Your storyteller. . .
I finally made it to
I entered from
Finally we hit placid waters and sailed slowly into the
I exchanged my money and hit the strange streets. I entered
the ancient Kasbah. Narrow and winding streets made of cobblestone rolled out
before me. I walked slowly down dark streets that in
I was a sight to see for the Arabs of this territory. And I was a mark for the kufi-capped hustlers.
Here I was: a long-haired blondie with a pack on my back. I settled into a café and drank the delicious mint tea of the region. Later I walked along the beach by a herd of strutting camels.
"On La Rambla you can buy anything you want: prostitutes,
beer, and even Kentucky Fried Chicken!" giggled Caroline, a new friend I’d
made in a pub.
It was night, about 1:30 AM, and we cut through the mad streets overflowing
with people. The delicacies she mentioned are plentiful during this time.
Estrella beer is sold on the street. African prostitutes run up and down
looking for good-time boys. And the only joint open is KFC, obviously to go
along with the beer and the babes. (Quite American South! It puts Los Angeles' Figueroa Street to shame!)
If you ramble on this street during the day the items sold to you are more humble. Walking up the street I could’ve bought chickens, rats (1.8 euros), birds, rabbits, ferrets, ducks, turtles, iguanas, frogs, and fish. All for a good price I might add.
If creating a menagerie is not your style, you can also buy
opera tickets, lunch and café con leche. I was a big fan of the café con leche,
with Lucky Strike cigarettes and a copy of
It is a city that at its center truly never sleeps. Parties,
cafes, and the street itself jam till dawn: revelers fill the plazas and drink
and talk and kiss; prostitutes accost you as you walk down the street boldly
telling you that they will do anything in Pandora’s Box, and this is all done
under the permissive gaze of the
I. The Kiss…
I kissed her on La Rambla as the little rain drops fell on
my eyelids
I killed the bull with a long spear that I stole from a cop
She was feeling herself with both hands
She looked at me through the corner of her eye
Soon she will be dancing with her frills all aflutter
And I will be singing the song of a Spanish King in the Kasbah
II. Institut de Cultura…
On my first day in the city I went to Institut de Cultura, an ancient stone edifice on La Rambla set back a hundred feet from the street with a huge archway big enough to fit a monarch’s entourage and adorned with Spanish flags.
It is a mile up the block from the
The main exhibit is the work of modern-day Chinese photographers, entitled “Zhu Yi” – which in Mandarin means “Achtung!” or “Attention!”.
www.bcn.cat/virreinacentredelaimatge/english/home.htm
With photos shot from 1994 to 2006, thirty-one young Chinese photogs explore their conceptions of the city, nostalgia, and dreams. They ask what history is and confront the idea of “globalism”. There are a total of 109 works.
Staged in several rooms and supplemented by famous Chinese poems inscribed on the institut’s walls, the photography works to destabilize traditional ways of conceiving, so for example male and female roles are flipped. In the works of Zeng Yicheng and Cang Xin men wear dresses and women assume the dominant status.
The work has been produced post-Cultural Revolution. After
the nineteen-seventies and the death of Chairman Mao,
My favorite picture utilizes the iconic image of the
Other favorite photos of mine are the shots of the halls and spaces where once great meetings were held by the Communists. Today the halls are dilapidated and empty, and in many ways haunted.
It is here at Institut Cultura that I met a flighty little bird named Angels Girona Garcia. She works at the museum and handed me a flyer advertising “INAUGURACION: BAMBA-BAMBA” in the barrio Gracia.
http://rgvogue.ig.com.br/moda/2007/12/11/arte_nos_pes_1114944.html
III. I Dream of Enigmatic
Across the
Across mountains and plains
Berber camps: eating seafood off the grill, under the stars, drumming all night
Minaret-filled skylines
Kasbahs
Souks
Camels on beaches
Snake charmers
To the
Couscous and mint tea
The maze-like medinas
Hercules’ Caves
The Roman ruins of Volubulis
The
Hotel Tarik
“Salam Alekum!”
“Malekum Salam!”
IV. Getting through Customs…
It’s a drag.
You have to take off your shoes and your belt and walk through a metal detector, humiliated and robbed of your autonomy. I dread the sight of the wanded ones.
But I got good at it. I went through most of the time
without a hitch. I had problems twice. Once going into
Then again when I left
I shock myself at how blasé I have become about such things. I’m actually priding myself at getting all the metal off my body and getting through customs as fast as possible.
The less I have to look at the security the better. Their dour faces ruin my trip.
V. Off the Beaten Path…
The main idea is to travel the road less taken – always.
It leads to wonderful discoveries, as Robert Frost pointed out in his classic poem “The Road Not Taken”. It makes all the difference. Edmund Wilson wrote about treading your own path in his book Flaneur. He described the tradition of walking the streets aimlessly, trying to get lost amid the architecture, the green spaces and coming upon satoris and portholes to fun and learning.
For instance, today I walked down a side street and within a few minutes I was in a beautiful park that I never knew existed. The park abutted a library, housed in one of the signature stone buildings of Barce.
On the wooden benches sat the rear ends of lovely damas. I realized I could spend hours there, a whole afternoon, working up the old Rudy Holmes magique.
VI. Picasso in
Picasso lived in
His father, a noted man of the community, was a great teacher to him. But he soon outshone his father in painting to the point that his father gave up the vocation for life.
Picasso’s teenage years are marked by a precociousness not
often seen. The works, mostly figurative and traditional, reached the standard
of Rubens or Rembrandt. The schools he went to in
He soon entered his classic Blue Period, which was spurred on by the suicide of a friend and his readings of the poet Rimbaud that taught him pain was the basis of art. He dwelled among the outcasts and painted them accordingly.
“The Ladies of D’Avignon”, a seminal Cubist painting with images of African masks, was done early on in his career and was based on the brothels located on Carrer Avignon. It would be years before he showed his Cubist painting to anyone, except Georges Braque, for fear of being too weird for the time.
We often think of Picasso as a French nationalist exiled in
París, where as a youth he fell under the spell of the Paris posse of Lautrec,
Van Gogh, and Manet, but critical studies now place him in the tradition of
Velasquez, El Greco, and Goya.
Picasso left
VII.
Met Margo
In a small bar
Off Plaza George Orwell, aka “Plaza Trippy”
We shared
Billows of smoke floated smoothly from my lips
I drank Estrellas –
And enjoyed Margo’s tales of
The music
The crazy maze of streets
The so-cool pickpockets
Her economics…
(I met a magician named “Steak”)
VIII. An Afternoon in
For years I have impersonated the other: the black man, the Latino, the Arab…now the time come to sing my own ancestry. I am one-quarter Sicilian which allows me to claim every single nation that ever existed for all of them ran through the island at one point and dropped their seeds. The other part of me is Euro.
For now I have been reading “King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table” during my free moments, which are usually on planes and buses and ferries. The tales transport me to distant lands where, due to my largely Anglo-Celtic heritage, I feel my ancestors once roamed.
My imagination is set free…
King Arthur raises Excalibur high
I fall asleep in a hotel on Marques de Barbera – the wild sound of dozens of prostitutes cackling just outside my window – and dream of myself on a steed riding through ancient forests.
To heavenly valleys
Where the maidens are fair
…I have traveled far from my home (like the prodigal son)
I put on my suit of armor
And pretend that I am a knight as I walk the wild winding streets of my dreams
IX. The Street Below…
Cackle of bitches below my window
Africans with guns below my window
Strong wild sons of Ham below my window
The street belongs to them tonight
X. Angels…
Angels Girona Garcia is the spitting image of Edith Piaf in “Ma Vie en Rose”. She is about eighty pounds soaking wet. She dons a leather jacket as she mingles in and out of the crowded pub in barrio Gracia. Smoking cigs and drinking wine and beer, laughing and plotting, kissing her friends on the lips, this is how she parties, her and her anarchist friends. All the while an exhibit of her painted sneakers adorns the walls. I’m up at the bar talking art and politics with my eye on a couple of lesbians.
The evening was fantastic. Is this how all of
One performance artist was named Blanca. A woman that would not stop smiling. She smokes weed and parties with her mom. She said that she once used biscuits to make a replica of a city. And then she promptly invited the audience to eat it.
The metaphor of eating a city could not have been more appropriate.
XI. Granada…
Federico Garcia Lorca
(Pablo Neruda)
4/17/08 8:10 AM
Passing through Lorca’s hometown of
…red-tiled roofs…John Deere
My real name is Leroy Merlin
Sunglasses on
Hair down
Sleeping, taking in the mountains passively
All I want is to be left alone
To dream of the night before
Today all the men on the bus are low-class devils:
Weasels, chiselers, competers
(How disenchanted is that!)
…I am on my way to
I am on chasing the Questing Beast like King Pellinore
Castle on the Hill
The town of
None of this compares to my road to
4/17/08
12:44 AM
XIII. Sitting in Tangier
Port…
Jesus Christ!
I sit on a boat that’s docked in Port Tangier. I am hoping
for safe passage back to
Let me take you back to earlier in the day when I got off the boat and walked through a gate into the beautiful teeming Kasbah. I walked along the ruined streets amid buildings long abandoned by colonialists. The streets are so very narrow and winding. Children were playing, birds were chirping. Suddenly a man aggressively approached me.
He wanted to be my guide around the city. For cash of course, but he didn’t speak of that. I rebuffed him firmly.
“You English?” he asks. “You want a cheap hotel?”
I again said, “No, thank you.”
He got very mad as he watched me, his mark, grow wings and fly away.
“You are a total jerk,” he says. (He might’ve called me a “total joke”. I’m not sure.)
I sat down at a café and had a sweet mint tea. I was certainly standing out. I watched the passersby. The streets teem with life. A pickpocket sat down next to me, not ordering any drink and in complete collusion with the waiter. I could tell. His hand dangled over his chair, waiting for me to not pay attention, so that he might slip his thin fingers into my pockets and take my money. Simultaneously an older man sitting with his friends began asking me personal questions. I lied to him of course.
“Are you here alone” he asks.
“No, I’m with friends,” I tell him.
“Where are you staying?”
It went on like that for a few minutes and I practiced my best subterfuge. I had been told that Moroccans were very friendly but this guy’s schtick wasn’t jiving with my ideas of how people get to know each other.
I took off for the winding streets, patting my pockets to see if I still had everything.
The streets are so narrow that a long-armed man could touch the walls on both sides simultaneously. This is scary as Americans are taught not to go down shady alleyways, but all the Kasbah is shady narrow alleyways.
The Quran is blasted over the Kasbah for people who pray to Allah. Bazaars pop up everywhere. Teens and tykes play futbol. Birds chirp. People get water from little wells in small squares. Little kids run the streets.
I was hopelessly lost. I relented to one hustler who took me around. I can’t remember his Arabic name but his face is seered into my memory.
He took me atop buildings, to great vistas at the edges of mountains, and I felt quite safe in his guidance. I used him for all he was worth. I knew he had to be paid.
He steered me into a rug shop. We went up winding staircases
with the walls lined with rugs. Rugs were everywhere. Two men in Muslim robes appeared
in a large room. One of them offered me mint tea, as he said it was in the
tradition of Moroccan hospitality. They began displaying rugs from various
tribes. They laid them out on the floor, one on top of the other. One man
nicknamed “The Teacher” related to me the history of
“Give me a price!” he demanded.
I booked out of this rug dealer’s lair, down the narrow staircase, past the rug-laden walls, and out into the streets. I could still hear him calling out!
I forked over 200 dirham (about 20$) to my guide and he told me how to get down to the beach. We parted ways.
On the beach I saw people riding horse back. The sun was burning softly. I was seeing the soft colors praised by painter Henri Matisse. Soon another hustler appeared by my side, a beggar who tried to sell me a beautiful wallet. He followed me for half a mile, putting his hand to his mouth to let me know he was hungry. He spoke good English though. But he kept saying he wanted the “piper”.
“What is piper?” I asked him.
He meant the “paper” but this Abbott and Costello show went on for a while as we walked together along the beach. I saw many Western hotels, including a Ramada that I dashed into. I tossed the beggar a euro and told him to leave me alone.
A night on the beach would’ve cost me a hundred dollars. I looked outside and saw a woman with her hair covered and I decided against it. I was nauseous of the beggars and the Islamic conservatism. A bellhop flagged down a taxi for me. I had the driver shuttle me around the newer parts of the city. People on the sidewalks overflow into the streets. My driver weaved in and out of crowds. I knew this was a city I’d return to. That I’d have to visit many times to master it and maybe pick up the Arabic language.
He took me back to the port that I had exited only a few hours earlier. The ride cost me about two dollars or twenty dirham. It was a good deal and the driver was extremely nice. Coincidentally he picked up two of his family members while he shuttled me around. He told me it was familial obligations.
But once at the port my adventure was not over. I suffered the suspicions of the Tangier customs police who wanted to know why I was coming and going on the same day. An old man fingered through my wallet. Once past him I stood among the crowds waiting to get on the ferry. A melee occurred. Everyone was pushing and the dumb police were only letting one person in at a time while slowly looking through each person’s passport.
I finally got through only to be told by the ferry workers that I had the wrong ticket. I had to go back into the port offices, past the customs. I ran into the worst official. He robbed my ticket. He made me buy another one. Then as he walked me back to the boat he turned around and, as I stood up against the wall, he stuck out his hand.
“Where’s my tip?’
“Tip?”
“For good service.”
I had to pony up more cash.
His lackey brought me the rest of the way past the crowds, down a poorly lit section of the dock, along dark waters. I was let onto another boat by a police officer who wore only an orange band to distinguish himself as a man of law.
If you want to enjoy Tangier you must make peace with the hustlers. They are both officials and pedestrians. It is part of the international milieu. They are there to be used but they need grease. They will show you the city, get you past mad crowds. And if you let them they will avail drugs, rugs, sites, mint tea, everything to you.
However, making peace is easier said than done. The hustlers are very smart. They can spot a loaded American coming up the hill from two hundred yards away and can be very pushy. Everyone learns in their own special way how to deal with them.
Now I write this on a ferry back to
XIV. Back in
Wandering through the streets in the wee hours, I knock on several hostel doors. Finally a friendly woman answers. She is portly but very warm. She charges me fifteen euros to stay the night in my own room with my own bathroom, which even has a bidet to wash my ass.
The room is on the second floor. A yellow neon sign buzzes outside my window. The furniture is antique and made of real wood. No phone. No TV. But there is a warm comfortable bed. I settle in to read King Arthur tales, and just before dozing off I hear the drunk laughter of a couple down on the street. I smile. And think to myself that life is good.
XV. On the Road…
We traveled many miles by bus to get to
Orchards, old farms, rolling hills decorate the road to
At night we passed through
As the dawn rose in Malagar I spied a huge statue on a hill of a black bull. So tall it rose above the trees. It serves as a reminder of how much the Spanish love bull fights.
XVI. From atop the hill…
I’ve seen the
The full moon’s reflection on the rippling tide
The lighthouse
The castle
The sleeping village
I’ve seen Antonio on the deck of the ship
Coins overflowing from his hands
His suntanned skin
His knife and hook
His serious eyes made gleeful only by drink
From atop the hill
I’ve seen the
XVII. Dear Chef Family…
Greetings from
With love,
Louis
XVIII. Barcelona is like
A guy sees one movie on
In Battista’s
The flip side to the argument is that the Barce government is so high-minded that they have given over the streets to our inner Dionysians. Could this be possible? I thought the Puritan Martians had taken over the world. Never have I seen hoes run the night like they do on La Rambla. Illegal beer sales occur right in front of the police. No one gives a shit! I smell something funny. The world can’t be that freewheeling!
IXX. Airplane No-Nos…
The following are airplane no-nos: controlled substances, obscene articles (according to what standard I have no clue!), toxic substances, agriculture-eating insects, and birds.
