Of Nobel Laureates and Trailer Trash

Learning Spanish takes me in many directions. At the moment I am reading a book of journalism by Gabriel Garcia Marquez called Noticia de un Secuestro (News of a Kidnapping) about the plague of kidnappings in the era of Pablo Escobar. Marquez is always a difficult read for anyone but the most literate Spanish speakers so my dictionary is getting a workout. He must have been a remarkable journalist back when he dedicated himself to reporting. The book has an astonishing clarity you find in few works of nonfiction. Besides a Nobel Prize winner in literature I have been exploring other venues to improve my Spanish.

I’ve said before that one of the greatest things about learning Spanish is that I can justify anything if it helps me learn. I think that Me Llamo Earl falls under most people’s definition of slumming. I had never seen the show before but I’ve had several people tell me that it’s funny (it’s funny). Granted, the vocabulary I’m learning isn’t of the elevated nature that you find in a work of nonfiction by a highly-celebrated author, and most of the low-rent words from the show I already knew, but I can still classify the show as a learning aid. It’s like what Malcolm X said about “by any means necessary.”


Vocabulary I learned from a couple episodes of Me Llamo Earl:
Tachar – to cross out.
Enmendar – to rectify. Earl has a list of bad things he’s done and as he rectifies them he crosses them off his list.
Chamuscar – to scorch or singe. Earl is trying to quit smoking and someone told him that carrots help so he tries to smoke one.
Mangar – to swipe, steal, nick, pinch
Amañar – to fix a game.
Timo – cheat, scam
Potar – puke
Abogado de oficio – court-appointed lawyer
Tacaño – cheap
Don – talent, gift
Puñetero/a – damn.  El puñetero equipo - the damn team. A friend told me the the word comes from the lace on the cuff of a shirt or dress. They are difficult to make so puñetero is sort of like "pain in the ass."

Best joke from the show in the style of Groucho Marx:

¿Por qué quieres suicidarte? (Why do you want to kill yourself?)
Porque no tengo trabajo, no tengo amigos, vivo en una caravana sin calefacción, he fracasado, y me duelen los pies. (Because I don’t have a job or friends, I live in a trailer with no  heat, I’ve failed, and my feet hurt)
¿Has probado otros zapatos?  (Have you tried different shoes?)

Another Close Brush with Consumerism

With a fancy new flat screen TV in the house that accepts USB drives to play videos and things I thought I would buy a bigger pen drive. I already have a 2 gig drive that works fine for just about anything you need but I was thinking a bigger one would be nice for the TV. I don’t really need a new drive but I’m a big shot so why not? I humped over to Carrefour which is only a few blocks from my apartment. Riding my bike over there I started thinking about other things I could pick up while I was there—they have everything at Carrefour. I was making a list of all of the aisles I would chick out: pots and pans, food, wine, along with the computer crap where you find the flash drives. I had a wallet full of Euros and my own shopping bag (Carrefour was the first store to stop giving out plastic bags—good for them).

What I forgot was that I am the world’s worst consumer, especially when you gage me up inside of one of these superstores. The more choices you give me the better likelihood I have of running out through an alarmed door just so that I can start breathing again. I looked at the flash drives and everything was too small or too expensive. I moved on to kitchenware. A couple things I really need they didn’t have. The grocery department surely could provide something to put into my personal shopping bag. I wanted some really good olive oil but nothing they had measured up to my expectations. By this time I started thinking about the check-out lines and how much I hate them at this place. Of course in the end I just said “Fuck it” and got the hell out of there without spending a cent.

If there is a lesson in all of this then I’m too stupid to have learned it by now as I have done this more than once.

Slow Start to Summer

Summer hasn’t given up yet here in Valencia. It may linger on until quitting time when it’s officially over.  I often think that life can’t be that bad when you have an easy bike ride to a really nice beach on the Mediterranean.  I’ve been to the beach the last three days just because I know that summer won’t last forever.  I’ll probably go every day this week since I’m not really working a full schedule. Whether I want to accept it or not summer’s days are numbered.  I started very late this year but summer is always a good time to get into the best shape of the year. Where I am now in my fitness is where I should have been at the beginning of summer.  I’m hoping this late summer heat will keep me motivated.

I totally cut off all of my hair a couple day ago after sporting a really buzzed head for the past month. I should say that my barber shaved my head. I haven’t had hair this short since Air Force basic training. I look like a complete dip shit but whatever. It’s not like I look that great with hair. The new buzz cut goes well with the really warm weather we are having and also with my new work-out routine.

After many months of slacking I am finally back into my ridiculous push-up routine, but this time with some variations. Before I would just do something like a thousand push-ups in sets of 100 every other day, a routine taken from Hershel Walker (at least a part of his routine, he also did 2,500 sit-ups...and played pro football). Now I am doing a lot of changing up with things like doing some with my hands touching (this really kills me) and elevating my feet for a few sets. I also incorporate a bit of yoga and stretching into this routine. I’m just trying to get as strong, flexible, and fast as I can. I worked out at home today and then did a bit more yoga and stretching at the beach since I was the only person around for hundred of meters.

I did a hell of a lot of cycling in July but August was pretty much a bust for working out. To add to my laziness I drank a lot of beer and ate like a pig. I was as fat as a tick for a while and I didn’t feel too great and I always feel great. After a couple of days of focus I’m a lot better. When I wake up tomorrow morning I’ll be my old self again—especially after today’s work-out.  I never talk about exercise…ever, but it’s a pretty integral part of my life and something I just do automatically. I would hate to be someone my age who has never been in great shape or someone who just doesn’t feel great every day. It doesn’t take much coaxing to get me back into my exercise groove. I would really like to get back into jujitsu this fall if I can find the right place to train. I’m not looking to take classes; I just want a facility where I can go and train with other people around my level. I really miss my days at Niseido.

Back when jujitsu was my main form of exercise (besides cycling, of course) I felt a lot more well-rounded in my fitness, at least when I wasn’t nursing some sort of injury—and I was almost always sore from something.  We worked a lot on flexibility and balance. The thing is, I haven’t been actively involved in jujitsu in 12 years or so yet I still feel that I haven’t lost a lot of my fighting skills. I wish that I could say this about my abilities on the piano or speaking Arabic.  When you learn jujitsu it’s like learning a new instinct. I’m sure that a lot of my techniques are a bit rusty but my basic grappling skills are still there. I still remember choke holds, leg and arm locks, and most of the most effective techniques of ground fighting. It’s nice to know that I still maintain a decent level at this sport after dedicating a good portion of my life pursuing it. Like I said, I wish that I could say the same thing about the piano. I'd be lucky to plink out a Bach minuet.

So I’ll be sprinting to the finish line of summer.

Lie to Me: No Problem

“Learn this recipe to trick her into thinking that you know how to cook.”
-Feature article in a men’s magazine.

I have a confession to make. I’m not a movie producer. I don’t drive a Ferrari. My 85 foot yacht isn’t in dry dock for the winter. In fact, I don’t have a boat.  I can’t even spell “yacht.” I had to look it up…both times I used it in this paragraph.  It’s just that if I’m going to trick a woman into believing something about me that I made up I want it to be more impressive than chicken cacciatore. I want to bulldoze her with stories that would make Navy SEALs gasp in respectful fear. Like the time I killed a guard and escaped from a Guatemalan gulag while being held as a political prisoner, or the time I landed an airliner after the pilot had a heart attack.

I actually feel sorry for guys who have shot their way out of a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan because I’ve used that story so often that any real war heroes run the risk of boring women half-to-death with tales of their true exploits. They say the truth is stranger than fiction but when you make stuff up you have the advantage of using spell and grammar check. I can look up technical details on my iPhone while I excuse myself to go to the bathroom (I told you I was calling my CIA case officer).

To be completely honest, absolutely everything that I told you at the bar last night was bullshit and now that we’ve had sex I feel slightly guilty about how I presented myself. You have to admit, it was a pretty good story. I’m sure that if I were young and impressionable like you I would have done me last night. The flip side to that is that I would also beat the crap out of me right now for lying—and just about anyone could beat me up. I’m actually a total wimp.

I guess that I shouldn’t be too proud of my effort. It’s not like I adlibbed that whole persona. I’ve been working on a version of that story most of my adult life. If I had put 1/100 of the effort into actually improving myself instead of creating the phony me you met last night I’d probably be a remotely interesting person. Trust me; I’m not an even remotely interesting person. My fake identities are the moral and psychological equivalent of a young girl padding her bra. My phony personality is the 40D cup version of the padded bra.

Women tend to mask, enhance, and falsify their appearances while men make up crap. A girl wears a Wonder Bra while a man will walk with a fake limp from getting knee-capped by the IRA while on patrol in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  Collagen lip injections for the ladies, stories of battling Somali pirates for the boys. The final progression in this relationship will be a blow-up doll sitting next to someone who isn’t even there.

Negro y Azul from Breaking Bad

I have been watching the series Breaking Bad in Spanish. This great narco-corrido comes at the beginning of episode 7 in the second season. If you haven't seen this show and you like stuff like The Sopranos and The Wire then you should probably get on board with Breaking Bad. This is probably the coolest introduction to a television show in the history of the medium. Granted, I really like Mexican music but this song kicks ass. A new word or two for me. Compa I assume is short for compañero or compadre which translates as "dude." In Spain they say "tío" or uncle to for this.


And movies? Who needs them? Television is kicking the shit out of movies these days.

La ciudad se llama Duque
Nuevo México el estado
Entre la gente mafiosa
su fama se ha propagado
Causa de una nueva droga
que los gringos han creado

Dicen que es color azul
y que es pura calidad
Esa droga poderosa
que circula en la ciudad
Y los dueños de la plaza
no la pudieron parar

Anda caliente el cartel,
al respeto le faltaron
Hablan de un tal Heisenberg,
que ahora controla el mercado
Nadie sabe nada de él,
por que nunca lo han mirado
El cartel es de respeto
y jamás ha perdonado
Ese compa ya está muerto
Nomas no le han avisado

(y así suenan los cuates de Sinaloa mi compa)

La fama de Heisenberg
Ya llego hasta Michoacán
Desde allá quieren venir
A probar ese cristal
Ese material azul
Ya se hizo internacional

Ahora si le quedo bien
a Nuevo México el nombre
A México se parece
En tanta droga que esconde
Solo que hay un capo gringo
Por Heisenberg lo conocen

Anda caliente el cartel,
al respeto le faltaron
Hablan de un tal Heisenberg,
que ahora controla el Mercado
Nadie sabe nada de él,
porque nunca lo han mirado
A la furia del cartel
nadie jamás ha escapado.
Ese compa ya está muerto
Nomas no le han avisado.