La Cosa Más Divertida de la Semana (bueno, mi vida es muy aburrida)

Estuve en el centro cuando pasó un camión con alta voces con anuncios de uno de los tres circos que hay en Valencia en este momento. “¡Damas y caballeros de Valencia, no se equivoquen del circo!” Como si hubiera una gran diferencia entre ellos o si eligieras uno en vez de otro algo malo podría pasar a tu familia.

Es muy fácil comprobar cuál es el mejor circo: el que tiene más monos.

Ten Reasons To Be In Spain

1) Sometimes a guy just likes to take a leisurely stroll down a quiet cobblestone street while being pursued by a herd of homicidal bulls. That guy isn’t me because I was born with certain birth defects which preclude my participation in these events: a dominant cowardly gene and an excess of common sense. There is no known cure.

2) 82.3% less news about Michael Jackson (and there was plenty about him in Spain).

3) This may seem astonishing to many of you but as a male of the species I really don’t find nude women on the beach to be repugnant. I think that I could live without the naked, fat, 60 year old foreign tourists but you have to learn to take the good with the bad, the ugly, and the “Oh my God I wish I had never seen that.”

4) As far as consumer mentality goes, Spain has helped me to realize that life isn’t better just because you have a choice of 95 breakfast cereals at the supermarket. I don’t even like cereal.

5) Like almost all Spaniards, I have learned to have a healthy respect for food. People here won’t even eat a bag of potato chips without first decanting them into a nice serving bowl. I have learned that Menú del Día translates into English as “Two hour lunch with a nap afterwards.”

6) Vacations in Spain are an art form. We don’t even have a word in America for puente which in Spain means to milk as much out of a day off as humanly possible. A café in my neighborhood run by a Chinese family put a sign in their window that said they were taking off two hours early on a Saturday night to celebrate Chinese New Year. Most Spaniards needed three days to do that holiday justice.

7) 86.3% fewer serial killers than in the USA.

8) Two ice-cold quintos (small, 1/5 liter bottles of beer) for 1€ at a bar in my neighborhood (I have never claimed to be a complicated man).

9) I can buy a pig’s head at my butcher. I have never bought a pig’s head but I like having the option.

10) Honestly, I can’t be bothered to find out about anything in Spain I don’t like. You'll have to give me more time here for that.

Nice Doggy

Nice Doggy

Where do I begin
To tell the story
Of how great a love can be?
The sweet love story
That is older than the sea
That sings the truth about the love she/he/Rex/Lassie/Fido brings to me
Where do I start?
- Lyrics by Carl Sigman (and me), Music by Francis Lai

Where do I begin, where do I begin to tell the story of the Spanish and their love of dogs, big and small? Mostly small because almost everyone lives in an apartment and who's got room for a Saint Bernard? Just as most people here choose to drive smaller cars, they also prefer smaller dogs, and for the same reason: better fuel economy.

Whether they are bigger than wolves or smaller than hamsters, the dogs here are almost always well behaved. If they have such things as leash laws here most people are in violation, yet their loose mutts never seem to stray very far or get into mischief. You see dogs waiting patiently—or not so patiently—outside of grocery stores while their masters are inside buying all of the strange things Spanish people buy in grocery stores. People take their pets with them practically every where they go. The main cathedral in Valencia actually has a special pew set aside in the back just for dogs. That's probably not true but it should be. That would be hilarious. If dogs aren’t allowed in churches this might explain why nobody in Spain goes any more. I guess the Catholic god is more of the cat-loving type of superior being.

Just walk down a sidewalk here and it is immediately evident that dogs have a privileged place in Spanish society. Dogs in Spain have the same sort of status as movie stars have in American society, except without the drug rehab and DUI arrests. For the most part, dogs don't have any issues that can't be remedied with a rolled up magazine. Celebrities in America usually need a little firmer punishment than a rolled up magazine. What usually works best in their case is a good swat with a board with a nail sticking out of it. Spanish dogs are a lot better behaved than American celebrities even considering all of the poop and yapping—I'll let the reader wonder if I am referring to Spanish dogs or famous actors. The subjects of American tabloid newspapers leave a bigger mess in their wake than any Spanish chihuahua. If you don't believe me just try cleaning up the latest social dump you read about in The National Inquirer with nothing but a plastic shopping bag wrapped around your hand.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Got Ate (and other stories)

Warning: The following essay contains the word “poop” several times and therefore may not be suitable for younger readers. Either that or it's only suitable for younger readers.

Xativa, Spain. This was the location of the first reported falcon attack against a canary, a once cheery little fellow who probably thought he was safe in his cage on an apartment balcony. Witnesses said the falcon landed on the canary's cage on an apartment balcony. I can imagine the canary was feeling smug in his cage and started talking smack to the falcon. “Oh, look at the big stupid falcon. I'm so scared.” The raptor then stuck one of his talons through the bars, neatly diced the canary into bite-sized pieces, pulled the bits out from between the bars, and ate them. No kidding. Canaries are tiny little birds and there are millions of pigeons for falcons to dine on so I'm guessing he ate the canary out of spite because he was annoyed with the wise-guy song bird.

There have been several reports by local citizens reporting birds attacks. These ate crimes (I am so sorry for that) are not all perpetrated by falcons and hawks, people have also reported seeing sea gulls attack pigeons. The workers in the Valencia area animal control bureau who field these calls basically just tell people to grow up. This is the way life is really is. Don't these people watch all of the nature shows on TV? Perhaps they thought they were witnessing some sort of intra-species bird-on-bird perversion. I have seen three articles in the local paper on this subject so I think they are just trying to assure people that it's normal for big bird to eat little bird.

I have stopped complaining about dog poop on the sidewalks of Valencia. This isn't because the problem has gone away, I just got tired of being the only person who seemed bothered by it. I have noticed that Barcelona doesn't have this problem as most dog owners there clean up after their pets. I had never seen any sort of ad campaign in Valencia to get people to scoop up in their pet's wake. I have come across very few street signs urging folks to clean up. I was surprised to come across an article in the Valencia daily, Levante, about a campaign in the neighborhood of Patraix in which residents are trying to raise awareness of this problem. Their idea was to decorate dog waste with holiday motifs. Another article in the same paper some days later said there was talk of initializing a program in which dog waste found on the street will be tested for DNA. I think people have been watching a bit too much CSI.

Both the DNA testing and the poop decorating scheme seem like such passive-aggressive approaches to solving the problem. What ever happened to just screaming at offenders, “Hey, clean that up. Were you born in Madrid?” That's what you say to people in Spain instead of, “Were you born in a barn?” At least that's what people say here in Valencia. I'm not sure if Madrid suffers from this dog poop problem. One look at the sidewalks in Valencia will make you wonder if the rest of Spain says, “Were you born in Valencia?”

I propose a more drastic and direct approach to combat dog poop on the sidewalk. We need a campaign of television announcements to raise public awareness to this crisis. I thought to myself, “How would Leni Riefenstahl deal with this issue?” If you think that employing the techniques of this influential filmmaker and chief propagandist for the Third Reich is going a bit overboard, then you haven't been forced to play dog crap hopscotch down a narrow sidewalk in my neighborhood. I have a commercial in mind.

First, you need a moving musical score. Something brooding and ominous, sort of Schindler's List-y but more melodramatic. Open with a sunny winter day in one of Valencia's lovely parks. A mother and father are teaching their son how to ride his first bike, probably a Christmas gift. After a few strides the father lets go and the boy is pedaling all on his own. But up ahead a Jack Russel terrier is squatting in the bike path. The little boy cheerfully rings the little bell on his handlebars—just like dad taught him to do. The dog moves out of the way but he has left behind the steaming remains of yesterday's Purina. The little boy frantically applies the brakes, but it is too late. Cut to stock footage of the world's great disasters: the Hindenburg explosion, Nagasaki, Joseba Beloki's horrible crash in the 2003 Tour de France, and the World Trade Center collapsing (too over-the-top?). The aftermath. The inconsolable parents, the distraught emergency medical team agonizing over their inability to save the child, and the Jack Russel nonchalantly peeing on the front tire of the ambulance. A cemetery on a cold, gray afternoon. The young couple approach a tiny tombstone and the father places a Power Rangers action figure on top. A Power Rangers figure or whatever toy is in season this year, the toy your kid won't stop screaming about until you buy it for him, even though you gave him the speech about not raising him just to provide another consumer for the marketing departments of the world. Of course you caved in and bought it for the little animal. If you didn't someone probably would have called child protective services and had your kid taken away from you. On the other side of the cemetery the little dog plays with a chew toy, mocking the parent's grief. Fade out.

I'm just sort of thinking out loud but I think you get the mood I'm after with these commercials.

Perfect Zeros: Doing Nothing With Style

Perfect Zeros: Doing Nothing With Style

You would have never thought that being a lazy slob was such hard work until you spend a summer in Valencia. Idleness is an absolutely relentless task around here. It starts the minute you get out of bed in the morning, or at least when you decide to open the persianas, the blinds on the windows here that block out every last ray of skin-scorching, house-plant-wrecking, and furnace-like sunshine that beat down on the little corner of the Mediterranean that I call home, or at least it's where I have been keeping my suitcases and doing my laundry. The word “lazy” in Spanish seems to be more of a challenge than an insult so don't worry about offending me.

Yes, summer can be a real chore, a full-time job, and there is still a long way to go before it's over so you just have to dig in and battle it out like everyone else around here—or leave on vacation for the month. My whole life here is pretty much a vacation so I'm staying put for August. Besides that, it's too hot to move.

Wake up late, have a coffee and listen to people in the café bitch about the heat, maybe do a little shopping and stand behind women at the supermarket cooling themselves with hand fans, and then it's back home for a nap. Wake up an hour later in a stupor from which you are only partially revived by an ice coffee, lather up with 50 factor sunscreen, drink a few liters of water, and go out for something remotely resembling a bike ride. Bike rides in the summer are shorter and sweatier than during the other seasons. The dress code changes radically. Instead of cycling clothing, it's flip-flops, surf trunks, and a shirt that goes into my pack as soon as I clear the city limits. I wouldn't actually call my summer bike rides “exercise,” I just sort of go through the pantomime of a bike workout. It's too hot to think about where to go on my rides so I just go to the beach every day on the bike path. 30 minutes after pushing off in front of my building and I am carrying my bike across the sand at the beach at El Saler. I go for a swim, if you can call it that. Some days I just dive in and head directly to the beach shower.

Showering outdoors is one of the biggest treats of summer. In my old bungalow in Florida I had a great outdoor shower that I used when I got home from the beach. I have often thought that outdoor showers could be a lucrative sort of business if everyone knew just how great it feels. I just wish that you could make the water colder at the beach showers.

One of the hardest jobs this time of year is choosing an outdoor café for coffee or a beer. The good thing is that you have lots of occasions to stop for a beer or a coffee. The even better news is that there are countless places to do it. Just about every bar and restaurant has what is called a terraza de verano, or summer terrace. Tables and chairs are placed on the sidewalks and often in the street. If anyone is bothered by this no one seems to have the energy to complain. In summer it seems that no one can make it the two blocks to the supermarket without stopping on the way there for something to drink, and maybe on the way home as well. What the hell else do you have to do?

A lot of people complain about the slow service in cafés during the summer. Have you ever tried to wait on tables while you are in a very deep sleep? And look at how peaceful he looks sacked out in a chair behind the bar. He looks like a little angel, even with his hand stuffed in his pants and a wisp of slobber on his chin. I don't have the heart to wake him up to order a coffee so I just sit at a table on the terrace and try not to disturb him as I read. The bar owner will wake up eventually and it's not like I'm in any sort of hurry. If there is something that can be defined as the exact opposite of being in a hurry then it comes pretty close to describing this place in summer.

Doing nothing becomes something along the lines of an Olympic event during summer in the Mediterranean. Judges give points for style and give lower scores for difficulty. It's not impossible but judges rarely award anyone a score of perfect zeros.

Profani-TV

Profani-TV

There is a huge difference between how Spanish and American cultures view profanity, especially on the official level of television. Where almost no form of foul language can escape the vigilant ears of censors on American TV, almost anything goes—at least linguistically—on Spanish programs. I just finished watching one of my favorite talk shows here in Spain called Buenafuente. Normally this show airs at midnight but there are also weekly recaps that come on in the morning. On this particular episode the host and namesake of the program, Ignacio(?) Buenafuente, was interviewing Pancracio Celdrán, Catedrático del Taco or professor of obscenities. He is the author of El Gran Libro del los Insultos. Not only did they cover just about every Spanish vulgarity, but they also spent quite a while talking about the word “fuck” in English.

Could you even imagine if anyone ever said “fuck” on an American TV show? First of all, at least three little old ladies in Alabama would drop dead. But that would never happen because the censors would bleep it out and then make the producers of the show wash the video in bleach before allowing it to be aired. Afterwards they would wash out the mouth of the guilty swearer with soap. I just finished reading a long report about the strength of America's right to freedom of expression compared to almost every other Western democracy, so why do we get so bent out of shape over profanity? Your right to free speech in America evidently does not cover yelling “Cocksucker!” in a crowded theater. Does being protected from vulgarity on television make us more civilized?

I don't think that Spanish people, on average, swear any more or less than American people, and when I say American people I don't include myself because I swear more than anyone I have ever met—at least anyone I have ever met who wasn't in the American military. Tourettes Syndrome-like swearing seems to be a by-product of military service, like some sort of phantom Gulf War disease. Although it isn't apparent to me that Spanish people swear any more or less than Americans, I would say that obscenities are more accepted and used by a larger percentage of the population.

Certain words like mierda (shit) and puta (whore) are used with almost alarming frequency in Spain. Hardly an episode of Family Guy (Padre de Familia) goes by without the word mierda being used, and I don't think this is a direct English translation. Profane words hardly seem to make a bleep on the radar in Spanish life unless they are used in a hostile or aggressive fashion.

Besides mierda, the other thing you hear a lot is puta and hijo de puta (son of a whore) which is one of the big insults in the Spanish-speaking world. I'm surprised that there isn't a protest organization here called something like Mothers of Sons of Whores to stand up for the rights of those being insulted. Being the son of a whore doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world to me, but I come from an English-speaking country. For me it sounds kind of glamorous—at least it would if mom were one of those high-profile hookers. Anyway, it sounds more fun than being the son of a virgin.

Take those seven words George Carlin says you can't say on American TV, put them all in one sentence, and you could say that on a Spanish talk show, even in prime time. There's even a popular show called “Without Tits There's no Heaven” (Sin Tetas no Hay Paraíso). I've never seen the show. I guess that the premise is just too obvious for me, I mean, come on, heaven without boobs? Of course not. My point being that there ain't no tits on the radio nor on American TV, not physically and not even the word. We do do violence, however, and lots of it. Spain has yet to really catch up to us as far as this fascination with graphic violence is concerned. I'll leave that irony for another essay.

Buenafuente mentioned that he thought that the richness of English was being lessened by the over-use of the word “fuck” in the modern, English-speaking world. I don't know his level of English but if his English is anything less than very good this may be explained by the fact that you will hear words in another language that you know, and not hear those you don't—if that makes sense. If you know the word “fuck” in English you will hear it every time it is spoken, which may seem like a lot but it really isn't. What you aren't hearing is all of the words you don't know. If all you know of Spanish is puta and mierda, it will seem like people are saying these words a lot. I certainly wouldn't say that English or Spanish speakers swear any more than the other. What I will say is that—at least in America—we show a lot of phony puritan concern for profanity in the public sector, especially on the airwaves.

There is a wonderful scene on an episode of The Wire in which detectives Bunk and McNaulty investigate a crime scene while only using the word “fuck” in every and all of its almost countless nuances. What the scene illustrates (besides their great police work) is that profanity is not much more than linguistic sawdust.* It is simply filler that has no purpose other than to fill the space between words which actually are meant to carry meaning.

My father once told me that children shouldn't use profanity when adults were around. He knew better than to think that kids weren't going to swear. That's like expecting kids not to misbehave or set stuff on fire. That's what kids do. My father passed away before he was able to give me advice about using profanity as an adult. The funny thing is, I swear worse than a pirate in English (or better than one, depending on your point of view) but in Spanish I choose not to swear. I just think that profanity sounds dumb with an accent. I still have to think before I say a lot of stuff when I speak Spanish. If I had to think before I spoke English I would rarely choose to employ profanity. In my native language the filth just sort of leaks out, it's the sawdust that fills the cracks in conversation.

How anyone could possibly be truly offended by profanity is strange to me but I suppose that's because I'm not exactly the delicate sort. I don't have to keep smelling salts in my purse for fear that I may swoon when someone says “shit” or “fuck” in the course of conversation. Making a big deal out of profanity is like when parents make a big fuss when they hear their young children use foul language. No matter how you feel about profanity, it's part of the language and it's here to stay. Pretending it doesn't exists just seems silly to me, but what the fu%# do I know?

*I wish I could take credit for that great bit of word coinage. I came across it in a text book on English grammar.

Part Bin Laden, Part Bart Simpson

Part Bin Laden, Part Bart Simpson

There have been at least five processions (pasacalles) that have passed below my window in just the last half hour and more are coming. Each procession has its own band and is made up of Falleras, people dressed in traditional Valencia clothing of the Fallas. There have also been about a thousand explosions—both big and ear-shattering—in the last 30 minutes. One of my favorite things about Fallas is seeing all of the little kids dressed up for the event. Some are all decked out in colorful and elaborate traditional clothing that can cost hundreds and hundreds of euros, others wear a traditional pañuelo, or handkerchief, and a smock. The kids are really cute but I can’t forget that they are also the enemy.

Yes, I am scared shitless of the kids during Fallas because they are given carte blanche to blow the crap out of everything. Even the smallest of children are armed with little caps that explode when thrown. Rug rats in the 8-12 year range are outright terrorists during Fallas and should be avoided whenever possible. They are armed to the teeth with fireworks. If I see a group of little snot-nosed punks on a street corner during the festival, I will cross the street quicker than if I saw a group of Crips and Bloods having a shoot-out.

I was hanging out at one of my favorite bars in the neighborhood called La Flor de Ruzafa watching as they were constructing the Falla in the middle of the street. The Fallas are made of wood, Styrofoam, and beer, evidently. I had a great view of the whole process as I stood at the walk-up window. There was also a group of little kids lighting off firecrackers. I guess that is all part of the atmosphere. I felt like I was at a cross between the Carnival in Rio and the Green Line in Beirut.

The little terrorists either ran out of firecrackers or they got bored of blowing up shit. I’m guessing that they ran out. I wasn’t allowed to so much as light a fucking match as a kid, let alone play with firecrackers. I don’t know if I am more annoyed by the noise or more consumed by jealously because these little kids get to do things I could have only dreamed about as a kid. Firecrackers weren’t even legal where I lived so even if my parents weren’t worried about me blowing off a vital part of my body, I probably couldn’t have scored any explosives. The little, pre-adolescent al Qaeda kids were kicking around near the bar and the Falla construction site looking for something to do. This was at about 2 a.m., which during Fallas is a perfectly normal time for kids to be out, unsupervised, in the street.

I was talked into playing futbolín (foosball) with my sworn enemies. I got paired up with the leader of their little terrorist cell. It turned out the young Bin Laden and I dominated the table for quite some time until the others made us break up our winning team. The good news is that bars stay open really, really late during the festival so I didn’t have to choose between futbolín and last call.

P.S. I just learned that each local Fallas group, called Casal Fallero, passed beneath my window on this Sunday afternoon in the short time it took me to write this essay. It was part of the judging of the Fallas.

Back of the Pack

Start of the last stage of the 2008 Vuelta Ciclista Comunidad Valenciana

Back of the Pack

I rode my bike over to the beginning of the fifth and final stage of the Vuelta Ciclista Comunidad Valenciana. I got a chance to check out all of the cool bikes at very close range while the riders were waiting for the start. Just before the gun I moved down the street so that I could watch the peleton cruise past. Ever since I saw my first stage of the Tour de France when I was 19 or so I have wondered how long I could ride with the peleton before I had major system failures and would be forced to seek emergency aid. I still wonder how long I could hang on at the back of the pack. 5 kilometers? 10 kilometers? Are you saying that I could suck wheel at the back of the peleton for more than 10 kilometers? I’m sure that I could have lasted longer when I was 20 than today.

Hanging out somewhere at the back trying not to be noticed: I seem to have adapted my strategy for how I would ride in the Tour de France for a lot of things in my life. I have taken up quite a few things through the years with only the expectation of faking my way through it just to see how it felt. I had no intention of even finishing the race, let alone making a dash for the winner’s circle. Some people might see this attitude as defeatist or even cowardly. I don’t know how vehemently I would disagree with those people. Perhaps you think that I am just taking a sour grapes attitude because I was never really blessed with a talent, or at least not any talent that is easily recognizable? Perhaps you think that my complete lack of competitive expectations has been a defense mechanism to protect me from potential failure? You probably would be thinking that if you are doing one of the following activities: swilling Red Bull; attending a Tony Robbins seminar; putting a “He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins” bumper sticker on your Porsche Boxter; saying shit like, “Failure is not an option;” or giving someone the finger in traffic. To those I ask, “How long do you think you could hang with the peleton.”

At least I’m not harming other people in my attention-deficit-disorder approach to pastimes, not most of the time anyway. There were those three deaths I indirectly caused in my short-lived career as a NASCAR driver, and that botched open-heart surgery I performed (it’s harder than they make it look on TV), and the airline I crashed (I guess that I should have brought parachutes for everyone). For the most part I have been the only one to pay for my mistakes. Oh, and there was Chernobyl…oops! My bad, I’ll be man enough to admit that I wasn’t a very good nuclear engineer. Evidently you need to take a few classes to do that job. I was able to fake my way through it for almost two hours before the disaster. It’s good that we can all look back on those youthful indiscretions and laugh about them now.

A jack of all trades and a master at none, as they say. I think that expression needs to have something in it about being criminally negligent. Just like few people are going to mistake me for a rider in the Tour de France, even fewer people will mistake me for a Spaniard, but I still try to blend into the back of the pack. I don’t think that I can do any harm in my quest to speak lousy Spanish—unless I finagle my way into a hostage negotiator job or work at a suicide hotline in Spain. Speaking Spanish will just be one more of those talents that I will probably develop to my own signature level of imperfection.

Attention Europeans: I have never killed an Indian

I have never killed an Indian. I know that this is hard to believe with all of the cowboy movies you watch over here. I have never really cared for the genre myself—not even the movies where the white men were sort of nice to the Indians, like Dances with Wolves. I have never understood American filmmakers' fascination with these violent, uneducated, itinerant farm laborers. I never felt that this mostly apocryphal archetype represents the American ideal of individuality; for that matter I don’t really believe Americans are big into individualism, but if you guys here in Europe find them entertaining then keep on watching. Can you turn down the volume a couple notches? I can hear the shoot-outs and banshee cries through the wall in my apartment.

You probably won’t believe me when I tell you that I absolutely hate John Wayne. He never actually killed an Indian in real life either, although in dozens of films he was something like Hitler to the Indians. John Wayne was too much of a physical coward to do harm to anyone, let alone do battle with a Native American warrior. He never even bothered to volunteer in the war against the real Hitler. Hell, the Duke may have never met a real Native American. When you look at those old films you can see that they just used white dudes with lots of make-up to portray Indians—Hollywood’s lighter toned but equally-as-insulting version of black face. Hollywood either used make-up to create Indians or they hired Anthony Quinn. He was Hollywood's idea of ethnic diversity for about 50 years of cinema.

So stop looking at me funny when I come into the bar where you are watching some hoary old horse opera. Now I know what Germans must feel like when they are traveling and they interrupt someone watching Hogan’s Heroes or Saving Private Ryan. All of the atrocities committed in those cowboy movies and television shows happened before I was even born. My forefathers came to America well after the west was won, or whatever euphemism for genocide you care to use for that unfortunate episode in American history. If I happen to laugh at what is on the television in the bar it’s not because I have no empathy for the plight of Native Americans; it’s just that I think that it is funny to see Gunsmoke dubbed into Greek, or Gary Cooper speaking Catalan.

Twenty years from now, if I live that long…cough…must…eat…cough...less…pork, twenty years from now I’ll be telling people sitting in a bar somewhere in Europe watching an American war movie about Iraq that I wasn’t down with that caper. I never liked George Bush when he was president (It feels good to say that in the past tense, even if it is, at this time, hypothetical). I didn’t vote for him twice. Because we vote in secret I can’t prove that I didn’t vote for Bush so perhaps I should take the canceled checks I sent to his two opponents (Gore and Kerry) and wear them around my neck. You’ll just have to take my word on the part about not killing any Native Americans. Can we change the channel?

Hurry Up And Wait: Part 1

Worth fighting and dying for.


The Spanish have their own system for waiting in lines; something that is required a lot here. When you walk up to the crowd waiting in the post office or at the butcher you ask, “¿El ultimo?” The last person in line will let you know who he or she is and then you are the new último, or the last one.

I have found that the most aggressive line jumpers are female senior citizens. These golden girls will make every attempt to wiggle around your rightful place in the queue and then act like they didn’t notice you when you call them on it. It certainly doesn’t pay to be shy when you are standing in line although there’s no point in losing your manners. I make a point of being firm yet polite, and I always take my large pocket knife out of my backpack and clean my fingernails while still keeping a watchful eye on my place in line.

I have never been forced to toss a Spanish grandmother to the ground with a violent judo throw, not yet. I like to keep the threat of a couple of my more effective martial arts techniques out there on the table, just to keep things honest. I would probably feel bad about slamming an old woman to the ground in front of the market vegetable stall and crushing her like a bag of dried and rotten sticks, but I didn’t write the rules to defending one’s place in line. I also don’t want to be taken advantage of just because I have an accent.

I was waiting to buy olives the other day and had already spent about ten minutes behind a guy who was buying some sort of dried fish thing. Had I been less tired or in a better humor I would have asked him what the hell he was buying and if it was intended for human consumption. Instead I waited as patiently as I could. All I wanted was a small bag of cracked olives. The olives at this stall are well worth even a ridiculously long wait. Another guy came up and asked me if I was “the last.” A minute later an old woman shuffled up pushing her grocery cart and asked who was last. The guy behind me answered and she immediately started in on a story about how she was in a hurry and if she could please move in front of him in line. He quickly and deftly passed the buck to me, directing her to ask me for my place in line. What a coward! I could see that my turn was coming up because the guy in front of me was paying.

I am as polite and gentlemanly as the next guy and I was almost going to let her go in front of me until I realized the archetype I was up against in this battle. I have had the misfortune of being behind women like her and watched as they take more time to order a couple of pork chops as it would take me to remodel a large kitchen. I hesitated a moment and then turned to the merchant and ordered my bag of olives. I wanted to tell granny that I didn’t fall off the turnip truck this morning, but instead I just let out a non-apologetic, “Hasta luego,” as I laid down the exact change for my olives and got the hell out of there.

I realize this isn’t exactly the most harrowing tale you will ever come across but you didn’t see the look of complete evil in this octogenarian’s eyes as I did. The devil in sensible shoes and support stockings. Dogs aren’t allowed inside the market but you never know if one of these golden girls has a West Highland terrier stuffed in her cart ready at a moment’s notice to rip your throat out on her orders. I was victorious on this occasion but how long can my luck hold out? Every day I avoid death is a gift.

National Alternatives to Suicide Bombing

Suicide bomber, Italian version.

The Muslim world, from Morocco to Afghanistan, is starting to get a bit of a reputation for trying to resolve conflict via suicide bombings. To most Westerners, it would seem that Muslims have rather radical views, with suicide bombing being the most radical. It is impossible for us to imagine anything so important that you feel the need to blow yourself to pieces along with a lot of innocent people. I think most Westerners believe that suicide bombers represent the most extreme elements in the Muslim world. However, if I see someone who looks to be of Middle Eastern descent wearing a bulging overcoat, my first thought isn’t that he is trying to smuggle outside food into a ball game.

It’s just that most Westerners have different ways to express the sort of pent-up anger that would lead a Muslim to blow him or herself to kingdom come along with anyone unlucky enough to be within range of the blast. I think that these ways of expressing anger differ from country to country and are defined by the national character stamped upon the citizens of these countries. What might lead one person to commit a suicide bombing mission might push someone from France, Spain, Australia, Britain, Italy, or the United States in an entirely different direction.

The kind of rage that makes one person strap on a vest packed with TNT and walk into a crowded market would cause an entirely different reaction with the average America. We Americans are more likely to attack people where it really hurts: in the pocketbook. Instead of engulfing ourselves and those around us in a fiery blaze, Americans would just take their business elsewhere. We may even spend more money at the alternative business just to emphasize our displeasure. That will really show those bastards!

Suicide bombing is just too messy and vulgar for the English. They are more apt to show their disgust by being icily-polite and coldly-courteous. After an English person cruelly inquires about the health of your family, you may just wish that you had been the victim of a bombing. Trying to come up with a rejoinder for such a well-mannered assault can be harder than searching for lost body parts after an explosion in an airport.

The Spanish are equally as passive-aggressive as the English; they just have other methods. Most anger in Spain is somehow vented through car horns. Sometimes you will hear someone leaning on their car horn for so long that you ask yourself, “Is it even possible for a person to be that much of an asshole?” Normal traffic problems trigger almost biblical bouts of honking. I often think that all of the injustices committed against the people of Palestine would not warrant car horn blasts of such duration and frequency. Imagine if the Spanish were really annoyed.

I have no idea as to what the French might do. France is still a mystery to me in many ways despite all of the hours I have spent torturing myself learning French grammar and irregular verb conjugations. What the French do they don't share with the tourists. I think what this probably means is that the French would just ignore an offense because today the weather is just too fine in Paris to do anything but go out and do whatever the hell it is that Parisians do on a warm Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow, however, they will surely conduct a huge protest in the streets which always ends with a McDonald’s getting fire bombed (although it could have been caused accidentally by a carelessly thrown cigarette butt). While the pompiers put out the blaze, everyone else watches from the terrace of the nearby cafes.

Italians would obviously just invent some sort of extremely vulgar hand gesture in response to a terrible wrong. Only they would know what the gesture means, but you would get the general idea that they weren’t happy about something. While they are giving the secret hand signal they are also letting go with a few, rapid-fire phrases that you don’t understand but probably have something to do with the terminal end of your mother’s intestinal track.

Australians don’t ever seem to get upset over anything. If the dirtballs from al Qaeda carried out an attack against Australians, they would still get invited to someone’s backyard barbeque. As long as they show up with a case of beer, Australians are willing to let bygones be bygones.

Mexicans would either punch you in the face or hug you to within an inch of your life, depending on their level of Dos Equis and tequila and whether a slow ballad is playing or a rowdy ranchera. Either way, there are going to be a few bullet holes in the ceiling so watch out for falling plaster.

After the recent terror attack in Scotland where one of the suspects was apprehended by average citizens and roundly thumped, I think the Scottish would respond to a grave injustice by giving someone a head butt.

The Scandinavians would mess up the directions on the self-assembled furniture they sell you. "Insert L#3 into Z#5? There is no Z#5! Curse you Sweden!"

I have completely exhausted my supply of national stereotypes.

Something You Don’t See Every Day

Something You Don’t See Every Day

October 9th is a big day for Valencianos. It is the day they celebrate the re-conquest of Valencia by Jaume I, it’s when Valencia expelled the Moors in 1238. The defeat of the Moors is celebrated all over Spain and mentioned at every possible occasion. It’s a pretty big deal to Spaniards, that’s why they begin celebrating here in Valencia almost a week before the actual holiday.

This Saturday evening there was a pageant recounting the victory of Jaume over the Moors which was held in the little square in front of Saint Valero church. The set for the pageant cut the little plaza in two with one of my favorite new cafes serving as the backstage area. I happened upon my new hangout between acts in the pageant and the entire cast was in the café getting into character for the next part of the play.

Most of the cast was in full battle regalia of the Moors, complete with chain mail suits, armor breast plates, and helmets and shoulder pads with long metal spikes. Most of the cast was also fairly drunk—I think they had been making a whole day of the celebration.

I waded into the café trying to avoid a permanent eye injury from one of the spikes and also saving a half dozens drinks from being swept off the counters by careless swords and javelins. Paco, the owner, and his staff were working furiously to serve the drunken army of Moors before the next scene. I took my usual glass of red wine and cautiously leaned back against the bar to enjoy the show.

There were damsels, maidens, princes, and princesses in the mix, but the most fervent bar customers were the Moors with their armor, scimitars, beers, and rum and cokes. In the pageant celebrating Jaume’s victory over the Moors, the Moors were the party animals. I was talking with one of the Moors and told him that they made bad Muslims who have a proscription against alcohol. I pointed to the bar top littered with beers, bottles of wine, and cocktails all in various stages of consumption. I also told him that they all probably had at least a kilogram of pork products making their way through their digestive system—swine is also a no-no for the followers of Mohammed. They made lousy Moors but exemplary Spaniards.

A woman came over from the stage area to say that they were going to begin the next part of the pageant. The Moors began another assault on the staff. Their order for yet another round of drinks was every bit as frantic as any battle seen in this part of the peninsula. Drinks were served, checks were paid, and then the singing started. What would a Moorish invasion of Paco’s bar be without a boisterous rendition of Valencia CF football chants? I thought this was just about the funniest, most entertaining thing that I had experienced in my time here in Valencia but there was something even better.

A few meters from the door of the café, a group of children were kneeling on a park bench looking over the back into the bar. I wish that I had a picture of these four kids looking on in amazement and wonder at the rowdy Moors who also happened to be big fans of Valencia Club de Fútbol.

¿Algo Más?

¿Algo Más?, or “anything else?,” is what you hear every time after your order has been filled at the market. My Spanish has improved by leaps and bounds since I arrived here some ten months ago. Just the other day I explained to a Spanish friend in great detail about the mortgage crisis in America and how this is playing havoc on the exchange rate here in Europe (If I had known before I left just how poorly the dollar was going to fare, I would have converted all of my savings into half-off pizza coupons). My Spanish is pretty good these days but I still don’t know how to say “no” when someone asks me, “¿Algo más?”

I just want to fit in; I just want to be anonymous. How can I do this when I go to the market and buy such puny amounts of food? I don’t even have one of those cool market baskets on wheels than any self-respecting Spanish shopper takes with them when they go to buy groceries. I sometimes feel like I am the only person in this country who cooks only for himself.

I very rarely just order the exact amount that I need for whatever I have planned to cook for that day. Today, for example, I had everything that I needed and I was on my way out the door of the market when I noticed a type of chorizo that I hadn’t seen before in one of the butcher stalls. I bought two big links, “just to try,” as I told the woman working there. When she asked me if I wanted anything else I felt like I wasn’t even in control of myself any more. I ordered four hamburger patties. Just when I plan on getting around to eating these wasn’t clear to me then and is even more of a mystery now that I have had time to inventory the contents of my bursting-at-the-seams refrigerator.

I now live with two Spanish women who don’t give me much help in consuming the vast amount of food I buy and cook regularly. I think that more food falls off of my plate on to the floor than both of them eat, combined, during the same meal. I have even started using the marker board in our kitchen, like the restaurant chalkboards you see all over Europe that announce the daily specials, to advertise what I have cooked and that I need help eating it. If they don’t get on board the leftbanker gravy train I may end up as the “before” picture in some weight loss program.

I buy big pans, really big. My paella pan is big enough to roast a whole pig, something I plan on doing some day when I can catch one of those slippery little fellas. Spanish people cook a lot with these cool clay baking dishes. When I went out to buy one I measured my oven so that I could buy the biggest one that it could hold. Back in Seattle I had a pot for making stock that was as big as those cauldrons the cannibals in the cartoons used to try to cook Bugs Bunny. I could have used it as a sort of low-rent hot tub. I think my quest for size in cooking is not some sort of over-compensation for my diminished sense of masculinity. The only part of my body that isn’t big enough for my liking is probably my liver, but that’s only because of the amount or red wine I drink over here. My fetish for bigness in cookware is probably because I have never got over the fact that although I come from a large family, I have remained single and childless.

Shopping and cooking have become two of my favorite pastimes here in Spain. I like them both more than eating, but I like eating a lot, a lot. Some men restore old motorcycles or build model train sets. I go to the market and pester anyone there who will talk to me. The gorgeous woman who sells me my eggs told me a story today about how her mother used to make her a treat to take to school that was bread soaked in red wine with sugar on top. You can’t make that stuff up. My butcher gave me his recipe for pork stock. The woman at the vegetable stand told me how many potatoes to put in my tortilla de patatas (it seems like an awful lot of potatoes but I’m going to trust her on this). I used to have to walk six or seven blocks to get to my old neighborhood market. Now I can practically trip from my front door step and fall into the Ruzafa Market. I think that I will be there almost daily.

I take shortcuts through the market when I am on the other side coming home. This could prove to be dangerous as I already have toxic levels of pork in my system and it wouldn’t kill me to walk the extra steps around the outside of the market. But the market is fun, the market is exciting, it’s where everyone goes. It’s like a disco during the daylight hours. There is no cover charge but if you’re like me, you’ll always spend more than you planned.

Pumped Up and Deflated

I had to pick up a couple of things at the market this morning in preparation for the fiesta this afternoon so I asked if there was anything else we needed. I was told no and headed out the door. Before I made it to the stairway in the hall our door opened and I was asked to pick up five loaves of bread. I got so excited I almost skipped to the market. Let me explain.

Whenever I go to the bakery I usually only buy one loaf of bread and I can never even finish this by myself before it goes stale. The bakers always ask me when I order my single, lousy little loaf of bread if I would like anything else. I never do want anything else but I almost want to order more just to fit in. I see older Spanish women at the bakery ordering prodigious amounts of bread. Do they work in an orphanage? Perhaps they run a soup kitchen which requires them to buy so much bread every day? These are the kind of thoughts that go through my mind as I walk out of the bakery with my one, little, shitty, loaf of bread.

But today I was going to buy five loaves! I felt like a Spanish Pinocchio. “Today I am a real boy!” Since I was buying such a very Spanish quantity of bread on this day I didn’t feel like such a dummy bothering the baker to explain to me the different loaves they had for sale. There are certain privileges that come with being such a big spender (total price for five loaves: 3.45€).

Some guys enjoy the status of wearing an Armani suit or driving a Porsche. With women, who the knows what their idea of status entails? A Prada bag? Gucci shoes? For me, right now, it’s walking around carrying five loaves of bread. Cancel that shipment of Viagra; I don’t need it anymore, not today, thank you. I didn’t want to walk straight back home; I felt that I needed to show off a bit. I decided that I’d go have a coffee at the bar in the market, and not my usual, touristy café americano, I ordered an espresso, or a café solo as they call them here. God, I really wanted someone I knew to see me right now. Just when I was at the height of my status high, an older Spanish guy elbowed up to the bar to get a REFILL on his red wine. It was 09:44, that’s a.m., like “in the morning” for you civilians. So much for me being a big shot. I just got punked by some 80 year old stud. I felt like half a sissy. If he had one of those cartoon thought balloons over his head it would say something like, "Out of my way, coffee boy. Maybe you should go fix your makeup."

I laid the money for the coffee on the bar and slouched out the door.

XXL, 100% Cotton Illiteracy: English T-Shirt Slogans

Huh?

One thing that you notice when you travel outside the United States is that people almost everywhere wear t-shirts with something written in English. I’m way too lazy to look into this but I would guess that Americans invented the concept of turning humans into walking billboards by putting slogans and advertisement on t-shirts. The Hard Rock Café pretty much built their entire franchise on t-shirt sales. Their iconic logo was the T-shirt of choice for people all over the world. T-shirts are bumper stickers for people. T-shirts with some sort of slogan are a fact of life everywhere I have ever been.

The lingua franca of t-shirt slogans worldwide is definitely English. I don’t know why this is the case but I can offer up a few theories. English is probably studied as a second language more than any other language in the world. The Simpsons is dubbed into almost every language in the world but I think people just want to watch it in the original. There are probably other important reasons why people study English but none come to mind. So therefore, people who study English probably think that it’s cool to walk around with a t-shirt with something written in English splashed across the front, or back, or both. People who haven’t ever studied English also probably think it’s cool.

A lot of times I get the feeling that the people wearing these shirts haven’t the faintest idea of what they say, whether they have taken an English class or not. How else can you explain a 70 year old Greek woman with a t-shirt emblazoned with “Frankie Loves Hollywood?” I don’ think that there is a 15 year old kid on the planet who would be willing to wear a t-shirt that says “True Love: Mom” if he knew what it meant, like the kid I saw last night. I wanted to punch him myself, or at least give him a wedgie. I once came across a little street urchin wearing a Harvard t-shirt and I thought, “Damn, that school needs to take better care of its alumni.” A Harvard man shining shoes in Chihuahua, Mexico? That ain’t right.

You see lots of slogans that aren’t grammatical, don’t make any sense, or are just plain stupid. The first time that I noticed this phenomenon was in the mid 1980s when people in Europe wore t-shits that said “Relax” and “No Problem.” You would see dozens of these inane shirts every day if you were in a heavily touristed area. There doesn’t seem to be a presiding t-shirt slogan on the tourist trail these days, just lots of shirts with really dumb things written in English—always English. You almost never see t-shirts with something written in French, or Spanish, or Russian, or Arabic, or Chinese. I’m not sure that I can even tell the difference between Chinese or written Japanese but you don’t see either on a shirt.

I was shopping for clothes the other day in shop run by a Chinese family. All of the clothes they sell are manufactured in China (Valencia receives more cargo from China than any other port in Spain). I was looking at their selection of t-shirts when it dawned on me that all of the dumb t-shirts you see were probably manufactured in China. This would explain the sometimes fractured “Engrish” and the senseless slogans.

Lots of American kids get tattoos of Chinese characters without knowing a single thing about the language. For all they know, that Chinese character on their butt may say “Drink Coke.” They just get them because they think that they look cool. I don’t mean to sully the good name of tattoo artists—the most trusted professionals in body mutilations—but I don’t think that you can count on many of them in the United States to know the intricacies of Mandarin Chinese. One little extra line in that character for “Peace and Understanding” in Chinese will change it to “All Deliveries made in Rear.” You need to be careful, especially if you decide to travel to China with your new ink. I'm sure Chinese people laugh their asses off at the tattoos on American hipsters.

The people who pen English sayings on Chinese-made t-shirts are just like those tattoo artists. There is probably some Chinese kid who studied English for three years and now works at some Orwellian Ministry of Annoying T-shirt Slogans. His job is to sit around all day and think up English slogans. Who knows, maybe the kid has a sense of humor and is writing these dumb slogans on purpose. How else can you explain some of these things I have seen people wearing in Valencia:

Too Brown Maybe You Clean Your Lenses
Breakfast • Lunch • Happy Hour
God Save Everyone from Basic Clothes

And this one.

Kykase Stop
Challence
The Victoria is worth only
EXTREMELY

Huh?

Or this one worn by some middle aged dork:

Young Free Cool

Imagine if these were tattoos? Giving an old t-shirt to Goodwill is a hell of a lot easier than getting an unwanted (and ungrammatical) tattoo removed with laser surgery.

Maybe I will sit in one of the popular tourist spots in Valencia with a red, felt-tipped marker and correct all of the grammatical and syntactical errors that I see on people’s t-shirts. I could put frowning face stickers on the really egregious examples of poor English. Maybe airports can put in scanners in the security queues that spell and grammar check all passengers' t-shirts. I’m sure that the technology already exists. I don’t think that there are freedom of speech laws in any country on earth that would defend a t-shirt that says “I Eat Your Skin.” Taking these shirts away from people is for their own good. Instead of correcting their shirts perhaps it would be better to translate the slogans people wear into the language of the owner.

Holgazanear (intransitive verb) to idle, to laze about/around, to loaf

I recently learned that you can use an infinitive in Spanish to answer a question. So if someone were to ask me what I’ve been doing this month of August I could reply with:
-Holgazanear.

What the hell else am I supposed to do? It’s August in Spain and not just Spain but the endless beaches part of Spain, the part of Spain where other people in Spain go to goof off. Along this entire coast you can’t spit without hitting a topless beauty or a fat, naked, 60 year old German tourist. Of course I’m screwing off, there is nothing else to do. I’m no history expert but I’ll bet every battle the Spanish have ever lost took place in August when at least half of their army was taking a trip to the beach with their families and the other half was working in the family café trying to keep enough beer cold and sardines on the grill to serve the summer hordes.

One more thing that I really love about Valencia is that you can take the subway to the beautiful city beach. There aren't many cities in the world that you can say that about. I live on the line that serves the beach so I see a lot of people either going or coming. My favorite sight is the stuff that parents pack to entertain their little kids when they spend the day on the water. Pails, shovels, watering cans, sailboats, and, of course, balls are part of what the beach caravans have in tow on the Valencia metro. This is one aspect of Spanish life that is exactly the same as it is in America: kids all use the same paraphernalia when they go to the beach.

Valencianos mostly drive to the beaches south of town and for this ten minute expedition families bring more crap than a Spice Route camel caravan. Chairs, tables, umbrellas, blankets, volleyball nets, rackets, and all of the kid junk listed earlier. It’s hard to imagine all of this stuff fits into the little cars people drive—maybe they make two or three trips. Goofing off requires a lot of equipment if you are doing it right.

If you can find a restaurant that is actually open in August it will be filled to capacity, at least during the hours when Spanish people eat, which seem to get later and later as the summer moves along its trajectory. Lunch is still going strong at an hour when many American early bird specialists are already packing up their leftovers in doggie bags and heading home to bed. The crowds wash in and out of the beach cafes like the tides. If you were to take a water sample of those tides, the results would come back as coffee, Coca Cola, red wine, and beer. It probably takes at least one nuclear reactor just to power all of the espresso machines working furiously along the coast. I would rather suffer the consequences of a dozen reactor core meltdowns than risk having a few million Spanish people go without coffee for a single afternoon.

I’m pretty sure that they still print newspapers in August, and there is probably news on television, but maybe if we just ignore it the news will go away—it can at least wait until September. I’m too caught up in the trashy Spanish novel I’m reading to bother with the newspapers, except to read the Calvin and Hobbes comic in the local paper, Levante. Even soccer takes a break in August so there’s no reason to read the sports.

Thank God that in the middle of all of this hustle and bustle I have time to take a nap. These aren’t my usual little power naps of ten to fifteen minutes, these are howling one hour affairs so intense that I don’t know what day it is when I wake up (not that I really knew what day it was when I first laid down, but still). I wake up semi-paralyzed and semi-conscious and I check to make sure I didn’t lose anything to some international group of organ thieves—not that anyone who knew any better would want anything coming out of this burnt-out old carcass. I use the slobber on my chin to fix my bed-head hair and then head down to the café for a coffee.

The café is full again and I am beginning to wonder if all of these customers have been evicted. It's hard to imagine they have homes when they spend 10 hours a day at this joint. I’m sure they think the same about me and I don’t even bother changing clothes from day to day. I stick with flip-flops, surf trunks, and the soccer jersey du jour (today it’s the Portugal national team jersey). I speak Spanish like Tarzan so I may as well look the part. I haven't worn shoes in months and can you explain to me again the purpose of socks? I don’t know how much longer I can keep going at this frantic pace. Something has got to give and I hope it isn’t the seam in the ass of my surf trunks from all of the fried squid I’ve been putting away.

I have to be honest; I’m exhausted. It’s 8:30 a.m. and I’m ready to go back to bed for an hour, maybe two, three at the very most. I don’t know if I should be worried but my blood pressure is so low that the readings begin with decimal points. I’d call a doctor but they are all out of the office in August. For medical emergencies you are supposed to rent one of those sound trucks and try and page a doctor at the beach. I tried that but all the little kids mobbed me because they thought I was the ice cream man. It was pretty funny but things got ugly once the little bastards found out I didn't have any ice cream. I was able to take out a few of them but in the end I got stomped something fierce. Ice cream sounds good right now, even if it is 8:31 a.m. In August, 8:31 a.m. is like four in the afternoon.

Racial Profiling the Illegal Immigrant Way

I was sitting in a café the other day with three friends: a guy from Cameroon, a Romanian, and a gal from Central America. Across the street a group of Chinese workers were furiously working inside of a storefront. The renovations they were doing were fairly major as this site used to be an empty warehouse. They had installed huge windows and marble stairs with inset lights. Whatever they were building looked like it was going to be a pretty big affair.

I asked the others at the table if they knew what this new spot was going to be when they finished. My African friend said that it was going to be a “Buffet Libre or a Chinese buffet restaurant. I asked him how he knew this and he just shrugged his shoulders. He finally admitted that he didn’t know. “What else could it be? They’re Chinese,” was his follow up.

The Romanian guy said that it looked like it would be a variety store, or a chino as they are called here because almost all of these types of stores are run and owned by Chinese immigrants. It didn’t look like it was going to be a variety store. The windows and the marble stairs were a little too nice for a chino. I asked out loud if maybe it was going to be a fancy night club or a disco.

The girl from Central America immediately replied, “Oh no, Chinese don’t run places like that.”

I guess that I was the only one at the table who hasn’t learned everyone’s place in contemporary Spanish society. I have been able to make a few observations so far. I have noticed that the Chinese do run most of the chinos and they do own a lot of buffet libres. They also seem to own quite a few bars and cafes around town as well as stores that sell inexpensive clothing for men and women. I was in one of these places the other day and I bought a couple of great bootleg national soccer jerseys (Argentina and Portugal) for 5€ each—they usually cost about $65.

The folks from the Indian subcontinent seem to have cornered the market on corner fruit and vegetable markets. They also seem to be the communication moguls here as they own most of the locutorios or internet and telephone cafes. A lot of immigrants from all over call home from these businesses. You can see the rates listed for more countries than you thought existed on this planet. I guess no one calls the United States because I never see rates posted.

The sub-Saharan Africans seem to have a monopoly on bootleg DVDs to the point that a word has been coined in their honor. A bootleg DVD or CD is said to be top manta which refers to the Africans’ salesroom. Manta means blanket and these immigrants lay out their illegal merchandise on blankets in the street. This makes it easy for them to fold up shop and make a run for it if the cops decide to take an anti-business stance to this type of commerce. Top is borrowed from English and refers to something like “Top of the charts” and means any kind of popular music or movie, so Top manta means “top of the blanket.” I don’t think they have a word for “Intellectual Property” in Spanish as of this writing.

The Africans will also go ambulatory with their wares and you see them hawking stacks of the latest DVDs in bars and restaurants all over Valencia. I was at a café one day reading a book when I saw an older woman next to me looking through a stack of movies. She ended up buying four DVDs, one of which was a porno that from her lack of embarrassment may as well have been a copy of The Little Mermaid for her granddaughter. I’m sure it was respectable filth and not midget porn or a snuff flick, but still. I guess that I need to loosen up, I’m in Europe.

I certainly don’t know what is expected of American immigrants here in Spain, and I don’t think anyone else does, either. Besides a few students here for a semester, I haven’t come across any other estadounidenses, which is the proper term for us. As soon as I figure out what I’m supposed to be doing I’ll start doing it. Until then I’m just having fun trying to keep track of everyone else.

Refrán of the Day:
Más vale perder un amigo, que perder una tripa. (Said when you have gas)
It's better to lose a friend than blow a bowel.

The Little Malarial Mosquito That Could (Almost)

Better luck next time, fucko.


Most inspiring tales have humble beginnings, and what could be more humble than a mud puddle in equatorial Africa? Even in the lowly world of larva, your mud puddle was nasty and nothing to write home about. Almost the moment you got airborne out of that pestilential backwater, a fierce wind carried you north across the great Sahara desert where another wind, the sirocco, swept you farther north and out over the Mediterranean Sea. During the flight, other mosquitoes in your swarm told stories of older siblings who had the fortune of landing on cruise ships in the Mediterranean, ships full of fat, thin-skinned tourists who provided an eating orgy for the half-starved mosquitoes on this same pilgrimage. All your party can muster up en route is a garbage scow registered in Liberia with a crew so scraggly and diseased that you decide to hold out for better prospects.

It has been over a week since you said goodbye to your little mud puddle, a week of adventure and little blood. Just when you think that you can’t hold out any longer and are about to do a belly flop in the sea, you see lights on the horizon. Someone in the swarm who has made this trip says that it is Rome up ahead. Ah Rome, the Eternal City. You have always wanted to see Rome. Maybe you will stick it to the Pope, so to speak. The Coliseum would be a good spot to hunt…oops. A strong easterly sweeps you back out to sea. Goodbye Rome, hello Valencia, Spain.

You would have liked to check out the beach as there is less in the way of clothes to get to bare skin. Instead you finally come down in the heart of the city. It is something like 3 a.m. and there is no one in the street. Almost crazed with hunger you fly up, and up. Somewhere in one of these endless apartment buildings there awaits your first meal in over seven days. You fly into an apartment on the sixth floor. No pesky screens in this country. The kitchen and living rooms are empty. As you attempt to enter the bedroom you are repulsed by a chemical being emitted from a socket on the wall. The anti-mosquito device is just too powerful.

Is this to be the end, not only for you but also for the malaria protozoan parasite that rode as a stowaway all the way from the steamy jungles of Africa? What a cruel evolutionary demise for the both of you. “Adiós, protozoan parasite. Adiós, little mosquito.” You land on this strange plastic thing that hums quietly. Death is near.

But then someone enters the room, and get this, HE ISN’T WEARING A SHIRT! You are almost delirious from hunger and it is difficult to see in the darkness. The great shirtless one sits down and touches the strange plastic thing that hums quietly. Miraculously the strange plastic thing lights up. It is like seeing a lighthouse in a storm. You point your needle and fly as fast as you can, sticking it into the hilt in his chest. You take out so much blood that you almost faint. What happened to protozoan parasite? I guess this is where he gets off. He didn't even thank you for the ride. You don’t want to, but you pull out your needle and flap your wings. You are so full that it is going to take extra effort to get off the ground again. You flap your wings furiously and start to move just as you see something coming your way. It is a long limb with five digits at the end. What could it be?

SPLAT!

Note to self: buy a can of aerosol bug spray for when I can’t sleep at night and want to do some writing at my desk which is outside the range of the bug zapper I have in the bedroom.

Lock Down

Spanish people have a thing about doors, big heavy things capable of withstanding a siege. You first notice this in the historic sections of Spanish cities. It seems that most of Spain was built with some sort of defensive purpose in mind—even a lot of churches were built with security as a major concern. There are forts, castles, towers, and walls all over the country, giving testimony to a past rife with wars, invasions, and raids. The Visigoths threw out the Vandals, the Moors defeated the Visigoths, the Moors were finally expelled by the Christians and through all of this violence, people needed good, solid doors. I mean, a door’s primary function is to keep people (and armies) out; if this wasn’t the case then castles wouldn’t even have doors, would they. They might have screen doors to keep the bugs out in the summer but not the heavy, steel reinforced entries found not only in castles but in modest Spanish farm homes. On the Iberian peninsula, people are serious about their doors.

Spain hasn’t been invaded in a long time, unless you count the throngs of Scandanavian tourists who show up at the beaches each summer or the present invasion of New Zealanders here for the America’s Cup, yet Spaniards insist on having tremendously sturdy doors. The door to my apartment has five hinges each measuring about eight inches. The deadbolt locks in at the bottom, middle, and top, each one with three bolts. The lock takes four key turns and pushes the bolts out more than an inch into the frame. It is steel reinforced all around. You could use one of those battering rams that they use on cop shows in the USA as a door knocker here. If someone on the inside doesn’t want you to get in, you aren’t coming in through the front door. Try a window.

This door fetish is part vestigial security concern formed by their bellicose past and part paranoia fueled by current myth and hyperbole. People here seem to have an almost irrational fear of thieves. This became apparent when I first bought my bicycle. I would guess that I have been warned about bike thieves at least 25 times; almost any time that bicycles are mentioned someone will comment on the rash of bike thefts plaguing the city. I was so freaked out at first that I would lock my bike when I left it on my balcony—and I live on the fifth floor! What was I afraid of? Ninja gypsies? People often chain their bikes with two, three, and even four different locks. Why not just booby-trap your parked bike with plastic explosives or build a moat around it?

I have heard so many horror stories about theft in Spain that the skill and audacity of thieves has taken on a mythical aspect. Thieves will cut out the bottom of your purse/ backpack/ gym bag/ pocket to steal your valuables. Thieves will pounce on your unattended bicycle like a pack of hyenas the moment you turn your back. Make sure you fully lock the door every time you leave the apartment. Pickpockets are everywhere. You think to yourself that it can’t all be true and then one day as you are walking through a crowded market, and just like that, you realize that someone has stolen your boxer shorts. Why didn’t you listen? You can bet that after the underwear-napping you, too, will be all about security.

I’m not suggesting that theft isn’t a problem but I hardly think that it warrants such eternal vigilance. Not only have I not been the victim of theft but I have had people go to extremes to return my property, like the time a guy ran me down because I didn’t take my money out of the ATM. I often leave my bike unlocked when I am able to keep and eye on it, just kind of fishing for bicycle thieves. I haven't even had a nibble so far.

Travel guides for Spain almost always include warnings about theft. It’s like travelers all come from some idyllic wonderland where no one steals anything. It’s like people need to be warned that they need to use common sense. Why don’t they warn you to look both ways before crossing the street while you are on vacation? Remember, running with scissors can be dangerous in Spain! As for the Spanish and their doors, I think that they firmly believe sooner of later the invaders will return, whether they be pagan Vandals, Islamic Moors, or hoards of sun burned British retirees . Make sure the door is locked before going to bed.