Thinking Out Loud / Pensar En Voz Alta

Nothing to do with this essay.

● Unsolicited Advice from the Spanish Grandmother You Never Had 

Not everyone had an abuela who taught them how to cook. I wouldn’t say that I’m a close second to having a Spanish granny but I’m all you got. When making gazpacho don’t even think of skimping on the olive oil. Leave that low-fat nonsense for some other wimpy dish you have planned. As a matter of fact, this goes for just about every Mediterranean recipe so just turn the bottle upside down and let it pour.

● Why Not Drink Wine?
Looking in my medicine cabinet it dawned on me that the off-brand mouthwash I have costs as much as a decent bottle of Spanish table wine. I’m not really smart enough to come to any meaningful conclusions on this observation but it seems like this should mean something. A glass of wine is almost always cheaper than a bottle of water in a café and I am smart enough to order wine instead of water.

● To Cook or To Kebab?

If you find yourself watching cooking videos at 07:00 on a Saturday you’re probably going to spend a bit of time in the kitchen later in the day...or maybe you'll just get a kebab instead...and by "you" I mean "me."

● Keeping Things in Perspective

There is a traffic light on the street in front of my apartment. For the longest time just about every time I was held up waiting for the light to change in my favor I would curse this bit of lost time and wonder about the things that I could have accomplished but didn't because I was stuck waiting for the damn light. Finally I timed the light changes: 30 seconds for pedestrians and one minute for cars. Just knowing that only one minute was the very longest my wait would be has made all the difference. Dude, it’s one minute, dude; even I can wait one minute. 

● More About Food

 I have gone from just buying plants that take a long time to die to actually being able to grow things on my small patio. I would like to start farming some vegetables on a country plot as some friends of mine do. I like the idea of having a closer relationship to what I eat, at least as far as that is possible.  I don’t plan on raising chickens in my stairwell so relax, neighbors.

 ●  Comb Your Hair and Tuck in Your Shirt

One disadvantage to living in a city is that just a step out your door life can be painfully, sometimes embarrassingly public. I just took out a load of trash looking like a total slob who slept on a park bench (not a bad look for me). In the gauntlet of 25 meters between the front door of my building and the trash container I have to pass a supermarket and a bus stop. Believe me when I tell you that it’s very possible to be under-dressed for a trip to the dumpster.

Anger Managment USA

Violence permeates so many aspects of American culture that it’s difficult to name one sector that doesn’t have a vicious side. The National Football League recently made a $765 million settlement with players so that they will shut up about head injuries and accept this as a cost of doing business in this $10 billion a year industry. Fans of the sport are complicit in their silence and their attitude seems to be, “Give us our ultra-violent football and don’t tell us about the brain injuries. We don’t care.” What is so disturbing about football is how many fans relish the most violent and moronic aspects of the game. Violence is an integral part of the sport.

Gun violence is so common that it’s depressing for me to even mention it in passing. The film industry hypes violence to such an appalling degree that you would think that gun manufacturers have paid Hollywood for product placement. Any hint of gun control has died a violent death in America and I doubt any politician will have the courage to go against the gun lobby in the foreseeable future. Congratulations, gun nuts. You won and common sense has lost.

In the recent movie Now You See Me, Now You Don’t about a group of magicians who use deception to rob banks the action by the part of the police and FBI characters was so completely out of proportion to the crimes being committed it was practically criminal. The swindlers in the film used no violence in their deeds yet the cops were running around everywhere with guns blazing and actually shooting at unarmed suspects.

In life imitates art two innocent bystanders were recently shot by New York police officers who were trying to apprehend an obviously mentally ill suspect on a crowded street. And another unarmed man was shot dead by police in North Carolina.

Perhaps I am made more aware of America’s fascination with guns and violence since I live in a culture relatively free of these curses. I can’t even remember hearing of a gun death in all my years in Valencia and ditto that for armed robberies. It would take someone much more qualified than I to even mount a theory as to just why Spain and the rest of Europe has so much less violent crime than the United States but if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to offer a theory I would blame our entertainment industry for much of our troubles. It may also have something to do with the fact that it is almost impossible to buy a firearm in Europe but don't tell the gun nuts.