google Translator. Then he showed me the translated result and the question was "How are you?"

I gave him a thumbs up and told him "good."

Before we departed, Ali requested to be my Facebook friend and of course I accepted. When I got home I checked out his page and saw this picture with a caption in French that roughly translates to: "Shit's hard, man."

Indeed, it is.

Barcelona Barons

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:55:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I was pretty wiped out by a fever. My head felt like it was full of lava and when I tried to leave my house I felt like I was going to pass out.

However the night before my friend, Betrand, told me he wanted to paint a stencil of Michael Jordan playing baseball on my neighbor's roof. And when you're a guy who has seen about 80% of Exit Through the Gift Shop and your French-born graffiti-happy friend asks you if he can paint Jordan swinging at a grenade, you don't let a little fever get in your way.

You also don't question why he's swinging at a grenade.

That's why I spent that night hopping across roofs, helping him hold a stencil, while he painted up MJ.

I'd say my performance was really similar to Jordan's famed flu game, except I didn't score 38 points in an NBA finals game, I just leaped across a few roofs to help a Frenchman put up a stencil of MJ in a spot that can maybe be seen by 12 people in all of Barcelona.

The very fact that Betrand aka MAIN (except the the A is upside in his official tags) made a Birmingham-Barons-era MJ stencil was a bit odd to me as Betrand's normal stencils consist of the Monopoly guy shooting lasers from his eyes to destroy nearby objects. Now our neighbor's roof has one of those too.

Also Betrand is not a baseball or basketball fan and his knowledge of the NBA is minimal. Oui Oui to Tony Parker and Joakim Noah, no to Boris Diaw and Mickael Pietrus (or any basketball-playing Pietrus).

To answer Gould's question, I'm not sure he takes requests, but I'll fly him out to Phoenix to whip up a stencil of Boris Diaw in a Suns uni doing something street-arty... like eating an atomic bomb.

Also here's my international street art debut (the shitty WPM, not the scary looking cat).

Part 20: San Sebastian

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 09:24:00 +0000

After our first round of pintxos, we took a little break to watch the sun set over San Sebastian’s second bay. Actually Sarah watched the sun set and I tried to inconspicuously peek behind Sarah at the relatively cute lesbian girls who were making out.

It got me thinking that the same way a pre American Civil Rights Movement generation was deprived of the privilege of watching Lebron-James bowl through defenders and throw down a frightening-yet-beautiful dunk. I’ve been deprived of witnessing other relatively cute lesbians make out by society’s bias against homosexuality.

And the fact that that thought made sense to me in San Sebastian is a testament to the city’s spell-binding beauty and cuisine that leaves you incapable of forming rational ideas.

Other things that hopefully make more sense

• We stayed in the apartment of a guy who was from Bahia Blanca (the Argentine city that lead me to Paul McPherson), which gave me the feeling I never needed of the trip coming full circle with my last continent-transversing excursion.

• Our last night in San Sebastian, we stared at the city from the end of the bay, while a guy fished in moonlight behind us.

Once he caught one I ran over to be a silly tourist and take a picture of the fish's flailing body. Then he covered it with a small white cloth and said “golpe de muerte” death blow and karate chopped it to death. I thought that was a pretty solid ending to the trip.

Part 19: Bilbao

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:17:00 +0000

Bilbao played host to two of the strangest sequences of my life:

Rushing for the Blues:

6:45 Show up in Bilbao, our airbnb host invited us to a Blues festival that night in a old fisherman’s village just outside Bilbao. This sounded good, so we accepted. He told us we’d have to leave by 8:00 to get tickets. We needed to hit the market before it closed and wash the waterfall off us, but this still seemed do-able.

6:50 We discuss how we’re getting to the concert venue. Initially I thought our host, Imanol would drive us. Then we went over the plans once more and realized that Imanol wanted us to drive him because he planned on drinking heavily that night. I ignored how bizarre this plan was and told him that our car only has two seats and wouldn’t be able fit him and his wife and that I too might enjoy an adult beverage on the evening.

6:55 He speed walks us to the market. Once inside he says, “Tell me what you want and I’ll run and show you where it is, we don’t have any time to waste.” Sarah and I buy a frozen pizza to quickly eat before the show.

7:15 We’re back home. I’m wondering why Imanol didn’t bother to tell us that his oven was broken as I’m watching a frozen pizza dethaw in the microwave.

7:20 Imanol tells me that he will make us dinner and we’ll share, he then asks if Americans are normally stingy with food and makes a crumpled up gross face calling Americans stingy. I tell him we’re not and we like sharing. He makes this weird face at me two more times. I’m not sure why.

7:30 Sarah and I are ready for a night of Basque Blues. Imanol is still a ways away from being done with dinner. He’s sweating profusely as he runs around the tiny kitchen. Sarah thinks he’s on cocaine. I think he’s just crazy.

7:50 Imanol’s wife, Maria, comes home from working her second job as Imanol in unemployed. She’s a firey Columbian who immediately changes Imanol’s smooth blues to meringue.

8:10 Maria sets the table. The placemats are mini holographic posters depicting disjointed scenes of wildlife. My placemat changes from vibrant tropical toucans to wild deer running in a field. Sarah’s is an elephant in the African safari that changes into a bottlenose dolphin.

8:15 We all squeeze around a small table in an insanely small kitchen. Imanol shows off a his bottle of olive oil for the sixth time and he speaks of his salad as if he were Da Vinci showing off the Mona Lisa.

8:30 Sarah and I are baffled as to what happened to the crazy sense of rush. Maria recommends dessert and Imanol begins to cut pineapple. Maria brings our a large black portfolio from their bedroom. She then asks Sarah what her name is and says, “Justin, Sarah look at what else I do.”

Then she reveals charcoal-drawn portraits of little boys and girls, and a 1950s American actress that Sarah and I had never heard of. After flipping through six or seven, she thumbs to one of a dark-skinned, curly-haired boy. “This one is my son,” she says introducing him for the first time.

8:45 There’s a knock at the door. Imanol says it’s Ruben, Gloria’s son. The teenage Ruben enters and we throw him holas through the wall. He never responds and he’s gone. I’m left to wonder what is going on as I stare into my toucan/deer eyes.

I feel like we're in The Room where characters walk in and out with any context or explanation.

8:55 We all leave for the metro station to head to the jazz show.

8:57 Imanol stops at a toy store window to point out the model cars he’s fond of.

9:10 On the train Imanol talks to us as if we represent all of America. He asks why all Americans are fat, despite the fact that Sarah and I are both thin and he has a massive gut.

He says he was grateful that Americans saved Europe from the Germans in WWII, but he didn’t like our involvement in Vietnam.

He says he can read English easily, but he has much trouble speaking it. He asks me why English is pronounced so much different than it’s spelled. I tell him I’m not sure.

9:50 The 10-minute train ride Imanol promised turned out to be closer to 40 minutes. We walk over to the jazz show which is about halfway over.

Tickets are still available. At this point Imanol says he’s doesn’t really feel like going any more and mentions that he already went the past two nights.

Halftime Break to Talk About Bilbao:

The Guggenheim is cool, but in terms of cool modern structures I saw on the Iberican Peninsula, I’d throw it at third behind Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias and the Casa da Musica.

Their river is gross.

Their old town (Casco Viejo) is nothing special.

Sequence Two (these time are even looser than the other one)

4:50 Sarah and I sit outside a bar on a busy Casco Viejo street sipping some vino and munching on a pintxo.

4:55 Everyone at our bar stares at a drunk woman at the neighboring bar who is laying on the ground under a table near a dog. Above the table are two guys. One wears a Kelly green polo, the other has a shaved head, reflective aviators and a tight-fitting grey polo with the collar popped. (I'm pretty sure this is the standard issue European outfit given to homosexuals once they've come out of the closet.) Also above the table is a normal-looking dude and a punk-rock-styled girl, who is floor-girl's friend.

4:56 I suggest to Sarah that she might be blowing the dog. Sarah says they’re making out.

4:57 You can clearly see dogs mouth and eyes. I think I’m right.

4:58 The woman takes her shirt and bra off

4:58:10 The dog is humping something…For a long time. Everyone on the street is watching.

4:58:30 I snap a couple pics.

Bestiality in Bilbao

Part 18: Las Merindades

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 09:43:00 +0000

Some times the pursuit of a dream is better than actually accomplishing it.

That was the final line of short informational movie Sarah and I watched inside the Cave of San Bernabe. That seems like a pretty deep quote, but since it came from a tour film conducted by a caveman actor with a pet dragon who kept askin us to have a sip of root broth, I chose to ignore it’s magnitude.

The cave itself was really impressive, yet I imagine that if I always dreamed of walking through a cave in a tiny Spanish town, that dream sequence would have surpassed the actual experience.

Alfoz de Santa Gadea

We stayed in a town that according to Wikipedia had 132 people and according to our b&b host had 70 people, which seemed like nothing, until we drove through neighboring towns that boasted a population of five.

The entire countryside was crazy beautiful. Our host’s baby daddy was an ex-pat who was a screenwriter hopeful in LA until he moved to a neighboring town in the Merindades region.

Our host told us that we were sharing the century-old-house with an American from Seattle. I got excited as I really enjoy Seattle and Seattlites for no particular reason. Then we met her and she was a terrible human being because she gave me a terrible, unsolicited sales pitch..

I told her I had a friend who lived in Seattle. Her first question was, “Does he work for a start-up, because there are so many start-ups in Seattle.”

“No, he works for some weird medical company,” I said.

“Oh there’s lots of medical stuff in Seattle too,” she said. “I work for a start-up, it’s called DataSphere. We sell advertisements. The problem with advertisements these days is that nobody watches commercials because everyone has DVR. We sell ads that go in elevators. It’s really innovative.”

I kept eating my shitty pasta and tried to pretend she didn’t exist.

This was the worst, unsolicitated “my job’s actually important” conversation I was jumped into since I met someone who sold life insurance.

Our conversation went like this:

“I sell life insurance.”

“Cool.”

“Let me ask you this, what would your loved ones do if you died?”

“I don’t know. Be sad.”

“Yeah, but what about your savings?”

“I don’t really have any money.”

Cliff Jumping

On our way out of Burgos, we passed by a modern-built castle and a waterfall. We were expecting the waterfall to just be something pretty to look at, but once we rolled up we found a beautiful lagoon that was just unreal.

We instantly went back to the car to change into our bathing suits. Then we waded in the water which was 10 chilling centigrade degrees cooler than I anticipated. It took me a good 20 minutes to work up the courage to swim the 20 meters to the waterfall because I’m a huge pussy who hates cold water. Eventually I swam under and I felt better than I’ve ever felt in my life.

I swam back to the lagoon’s shore facing the waterfall, on cloud nine, everything felt perfect. Upon reaching the shore I did the soccerplayer jump/fist pump combo, which is very different than MJ’s famed post-Ehlo defeating jump/fist pump. Then I started singing P.O.D because I don’t know how else to express how alive I felt.

I was completely satisfied with life but I figured I should still double down, so I decided I’d chase after this feeling again by ascending the waterfall and jumping the 25 feet back to the water.

Once up there I remembered how much I hated cliff jumping. I said to myself “I’m too old for this shit.” Then I remembered cliff jumping with all my cousins in Laughlin 10 years ago.

They were around 25 at the time. Granted I haven't talked to them in 10 years and from what I hear they live rather... umm.. different lives, but for better or worse the memory gave me some sense of courage.

Still it took me 10 minutes to jump because apparently I’m more afraid of cold water than I am of death/heights.

All went well, but it didn’t give me any kind of swimming-under-a-breath-taking-waterfall natural high.

Some times the pursuit of jumping off a waterfall is better than actually jumping off a waterfall.