Ciao Bella!" from a balcony and have it be completely sincere and real. I just had mine.
I spent my last night in Barcelona with Daniella and her friends. These Italians, they can go into a kitchen where there is nothing and come out with something wonderful. We drank and ate and smoked and listened to music. Daniella performed a Moroccan belly dance. At midnight the girls put on their make-up.
We wandered around the forbidden areas of the Barrio Gottico,down twisting streets so narrow you could touch either side, through hidden plazas where the addicts slept, past skinny drug gangs on motor scooters, by big black barking dogs and gypsy beggars with babies at their breasts. I asked Cosima if it was dangerous. She looked me in the eye and said "Of course, I live here."
We started to dance. We were at the bar where Xavier worked and the drinks were plentiful and free. She asked me if I would and then held out her hand. Soon we were kissing shamelessly on the street, in doorways, on the beach. We were touching everywhere. Daniella appeared on the back of a motor scooter with some spanish boy and as it whined away into the dark, yelled back to Cosima that the apartment was free. I had the most peaceful sleep I ever have had in her arms.
When I woke she was already dressing. Her English is not so good nor my Spanish either. I asked her if we would meet again and she said that she would think about it. I figured she was done with me. I went to the balcony in time to see her disappearing down this narrow medieval alley. She walked like a queen. "Cosima" I yelled. Ciao Bella.
I spent my last day at the beach. When I returned to get my bags Daniella told me that Cosima had come to say goodbye. There was an old 78 on top of my bags entitled Sueno de Amor". I called her and somehow it was decided that she would see me off. We had a mad dash through the jammed subways to the train station. There on the platform we kissed along with three other couples before the train began to pull out. Still holding her hand I jumped on. "Will you come to New York?" "Vale, Vale!" .... ok ok
Friday, August 30, 2002
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Nightbus
I have learned that life if you split it open has as many possibilities as a fig has seeds. I have learned that you can dance all night only if you sleepall day. I have learned that the moon is not just the moon but "La Barca""The Ship", also the word for cone as in ice cream. I have learned that a beautiful woman is even more beautiful if she lies brown and naked and oiled in the sun as if she is being roasted for a feast. And above all I have learned that I have been smoking way too much hash.
I screamed when I saw him. He was leaning over me burnt and red with dark sunglasses like some poorly briefed technician at Los Alamos. It was five in the morning. It was Neshta and he had brought home a spanish boy. They made ficky ficky in the bathroom while Tunte and I tried to pretend sleep. These are the whores of Marbella.
They come from England with their perfectly bred daughters to mate them off to the proper people. Both the mother and daughter are so fine and so stylishly dressed you could go either way. But the girls slip away at night to fuck Spanish men. Everyone is fucking spanish men mainly because it is so hard to fuck a spanish woman that they mostly all go either way.
I was having no luck until I talked to a Norwegian bartender at The House of Silk. He told me it is possible to have something with Spanish girls, but only after you have met their family. They wont even talk to you unless you prove yourself by following them around for days like a dog. The English girls are all sluts. Then he pointed out two Morenas at a table, slender, lovely, a blonde and brunette, sisters.
"Have a go with those two, they're not typical Chicas, tell em there will be Chupitas at the bar soon"
That was how I met Alithia and Marta.
They were both studying to be ecologists and intent on saving the world. We talked in spanish, in english, in spanglish. We argued about politics, we laughed and we danced like mad people. They rolled one fat joint after another of hash mixed with tobacco. At five or so in the morning. Alithia took my arm. Her black arabian eyes pierced right through me. She told me that if I came back tommorow I would find her and then they disappeared into the moonlight.
I found Tunte passed out under a table. We walked along the marble promenade past palm trees, past the light of the full moon which glistened like broken glass across the Mediterranean. We found Shatzie in a smoke filled gay bar where Andaluisian men, shirtless in blue jeans danced to the rhythmic clapping of their peers. I left those two there and completely disoriented stumbled around for an hour before making it the two or three blocks I had to go to reach home.
In our tiny room with my bed one foot from the door I fled this world in a haze of hash dreams until Shatzie stumbled in. I screamed when I saw him.
We had to be out of there by noon. We managed to wake ourselves up and get to the car. At the airport I kissed the boys good-by. I was on my own again. It was time to get out of town. I had no place to stay and no chance of finding one. Except in Barcelona. Tunte had arranged it all with his friend Daniella. The only problem was getting there. It is 1064km away. It is the end of summer and everyone is traveling. There were no seats on the planes. There were no seats on trains. But there was a bus. They told me you can always get a seat on the bus because nobody wants it.
It is a fourteen hour ride to Barcelona on this shitty bus. At one time someone had had a vision of luxury and comfort but now the seats are all broken, the TV's hang mute, the drink holders and dinner trays lie useless like vestigial organs. You ride all night, in the cold, in the mountains. We stopped at one place called The Hotel Zurich where the driving team had beers and sandwiches. It was in some dusty forgotten town filled with freaks and the hopeless. A mother with her retarded son played cards with her parents. A old man in a tattered yellow and black outfit which included matching two tone shoes sat with his elderly blind dog in his
arms. I asked the fat woman at the bar who had a face like a sunburned Wayne Newton
"where are we"?
"A la Frontera" "At the Frontier". I couldn't imagine what she meant. We were in Spain, miles from any border that I knew of, but apparently here in the mountains the people of Andaluicia consider Alicante another country.
The next stop was at a super sleek ultra-contemporary place called Autogrill. Perfectly modern with modern graphics and food content. The parking lot was filled with hundreds of Gypsies, all of their belongings roped onto the hoods of their cars. They were sleeping on the pavement
next to them. One felt as if they had been passing through this way for thousands of years and that something had always been in this spot, but instead of being able to get figs and flat bread, water, one could now get pasta with pesto and orange Fanta. And Sangre de Torro, but you could always get Sangre de Torro.
And finally, Barcelona
I screamed when I saw him. He was leaning over me burnt and red with dark sunglasses like some poorly briefed technician at Los Alamos. It was five in the morning. It was Neshta and he had brought home a spanish boy. They made ficky ficky in the bathroom while Tunte and I tried to pretend sleep. These are the whores of Marbella.
They come from England with their perfectly bred daughters to mate them off to the proper people. Both the mother and daughter are so fine and so stylishly dressed you could go either way. But the girls slip away at night to fuck Spanish men. Everyone is fucking spanish men mainly because it is so hard to fuck a spanish woman that they mostly all go either way.
I was having no luck until I talked to a Norwegian bartender at The House of Silk. He told me it is possible to have something with Spanish girls, but only after you have met their family. They wont even talk to you unless you prove yourself by following them around for days like a dog. The English girls are all sluts. Then he pointed out two Morenas at a table, slender, lovely, a blonde and brunette, sisters.
"Have a go with those two, they're not typical Chicas, tell em there will be Chupitas at the bar soon"
That was how I met Alithia and Marta.
They were both studying to be ecologists and intent on saving the world. We talked in spanish, in english, in spanglish. We argued about politics, we laughed and we danced like mad people. They rolled one fat joint after another of hash mixed with tobacco. At five or so in the morning. Alithia took my arm. Her black arabian eyes pierced right through me. She told me that if I came back tommorow I would find her and then they disappeared into the moonlight.
I found Tunte passed out under a table. We walked along the marble promenade past palm trees, past the light of the full moon which glistened like broken glass across the Mediterranean. We found Shatzie in a smoke filled gay bar where Andaluisian men, shirtless in blue jeans danced to the rhythmic clapping of their peers. I left those two there and completely disoriented stumbled around for an hour before making it the two or three blocks I had to go to reach home.
In our tiny room with my bed one foot from the door I fled this world in a haze of hash dreams until Shatzie stumbled in. I screamed when I saw him.
We had to be out of there by noon. We managed to wake ourselves up and get to the car. At the airport I kissed the boys good-by. I was on my own again. It was time to get out of town. I had no place to stay and no chance of finding one. Except in Barcelona. Tunte had arranged it all with his friend Daniella. The only problem was getting there. It is 1064km away. It is the end of summer and everyone is traveling. There were no seats on the planes. There were no seats on trains. But there was a bus. They told me you can always get a seat on the bus because nobody wants it.
It is a fourteen hour ride to Barcelona on this shitty bus. At one time someone had had a vision of luxury and comfort but now the seats are all broken, the TV's hang mute, the drink holders and dinner trays lie useless like vestigial organs. You ride all night, in the cold, in the mountains. We stopped at one place called The Hotel Zurich where the driving team had beers and sandwiches. It was in some dusty forgotten town filled with freaks and the hopeless. A mother with her retarded son played cards with her parents. A old man in a tattered yellow and black outfit which included matching two tone shoes sat with his elderly blind dog in his
arms. I asked the fat woman at the bar who had a face like a sunburned Wayne Newton
"where are we"?
"A la Frontera" "At the Frontier". I couldn't imagine what she meant. We were in Spain, miles from any border that I knew of, but apparently here in the mountains the people of Andaluicia consider Alicante another country.
The next stop was at a super sleek ultra-contemporary place called Autogrill. Perfectly modern with modern graphics and food content. The parking lot was filled with hundreds of Gypsies, all of their belongings roped onto the hoods of their cars. They were sleeping on the pavement
next to them. One felt as if they had been passing through this way for thousands of years and that something had always been in this spot, but instead of being able to get figs and flat bread, water, one could now get pasta with pesto and orange Fanta. And Sangre de Torro, but you could always get Sangre de Torro.
And finally, Barcelona
Sunday, August 25, 2002
Alive!
I have learned that life, if you split it open, has as many possibilities as a fig has seeds. I have learned that you can dance all night only if you sleep all day. I have learned that the moon is not just the moon but "La Barca" "The Ship", also the word for cone as in ice cream. I have learned that a beautiful woman is even more beautiful if she lies brown and naked and oiled in the sun as if she is being roasted for a feast. And above all I have learned that I have been smoking way too much hash.
I screamed when I saw him. He was leaning over me burnt and red with dark sunglasses like some poorly briefed technician at Los Alamos. It was five in the morning. It was Neshta and he had brought home a spanish boy. They made ficky ficky in the bathroom while I tried to pretend sleep. These are the whores of Marbella.
I screamed when I saw him. He was leaning over me burnt and red with dark sunglasses like some poorly briefed technician at Los Alamos. It was five in the morning. It was Neshta and he had brought home a spanish boy. They made ficky ficky in the bathroom while I tried to pretend sleep. These are the whores of Marbella.
They come from England with their perfectly bred daughters to mate them off to the proper people. Both the mother and daughter are so fine and so stylishly dressed you could go either way. But the girls slip away at night to fuck Spanish men. Everyone is fucking spanish men mainly because it is so hard to fuck a spanish woman that they mostly all go either way. I was having no luck until I talked to a Norwegian bartender at The House of Silk. He told me it is possible to have something with Spanish girls, but only after you have met their family. They wont even talk to you unless you prove yourself by following them around for days like a dog. The English girls are all sluts. Then he pointed out two Morenas at a table, slender, lovely, a blonde and brunette, sisters. "Have a go with those two, they're not typical Chicas, tell em there will be Chupitas at the bar soon"
That was how I met Alithia and Marta.
They were both studying to be ecologists and intent on saving the world. We talked in spanish, in english, in spanglish. We argued about politics, we laughed and we danced like mad people. They rolled one fat joint after another of hash mixed with tobacco. At five or so in the morning. Alithia took my arm. Her black arabian eyes pierced right through me. She told me that if I came back tommorow I would find her and then they disappeared into the moonlight.
I found Braulio still dancing away as if in a trance. We walked along the marble promenade past palm trees, past the light of the full moon which glistened like broken glass across the Mediterranean. We found Shatzie in a smoke filled gay bar where Andaluisian men, shirtless in blue jeans danced to the rhythmic clapping of their peers. I left those two there and completely disoriented stumbled around in circles for more than an hour before making it the two or three blocks I had to go to reach home.
It was time to get out of town. We had to be out of there by noon. We managed to wake ourselves up and get to the car. At the airport I kissed the boys good-by. I was on my own again. I had no place to stay and no chance of finding one. Except in Barcelona. Braulio had arranged it all with his friend Daniella. The only problem was getting there. It is 1064km away. It is the end of summer and everyone is traveling. There were no seats on the planes. There were no seats on trains. But there was a bus. They told me you can always get a seat on the bus because nobody wants it.
It is a fourteen hour ride to Barcelona on this shitty bus. At one time someone had had a vision of luxury and comfort but now the seats are all broken, the TV's hang mute, the drink holders and dinner trays lie useless like vestigial organs. You ride all night, in the cold, in the mountains. We stopped at one place called The Hotel Zurich where the driving team had beers and sandwiches. It was in some dusty forgotten town filled with freaks and the hopeless. A mother with her retarded son played cards with her parents. A old man in a tattered yellow and red outfit which included matching two tone shoes sat with an elderly blind dog in his arms. I asked the fat woman at the bar who had a face like a sunburned Wayne Newton "where are we"?
"A la Frontera" "At the Frontier". I couldn't imagine what she meant. We were in Spain, miles from any border that I knew of, but apparently here in the mountains the people of Andaluicia consider Alicante another country.
The next stop was at a super sleek ultra-contemporary place called Autogrill. Perfectly modern with modern graphics and food content. The parking lot was filled with hundreds of Gypsies, all of their belongings roped onto the hoods of their cars. They were sleeping, covered in ornate fabrics, on the pavement next to them. One felt as if these people had been passing through this way for thousands of years and that something had always been in this spot, but instead of being able to get figs and flat bread, water, one could now get pasta with pesto and orange Fanta. And Sangre de Torro, but you could always get Sangre de Torro.
At last I got to Barcelona. Someone from the bus helped me with the train. I found Daniellas place which by the way is on d'Estruc 12. It is very cozy here. I slept for fourteen hours straight. Today Anabelle comes and I will get to do some fucking.
Monday, August 19, 2002
Marbella
I want to live in spain. In a town, not too big, not too small. A place like Granada with its narrow twisting streets opening into secret plazas. I would get a little room in the old town and eat figs and oranges for breakfast. I would do yoga under a palm tree. In the afternoon, when its too hot to go outside I would close all the shutters and peck away at my laptop.
We are in Marbella now. Shatzie and Tunte are at the beach. We never call Neshta,"Neshta", we call him "Shatzie" and he in return calls everybody Shatzie except for Barolio. "Shatzie" is something like "darling" in Deutch."Tunte" is more like faggot. We call Barolio "Tunte" when he does things like forget where he left the car keys and we have to take his bag away from him and dump the entire contents into the street.
I decided to stick with the boys. I was going to go to Sevilla and then on to Barcelona. But I will stay with them and go to Africa tommorow. Just for the day. We will take a ferry to Moroco and see something really different. Besides Barolio knows an Italian girl in Barcelona who rents rooms and he is trying to arrange something for me. She is in Milan right now but they are trying to figure something out. Cell phones make everything possible. They fly back to Hamburg on Sunday and then from Malaga I will take the night train north.
We were lucky to get a room in the old quater. Three beds crammed into this tiny little space. There are no real windows, they all open up onto tiny shafts that look directly into the other rooms, or like our bathroom window which opens up back into our room. It is run by this fat old gay named Juan. Juan has an overgrown nose as brown and as wrinkled as the mountains that surround this village. His legs are covered with little sores. He had a special offer for me. He said I could stay with him in his apartment for 12euro per night. I said no, its ok. He said if I wanted to I could also come down and watch TV with him.I told him thanks. Still, everything is clean and its cheap.
There are many beautiful men and ladies in this town. They lie near naked on the beach during the day, then dressed in white, promenade the town in the evenings. Everything is opulent casual. There is so much money here that one central park, filled with tropical trees and plants, is entirely paved in white marble. Shatzie, of course, loves it.
We are in Marbella now. Shatzie and Tunte are at the beach. We never call Neshta,"Neshta", we call him "Shatzie" and he in return calls everybody Shatzie except for Barolio. "Shatzie" is something like "darling" in Deutch."Tunte" is more like faggot. We call Barolio "Tunte" when he does things like forget where he left the car keys and we have to take his bag away from him and dump the entire contents into the street.
I decided to stick with the boys. I was going to go to Sevilla and then on to Barcelona. But I will stay with them and go to Africa tommorow. Just for the day. We will take a ferry to Moroco and see something really different. Besides Barolio knows an Italian girl in Barcelona who rents rooms and he is trying to arrange something for me. She is in Milan right now but they are trying to figure something out. Cell phones make everything possible. They fly back to Hamburg on Sunday and then from Malaga I will take the night train north.
We were lucky to get a room in the old quater. Three beds crammed into this tiny little space. There are no real windows, they all open up onto tiny shafts that look directly into the other rooms, or like our bathroom window which opens up back into our room. It is run by this fat old gay named Juan. Juan has an overgrown nose as brown and as wrinkled as the mountains that surround this village. His legs are covered with little sores. He had a special offer for me. He said I could stay with him in his apartment for 12euro per night. I said no, its ok. He said if I wanted to I could also come down and watch TV with him.I told him thanks. Still, everything is clean and its cheap.
There are many beautiful men and ladies in this town. They lie near naked on the beach during the day, then dressed in white, promenade the town in the evenings. Everything is opulent casual. There is so much money here that one central park, filled with tropical trees and plants, is entirely paved in white marble. Shatzie, of course, loves it.
Saturday, August 17, 2002
Schatzie
You always see him with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He is over six feet tall. Even at night he wears black sunglasses. You can tell he was once muscular but his white skin is now slightly pudgy with fat. He has been walking around without a shirt for days now, the crack of his ass showing above his black italian pants. His skin is completely burnt red from the waist up.
We have been roaring around aduluisia for days now in this shitty little fiat that never seems to burn any gas. We have wound round the treacherous mountain roads to Ronda, a town so pristene in its ancient Spanish Morocan style that standing on Puento Nuevo you fell like you have been captured in a painting. We have eaten tapas next to an unending row of Dali statues, girded by palm trees, on a marble plaza in Marbella, a town so grossly rich it would embarrass the citizens of Las Vegas. We have darted in an out of the narrow streets of Granada, we have seen mountains and vistas and moorish castels. We have eaten sunripened figs off the tree, we have seen bulls, blood pounding high off thier black hides, slaughtered by prancing toredors dressed completely in pink and still, he never takes off his sunglasses.
The other day as we sat on our balcony, with Barolio singing, smoking hash he had copped from some Turk in a DJ bar for the international set in Benalmadena he squinted at me and said "Rene, we ave to find you a voman, dis life for you vithout a voman is no good¨"
Barolo just rolled his eyes...
"Shatzie, Rene can take care of himself"
But I was already gone, in a haze of wine and hash, half dreaming, half laughing, listening to Salsa on the porno channel and slipping away.
besos
rene
We have been roaring around aduluisia for days now in this shitty little fiat that never seems to burn any gas. We have wound round the treacherous mountain roads to Ronda, a town so pristene in its ancient Spanish Morocan style that standing on Puento Nuevo you fell like you have been captured in a painting. We have eaten tapas next to an unending row of Dali statues, girded by palm trees, on a marble plaza in Marbella, a town so grossly rich it would embarrass the citizens of Las Vegas. We have darted in an out of the narrow streets of Granada, we have seen mountains and vistas and moorish castels. We have eaten sunripened figs off the tree, we have seen bulls, blood pounding high off thier black hides, slaughtered by prancing toredors dressed completely in pink and still, he never takes off his sunglasses.
The other day as we sat on our balcony, with Barolio singing, smoking hash he had copped from some Turk in a DJ bar for the international set in Benalmadena he squinted at me and said "Rene, we ave to find you a voman, dis life for you vithout a voman is no good¨"
Barolo just rolled his eyes...
"Shatzie, Rene can take care of himself"
But I was already gone, in a haze of wine and hash, half dreaming, half laughing, listening to Salsa on the porno channel and slipping away.
besos
rene
Thursday, August 15, 2002
La Blanca
Hey
We decided to call her La Blanca. She was brown and wirey and had long black hair. She wore a traditional flamenco dress, all in white. It pressed against her breasts revealing a faint discription of her areolas, hung on her slender waist for quite a while before itflared around her long legs. There was a single blood red rose in her hair. Best of all, she rode to and from work on a little yellow motorized scooter.
When she danced, she danced with all of her heart and you could feel it. We stayed there for hours in this little beachside restaurant surrounded by palm trees, listening to the ocean and the castenets and the sorrowful singing of the guitarist. We drank three pitchers of sangria. We watched the moon rise above the jagged cliffs. Barolo said that he might cry. I was on the verge myself. I don't get the feeling that Neshta cries much.
Earilier, when Barolo and I were by ourselves, he told me that Neshta had been raised in a very wealthy family in Sarajevo. When the war started soilders had forced their way into his parents house and cut his mothers throat in front of him. His father and sister survived. So when he gets a little moody we don´t bother him.
Barolo is Brazillian, he never gets moody. In the mornings when we have dark arabian coffee with hot milk in a cafe, he sings to us, just under his breath, while I try to read spanish newspapers and Neshta keeps an eye out for interesting men.
We met in Torre del Mar. When I got to the airport in Malaga they told me that because of the Feria there were no rooms anywhere at all within 30km of the city. Malaga is a great hidious mass of a city. It is as if someone took 100 Miami´s, piled them on top of each other and dumped them along a narrow strip of land between the oceans and the mountains. I found my way to the bus station and got out of town. I ended up 25km north of there in a tourist office where they were listening to the same story I had been hearing all day. Completo, there is nothing, go away. They lived in Hamburg and so we all spoke german. We decided our fates were no less miserable alone than seperate and besides I spoke better spanish, and they had a car.
We drove for hours going to town after town, twisting through narrow medieval streets looking for tiny pensions which we hoped sombody had forgotten about. I spoke with old ladies who sat in doorways, who greeted us like lost friends and wanted to know our histories. I petted their cats, tickled babies feet and still at midnight we had nothing. "Maybe tommorow" they said. I was thinking the beach might be our only friend.
We decided to head back to Malaga and from there north to Sevilla. We ate fresh, whole fried fish, drank wine in some little town, and had our first taste the rich black coffee that we would all come to love so dearly in the following days. Somewhere on the outskirts I saw a hotel and said to Barolo lets give it one more try. Neshta chain smoked cigarettes and looked out the window. I talked to the old man inside. He told me no right off. I asked him if he knew of anything anywhere. I told him we had been looking all day. He asked me where I was from. I told him and he bent a little. He said he could give us two rooms for one night only.
The next day we went back to Torre del Mar to see if any of our tommorow possibilites might materialize. I talked with this girl in a hotel for half an hour, told her my life story, complemented her english, her dress, her hair, her mother. The old lady interupted. She knew of an apartment in town, not one of her´s but a friends. We were in luck.
Our place has two little balconies and a kitchen. Barolo and Neshta are in one room and I in the other. We are a short walk to the beach.
We took a day trip to a place farther up the coast and found a paradise. Nurja. It is an old city completely painted white to fight off the fierceness of the sun. There is lush palm vegetation and the mountains come right up to the azure ocean. The beach is filled with the brown and the naked and at night, if you walk along the carterellas, you can watch La Blanca dance.
Besos
Rene
We decided to call her La Blanca. She was brown and wirey and had long black hair. She wore a traditional flamenco dress, all in white. It pressed against her breasts revealing a faint discription of her areolas, hung on her slender waist for quite a while before itflared around her long legs. There was a single blood red rose in her hair. Best of all, she rode to and from work on a little yellow motorized scooter.
When she danced, she danced with all of her heart and you could feel it. We stayed there for hours in this little beachside restaurant surrounded by palm trees, listening to the ocean and the castenets and the sorrowful singing of the guitarist. We drank three pitchers of sangria. We watched the moon rise above the jagged cliffs. Barolo said that he might cry. I was on the verge myself. I don't get the feeling that Neshta cries much.
Earilier, when Barolo and I were by ourselves, he told me that Neshta had been raised in a very wealthy family in Sarajevo. When the war started soilders had forced their way into his parents house and cut his mothers throat in front of him. His father and sister survived. So when he gets a little moody we don´t bother him.
Barolo is Brazillian, he never gets moody. In the mornings when we have dark arabian coffee with hot milk in a cafe, he sings to us, just under his breath, while I try to read spanish newspapers and Neshta keeps an eye out for interesting men.
We met in Torre del Mar. When I got to the airport in Malaga they told me that because of the Feria there were no rooms anywhere at all within 30km of the city. Malaga is a great hidious mass of a city. It is as if someone took 100 Miami´s, piled them on top of each other and dumped them along a narrow strip of land between the oceans and the mountains. I found my way to the bus station and got out of town. I ended up 25km north of there in a tourist office where they were listening to the same story I had been hearing all day. Completo, there is nothing, go away. They lived in Hamburg and so we all spoke german. We decided our fates were no less miserable alone than seperate and besides I spoke better spanish, and they had a car.
We drove for hours going to town after town, twisting through narrow medieval streets looking for tiny pensions which we hoped sombody had forgotten about. I spoke with old ladies who sat in doorways, who greeted us like lost friends and wanted to know our histories. I petted their cats, tickled babies feet and still at midnight we had nothing. "Maybe tommorow" they said. I was thinking the beach might be our only friend.
We decided to head back to Malaga and from there north to Sevilla. We ate fresh, whole fried fish, drank wine in some little town, and had our first taste the rich black coffee that we would all come to love so dearly in the following days. Somewhere on the outskirts I saw a hotel and said to Barolo lets give it one more try. Neshta chain smoked cigarettes and looked out the window. I talked to the old man inside. He told me no right off. I asked him if he knew of anything anywhere. I told him we had been looking all day. He asked me where I was from. I told him and he bent a little. He said he could give us two rooms for one night only.
The next day we went back to Torre del Mar to see if any of our tommorow possibilites might materialize. I talked with this girl in a hotel for half an hour, told her my life story, complemented her english, her dress, her hair, her mother. The old lady interupted. She knew of an apartment in town, not one of her´s but a friends. We were in luck.
Our place has two little balconies and a kitchen. Barolo and Neshta are in one room and I in the other. We are a short walk to the beach.
We took a day trip to a place farther up the coast and found a paradise. Nurja. It is an old city completely painted white to fight off the fierceness of the sun. There is lush palm vegetation and the mountains come right up to the azure ocean. The beach is filled with the brown and the naked and at night, if you walk along the carterellas, you can watch La Blanca dance.
Besos
Rene
Monday, August 05, 2002
Berlin Beat
The Berlin Beat or The Berlin Bang or Berlin Bang Bang, something like
that.
While I have been here in Berlin I have met an unusually high number of people working on music projects. There are lots of educated, artistically oriented people here who have no jobs. The unemployment rate is 17%. They still have access to computers purchased in better days. In the last two years there has been a spate of new software that allows anybody to have a home recording studio with an array of synthesized instrumentation. Being Berliners and basically anti-social they don't mind cracking the codes and freely distributing this software. They have already accepted "techno" culturally, unlike the US. They have a techno-club infrastructure and audience already established. They are many good engineers and media strategists. They are highly competitive. There is lots of rain and crappy weather and they love to work.
There are so many projects going on that I think there will be a big bang in Berlin. Naturally out of all these people there will be a small percentage that will be good and an even smaller percentage that will be great. Still the numbers from what I see must be so big that this will still be significant.
If you are interested I could give you many phone numbers to get you
started.
ok?
rene
that.
While I have been here in Berlin I have met an unusually high number of people working on music projects. There are lots of educated, artistically oriented people here who have no jobs. The unemployment rate is 17%. They still have access to computers purchased in better days. In the last two years there has been a spate of new software that allows anybody to have a home recording studio with an array of synthesized instrumentation. Being Berliners and basically anti-social they don't mind cracking the codes and freely distributing this software. They have already accepted "techno" culturally, unlike the US. They have a techno-club infrastructure and audience already established. They are many good engineers and media strategists. They are highly competitive. There is lots of rain and crappy weather and they love to work.
There are so many projects going on that I think there will be a big bang in Berlin. Naturally out of all these people there will be a small percentage that will be good and an even smaller percentage that will be great. Still the numbers from what I see must be so big that this will still be significant.
If you are interested I could give you many phone numbers to get you
started.
ok?
rene
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