Leftbanker

Un Prophète

2012-02-10T11:38:00.003+01:00

With time on my hands and no inclination to do all of the stupid shit you are supposed to do during the holidays I thought that I would catch up on what was going on in the world of movies. I can’t remember the last time that I saw a movie that I thought was good, let alone great. I waded through a couple of “Best of 2010” lists until I clicked on Newsweek ‘s picks and found A Prophet at the top. I read the short paragraph about it and they had me with “prison movie.” For some strange, inexplicable reason I love prison movies. I suppose that it has something to do with prison being some sort of ultimate challenge for a man. It just happens that I was also looking for something to watch in French, not that I understand film French all that much. Movies are always very difficult for the student.

Apt Pupil and Master

Malik al Djebena (Tahar Rahim) enters the prison for what we learn will be a six year sentence. He looks as frightened and alone as anyone could possibly be in this impossible environment but his tattered body testifies that he’s not really new to hardship and crime. I like how the director doesn’t insult us by interfering with the beginning of the film by showing scenes from Mali’s tragic childhood. Instead we just see the result of his youth, a body covered in scars and a 19 year old boy who knows he needs to learn fast to survive inside. His first opportunity to prove himself—to make his bones, as they say in gangster movies—comes all too soon.

In the prison yard we see two uneven sides of prisoner affiliation. The Muslims on one side represent the majority, albeit unorganized and directionless. On the other side are the heavily-outnumbered Corsicans who are organized, violent, and well-connected with the prison administration. Malik is singled out by the Corsican boss, César Luciani (Niels Arestrup) to perform a rather tricky assassination for them. Their first meeting together isn’t a job interview; it’s a threat of kill or be killed.

If you get one thing from this film it’s that movie stars are not only unnecessary to make a great film, but that they are often a huge impediment. I couldn’t imagine this movie with the usual Hollywood assholes in the leading roles. Think about what a complete piece of shit The Departed was mainly because of the ridiculous cast of superstars. For all I fucking know this actor playing Malik is a Franco-Arab criminal and I sure as hell believe that the Corsican boss is the thug he portrays in the film. The realism in this movie is unparalleled, unmatched in any movie I have ever seen depicting prison life. It’s more life-like than any documentary could be, if that makes sense.

Scorsese has nothing on Jacques Audiard and he had better be studying this guy because the stakes have been raised in the crime film genre. Save your money on Jack Nicholson and other has-been assholes, forget about chase scenes and explosions, and try to keep your story as close to the truth as possible.

(I originally posted this last January)

What They Say (and What They Mean)

2012-02-08T19:33:00.003+01:00

This whole right to marry for gays is a complete non-issue in most of Europe but the Rick Santorum crowd (and candidacy) lingers on. How many times can American conservatives be on the wrong side of history? I suppose it’s possible for them to be wrong more than every time if history repeats itself, as my friend Eric pointed out in a brilliant observation.

1) God hates fags. (I could go for a big, fat cock right about now.)

2) It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve! (If I have to have sex with my wife one more time I’m going to throw myself under a bus.)

3) The want to teach the gay lifestyle in our schools. (Will my daughter notice that I have her Justin Bieber magazine?)

4) Sodomy is an abomination. (This rubber fist in my butt feels amazing.)

Hoping the Problem Will Simply Go Away

2012-02-07T12:21:00.003+01:00

I have often said that the automobile is the worst idea of the past century, or at least the way in which it has completely dominated American society—not that we are the only car-obsessed nation. I would say for most Americans the car is their sole form of transportation. Even walking has been removed from the transportation formula for many people living in the suburbs as distances are simply too great to do anything but exercise on foot. With our transportation model dating back to the 1950s we seem incapable of changing our idea of what it means to live in a modern society.

Most conservatives feel that there simply isn’t any sort of problem whatsoever, at least not one that we can’t fix by drilling in the Arctic or giving oil companies and even freer rein to do as they please. Conservatives mock any attempt at…well, conserving. As ironic as it appears, being conservative or judicious with the use of petroleum seems to be anathema to conservatives.

Making automobiles that use less fuel or use some alternative just doesn’t seem to be any kind of answer. Even if we made cars that ran on sea water we would still need all of the resources to build them, and maintain the roads, and the parking, and then we’d still be saddled with the danger of automobile traffic.* If we are not making a vigorous attempt to lower the amount of cars we use then we are just kidding ourselves. It reminds me of a child trying to hide behind a curtain that doesn’t cover his legs.

Once again we are trying to solve a problem for which we already have the answers staring us in the face. Public transportation in many American cities is woefully inadequate and most citizens view it as the last resort of poor people. I would imagine that there are many places in America where only the poor ever set foot on city buses. Only a handful of American cities have a working metro rail system, something that is generally viewed as being a bit more dignified and sophisticated form or urban transit.

Freedom?

And forget about bikes; most Americans probably would never consider riding a bike for transportation. It would probably take an entire generation to convince people that a bicycle is actually quite a sensible option for many urban transportation scenarios. I face a similar mentality here in Spain where the car is seen as a middle class right. Some people are positively astounded to learn that almost all of my transportation is effected via the lowly bicycle.

*The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was positively bubbling over the fact that there were only 37,261 traffic deaths in 2008. Even if that is an improvement over previous years it is still a wholesale slaughter of US citizens.

Random Thoughts #3

2012-02-06T01:35:00.000+01:00

Topping out at 5’9” I thought I had everything it takes, but after a few clicks on Google I find out I’m probably too fat to be a jockey. Once again my dreams are shattered. Curse you Spanish ham!

The Bicycle Diaries #1

2012-02-05T10:54:00.006+01:00

I have written hundreds of entries about my life and bikes but this is a new feature describing brief accounts of the joys and perils of the urban cyclist.

This is either the fucking coolest thing I’ve ever done on a bike or the biggest asshole move ever, although I see no reason why it can’t be both. I was riding down the bike path along Avenida Cortes de Valencia (a very busy thoroughfare) yesterday afternoon. I was crossing an intersection with the green light for pedestrians and cyclists when I saw that a motor scooter was flying through the traffic circle and about to pass through the crosswalk on their yellow light.

He saw me coming through the intersection and he actually accelerated. I said “Fuck it” and accelerated as well, putting us on a collision course in the zebra crossing. The idiot had this crazed look on his face as he gassed it for all it was worth, like a kamikaze pilot rocketing towards an American destroyer. I’m extremely confident in my cycling skills. I know that I can judge speed and braking better than anyone on a motor scooter so I kept up our game of “chicken.” At the last second he had to slam on his brakes and his scooter started to slide out from under him right in front of me. I deftly pumped a bit harder and avoided the crash but I could see that he was freaking terrified. He didn’t fall but he came close. I’m guessing that this tool will think long and hard before trying this stunt again.

I know that this was a stupid thing to do but I’m really sick of assholes bullying cyclists and pedestrians. What I did wasn't anywhere near as stupid as a motorized vehicle accelerating through a crosswalk.

In another episode of aggression against cyclists some numb-nuts honked at me the other day. I'm not talking about a little toot but a sustained blast for no reason other than he didn't care to share the road with a cyclist. He felt that I was in his way even though we were five meters before a red light. I was on the driver's side and he had his window rolled down. He started to say something to me about how I needed to watch where I was going even though I was in my lane. I cut him off with a wave of the hand. I told him that maybe if he rode a bike once in a while his prick would work for something besides going pee pee (a line in Spanish I have rehearsed so that I call blurt it out rapidly and clearly). Then I stood up on the pedals and acted like I was going to sprint foward through the light but I hit the brakes and did sort of a track stand. He saw me and thinking the light had changed he accelerated through intersection on the red light and almost got T-boned.

I swear that I'm a very considerate and respectful cyclist, at least about 99.99% of the time. More and more I avoid riding in the street and I will go way the fuck out of my way just to use the bike paths. Until police tame drivers Valencia will never be the sort of bike paradise that it deserves to be. People here are afraid to ride bikes and for good reason.

Random Thoughts #2

2012-02-04T08:17:00.005+01:00

As a representative of all the patches of rubber left in the street either by rapid acceleration or deceleration I would like to register our collective outrage over the fact that our name has been highjacked by fecal stains in people’s undergarments.

Signed, Randolf J. Skidmark

Random Thoughts #1

2012-02-03T12:48:00.005+01:00

If I were a famous scientist and I came up with a concept which explains how removing one element from an organism and inserting another can adversely affect the molecular nature of the organism, I would call that theory The Shemp Factor for reasons obvious to anyone who has seen The Three Stooges. I seriously doubt I’ll come up with a theory like this so if you want to use the name, go ahead.

What's the Deal with Hippies?

2012-02-02T11:59:00.008+01:00

What’s the Deal with Hippies? #1

Although this has never happened to me it would make me smile to see some children yelling and pointing, “Mom, look! A hippie! Can we keep it?” The mother replies, “Oh hell no, the last time you forgot to poke holes in the jar and it died.”

Just because I love children and I think that pets can teach kids about responsibility.

What’s the Deal with Hippies #2

A hippie would blow his own dad for just a tiny bit of weed. I guess the real question is who (or what) wouldn’t a hippy blow for a bit of dope? I’d prefer to never know.

What’s the Deal with Hippies: True/False Test

One True answer means you’re a hippie:

1) I have tried to bum weed from a total stranger.

2) I’ve had a conversation about the guitar solo in “Stairway to Heaven.”

3) I camped out all night for tickets to see Rush only to find I didn’t have any money.

4) I have used the expression “blow your mind” without being ironic or sarcastic.

5) When confronted by well-meaning friends complaining about my body odor I tell them to “chill out, man.”

6) I have smoked oregano on occasion.

What’s the Deal with Hippies #32

In August of 1972 at an outdoor concert in Redmond, California Jerry Garcia performed a four day guitar solo. Appalling, yes, but not as bad as the fact that none of the 12,438 hippies in attendance moved from where they were standing, not to go to the port-o-lets, nor to shower, and definitely not to apply deodorant (not that any of them brought deodorant). The toxic fumes from the rock concert completely annihilated a neighboring population of vultures (Cathartes aura)—so much for the hippy’s supposed “love” for the environment.

What’s the Deal with Hippies? #33

OK, we all like to joke around but please remember: hippies are people, too. Well, that’s not true at all but it sounds nice. Although they share a bit of our DNA, hippies are more or less the biological equivalent of mules. They are an offshoot of human evolution but unable to have offspring. It’s not that they lack the reproductive capacity; it’s simply because they are too stoned to have sex.

I forgot to mention that you should always wash your hands after coming in contact with a hippie so you don't get salmonella.

Sunday Meal: Soupe a l'Oignon Gratinée

2012-01-30T10:23:00.008+01:00

I made soupe a l’oignon gratinée yesterday, commonly known in English as French onion soup. It’s a very time-consuming recipe, especially if you make your own broth which I did of course. I have some great stock I made with gallina in my freezer but I wanted to make this broth using meat. I had been thinking about this dish for weeks but circumstances conspired against actually making it until yesterday. It’s hard for any dish to live up to that kind of expectation and my version didn’t actually blow me away but then again, I can’t say that I have had better, even in France.

To go along with it I made a recipe that I stole from my new favorite bar in the neighborhood, Bar Casa Morrut, Calle Maestro José Serrano 4. Pepe makes some great food in this place and it’s very inexpensive. One of my favorite tapas at his place is chicken livers fried in bay leaves and garlic. I hadn’t eaten liver of any sort for a long time as I am the only person that I know who actually eats the stuff. Most of my friends here can’t even stand the smell of it cooking which is a shame because my butcher has wonderful liver, both pork and beef. The chicken livers I bought at the supermarket, higaditos y menudillos (little livers and giblets). I had to look up the word “menudillos” and then I had to look up “giblets” in English. From the online Oxford dictionary:

plural noun

the liver, heart, gizzard, and neck of a chicken or other fowl, usually removed before the bird is cooked, and often used to make gravy, stuffing, or soup.

Origin

· Middle English (in the sense 'an inessential appendage', later 'garbage, offal'): from Old French gibelet 'game bird stew', probably from gibier 'birds or mammals hunted for sport'

I never knew. I thought "giblets" was something specific. In the case of the ones I bought from my supermarket they mean hearts. Now I know. "Mollejas" or gizzards are another item people cook with abundantly here in Spain. All this is generally something most people in America throw away, although it’s more likely they never see it in the first place as it is removed before their chicken is neatly packaged in plastic. I have always been rather old-school in my eating habits and to say that I don’t shy away from strange foods would be an understatement. But it goes way beyond me trying to be macho; I actually like offal, as it is sometimes called.

Bar Casa Morrut Chicken Livers and Giblets

Simply fry the livers in hot olive oil with bay leaves, garlic, ad a pinch of salt. I threw in a finely chopped onion just because I had one on hand. I made a sandwich with the liver on some amazing bread I buy at the local bakery, chapata con aceitunas y romero. If the French soup didn’t blow me away the simple sandwich certainly did the trick.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

2012-01-23T11:54:00.014+01:00

The only thing I have to say about Jonathan Franzen’s highly successful novel, The Corrections, is to say that reading it is like being forced to listen to a really boring old man tell boring stories, an old man who seemingly hasn’t had a single interesting observation in his entire life, or at least not capable of relating an interesting experience. To add to this tedium, imagine that you are in a really boring situation while being a captive audience to the old man; perhaps you are waiting to renew your driver’s license. I walked out of Franzen’s literary DMV at around page 100 (I should explain that DMV stands for Department of Motor Vehicles, a government agency not quite cheery enough to be described as Orwellian).

And of course there is a character in the book who is a writer and also a bit about academia, the two most boring and over-used themes in modern American literature. Note to writers: if you are writing about writers or college professors you need to quit your easy job in academia and get out and fucking find something to write about. Contrast the story of this piece of crap novel with Alone in Berlin which I recently wrote about here.I found myself literally shouting at The Corrections. Why the fuck should I care what kind of paper something is typed on or that the coffee can in which the wife suspects her husband is storing his own piss is from the Yuban brand? I just see this as frivolous detail.

This is the first thing that I have read by the author. In a Guardian article about ten rules for writing, I thought that Franzen had the weakest examples.

1 The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.

- More like the reader is a creative writing graduate student interested in clever word play simply for its own sake.

2 Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money.

- I don't understand this at all. I can't say that I have ever liked or respected a novel because it was "an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown".

3 Never use the word "then" as a ¬conjunction – we have "and" for this purpose. Substituting "then" is the lazy or tone-deaf writer's non-solution to the problem of too many "ands" on the page.

- He has a problem with the word "then" for fuck's sake. I care much more about the scope of a novel than the language.

4 Write in the third person unless a really distinctive first-person voice offers itself irresistibly.

- Many of my favorite books are in the first person. How the fuck can he even say this?

5 When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.

- So writers shouldn't bother with research simply because it’s easier than it was?

6 The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than "The Metamorphosis".
-Does anyone know what the hell he is talking about?

7 You see more sitting still than chasing after.

- Zola would have disagreed. He went out and worked for his stories, discovered them. Zola's observation in Germinal about the horses in the mines being brought down as colts and living their entire lives underground is something you couldn't invent sitting behind your computer.

8 It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.

-He may actually have a point with this one.

9 Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.

-Huh?

10 You have to love before you can be relentless.

-No fucking idea what this means.

In every one of these "rules" it sounds to me the Franzen is trying to be super-clever which is what his writing sounds like to me, a trivial story wrapped up in 24 karat prose.

Compare Franzen's silly rules with the straight-forward advice offered by Elmore Leonard:

7 Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop.

Or how about this priceless tip from Will Self:

3 Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.

I actually learned that one a long time ago from my younger brother and I have followed his rule ever since.

Because You Have to Eat Every Day!

2012-01-22T20:41:00.005+01:00

A very simple dish I came up with after cooking a few pieces of chicken the other day and adding some white wine. I was thinking about adding the lemon juice to beaten eggs and add them to the sauce like with Avgolemono soup. Maybe next time. I cut up the chicken as I do when making paella and freeze the parts that I leave out like the back, the wing tips, drumstick tips, and the breastbone. I de-bone the thighs as well as the breast as this just makes the dish a bit more elegant and easier to eat. I used my ginormous new pot for this dish even though it barely fits on my diminutive stove.

Lemon Chicken Pasta

Ingredients:

1 Whole Chicken
2 Zucchinis
3-4 Garlic cloves
1 Glass White Wine
1 Cup Chicken Stock
2 Lemons (juiced)
3 Tbsp. Butter
Flour
Penne Pasta
3 Bay Leaves
Parmesan Cheese
Salt, pepper

First slice the zucchini and sauté it in olive oi,l adding a bit of salt. Take it out of the pot and add more oil, the bay leaves, and turn up the heat.

Cut the chicken into small pieces and partially debone it. Cover chicken with flour. Fry the chicken pieces and brown well. Deglazed the pan with the wine. Next add the stock and check for seasoning. Add the lemon juice to taste. Then add the cooked zucchini. Simmer for a few minutes and then add the cooked penne but make sure it is VERY al dente as it will continue to cook in the sauce. Add Parmesan to individual servings.

Jerking Off on Facebook

2012-01-19T19:11:00.006+01:00

Flesh-eating Pigeons?

This is the crap I write when nothing else occurs to me:

Last week I cut my knuckle slicing ham. Today I pulled off the scab when I was sitting on a bench in a downtown plaza and tried to feed it to a pigeon. I wanted to prove my theory that these pests would gladly devour human flesh given the slightest opportunity. He didn’t eat it but probably just because he didn’t see it.

How to Freak Out Your Neighbors #708

I was waiting for the elevator with my bike which I keep in the apartment. The little old woman from the floor below me walked in so I gave her the elevator and said I’d wait. I told her that we could fit in together along with my bike but we should probably get married first; it'd be like sharing a sleeping bag. I don’t think that my humor translates well (and I realize that I am being very generous with the definition of the word “humor”). I hope they don’t sell pepper spray in Spain.

Urban Aphorism #19

If you are talking on your cell phone and exercising you aren't multi-tasking; you are doing two things half-assed at the same time. Big difference.

Note to Self: Stop Eating!

I won't go so far as to say that I'm fat but I put on a pair of jeans the other day that I should only wear when I am at my fittest. When I bent over to tie my shoes I felt like I was going to pass out. I had to come up for air between shoes like a pearl diver going down twice for a big score.

From 22JAN12:

Leo Messi is so good that he often makes his opponents look foolish. In his final goal tonight against Málaga—to complete yet another hat trick—he ran down 70% of the pitch and shot past the goalie with what was all but an impossible angle. The people in the bar where I was watching the game positively burst out laughing, as if Messi had hit the goalie in the face with a pie. You half-expect to hear that Harlem Globetrotter music every time he touches that ball.

P.S. Two humor-free draws for Valencia CF and Levante UD.

Believing Doesn't Make It So

2012-01-17T12:11:00.002+01:00

I saw a tourist wearing a "Jesus is Lord" t-shirt...a grown man. Why not wear one that says "Santa Claus is Coming" instead? Just because I bought a "World's Greatest Grandma" t-shirt at a thrift store in Seattle, and just because I wear it once in a while doesn't mean it's true.

My Big Fat Technology-Obsessed Life

2012-01-16T12:30:00.008+01:00

or Rat Racer Rejects Restricting Rules Regarding Regimented Routine

I’m not playing by the man’s rules any more. I’m fed up with coloring inside the lines; I’m sick of following the herd; I’ve had it with a life of doing what everyone else expects of me and burying my own hopes and dreams under six feet of petty bourgeois trivialities. It’s time for me to take control of my own life and turn off the autopilot. The hour has come for me to fly solo. Take this life and shove it; I ain’t living here no more. Of course I’m paraphrasing a grammatically-challenged country western song but the sentiment is highly appropriate. Note to self: quickly determine exactly where and how I will live.

Just look at this place that I call my life. I can’t believe that I am killing myself with work just so that I can have the right kind of cell phone for a person of my stature—whatever my stature is supposed to be. All that I know is that my old cell phone made me feel embarrassed when I used it in public. Everyone knows that there are only 2-3 acceptable brands of cell phones and that all others make you look like a complete failure. Every time you use one of those off-brand model you may as well just hang a sign around your neck that screams out to the world, “I can’t afford an iPhone!”

Studies point out that these devices are just a more efficient way to waste time and that they systematically shorten our attention spans. I could probably come up with a joke about diminished attention spans but most of you wouldn’t bother to read it if it ran over two sentences. I’m going to take my new phone and throw it off the next bridge that I happen upon, but first I’ll post about it on Facebook and Twitter.

“Time-saving devices” is the description they used to pin on technology, at least back when a toaster was considered a scientific advancement. You don’t hear that too much these days and few would go so far as to suggest that an MP3 player saves time or contributes anything in the way of enhancing our well-being. More and more it’s like we’ve all turned into Stephen Hawking types who are confined to wheelchairs and forced to communicate via keyboards, although he probably gets out of the house more than the average American teenager. Our over-dependence on tech gadgetry is more a reflection of our overall level of laziness than our desire to be more productive. I mean, seriously, does anyone use a remote control because they want to save time?

In a nutshell I think that it’s safe to say that we are all running frantically on the treadmill of life just to be able to spend an increasingly larger percentage of our lives doing doodly-squat. If you need further proof of this assertion let me point out that I just wasted time Googling “doodly-squat” and found that “diddly-squat” is also acceptable.

If I run like hell I can still make the 08:15 bus and be at work a little after nine. Maybe no one will even notice that I’m a couple minutes late. I can only pray.

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

2012-01-11T20:55:00.007+01:00

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Yet another fascinating perspective from WWII; this time it comes in the form of a novel based on an actual couple who resist the Nazis in their own, almost monumentally pathetic, way: they write little anti-Nazi postcards and leave them in the stairwells of buildings, “postcards that no one read, that no one wanted to read, that plunged everyone who found them into embarrassment or dread.” The fact that the couple got away with their petty rebellion for so long indicates that it wasn’t just a simple form of suicide on their part; they thought that they were actually harming the Nazi state.

And yet this absurdly miniscule bit or disobedience was enough to throw the Gestapo in a paroxysm of paranoia. Imagine if the Nazis had been faced with a direct slap to the face of their legitimacy. Imagine if someone had stood up in that Munich beer hall and screamed out, “Look at the ridiculous moustache on that stupid little creep.” Christ, the game might have been up before it even got off the ground. But of course that didn’t happen and soon enough they had created such a level of terror and mistrust among the German people that just about everyone was paralyzed, unable to act out even the most basic of human decencies.

Even such a futile and desperately ineffective act of defiance as this was punishable by death in the insane and paranoid world of Nazi Germany. The novel describes brilliantly the level of fear that existed at all levels of that society. The only people who weren’t afraid were completely psychotic. The old couple wasn’t acting out of heroism; it was simply a desperate attempt to hang on to at least a shred of humanity.

The story is sort of like that parable of a hurricane beginning with the flapping of the wings of a butterfly. The postcards didn’t have the effect the couple imagined, that of a wider rebellion among the German people, but the novel describes how many of the cards brought great hardship upon people and further inflamed the terror in which most citizens were practically drowning.

The translation of this book is a bit of a botched job that, at times, made it difficult to follow the thread of the story. It was full of bizarre words and expressions. I have an easier time reading books in Spanish or French. It certainly deserves a better English interpretation. At the very least the translation needs to be modernized as there are a lot of silly words that are no longer in the English lexicon (and some that were perhaps never a part of the language).

Poppet? Gawp? Crook? Scarper? Porkies? Argy-bargy? Sozzled?

P.S. This is the first book that I have read in English in well over a year. I found it totally by accident at a place here in Valencia that sells books for .50€ on Thursdays (this place is a secret and even a Gestapo interrogation couldn’t beat it out of me). I had never heard of the book or the author before but the blurb on the back cover was enough to separate me from my half a euro. It turns out this was a tremendous bit of luck for me, a diamond in the rough.

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The Death of Fast Food

2012-01-08T09:36:00.004+01:00

Cold War Era Food

Over the hurried, inexorable, and giddy gallop towards the modern era Americans were convinced by advertisers that cooking was just not worth the effort. We were too busy to cook. We had better things to do with our precious “free time.” We were given time-saving choices when it came to meals so there was no longer any reason to “slave over a hot stove” (I’m almost certain that expression was created by advertisers). I can’t remember what was supposed to be so thrilling in our lives that didn’t allow us to prepare our own food but it must have been wonderful.

Things are changing in the mentality of modern Americans. Cooking shows air 24 hours a day. Chefs are celebrities. As I have often said, internet sites like YouTube have cooking video instructions coming out of their ears so the Italian grandmother you never had is available to walk you through even the most harrowingly complicated menus. If you have any doubt concerning this tectonic shift of attitudes I propose that you do a Google search of any sort of food that comes to mind. Ironically, in a search for chicken pot pie*—the former gold standard of crap, pre-prepared food—the first things to come up in the queue are home-made versions.

*The chicken pot pie was a fantastic idea on paper but its execution was nearly that—an execution—for millions of American children during the 1960’s. The chicken pot pie was an individual serving of chicken-related matter (mostly ears, feet, and chicken toe nails) that was wrapped in a pie crust and housed in an aluminum alloy pie pan.

The pies came frozen from the super market and took approximately one school term to defrost. To serve you simply placed the chicken pot pie in the oven at 1,900 degrees at the beginning of the Tom & Jerry cartoons around 3 in the afternoon and the pie would be done later that evening during Green Acres. Chicken pot pies were delicious, so I have been told. The problem was that they took so long to cook that you would be practically fainting from hunger by the time they were ready. I’m sure I’m not the only kid who completely scorched his entire digestive track eating a pot pie while it was bubbling hot. It was like eating chicken-flavored lava.

Paella is Pronounced "Pa-ay-ya" for F#@X's Sake

2012-01-06T11:17:00.004+01:00

After looking at some cooking videos on YouTube I think I am going to start a terrorist organization called “Stop Calling Paella ‘Pa-el-la,’ Please!” Do these same English speakers call pizza “piz-za?” My Spanish accent needs a lot of work but this mispronunciation borders on a racial slur.

P.S. Gordon Ramsey is always hopping around like he had to take an evil piss about an hour ago and is now in the early stages of wetting his pantaloons. For my money he is the absolute worst of the celebrity chefs. I saw an episode of his show where he goes in and bails out a failing restaurant. They are failing because they don't deserve to succeed. It's like helping out a wounded animal on the Serengeti, it goes against the natural selection process.

Arroz de Setas - Mushroom Paella

2012-01-04T18:37:00.001+01:00

Welcome to my kitchen. This dish turned out rather well because I used stock from cocido which I made a couple days before.

Study Hard So You Can Be Rude in Spanish, Too

2012-01-03T11:40:00.004+01:00

Keys my ass you bigga sheet!

I wouldn’t call it an advantage but one thing about attaining a fairly high level of fluency in Spanish is that now I can get snippy with people who piss me off. Before I was stoic and patient, now I have the linguistic luxury of being bitchy. Before you know it I’ll be a full-blown asshole (just like I was in English?). In my defense all that I can say is that I have never consciously worked to improve my Spanish for the sole purpose of berating someone who gets on my nerves. I suppose that I could try being conversant in the language and a decent person. I’ll give a few examples and let others decide if I’m being too touchy.

I sat down just now in my corner bar and there is some old guy working who is here in the mornings. I have been coming to this bar regularly for about two and a half years so unless he suffers from recurrent amnesia he should recognize me from the last time I came in which was fucking yesterday. He was sitting on the terrace talking with one of his home boys and I took a seat inside. It would have been virtually impossible for him not to notice that I walked in as he was sitting directly in front of the door. I sat down, turned on my computer, went to the restroom, came back, checked my email, sent a text on my phone, et cetera, et cetera for over ten minutes. I don’t really come here for the food or drink as it basically serves as a satellite office for me so I don’t really give a shit if I get served or not—and I’m certainly never in a hurry—but this just seemed like a complete lack of respect.

Another customer walked in and the old barkeep hopped up like it was the owner of the place and he shuffled quickly behind the bar to serve the new customer. Then he walked around the bar—right past me—to clean off some dishes. As he walked back behind the bar I looked straight at him in an attempt to make eye contact. He was a meter away but evidently I was invisible to him. I tried to get his attention by saying “excuse me” but nothing doing. Finally I stood up and walked over to the bar in front of him. I didn’t say anything at first and he still didn’t bother to ask me what I wanted so I told him with extremely exaggerated politeness that when he could, if it were at all possible, it would be stupendous if he could find the time to make me a café con leche. He is too dim-witted to pick up on my heavy sarcasm but it made me feel better. Does that make me an asshole?

I was in a news kiosk last Friday and I explained to the middle-age couple working there that I was looking for the books by Mario Vargas Llosa that El País newspaper has been selling every other Friday. The old guy just looked at me like I was from another fucking planet and started whining that he didn’t know what I was talking about when I cut him off very abruptly. I asked him, “Excuse me. Do you work here? I have been buying these books in this very shop for the past month or so.” The woman—obviously with more sense—knew what I was talking about and I just turned my back on the man while I talked with her.

Sometimes I get annoyed with people who ask me to repeat something extremely simple. I just think to myself, “What the fuck did you think I said when I ordered a cortado?” Even the worst Spanish pronunciation shouldn’t be confusing to someone who works in a café and hears this word about a million times a day. I asked a young girl one time if she spoke Spanish because I could repeat the order in English or French or Arabic or Greek.

Coq au Vin

2012-01-02T09:57:00.006+01:00

I still can’t decide if this dish is even worth the tremendous effort required to pull it off. It is definitely one of those dishes that make you just sit back after every bite and groan with pleasure. If you make it at home I guarantee that it will be better than what you order in MOST restaurants. It’s difficult to serve in a restaurant situation. Your friends will love you for it, if that is a big consolation. I used a hen this time, or gallina as it’s called in Spanish. No coqs, roosters, or gallos to be found on my shopping expedition to the Russafa market. The hen worked well as a substitute

Hens can lay an egg a day whether or not they have been fertilized by the male. They begin laying at about six months and can lay eggs until they reach about two years. Chickens raised for meat are male and female, sold at 6 to 12 weeks old. An older bird means tougher meat which means a different cooking process. And with the need to find a way to cook a very old rooster thus was born the fricassee method of stewing the bird in sauce or gravy. The meat, skin, and connective tissue in these old birds are tougher but this also means that they will lend more flavor over a long cooking time. If you made this same dish with chicken, using the same cooking time as in this video, the chicken would completely liquefy.

El Cocido de la Abuela (la abuela soy yo)

2011-12-31T09:26:00.003+01:00

I went to the supermarket last night to buy food without the faintest notion of what I was going to cook. They say that you shouldn’t shop for food when you are hungry. You definitely shouldn’t go near a supermarket when you have no idea of what you want to cook. Because of the coming holiday I felt like I was in a rugby scrum as I wandered around the crowded aisles hoping to be overcome by inspiration. I wouldn’t call it inspiration but the only thing that grabbed my attention was a half of a hen, or gallina in Spanish. The taste of the stock I recently made with gallina was still fresh in my memory so I thought that this basic ingredient was something that I could work into a full meal. From there all I could think of to make was cocido madrileño—not one of my favorite things if I have to tell the truth.

I like the broth made from cocido and I love any sort of legumes (cocido uses garbanzos). The traditional way to make arroz al horno is to use the stock and garbanzos from cocido. I love arroz al horno so now I had something to work with. I really don’t feel like making a rice dish so it’s time to open up the improvisation gates and invent something new (or uncover some old gem). I may need another trip to the market depending on where I go with this dish but I know that I will make the stock from the hen and the other meat (pork bones and pancetta). I will also make garbanzos but I will probably make them separately in my pressure cooker.

War in Iraq December 2011: The Final Essay?

2011-12-29T09:09:00.007+01:00

La obsesión de la mente totalitaria es su necesidad de que el mundo resulte claro y nítido. Cualquier sutileza, o contradicción, o complejidad lo asusta y confunde, y se le hace insoportable.

-Jacobo Timerman Preso sin Nombre, Celda sin Número

Timerman was talking about the military junta in Argentina in the 1970s but he just as easily could have been speaking for the American Right. As much as American conservatives go on and on about freedom and how much they love it, they are always the first to abandon freedoms if it means only a rumor of order in their world. American conservatives will also abandon any argument they have obviously lost—and those are many—because accepting responsibility for their failures violates their precious sense of order. After nine years Americans troops have left Iraq which represents one of the most horrific foreign policy disasters in American history and completely fabricated by the American Right. The end of America’s shameful occupation in Iraq is over but for conservatives this isn’t news.

Talking about Iraq after it has all been said and done serves no purpose in the Right’s rhetoric. The same is true in the science of global climate change. Years ago conservatives denied that climate change was happening. After more than a decade of relentless progress on the part of science the Right simply changed the goal posts and made their argument one of denying the all this is being caused by human activity on the planet. Admitting that they have been wrong on something is completely beyond their capability and violates the basic tenets of their God-given philosophy, something they point out frequently. To acknowledge that they are wrong is like denying the infallibility of their god, whoever that is.

I remember back in April in 2003 (the days of “Mission Accomplished”) when many conservative pundits demanded that opponents to the war in Iraq apologize for their mistake. Many of these pundits have since changed their stance on the war and act like they had it right all along. Admitting that their original position was completely wrong is completely out of the question.

Obama tries to paint a happy face on America's exit from disaster.

The Jamón Diaries #1

2011-12-28T09:39:00.000+01:00

I’ve been putting shit into two columns and the things with lots of cholesterol are always in the same column as things that make me not want to kill myself…unless you consider Spanish ham as a form or suicide. Either I am highly self-destructive or I have to stop believing the “mainstream media” when they say that I shouldn’t eat my weight in cheese every week. Ignoring the experts is sort of the intellectual equivalent of a little kid who thinks he’s hiding while standing behind a curtain with his feet showing—like global warming deniers. At least my obstinacy has some rewards. Anyone care for one of these dates wrapped in bacon?

When I'm 64 (or even sooner)

2011-12-28T02:09:00.003+01:00

If I end up in a wheelchair like that old dude from Breaking Bad just remember that one ring of the bell means to bring me a beer and three rings means I want to go to a strip club (two rings means #2, of course). Thanks for being there for me.

P.S. When I ring twice I mean that in the past tense so chop, chop and don't be stingy with the Handi Wipes®.

P.P.S. Even if I could talk I would still have a bell on my wheelchair. And please remember, when I label this entry under "Humor" I a being very generous with that word.

Sunny and Cold

2011-12-27T07:31:00.001+01:00

I have a little Celsius/Fahrenheit cheat-sheet on the shelf above my desk that converts between the two in intervals of five degrees in Celsius* but I know without even looking that it is cold this morning. My house is fantastic during the warm months but when it’s cold, living here is a little like camping. My bedroom is completely interior but that doesn’t mean it’s anything approaching comfortable. I have been looking for just the right rug for my bedroom but we have arrived at that moment in the season when any old damn thing will do. I use a little electric heater in the bathroom otherwise showering can be painful. The good news is that winter is a matter of about six weeks around here. We are still getting up to 15 degrees and above during these shortest days of the year so I don’t have much to complain about.

Celsius – Fahrenheit

35 …. 95

30 … 86

25 … 77

20 … 68

15 … 59

10 … 10

5 … 41

New Toy for the Kitchen

2011-12-22T13:51:00.000+01:00

Caption contest for my new pot:

1) My stockpot can kick your stockpot's ass.
2) What is John overcompensating for?
3) Spanish lesson for today: Mi olla es muy grande.

Happy Winter Solstice!

2011-12-22T08:02:00.005+01:00

Valencia, Spain

Date--....Sunrise / Sunset -Daylight

22 Dec 08:19 - 17:41- 9h 22m 48s

23 Dec 08:19 - 17:42- 9h 22m 51s + 03s

24 Dec 08:20 - 17:42- 9h 22m 58s + 06s

25 Dec 08:20 - 17:43- 9h 23m 09s + 10s

26 Dec 08:20 - 17:44- 9h 23m 23s + 14s

27 Dec 08:21 - 17:44- 9h 23m 42s + 18s

Hours of daylight for cities around the world today:

Miami………10h 31m 44s

New York….. 9h 15m 15 s

Seattle……….8h 25m 23s

London………7h 49m 43s

Paris…………8h 14m 50s

Moscow........7h 14s

The December solstice occurs when the sun reaches its most southerly declination of -23.5 degrees. In other words, it is when the North Pole is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun. Depending on the Gregorian calendar, the December solstice occurs annually on a day between December 20 and December 23. On this date, all places above a latitude of 66.5 degrees north are now in darkness, while locations below a latitude of 66.5 degrees south receive 24 hours of daylight.

The sun is directly overhead on the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere during the December solstice. It also marks the longest day of the year in terms of daylight hours for those living south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Those living or travelling south from the Antarctic Circle towards the South Pole will see the midnight sun during this time of the year.

On the contrary, for an observer in the northern hemisphere, the December solstice marks the day of the year with the least hours of daylight for those living north of the Tropic of Cancer. Those living or traveling north of the Arctic Circle towards the North Pole will not be able to see the sun during this time of the year.

Cyclists Not Welcome in Valencia

2011-12-21T09:25:00.001+01:00

The hostile campaign against cyclists continues in Valencia with police now targeting bikers for drunk “driving.” Once again you have to applaud the city government for trying to solve a problem that never existed. The truly sad thing about this is that many citizens—none of whom have ridden a bike in their adult lives—seem to be in agreement with the police as they single out people on bikes for infractions. Meanwhile, Valencia continues to allow car drivers to do pretty much whatever the hell they want. If you were to observe any traffic light in town you would see an almost infinite number of violations throughout the day.

One practice that I find particularly obnoxious is the completely accepted custom here in Valencia for drivers to begin to drive through the light before it has even changed to green. This is something that is as much a habit here as accelerating through yellow traffic lights. I have never seen the police ticket a driver for this potentially lethal practice yet cyclists are being handed 200€ fines for riding on sidewalks at pedestrian speeds. So police turn a blind eye to opposing vehicles racing through an intersection but are putting their foot down concerning cyclists sharing the sidewalk with pedestrians.

Valencia should take a look at cities in Europe that have adopted the bicycle as a legitimate means of transportation. All of those cities are better off than Valencia in so many obvious ways that it almost seems silly to list them. The city could provide a lot of other, more useful city services if they didn’t have to keep building more roads and parking facilities but instead local leaders have decided to all but stamp out the nascent bicycle culture in Valencia.

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

2011-12-16T22:14:00.002+01:00

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.

Tasteless Bodily Functions #237

2011-12-15T18:25:00.002+01:00

I have been stricken with a head cold the past three days and subsequently have become a world renowned expert on snot. In fact, I am now one of the world’s leading producers of this substance, I have become of the snot equivalent of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves. I blew a snot rocket while riding my bike today in heavy traffic and two cars behind me had to turn on their windshield wipers—being sick isn’t all bad after all. Shooting a snot rocket when cycling seems to add power and added purging power to this disgusting act. I blew so hard that I almost lost control of my bike. I only hope that no one I know saw me out there today (reading about it isn't quite as gross).

Bicifestación en Valencia

2011-12-15T18:15:00.000+01:00

The city should be getting down on their knees and thanking cyclists instead of giving out tickets for stupid shit like riding on the sidewalk and chaining bikes to trees.

Yet Another Spanish Holiday

2011-12-08T10:56:00.001+01:00

"No man ever said on his deathbed, ‘I wish I had spent more time in the office.’"*

This may be true with the exception of people lucky enough to live in Spain who benefit from a vast and ever-growing avalanche of holidays, fiestas, ferias, and “bridges” as they are called here (long weekends). The idea of a girl getting knocked-up without having sex is a crazy story but evidently Mary’s parents bought it. From a life-long atheist to all of you, happy Inmaculada Concepción.

**by Senator Paul Tsongas as told by Anna Quindlen in her commencement speech at Villanova*

Valencia Police Ticket 530 Cyclists in Three Days

2011-12-04T13:08:00.001+01:00

Los ciclistas no somos el problema; somos la solución. Me pregunto si la policía ha multado a 530 conductores en todo el año. Según las nuevas leyes muy anti-ciclistas, las bicis no pueden andar en los parques de Valencia como Viveros que tiene calles anchísimas. Hemos dado unos pasos para atrás en cuanto la modernidad.

It seems that the municipality of Valencia has begun to solve a thorny problem that never really existed in the first place: the fact that a few brave souls have decided to ride bikes in this city. Instead of thanking these people profusely for their effort to make the city cleaner, healthier, and less of a traffic nightmare the city’s leaders have decided to punish cyclists by handing out over 530 heavy fines against bikers for such heinous acts as riding on the sidewalk and chaining their dormant bikes to trees or lamp posts.

This recent police action here in Valencia is wrong on so many different levels that I hardly know where to start. Let me begin with this: Two Hundred Euros! Why not just shoot violators on sight? Are they out of their minds? 200€? How much is the fine for driving on the sidewalk? It’s probably less, assuming that it’s even against the law here to drive on the sidewalk. Police rarely ticket motorist here, for anything. 200€ seems such a horribly disproportionate fine for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk on in a public garden, some of which—like Viveros Gardens—have paths wide enough for two lanes of traffic. People have been cycling in this beautiful park for probably over 100 years yet now that activity is illegal and subject to a 200€ fine.

This reign of terror by local police seems like it has as its objective to stamp out cycling in Valencia once and for all. Cyclist are forbidden from locking their bikes to trees, lamp posts or any mobiliario urbano which means just about anything that isn’t specified for bike parking of which the city has graciously provided 4,000 around this city of over 800,000 inhabitants (as one civic leader pointed out in an interview). Once again I ask what was the original problem they are hoping to solve by forbidding cyclists to chain their bikes to lamp posts? Does it somehow hinder their effectiveness? Do they shine less brightly with a bike locked to their bases?

Just think about the police man hours spent writing 532 tickets. I would imagine that every one took at least 10 minutes from start to finish. Perhaps a lot more considering that most of the people being fined had no idea they were doing anything wrong and thus the police need to explain it to those sorry souls.

I would also wager that not a single person responsible for the new anti-bicycle laws has ever ridden a bike in their adult life.

Iniesta Goal from 2010 Wolrd Cup (high quality video)

2011-11-30T21:30:00.001+01:00

I will never get tired of watching this brilliant goal that won the World Cup in 2010 for Spain. Enjoy this video while you can because it will probably be take down soon because if copyright issues. The quality is as superb as the play on the pitch. A great moment in Spanish football and something I will ever forget. OK, it would be difficult for me to forget it because I lived in Spain during the Cup and watched every game. I also have this video on my desktop and I watch it almost every day.

The same clip on Vimeo:

Gol de Iniesta en final del Mundial 2010 from leftbanker on Vimeo.

¿Arroz en la noche? (Rice for dinner?)

2011-11-28T11:10:00.000+01:00

I think that I have worked very assiduously to integrate myself into Spanish life. I study the language like a conscientious undergrad. Spanish cooking comes naturally to me and I probably eat less American food than the average Spaniard. Football to me is fútbol and not the game with pads and helmets. Despite all of my efforts to fit in, I just can’t get used to the Spanish dinner hours and their rather rigid notion of what one eats and doesn’t eat at a certain hour of the day. The biggest problem I have is the local prohibition of eating rice for dinner.

¿Arroz en la noche? “Rice for dinner?” I remember the first time someone asked me about this after telling them that I was making a risotto for dinner. For Valencianos eating rice for dinner rates right up there with rat poison. Rice is a midday meal for them, period. If you went to a restaurant and ordered paella for dinner I think they would first laugh at you and then escort you brusquely from the premises while warning you never to return.

The Spanish eat their big meals in the afternoon. They feel that eating a big meal in the evening is basically just asking for trouble; trouble in the form of weight gain, disturbed sleep, gout, rickets, and possibly erectile dysfunction. You name it and eating big in the evening causes it. From everything that I have read about nutrition there is absolutely basis for this belief because the body is basically on a 24 hour schedule and what matter is the total caloric intake during the day and not when they are consumed. I understand that it is the tradition to eat a big afternoon meal basically everywhere in the Mediterranean basin. I respect tradition but this doesn’t mean that the tradition is based on science.

Even after all this time here in Spain I would much prefer to eat a being meal in the evening. And it’s not like Spanish people don’t eat big meals late in the evening. It’s rare to see anyone in a restaurant before 10:00 pm and it’s not like people only eat carrots and celery when they go out at night. Someone who admonishes you for eating rice at night will think nothing of eating a prodigious amount of bread with a salad for dinner. Potato dishes are quite popular for dinner as well as other recipes steeped in carbohydrates.

If I am going to eat a big meal I like to have a bit of wine with it. Having even a single glass of wine at lunch just wipes me out for the rest of the day. I can drink wine at lunch on Sundays when I have nothing to do the rest of the day put the rest of the week this just isn’t the case. I will often eat rice for dinner (only if there are no Spanish people around to witness this heinous crime). I sleep like a baby after these meals. You can read all about it in my upcoming book, Eat Rice at Night and Live to Tell about It!.

The Chinese Community in Spain

2011-11-24T23:05:00.006+01:00

There’s a corner café near my house staffed by an older Chinese couple who work every day, all day, from about seven in the morning until ten or eleven at night. I have lived in this neighborhood for four years and they have never had a vacation unless their vacation coincided with one of my many holidays. I doubt this is the case because I have never been by this place when they weren’t working. The woman—who appears to be somewhere between 40 and 60—is about half bat-shit crazy from spending so much time locked up in her concentration camp disguised as a corner café with a pleasant terrace. This couple isn’t any sort of an exception as the absolute minimum work week for Chinese people here is six days a week. My question is this: who is forcing these people to literally work themselves to death (the woman doesn’t look good at all)?

There is no way that any person would work this much of their own volition. I just don’t fucking believe that. What I believe is that the Chinese hierarchy here in Valencia is making these people work. It is impossible not to notice the enormous wave of Chinese immigrants here in Spain, even in some of the smallest villages. They generally work in little variety stores that sell products, most of which are manufactured in China. In the last couple of years, at least here in Valencia, the Chinese community has been buying up bars and restaurants at an alarming pace which certainly isn’t news to anyone who lives here. The Chinese community seems to be completely apart from the rest of Spanish society. Labor, health, security, and other laws don’t seem to affect them in the least.

I have said this before and I stand firmly behind this statement: the Chinese in Spain are not immigrants at all; they are economic colonists sent here by the Chinese government to sell Chinese manufactured goods and to earn hard currency for the Chinese mainland. Think about it. If you are Chinese you can’t go to your local government and say, “You know, I think that I’d like to leave this shithole of a country and go live in Spain. Is that OK with you guys?” I doubt if an average slob can even get a passport in Spain let alone emigrate on his own accord. Therefore these “immigrants” are sent to Spain and that begs the question “Why?” I think that I answered that question in the first sentence of this paragraph.

Most of the Spanish people that I have talked to have very ambivalent feelings about the Chinese. On the one hand the Chinese cause no trouble and keep to themselves. And of course they work hard, not the most admirable trait as far as the holiday-loving Spanish are concerned. On the other hand the Chinese do not participate in any way in the quotidian life of this country other than performing their assigned tasks within their own community. Last year I was with a group of friends downtown for a fireworks display during Fallas, Valencia’s biggest and most important festival (in a country where it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of festivals). There were perhaps 120,000 people crowded into the main square. I challenged my friends to point out a single Chinese person in the crowd. Not one. Every other immigrant group was represented that day, South Americans of every stripe, black Africans, and even a few Pakistanis, but no Chinese. I have never seen a Chinese family at the beach. It’s rare to even see a Chinese person sitting in a café.

In my years here in Spain I have read only one or two articles about the Chinese community in the newspapers—and I read at least two Spanish papers every day(OK, I admit that perhaps I spent too much time in cafés). No one seems to know anything about them or how their community functions. I should point out that anything I put forth in this essay is purely speculation and strictly anecdotal. From what people have told me there are very few Chinese students enrolled in the local universities and the few that you do see may very well be adopted children of Spanish families (about 100% of whom are girls—another story for another essay). I would wager that the Chinese government does not want the children of “immigrants” to attend Spanish universities to pursue careers in this country. Their job is to continue working for the Chinese mainland, selling Chinese merchandise and earning money which is mostly sent back home.

The brilliant Canadian economist and polymath, John Ralston Saul has stated that China doesn’t believe in globalization. They aren’t interested in free trade; they only care about selling their products around the world. Spain’s Chinese population certainly backs this point.

P.S. Myth Busters: The Chinese in Spain Never Die

This is one of the first urban myths I learned upon arriving in Spain. Many people have told me that the Chinese immigrants in Spain never have funerals and that there are no Chinese cemeteries. I’ve heard a lot of bad jokes about how you should be careful about eating in a Chinese restaurant because you don’t know where the meat comes from. The whole idea seemed rather silly to me and not really important enough to give much thought to it. I doubted that the Chinese passed on their documents to others when they passed away and their bodies were unceremoniously discarded in unmarked graves or tossed in the sea as legend has it.

In Roberto Saviano’s book, Gomorra about the Mafia in Naples, Italy he addresses this issue in the first chapter. He describes a scene at the port of Naples in which a container breaks open and dumps a load of frozen Chinese corpses on the wharf. Evidently, the Chinese pay to have their bodies shipped back to China when they die so that they can be buried in their native land. The expense of the shipment is sometimes deducted from their pay. Anyway, that makes more sense than the urban myth version.

The Next Big Thing?

2011-11-14T10:22:00.008+01:00

IT TAKES A LOT OF THOUGHT NOT TO OVER-THINK™

I’m not bragging when I say that I’m just about the last person onboard the latest idea. In fact, I’m so late getting onboard current trends—and I realize that I’m using the word “current” very loosely—that many times people have already forgotten about it and moved on to something else long before I get started. I actually got my picture in the paper when I bought the last VHS player. Other people will laugh at technology portrayed in 10 year old movies—a mobile phone the size of an army boot, for example—while I’ll ask in amazement, “They actually make those?” My “cutting edge” is most people’s medieval history. “Behind the times” would be a huge technological leap forward for me.

I’m no Luddite but to say that I’m standing on middle ground would be a bit of an exaggeration. On a chronological/technological scale between the original members of the Luddite movement and…let’s say Steve Jobs, I’d place myself somewhere between the decline of black and white television and the advent of 8 track tapes. My lack of tech savvy could be a huge asset—a very convenient thing for me to say about myself but still. I’ve always felt that what the hi-tech world needs is more input from stupid people. Many new and bold ideas spring from the smartest and most talented minds but I think we are ignoring a very powerful and perhaps innovative voice in our rush towards a better future by silencing the people who move their lips when they read.

Have you ever noticed that we never ask stupid people to put forth ideas? The giant computer companies should have a few not-too-bright folks on the payroll just to double-check the work of the geniuses, to make sure things aren’t too complicated for the average slob. I’m volunteering my services to Microsoft to head up their new Average Slob Research Team. I think that my clear-headed and straight-shooting approach to problem solving is just what Microsoft needs to be a leader in the field. What’s that? They already are a leader in many fields? Whatever, I can make them even better.

I’ll start by changing the name of my new division. Average Slob Research Team? Who came up with that? OK, I know that I did but I was just being rhetorical, wait…not rhetorical but what’s that other thing you can be when you know the answer but you want to blame someone else? I’ll have to ask one of the other, smarter employees but for now let’s brainstorm to come up with a better name for my group. We need a cool acronym, something really catchy. How about SPIKE? That sounds cool and tough. I’ll have to let one of the brainiac dorks figure out what the letters mean; it’s called relegating or delegating—I can never keep those two straight. I did the hard part so it’s the least they can do. On to my next big idea.

I noticed that they don’t serve meatloaf in the cafeteria. No wonder so many people here skip lunch and go running or take a yoga class instead of stuffing their faces in the chow hall. They also don’t serve beer so I’ll use my new influence to right that little wrong. If you have beer you may as well have a happy hour—wouldn’t want any of it to go to waste. These pencil-necks around here need to learn how to relax and stop working themselves half to death. And how about a blackjack table? You know what they say about all work and no illegal gambling. To prove my point about how uptight people are here you should have seen all of the dirty looks I got when I was barbequing in the parking lot before work one morning. You’d think they’d never heard of tailgating.

As it turns out, it only took me and my small team three weeks to drive the entire company off a cliff. Most of the damage was caused by my diverting the corporation’s entire research staff into my project of trying to predict the outcome of NFL games. I already had my own system but I thought that it could use a bit of fine tuning, most of the people I owed money to thought so, too. On a side note, if you want to meet a group of individuals with absolutely no sense of humor you should try sports bookies. In the end, arrests were made, documents seized, law suits filed, but I can look back with pride because in the midst of this scandal I picked a winner in a play-off game.

Anti-Government vs Democracy: Part I

2011-11-08T11:57:00.009+01:00

This is unregulated free enterprise

This is how people make cities.

If ever a stupid idea persisted way past its time it would have to be this entire movement of anti-government nonsense that now seems to completely define American conservatives. The notion that private enterprise, if left to its own devices, will completely meet the needs of the population is simply absurd. How do I know this? I know this because we have been there before. Just read history and look back to when the private sector basically did whatever the hell it wanted to do with either little interference from, or with the full support of government. Americans spent the better half of the last century literally fighting in the streets at times to correct the free-enterprise-at-any-cost movement.Now conservatives would have us return to those halcyon days with a few strokes of a legislative pen.

Here’s an example that most Americans can attest to simply by taking a look at their own communities. If you live in an area that is dominated by strip malls, parking lots, sprawl, drive-thru fast food joints, and an over-riding anti-pedestrian environment then you can thank private enterprise. This is what happens when the people have no say in how their own communities are built. I find it hard to believe that private individuals would knowingly acquiesce to the suburban blight that has infected so much of the American man-made environment.

The people of Seattle decided many years ago that they needed to fix the problem that so many American cities have faced since the end of WWII: the decay of the inner-city because of the mass exodus to the suburbs. The city planners changed zoning laws so that all new buildings in the downtown area had to reserve the first level for businesses: shops, restaurants, grocery stores, bars, bakeries, etc. Before this law was in place vast swaths of Seattle's downtown were basically empty of residents. Who would want to live in an area without these basic services? I moved to Seattle in 1998 and the new downtown was just beginning. By the time I left in 2006 the city center had become a bustling area (I lived in the city center all 8 years). Residency had multiplied sharply while the suburbs saw a decrease in growth. The people and their elected government had shaped businesses to their liking and the city is much better for it. Of course these changes weren't all brought on by the government but the ideas set forth came from the people.

In about 1992 the city of Amsterdam had a plebiscite and the people decided to vastly restrict automobile traffic in the historic center. Parking spaces were systematically removed from the center while sidewalks and bike paths were improved. At first local businesses complained that this change would destroy commerce and turn Amsterdam into a museum instead of a vital metropolis. Any observer who has seen the city before and after this citizen initiative can say without a doubt that Amsterdam is much better now. It's called democracy in action.

Too Many People; To Few Chimps

2011-11-06T09:38:00.001+01:00

There are supposedly seven billion people in the world. By way of comparison, there are only five billion monkeys on the planet which means there aren’t enough to go around for everybody. In a bold and selfless act I hereby relinquish my God-given right to own my own chimp. Do the math, people. There are only three options: either we can kill off two billion people, force apes to procreate more rapidly, or ask for volunteers to go without a simian sidekick.

It's sad to think how far we have declined as a species from the days of Walt Disney films featuring chimps in suits and how we have abandoned that promise of monkey friends for one and all.

Córdoba, Vida y Genio

2011-11-05T07:28:00.004+01:00

If this video doesn't inspire you to grab your passport and buy a ticket to Spain, nothing will. Valencia needs to produce a video of this caliber to attract visitors. Valencia has countless attraction to capture on film. Put these images to great music and you have a great advertisement for Valencia, a Mediterranean jewel. Because I am a writer I would prefer a video with writing, with dialog. Go out and talk to the people of Valencia and ask them about their city. People here are incredibly passionate about this place, as well they should be. A lot of that passion has rubbed off on me and everyone else who has made Valencia their home. ¡Amunt!

Sayings Coined from the Outrage du Jour

2011-11-04T12:34:00.002+01:00

I have a new hobby where I like to invent little sayings borrowing from the media’s outrage du jour, those nasty little bits of non-journalism that create such a furor with the nightly-news viewing audience. I suppose that I shouldn’t call what they present on television as news but that’s what they call it and I don’t want to confuse anyone. Television news has more in common with America’s Funniest Home Videos than anything remotely resembling reporting. These loathsome reports aren’t minor asides in television news; they represent the raison d’être of popular news. Tabloid journalism is the basis of these broadcasts.

After all, if we can’t wax axiomatic about some profane disregard for humanity—no matter how few people it really affects—then where’s the fun in even bothering with television news? Before the advent of television I’m sure they aired the same intelligence-insulting features on the radio. I regret that the Lindbergh baby kidnapping is a little too distant for me to come up with a snappy quip. I’ll stick with more recent fodder.

I hear about these outrages du jour secondhand. I don’t watch television news and I don’t live in the USA. The news in Spain is equally crap but for reasons I’ll have to explain in another post. If you think my little sayings are contemptibly callous, just remember to blame yourself for watching the “news” in the first place. You won’t read about these non-stories on the front page of The New York Times. Whatever you think of that newspaper I can say that it properly insulates readers from the sewage of modern TV journalism.

The problem is that in the era of the 24 hour news cycle, my references have the shelf life of ripe bananas. I’ll list these in chronological order going backwards from the present.Only two so far but I can't remember what was in the news two weeks ago. What were we mad at back then?

1) Beaten like a sadistic judge’s daughter.

2) Ignored like a dead Chinese baby lying in the middle of the street.

The Mushroom Season that Wasn't

2011-11-04T07:09:00.002+01:00

A favored mushroom in Valencia: Rovelló

I was awakened at around 05:30 this morning by a very unfamiliar noise: the sound of rain of the rooftops. We’ve had precious little rain these past several months and not nearly enough. This morning’s steady rain seems like an attempt to play catch-up in this dry autumn. I’m afraid that it’s probably too little and too late to salvage this autumn’s mushroom season. I think we probably needed the rains a few weeks ago to really have a successful year. You can find some species of mushrooms in the market but they are REALLY expensive and only a few select merchants have them for sale. I imagine that they have come from another area of Spain.

We have had a bit of rain this past week. I’ll make my way over to the market this morning to see what they have to offer. I've been drooling over the thought of a mushroom risotto.

Some good tips on making risotto.

And now to ensure authenticity, another video in Italian:

Living the Dream: The Home Office

2011-11-03T14:40:00.001+01:00

a rewrite of one of my first essays here on leftbanker

“I work at home.” I’ve always liked the way that sounds; it’s so casual, so nonchalant. High tech people call it the virtual office, virtual work. After thinking that over I realize I don’t know what that word means so I look it up in the dictionary. Virtual: being so in effect but not in fact. I still don’t know what it means but it sounds easy. I’ll start tomorrow—tomorrow or the day after. I’m not looking to work myself to death here.

08:16 Exactly sixteen minutes late on this first day of working at home. On the bright side I woke up at 08:05—try doing that if you have to drive to the office. I tried it all the time. I promised myself I’d dress as if going to work every day just to be more professional about this whole experiment. I’ll put on something besides a pair of boxers when it’s time for my first break away from the computer. Now I’m just going to concentrate and let the inspiration overwhelm my senses.

08:17 I need a little light in here. I’ll open up the blinds. What are those workmen doing down there? It looks like one of them has climbed down into a hole in the street. I’ve heard stories about people flushing baby pet alligators down the toilet only to have them grow to Amazonian lengths. They stalk the nether worlds of the sewers. But never mind all of that, I have work to do, important ideas to express.

08:31 The workmen are just fixing a water main. It only took a couple minutes out of my hectic day to clear that up—plus it forced me to get dressed. The guys said they had never seen a giant alligator in their years of working beneath the city, but they didn’t rule out the possibility. One of them said he saw a rat building a nest out of car tires. As soon as I get back upstairs I close the lid to the toilet and put a stack of heavy books on top of it. A four iron leans against the sink. Lock and load.

09:21 I can’t get over all of the benefits of working at home. No commute, no distractions from coworkers, no silly Machiavellian games, and if I get drunk and make an ass out of myself at my employee Christmas party, I’ll be the only one to know. On the down side it isn’t much fun stealing office supplies from myself. One more thing that may become a problem: I don’t get paid.

10:11 I had to walk over to the office supply store to buy a new printer cartridge just in case I finish the piece I’m working on. I picked up a few other things for the home office—or for the ‘old Home-O’ as I told the girl at the store. She smiled at me. I’m sure she’s had her fair share of fantasies about freelance writers. What woman hasn’t? I also bought a refrigerator magnet of Mussolini hanging from the gallows. It’s a promotional thing for a new TV show, World’s Funniest Public Executions (airs this fall).

11:24 Time to break for lunch. I like taking lunch early because then I can dedicate the entire afternoon to work, absolutely no distractions, a tabula rasa, which is Latin for “my bootleg cable is out.” I order carry-out from the Thai restaurant next door. I get something healthy. I need to keep my body and senses honed like a razor to make it as a freelance. I also remember that I no longer have health insurance.

11:57 The Thai food was delicious although I did augment it with a little something from my refrigerator. Have you ever noticed that most foods taste better when you add bacon? Even tofu. Especially tofu.

11:58 Now it’s time for a little routine I have developed through years of martial arts training and the study of Eastern thought. I take ten minutes to put myself into a meditative trance, much like sleep but infinitely more beneficial and rewarding. Afterwards I feel refreshed and alert. In the words of my Sensei, “Napping is a tool of the lazy.” I’ll be right back.

3:12 I need to hit Starbucks.

3:33 I must have hit my head on something while in my transcendental state to knock me out cold for over three hours. No more procrastinating, time to buckle down and get some work done. I’ll listen to my favorite radio call-in show while I work.

3:56 I can’t believe they’ve had me on hold for twenty minutes. Don’t they know how valuable my time is?

4:25 I’m a little behind today so I’ll just have to stay past quitting time. It’s not like I’m any stranger to hard work. I wonder how much money I’ll make being a freelance writer. Speaking of money, let me take a second to call my broker.

4:35 Surely he is speaking hyperbolically when he says that if my stock portfolio drops any further two big guys in bowling shirts will show up at my apartment to rough me up. I’m not worried because by putting pen to paper my money concerns will soon be far behind me. But I’m an artist and I really don’t care about all of the money I will make. Money is the concern of merchants and businessmen. The artist is above all material concerns.

4:48 Just took a few minutes to call some jewelry stores to find out who has the best deal on Rolex watches. Is it still uncool to wear fur coats? OK, back to work. I’ll work into the small hours of the morning if necessary. I guess you could say I’m a workaholic.

5:12 I was just taking a brief look at the newspaper. I read all the box scores, did 1/16 of the crossword (I could have finished it, I’m just too busy), read the comics (man are they stupid), my horoscope (only for losers but it’s fun to read), any and all articles with the word “sex” in the headline, and finally the movie section. Got to wrap it up for the day; there’s a bargain matinee playing Sunset Boulevard. I’ll finish up the writing thing tomorrow. Tomorrow is Friday and I'm supposed to go skiing. After tomorrow is the weekend, so make that on Monday. Wait, Monday is Arbor Day. Anyone who works on Arbor Day should just go back to Russia or whatever country we’re mad at these days. So make it the day after.

Spaghetti Aglio Olio

2011-10-31T12:30:00.002+01:00

A favorite late-night snack all over Italy, spaghetti aglio olio (spaghetti with garlic and oil) is as delicious as it is simple to make. Ironically, Chef John from Food Wishes (an American) has the more traditional version while the other recipe (Italian) is a bit unorthodox. The addition of tomatoes isn’t very common but it’s a fantastic little dish.

Go Back to School, Kid. This Time Try to Learn Something

2011-10-30T08:39:00.002+01:00

The new poster boy for the 1%.

I am a former Marine.
I work two jobs.
I don’t have health insurance.
I worked 60-70 hours a week for 8 years to pay my way through college.
I haven’t had 4 consecutive days off in over 4 years.
But I don’t blame Wall Street.
Suck it up you whiners.
I am the 53%.
God bless the USA!

He doesn’t blame Wall Street but I bet the Wall Street elite are thankful that they have some idiot kid with no sense of history willing to act as one of their brown-shirts if things start getting ugly in this new class war. There aren’t too many of the top 1% who are ex-military and a lot of liberals are afraid to death of former soldiers. I served too, and I’d like to tell this kid something. I didn’t serve in the military to protect a country that seems only out to make like better for the richest few. If the conservative hero Ronald Reagan hadn’t slashed the living shit out of the GI Bill this kid would have had a lot easier time making it through college. He could have done it in four years while only working part-time. But Saint Ronnie said that government spending sucks so he made a complete mockery of educational benefits for veterans (while drastically increasing overall military spending). If you don’t believe me you can look it up. I was actually serving during the Reagan administration and luckily for me I had completed most of my degree before I enlisted.

And fuck you for calling people whiners who are fighting for the rights of the working class. I’d be the first to say that many of the Occupy Wall Street folks have their heads up their asses and don’t have much of an idea of what to do, but at least they are doing something. They are actually protesting so people like you don’t have to work like a 16^th century peasant. I suppose that you think the early union organizers in America were whiners for trying to protect workers from the worst abuses of the industrial era. You should be ashamed of yourself instead of being so fucking smug and high and mighty.

It was a huge government “bail-out” of returning WWII veterans that turned America into a country which actually created the idea of the middle class. Veterans were now able to go to college and then buy home with VA loans. These men were mostly lower middle class deadbeats who would have never been able to afford a college education, much less buy a house. My father was one of those vets.

This was the United States government that did this so be careful when you spew out shit from Rush Limbaugh criticizing the government. And perhaps you skipped the class on civics but in a democracy we are the government. This means that if we don’t like something we can work to change it. If our elected officials aren’t carrying out our wishes then we can protest our government. It’s legal and it’s in the constitution. Try reading it sometime instead of having some right-wing moron spoon-feed you their bizarre interpretation of our founding document.

My Über-Extreme Make-Over

2011-10-26T22:54:00.004+02:00

I’m looking to make some very big changes; changes so big that an extreme make-over seems like a half-assed half-measure. An extreme make-over is probably fine for people who don’t have very far to go; it’s like taking a bicycle for a short trip. I think that what I need is the make-over equivalent of a long ride on the Millennium Falcon. Because I couldn’t remember the name I had to Google “Millennium Falcon.” Among Star Wars geeks you probably risk getting beat up for that lack of trivia knowledge. I doubt anyone will think that I’m bragging when I say that in a group of Star Wars dorks I would be doing the ass kicking and wedgy giving. But before my digression I was talking about making some changes, getting sexier, more hip, more rico, more sauve, more je ne sais quoi.

Staying on the cutting edge of fashion is a lot of work. By “cutting edge of fashion” I’m talking about 1979 but still. It ain’t easy. I’m letting my hair grow out and depending on how many days I let pass without washing it I go from looking like a country western singer to a professional wrestler—two demographics I’m not particularly interested in courting. The only word of encouragement I receive from my friends concerning this hair-growing venture is “Yikes!” Maybe a new wardrobe would help to boost my image?

Damn, I thought that black was supposed to make you look skinny. Or is black supposed to make you look pregnant? If that’s the case then well done, color black. I just caught a sideways glance of myself in the mirror and at first I thought someone was sneaking up behind me until I realized it was just my back fat. What about stripes? Aren’t they supposed to make you look thin? Yeah, I think that’s right. I just hope they don’t charge me by the stripe. It supposedly creates some sort of an optical illusion so instead of seeing my gut people see an old woman or a lamp. Or do they see a pirate? Anyway, I read about it in the back of a magazine somewhere.

Do you know what really makes me look fat? Cheese makes me look huge. I don’t mean to pick on cheese, or single it out because cheese has had a lot of help in his evil work of forcing me to drill another hole in my belt (one more hole and I think I get a free set of steak knives!). But I have bigger problems adversely affecting my sex appeal, issues that can’t be solved by simply having less gravitational pull. I hate to tip-toe around the issue but there may be children reading this so how can I put this delicately? How about this: “My cock is too small.” The thing is, I didn’t use to have this problem but while I was quietly deleting all of those spam emails, all the other men on the planet were taking them up on these offers of enhanced male-dom. After about the tenth time I asked why they were laughing in the bedroom I became suspicious of the stock answer women gave of, “Oh, just something I heard at work today.” My unilateral opting out of the phallic arms race has moved me from a figurative to a literal position when speaking of “holding my own.”

Everyone has heard it said that looks don’t matter, that what women are really interested in is personality. It’s probably safe to say that this axiom was probably written by someone who actually has a personality. How does one make-over a personality? I’ve heard of wiring your jaws shut to lose weight so maybe this could kill two birds with one elective surgery? I mean, how offensive could a guy be who can’t actually talk? I haven’t looked into the procedure but it must make you a better listener.

Just When You Thought You Knew Everything about Booze and Bars: Spanish Attitudes about a Cherished Pastime

2011-10-23T13:12:00.011+02:00

For the purposes of full disclosure let me begin by saying that I am writing this in a Spanish bar. I’m only drinking a cup of coffee but then again I just got here and that situation is subject to change.

I think that I speak for a lot of Americans when I say that our idea of bars and drinking goes something like this. You go out to a bar and order a beer; then another and another; someone arrives late and tries to play catch-up by having a shot so you have a shot…maybe plural; hopes and dreams dashed, lives ruined; go home, eat a microwave burrito, and watch Sports Center; show up late, drunk, and very hung-over the next day for your job as a life coach; swear never to drink again right before agreeing to go to happy hour with someone you don't even like because everyone from last night is wimping out. I may have missed a couple of steps but I’m sure this sounds familiar not only to Americans but Brits as well (sorry but I don’t know what the British equivalent is for microwave burritos or Sports Center). For the Spanish this scenario would seem totally alien even though the average person here has a closer relationship to a stable of bartenders than most Americans have with members of their own families.

It’s impossible not to notice immediately that there are a hell of a lot of bars in Spain. They have more bars per capita than any country in the world, something like six bars for every 1,000 inhabitants—three times more than England and six times more than Germany. It’s a thorny issue determining the whole chicken or egg question as far as which came first and whether or not we should order a beer while we argue the matter. Do people spend a lot of time in bars here because there are so many or are there a lot of bars to meet the demand? I suppose that I should clarify right from the start that a bar in Spain isn’t the same as a pub or a bar in The States. Bars here are more full-service affairs, like a coffee shop, restaurant, and bar rolled into one concept.

As far as consumption, Spain isn’t that impressive with folks drinking 11.7 liters per year (or one wedding reception) while the United Kingdom chugs 11.8 and Germany 12. In the USA we drink only 8.6 liters, less if you don’t count Zima and white zinfandel. Spaniards have a much different relationship with booze than Americans or Brits. I think it would be quite unusual to see someone drinking at 8 o’clock in the morning in America while this is a common sight in Spain. An older gentleman sitting next to me is having a brandy as I sip my coffee. He probably half-expects me to take a nail file out of my purse or open a fruit roll-up from my Sponge Bob lunch box. The Spanish are generally very tolerant so the old brandy drinkers don’t voice their opinions of the boy choreographer sitting next to them drinking only a coffee. During the mid-morning almuerzo* at around 10.00 am it’s normal to see workers having a beer or glass of wine with their sandwich. Hell, even on vacation I usually wait until the crack of noon to crack open a beer. Even with these habits of early drinking you don’t notice much public drunkenness here, certainly much less than in America.

For the most part I see a very admirable moderation among Spanish drinkers—something I never really got the hang of. In my defense I have to say that I go overboard on everything. For example, I just made six liters of tomato sauce. I will also never be one of these folks who end up at rock bottom and then find the lord or whatever. My relation with alcohol would be somewhere between "well maybe just one little glass of wine" to "Cut off? I cut YOU off. I can kick all yer damn asses ya buncha pansies." The defense rests. The verdict is guilty of an occasional lack of moderation on my part wherein I swear to be more Spanish in my habits of alcohol consumption.

*Any first year Spanish student knows that almuerzo means “lunch” in English but this isn’t a good translation of this Spanish meal. They have four meals a day here: desayuno (breakfast), almuerzo (a big snack before noon), comida (what we would call the midday meal or lunch), and cena (dinner). I've left out a few important feeding times in the Spanish day so as not to completely overwhelm those unfamiliar with the eating habits here.

The Comedy of Manners

2011-10-21T08:00:00.011+02:00

People are basically the same everywhere—at least everywhere I’ve been—but there are a lot of little cultural idiosyncrasies that set Spanish people apart from Americans. I despise the argument over which nationality is the “friendliest” because I think those trying to frame the dispute are confusing “friendly” with other concepts like “courtesy” or “openness.” Being polite isn’t the same thing as being friendly. Friendly, by the very definition of the word, implies friendship, a pretty tall order if you expect it from total strangers.

This is one of those things that you hear Americans complaining about when they visit France. I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone say that French waiters aren’t “friendly.” I suppose this is true if you compare a French waiter at a café in Paris with some teenager at Applebee’s who tells you her entire life story during the course of your mediocre meal. I don’t think that I’m being an asshole when I say that just telling me your name is really more information than I really need to effect our little transaction of exchanging food for money. Most cafes here in Spain are little mom and pop joints but don’t expect anyone to be jumping-up-and-down happy just because you walked in the door, the same goes for Parisian cafes. If it’s “friendliness” you are after then you should bring your friends along with you.

One of the first things an American notices in Spain is that people here say goodbye—hasta luego—when exiting an elevator. It’s a simple courtesy but try saying goodbye to a total stranger after sharing an elevator ride in New York or Chicago. I believe you’d get your ass kicked for pulling that kind of stunt, either that or people would drop dead from the shock of having an anonymous person say something to them that wasn’t a threat or an insult. I was surprised myself the first time I experienced this bit of Spanish civility, but once the initial jolt wears off you realize how completely sensible and decent it is to acknowledge another human being’s presence while sharing the confined space of an elevator. When coming and going form an apartment building people will say hello to everyone, whether they know you or not. I walked past a guy today who was deep in the middle of a business conversation with another man yet he said hello to me as we passed in the lobby of a friend’s building. He had never seen me before and perhaps would never see me again but he went out of his way to acknowledge my presence.

Don’t forget to say “Bonjour” or “Buenas tardes” upon entering a store or restaurant. Of course, you are always expected to bid farewell when leaving a business in Spain as well as in France. I used to be terribly self-conscious about this little gesture of politeness, to the point that I wouldn’t leave a bar or café if the employee was in the back and I couldn’t say goodbye. I’d actually wait until they popped their head out from whatever they were doing. Often you will find yourself saying goodbye to other customers. Just about any interaction you may have with another human being while sitting at a café, from simply providing a light for a cigarette to sharing a remark about the day’s headline, is generally considered to be hasta luego-worthy in the minds of most Spanish people. I always get a kick out of the fact that I have made this sort of connection with people which now makes us something other than total strangers.

Americans, on the other hand, are a LOT chattier than most Europeans, at least in my limited experience. I know that I am. Perhaps this is because I lived in South Florida too long, too many old people with nothing better to do than talk a stranger’s ear off. Sometimes my talkative nature works here and sometimes I get the feeling that people are saying to themselves, “Why the fuck is this guy talking to me? What did I do to deserve this?” It’s not that Spanish people don’t like to talk but it really isn’t their custom to talk with total strangers, at least not without a good reason—whatever the hell that might be. I lived in Greece many years ago and the Greeks at first seem extremely abrupt and closed with strangers. Once you are allowed inside their circle of family and friends everything changes drastically to the point that if you utter a few words of their language people practically adopt you on the spot.

Americans and Brits are also much more generous with the use of “please” and “thank you” than Spanish people, at least in restaurant and bar situations. I think most Spanish people feel that we go a little overboard on this sort of forced politeness where for them the "please" and "thank you" is sort of implied. All I know is that it’s very important to remember that a lack of these little courtesies isn’t a lack of manners on the part of the locals; it’s just the way things are. Most British people probably find Americans to be short on good manners which, of course, isn’t true at all. We’re simply different.

The longer I live in Spain the more things here become more the norm for me. I’m sure life would seem a bit awkward for me back in The States. I don’t think my own character has really changed at all but the way I perceive everything around me certainly has.

Time to Wear Pants Again

2011-10-20T07:14:00.001+02:00

Let it be known that on this day of October 20, 2011 I have to wear long pants for the first time since late spring. It's been a good long run this year but it's over. Wearing pants probably also means wearing shoes which I haven't worn since May if you don't count the athletic variety. This entry gets filed under Almanac and probably isn't of interest to anyone but me because I like to keep track of this sort of thing.

Rise and Shine!

2011-10-19T09:34:00.001+02:00

There must be a law in Spain that the more noise that you make in your job the earlier you have to begin work. I swear that the guys starting the remodeling job on the apartment across the back patio from me look at their watches and fire up their power saws the second the clock strikes 8 am. And there’s another law that says workers have to do all of the noisy shit the first thing in the morning, saving all of the quieter stuff for later. No one ever paints the first thing in the early morning; that’s for using power tools, insane hammering, and the time for making disgusting throat-clearing noises like they are trying to cough something up that is lodged in their lower intestines.

Faux News is Good News

2011-10-18T13:16:00.005+02:00

I just watched the internet sensation du jour of the 2 year old Chinese girl run over and then subsequently ignored by scores of passersby. This bit of faux news* will be beaten to a pulp and shit out 24 hours from now, or sooner if another, more spectacular video takes its place. I think the real tragedy here is that this completely overshadows a similar incident that happened only three months ago. In that mishap the run-over child was ignored by only 11 people walking by. This means no one will remember that poor kid because his record has been shattered by this new incident in which 18 people passed without giving a shit. I’m sure that flattened kid knows exactly how Hank Aaron felt when his record was stolen from him.

*It’s faux news because real news is about things that shape our lives. This is just a bit of an emotional hiccup that will pass and be replaced within a day by some other equally meaningless (meaningless to those not involved) tragedy. Our short attention spans get shorter and shorter as well as more bloodthirsty and vicious. Probably fifty times more people will watch this stupid video than will read an article on the front page of the New York Times.

For the Record

2011-10-16T11:08:00.003+02:00

I have been completely opposed to the death penalty my entire conscious life, at least ever since I was probably about 15 years old and began to enter into discussion of politics, religion, and other existential matters. For me a person’s views on the death penalty serve as a litmus test for their overall political character. If someone is in favor of executing criminals for any reason I doubt that we will be able to agree on anything; it’s like something has been set in a person’s DNA. I don’t know why I bring this up other than to have it down in writing for my own sake, like I am painting a self-portrait and don’t want anything left out.

To be in favor of the death penalty seems just about as stupid and illogical as many of the stances taken by the American far right. I watched Bill Maher’s mostly-ridiculous political talk show, Real Time. During the puerile back-and-forth misinterpretation of dubious statistics I was able to catch a further glimpse of right wing stupidity and their completely rigid stances on a number of issues. Let’s just take two matters on which the right has chosen to take a very firm and uncompromising position: the climate change debate and income inequality in America.

Is there a single environmental regulation that conservatives can live with? Name one. I’ll wait. The moronic American Spectator’s moronic John Fund was arguing in favor of American conservative’s relentless attack on the Environmental Protection Agency by saying that the Chinese are not burdened by any regulations and therefor are trumping the US in manufacturing. These are the same idiots who years ago bullied us into accepting globalization and completely free trade without requiring that we buy only from nations with environmental laws similar to those we have in the West. China is the perfect state as far as American conservatives are concerned. It’s basically a fascist regime dedicated to making money at any cost with little or no regard for the individual. I’ll bet that the ruling Chinese elite call themselves the “job creators.”

Our free fall into levels of income disparity not seen in American history since the days of plantations is another area where conservatives have dug in their heels and refuse to budge. I have been asking conservatives for years a simple question: Is there any point at which income disparities will become a problem? What about if 1% of the population owned 99% of the wealth? Well folks, we are on track for that eventuality. In very recent years even some of the most ill-informed members of our society have been able to see the damage to our democracy being perpetrated by the ruling economic class. This free-fall began with Ronald Reagan so for conservatives to speak out against it would be to criticize their patron saint but even all but the staunchest Republicans are beginning to feel a bit queasy about where this trend is headed.

Reason #4,213 Why I Don’t Look Like One of those Hunks in the Magazines

2011-10-14T12:12:00.005+02:00

My Sandwichera: A Love Story

Folks, all that I have to say is that if you don’t know what a sandwichera is already, continue reading at your peril. This is a small kitchen appliance (my goal is to collect them all!) that lets you toast a sandwich. Sure, lots of people have toasters but you have to toast the bread BEFORE you make the damn sandwich. That’s like nailing the board before you put it next to the thing you want to nail it to which is just crazy. Try living in that house or whatever the hell you were trying to build. This is just like using a toaster if you are making a colossal sandwich. With a sandwichera you put the whole damn sandwich into the thing after you build it. Then you just sit back and wait for the sandwich items to fuse together. While you are waiting you can write a song about your sandwichera like I did.

Instead of worrying about my overall lack of hunkage I would rather spend my time trying to match various pork products with cheeses, mayonnaise, pesto, and bread.

Mid-Week Summer Vacation...on October 12!

2011-10-12T14:45:00.002+02:00

1893 replicas of Niña, Pinta, and Santa María

Historically I doubt that this holiday, Día de la Hispanidad, has been celebrated by a mass exodus to the beach. Whether today is unique, climatically speaking, I can't say but I do bear witness to the fact that I have never seen so many people on the beach bike path to El Saler. The temperature is supposed to reach 33 degrees today.

Back when I was a teenager my family lived in Hawaii. That’s about the only comparison that I can make to our current weather here in Valencia. So you can think of Valencia as Hawaii but with much better food.

Another Day, Another Bike Wreck

2011-10-11T17:16:00.001+02:00

I was cruising through Turia Park the other day on a Valenbisi bike and pumping my guts out. There is a little dip as the path goes under one of the bridges. As I was grinding up the other side, rounding the corner the chain broke. I was standing up on the pedals at the time and I started to fly over the handlebars. I was able to stop myself but I was going down and going down hard. My Professor at my old jiu-jitsu school would have been very proud of my break fall as we call it in marital arts. I was able to kick the bike away from me and slap my left arm down to help break my fall as I instinctively tucked my chin to protect my head. The scrapes I have on my left arm, leg, and butt cheek are evidence that I did everything according to plan as the wipe-out occurred (to me it was like in slow motion as I have practiced falling so many times).

The lesson I should take from this is to stop treating the Valenbisi bikes like rented Porsches and try to take it easy. With that said I’d also like to point out that this isn’t the first chain that I have broken on these bikes. In my cycling life I have only snapped two chains on my mountain bike and that was when I was climbing two gruelingly steep hills. Chains shouldn’t be so easy to break.

El Piso (The Apartment)

2011-10-10T09:10:00.014+02:00


Take note of cloudless October sky.

This is the view from my dining room. A lot of people might think that the back side of Spanish apartment blocks are unsightly and hardly qualify as a "view." I'm not saying that I wouldn't trade for a view of the ocean but I love sitting at my dining room table looking out at interior of my block. You hear things more than you see them: caged birds singing away, people talking, football matches on TV, and power tools as there are always renovations to these old places (ugh!). The good news is that this is Spain and construction workers—how do I put this—aren’t exactly killing themselves with long hours.

For people who live in single family homes this urban density may seem a little overwhelming but you have to keep in mind all of the wonderful advantages. Take a walk around the outside of this block and you will see. There are several cafés, a supermarket, a bike shop, a pricey Italian food store, a cinema, a bank, and a hardware store.


Battle Stations Ready!

The Chinese character for disaster is also the word for “shithole,” or something like that—I don’t speak Chinese. My kitchen is disastrously small for someone who cooks as much as I do so you have to be creative and use every square centimeter (I’m metric!). As you can see I have used the door as a very convenient storage area. To me a kitchen is—above all—a work shop. Function trumps form every time, at least for me. When I’m cooking I want everything I need to be within easy reach, and this means not having to root around in cupboards. I especially like the little spice rack I put up with my most used tools: kitchen shears, knife sharpener, potato peeler, apple corer (for tomatoes, primarily), and pizza cutter.

Ah yes, there's nothing like contemplating a fascist massacre of a peasant village while sipping a quiet cup of coffee in the morning. I found the Guernica print and thought it went well in the dining room.

This apartment is very typical of most apartments from this era of the 1930s and 40s. Scores of apartments here have the almost exact floor plan and differ only in minor details. In most of these places the bathrooms are in the back facing the inside courtyard shown in the first picture. This dining room was originally an outdoor patio but has been enclosed to add another room to the house.

Corner Office w/View

My office is an ongoing project. The painting was a gift from the painter. Florescent paint wouldn't be my first choice but the painting adds light and acts like a window for this interior room of the house.

I really, really love this apartment. You get the sense of what Howard Kunstler means when he talks about places we build that are worth caring about. I really enjoy just being at home these days. Maybe I'll feel differently when it is cold and wet but for right now life is good. Temperature 68 degrees at 10:49 am.

And finally (at least for this post) is a picture of the lovely piano that was here when I moved in. It was for sale and I knew that I should have bought it and worried later about the wisdom of such a purchase. Moving a piano in these apartments can be a costly affair. Someone is supposed to be coming by to take it away. I just started playing again and now I will have to deal with not playing...again! I may start playing the guitar although I tried before and it never really appealed to me.


Soon to be gone?

The Daily Show Strikes Again (and again and again and again...)

2011-10-06T16:04:00.005+02:00

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Once again, if it weren't for The Daily Show pointing out the incredible inconsistencies of the Right I think I would totally lose it. How can you watch this clip and still be a conservative? The Right is so full of shit they can't even see above it. Jon Stewart's comparison of the Tea Party and the Wall Street protests was brilliant as was his use of the Sean Hannity clip from 2009 praising the Tea Party.

More Valenbisi Propaganda

2011-10-04T11:30:00.002+02:00

I just passed the one year mark with Valenbisi, Valencia’s great bike share system. The system itself began in June of 2010 but wasn’t really completely operational until last December or so. There are still some proposed new stations but it is all pretty much in place and working well. About the only complaint anyone could have against the program is that it is too popular. There needs to be more stations in the city center in order to accommodate just how wildly successful the system is right now. There are somewhere around 135,000 subscribers thus far which represents a bit over 10% of the population—not nearly as popular as the Vélib’ system in Paris after which our system here is based.

I was a hardcore cyclist long before the idea of bike sharing but Valenbisi has made my life much better. No matter where I am in the city I have a bike available to me. I go everywhere around town by bike. Almost everywhere because last night I was so tired after a great workout ride in the morning to the southern beaches I decided to take the bus home from my French class. I stepped out of the door from class, walked a half a block, hopped on the #19 bus, and got off two doors from my apartment. As easy as the metro and buses are in Valencia I rarely use them because the bike, for me, is the perfect urban transportation solution. I suppose that public transportation is a nice option when the weather is crappy but that isn’t the case very often here. Besides, I don’t mind riding in the rain.

Torres de Serrano Station

There definitely seems to be more cyclists on the road now than there were only one year ago. There needs to be a lot more, but I think that will happen. There is still the major problem of brutish drivers and the overall lack of respect given to cyclists here in Valencia. The bike path network is growing every day so it’s not like the city itself isn’t committed to making bicycling a viable option in Valencia. I think that I speak for many citizens here when I say that I’d like to see Valencia become a first-rate city for bicycles sooner rather than later.

My Rushmore

2011-10-01T21:24:00.000+02:00

Herman Blume: What's the secret, Max?

Max Fisher: The secret?

Herman Blume: Yeah, well, you seem to have it pretty figured out.

Max Fisher: The secret? I don't know. I think you just gotta find something you love to do, and then do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore.

Sage advice, indeed and great counsel for someone looking to improve their physical fitness. If you don’t like your exercise routine chances are that you won’t stick with it. I was lucky to have found something a long time ago and have done it my whole life. My Rushmore is cycling. If some scientific study were to be released saying that riding a bike is terrible for you and shortens your life I would keep doing it anyway. Cycling for me goes way beyond personal fitness. Riding a bike is my main form of transportation as well as one of my fondest entertainments.

My first great bike was a Schwinn Super Sport ten speed that I bought when I was 15 with money I made working as a busboy. It was stolen some time later and I bought a Raleigh Competition which was a truly fine bike. I rode the bejesus out of that thing. My next bike was a Bianchi Campeone d’Italia. This bike was so gorgeous that I used to sit on my bed and look at it in my dorm room. I bought another Bianchi many, many years later when I moved to Seattle. I bought it used at a shop in Freemont (which later moved to Ballard although the name escapes me). I have three bikes in my current stable: a Trek mountain bike with street slicks on it which serves as my sport bike; a funky city bike with a basket; and the fantastic Valenbisi system which I use on a daily basis.

English Translation: I Ate a Big Fucking Grasshopper

2011-09-28T16:24:00.003+02:00

Hoy he tragado el bicho más grande de mi carrera de ciclista. En mi paseo a la Albufera estaba pedaleando como un demonio porque siempre me persigue un gordo viejo con más canas todos los días quien se parece mucho a mí. Estaba jadeando como un perro cuando entró por el gaznate un saltamontes del tamaño de un ratoncito (de momento hay una plaga de estos bichos). No tocó los dientes ni la lengua ni nada, como si solo buscara la salida. Hay una puerta de atrás pero primero hay que pasar por un par o tres de órganos internos. No he podido escupirlo así que tragué agua con dos motivos: quise ahogarle y hacerle pasar al estómago. Mi antiguo record fue una libélula.

-Amigos españoles, tened la bondad de corregirme. porfa.

Lion Attacks, Kills Small Girl (cute and white!)

2011-09-24T10:12:00.002+02:00

My video response to about 99% of the stupid shit on YouTube. The animal attack videos seem to be especially popular so I thought I would toss out a curve ball. I can just imagine some adolescent boy searching for videos of gruesome lion attacks and suddenly finding himself watching my video and becoming even more confused, sexually or whatever.

Evidence of My Laziness #532

2011-09-23T14:19:00.001+02:00

My elevator is out-of-order so instead of walking downstairs to the market that is no more than three or four doors from my place I tried to make a coffee filter out of a paper towel. I don't know whether to be sickened by my sloth or pat myself on the back for giving it the old college try.

The coffee didn't turn out very well so I had to hump down and back for the filters after all. There's probably a lesson to be learned in all this by someone brighter than the author.

Say "Job Creator" One More God Damned Time!

2011-09-22T14:31:00.004+02:00

Obama with Balls

Instead of "job creators" which is Republican for "rich assholes" I could have used one of dozens of other right-wing euphemisms like "class warfare" to mean a tax on the rich, or "death tax" to mean a tax on inheritance. About the only people calling out the conservatives on their creepy, Orwellian word coinage are the staff of The Daily Show.

Obama needs to be more like Sam Jackson and less like Germaine Jackson and bring the fight to the conservatives. Make them stand firmly on their views so that the American public can see, once and for all, that Republicans represent only the top 1% of wage earners. I am sensing a bit of a sea change in public opinion and even some of the most pathetic of the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing tea-baggers are beginning to understand that Republicans are all about making the rich even richer and fuck the rest of us.

Ensaladilla Rusa

2011-09-14T10:13:00.004+02:00

This ubiquitous dish is served throughout every region of Spain, with little variation. It can be terrible in some bars and excellent in others. The best way to insure that your ensaladilla rusa is well above average is to make it at home. If you are going to make it at home go the extra distance and make your own mayonnaise which only takes a few seconds if you have a hand mixer.

Ingredients

3 medium (16 oz) potatoes
1 large (3 oz) carrot, diced
5 tablespoons shelled green peas
2/3 cup green beans
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
4 cocktail gherkins, sliced
2 tablespoons baby capers
12 anchovy-stuffed olives
1 hard-cooked egg, sliced thin
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Chopped fresh parsley, to garnish

In a saucepan, cook the potatoes and carrot in “aggressively salted water” (chef Mario Batali’s words). Bring to a boil and allow to simmer until almost tender. Fold in the peas and beans, and cook until all the vegetables are tender. Drain the vegetables and transfer them into a serving platter. Add the onion, pepper, gherkins, baby capers, anchovy-stuffed olives, and egg slices.

My version

In a separate bowl, thoroughly combine the mayonnaise, lemon juice and mustard. Add this mixture to the serving platter, mixing well to ensure all the ingredients are coated. Sprinkle with pepper and toss. Garnish with chopped parsley and refrigerate. Allow to stand at room temperature for about 1 hour immediately before serving to enhance the salad's flavor. As any dish made with mayonnaise, ensaladilla should be refrigerated and will not keep for more than 1 to 2 days.

Here is the version of José Andrés: