Wheres the love?

So, we finally had enough of our slumlord, no heat, and no internet. We moved to a new apartment tonight. The neighborhood ain't pretty or interesting to be honest, but we are pretty happy about the change. So i have a backlog of things to write about. We have taken a couple weekend trips around Spain because it's easy and we wanted to escape aforementioned prison. I understand something better now. For a while now i have been wondering why I don't love Spain. Am I more picky that I thought, do I want everything to be just like home, am i too rigid, am I failing to understand/appreciate the culture, am I too old to appreciate adventure anymore, am I ADD, do i need ridilin, do i need testosterone replacement therapy, do I need vitamin A? I'm just sort of ambivalent about most of my time here. I seem to obsess on the things that annoy me. Everybody else that you talk to just freaking gushes about Spain and they are totally enamored with flamenco, tapas, partying all night, sangria, etc. For me: flamenco=kinda boring for me and also kinda ironic that Spain wants to claim this and still hate the gypsies, tapas=catfood, partying all night=my early 20's, not now, besides it costs a fortune i do not possess, sangria=ok, but i'd prefer just a beer. I just wondered when I'm going to feel the same way as all these people...is it just not for me or am i missing something? I figured it out. Here's the deal, I have been introduced to Spain ass-first. In other words, Madrid is Spain's ass. People are jerks, its really crowded and noisy, you have to spend alot of your life on trains and subways, and you pay way way way too much for way way way too little. Living in Madrid feels like you are about to get trampled and then have to pay for it.

On consecutive weekends we went to Segovia (N of Madrid), and Granada, and I really did love them both. So,I do love Spain (I also loved Barcelona and Toledo, and I thought Alicante was passable with its castle and nice beach) I'm just living in the wrong place, and unfortunately that can't change in any easy way. We'll just have to visit better places. Segovia was an easy and cheap train ride over the Sierra Guadarrama to the north. In reference to Segovia, the travel guide said that "travel writers are challenged to use enough superlaxatives". This sounded pretty rough, these poor writers are really getting blocked up in Segovia. But upon closer examination it was "superlatives"..so welcome to constipation free Segovia!. We were rather late in leaving on a Saturday, so we decided to stay overnight in a cheap hotel. When we first arrived and made our way to our target hostal, we thought this was going to be a beautiful city, then we got to the hostal. I rang the bell. Then someone shouted from a window "Deme! = Speak to me (command form, this is how Spanish people talk, in direct orders. You just have to get used to it. They claim its not rude, but it still feels that way sometimes". I said "Tienes habitaciones = do you have rooms?". They shouted "No = no". That was it...not "I'm sorry", or "I have one tommorrow". Just NO. So we figured, oh well the people are donkeys like the Madrilenos, so we're in for a treat. But except for that minor annoyance...we found another cheap place and had a great couple of days. It was cold and the nearby mountains were snowy, which I liked. This is another Medieval city that was previously a Roman city. So we wandered around the narrow snaky streets, by the obligatory gothic cathedral, and downhill a little ways to a great view of the Roman aqueduct bridge. (We're short on pics heres b/c I forgot my camera, and Becky's wasn't charged...so use your freaking imagination, a little effort is all I'm asking for here). It was all accentuated by the twilight-lights coming on but still a little light in the sky- and the snowy mountain backdrop. We even found an art exhibit with a piece by Andy Goldsworthy for only 2 euro. That was a score.

The next day we visited the Alcazar (fortress; pictured above). Sleeping beauty is in the turret on the left. Winnie the Pooh trotted out the drawbridge an gave us a balloon. Then we rode "Mr. Toad's Spanish Inquisition" . Yeah, it looks kinda Disney, but it was where Isabella and Fernando started their joint rule, and the unification of modern Spain, and the conquest of the Americas, and the inquisition. It was super cool inside. There were a bunch of suits of armor, and it became apparent that the knights who wore them were total shrimps, 5 footers. Seriously, who did these little people fight?4 year old girls? I guess our modern industrial world is capable of growing much bigger people due to much better nutrition.


Then we went to Granada to visit Teresa who is teaching English at the moment. I know her form Flag, and she happened to have another friend visiting from Arizona, and the place she was renting was owned by a woman from Moab (the city i lived in before Flagstaff). So that is really odd. Aside from being a century old building, it has been redone by the landlord to be a stereotypical Moab house with wood floors, chili ristras, wood stove, and pictures of yogis. It only needed a climbing wall to be complete. They said the landlord (who actually lives there) leaves something to be desired, but the place rules. Its above Albayzin, the moorish quarter, which is like a very steep sort of maze built on a hill side. Right nearby are the cave houses of sacromonte, historically occupied by gypsies. It has 2 terraces, one on the uppermost roof with a beautiful view. It was up here when we were in shock and awe about how much better her house was than ours, that she told us she pays 250 a month to live there. For reference, we paid 600 a month for misery and got hosed on the deposit by our former landlord.

The view is cool all around, most striking being Alhambra, the moorish palace complex that occupied the rocky hill across the river from Albayzin. This part of Spain is really rich in its Moor-arab-muslim legacy. Our first full day we walked up the hill to Alhambra, and Becky's head was really hurting. We were worried that this was a sinus infection, in fact we almost didn't make the trip, except that the alternative was to stay in our dismal apartment, which is not good for sick person either. Later in the day, after a nap, when her whole face was about to explode...we decided it was time for medical help. It being a holiday weekend we did not have the option of going to a normal health center, rather there was only a few open which were all basically emergency rooms. We were really dreading this experience, theoretically anyone has a right to medical care but we didn't know what kind of shit we were going to have to go through, and how much we would have to pay for going to the E-room instead of making a normal appointment. After 5 minutes of confusing garbled conversations and a short wait, we were seeign the doctor. We managed to express all the key symptoms, and the doctor readily agreed it was a sinus infection. Meanwhile a nurse in another room was prepping an anti-inflammatory shot (he almost gave me the shot, by the way, not knowing who was the patient). After the shot, we were given some drugs and a prescription which we claimed at a pharmacy across the street. So on a national holidayit cost 4 euros and 10 minutes to get a cab to the e-room, about 20 minutes of diagnosis and treatment, followed by a purchase at the pharmacy of 1.50. So all you people that think nationalized health care is a bad idea...what can you say to that? It was the smoothest running thing I've seen in a while (except for me almost getting a needle in my ass, like some sit com).

When we finally visited Alhambra this is what it was like. The key thing to notice is these guys were detail-oriented. Every surface is covered in intracte plasterwork, and I am challenged to use enough superlaxatives to describe it. So, check out the pics.









Does this picture make you feel a little bit dirty for looking at it, or is that just me?

train pass update

The train pass that I bought on the 8th of November, became invalid December 1. So after all the bullshit, i didn't even get a whole month of use and probably did not save a dime. Apparently you have to get the pass on the first of the month to get a month's worth of use, and you do not pay less if the month is 28 days. So yesterday I had to buy a train ticket at the station. So as I was leaving the station the turnstile did not accept my perfectly valid ticket purchased that morning meaning I can't leave! So I tried every machine, and looked incredulously at the ticket 10 times, saying things like "son of a bitch!" and "motherfucker!" and "unbelievable". Then I got full of righteous indignation- very much like when you come to a traffic light on your bike and the light won't change even thought there hasn't been cross traffic for 10 minutes because the whole system is made to be triggered by cars, as if thats just ok (imagine if cars had to wait for a bike to show up before the light switched, doesn't sound very fair does it) so you flagrantly run the light hoping that a cop will pull you over so you can yell in his face just how fucked up this is and shame him (as if you could really shame a cop)- blah, blah, righteous indignation...so i decided it was my duty to climb over the turnstile, and hopefully a security guard would run up and I would throw the ticket in his face and say "Joder! Hijo de puta!". Then the turnstile shocked me! They are an unjumpable electric fence. It turns out there is a pager thing to call someone to let you out if this happens. I saw it but thought it was for people in wheelchairs or something other than my particular problem so it never occurred to me to use it.
Now I have found that once you have the card from the tobacco shop, you can insert in into a machine at the station and purchase tickets for the month. Only problem is that i need to change the zone of my pass, therefore I have to start the whole process over and get a new card. One day this all might become easy, once I have found every way to do it wrong.

SISBN#342

Standarrd Issue Spanish Bureaucratic Nightmares are becoming so ubiquitious that they are now hilarious to me. I've decided to periodically document them for you. We'll start with # 342 for no good reason.

Monthly train-metro pass: so if you commute by public transport, it makes sense to get a monthly pass. In Spain like alot of places, this requires a special photo-id card. In Spain you also need a little paper ticket that is supposed to last a month. If the process were sensible you would go to a train or metro station, fill out your application, they would take your photo, charge you a small fee, and hand you your laminated card in about 5 minutes after it has cooled down form the machine.

So I went to the metro station. The guy told me that they do not issue these cards in the station, or any station. Instead you have to round up some things and go to a tobacco shop. First, nobody ever takes your photo, you have to round up your own passport photo. I have a really nice pasty sickly one, and for some reason i look really happy (and ill). And you are supposed to make 2 photocopies of your ID (this is familiar to me, everything requires two photocopies of everyhting. You will be told you have to go get copies of something even when there is a photocopier clearly visible behind the person). So I've already made 2 trips to get these things, then its time for the tobacco shop...which did not issue the train pass. Nor did the second one. Finally the third one did! They never asked for the photocopies i made a special effort to get, they just made up my card and gave me the ticket. Now, there must be a special reason this is done in a tobacco shop right, and in only specific ones? Like they have some special piece of equipment or a special computer database? No, its just a piece of cardboard with an adhesive cover that you use to attach the photo, it is assembled by hand in 5 minutes. Meanwhile in every metro station, there is a person sitting behind a window with nothing to do for the whole day, unless the turnstile malfunctions.

Prague: do I ever work?

the cosmographical clock, old town square

inside the ossuary at Kutna Hora, near Prague. creepy.

the view from the national museum toward old town.

Ted wants to know if I ever work. Yeah, when I feel like it. Nobody wants to read a blog about work do they?? ...."Today i revised the first half of the manuscript and developed the design for my experiment in december. I scanned the excel files for missing cells and converted the format for analysis"....LAME. I only write about fun stuff. So here is some pics from Prague and vicinity. Prague is the premier gothic city. I'll spare you the tiresome descriptions, theres a million cool things to see: the obligatory cathedral, numerous Dracula churches, random castle like towers at the end of every major street, the Charles bridge, the cosmographical clock, and on top of all that it is the city of Mucha and Kafka. Nearby is the somewhat dismal town of Kutna Hora which has an ossuary, where for centuries the remains of thousands of dead people have been arranged in a church interior: in four large pyramids, for example. There are skulls strung along the ceiling, like popcorn on a christmas tree. Theres even a crest of the family which owns the property that contains at least one of each bone in the human body. The place was a treasure chest of photo ops but i had a hard time getting pictures without flash-and flash is only good for ruining photos in my opinion. Alright, thats it for my vacation last month.

the grotto, a fake cave in a castle garden

random church facade, can't remember the name

The ossuary again, the cherub appears to have skulls radiating form his head

do what you gotta do

Alemania 2: Larry Bird lives on on the Berlin wall

Berlin was cool for its historical sights. Because it got bombed silly in 1945, theres not a ton of stuff to look at, it's just not beautiful anymore. I enjoyed the east side gallery, a remnant of the inner wall which was the site of an international mural project. Since then people have chipped away pieces of it and layers and layers of additional art and scrawling have been added. Definitely, the old art is completely compromised, but when the medium is a wall part of the piece is that it will change over time, heterogeneously and for both better and worse. I like Che in the Che T-shirt. We went to the holocost memorial, a grid of conrete blocks of various heights. You can walk among them. Curiously, the interpretive museum said it was unlike most such memorials in that the sculpture itself does not emply symbols. WTF? Each concrete block has the approximate dimensions of a grave. The blocks are tall in the center, in fact the whole monument has a shape reminiscent of a heap od mass-disposed corpses. When you stand in the middle they tower over you. Each block is gray and drab, implying anonymity. I forget thee number of slaps but it was some odd number that I'm quite sure was not chosen at random. No symbols my ass, I wonder what they meant by that.
We were sort of looking for Hitler's bunker, which is, we were told under a parking lot. In the place where we thought it should be there was a new building. The Bunker is quite close to the memorial, and also to the Brandenburg gate where Hitler put on some of his famous rock concert light show speeches. The gate is a significnt site to say the least. Napolean made a big show of marching into it, and Hitler made a big show of marching out of it. The arriving American troops also came into a bombed out wreckage city throught the damaged gate. it was stranded in the death strip between the two parallel walls for decades. now you can walk through it again. Also nearby is the parliament building with its recently added clear domed roof to replace the one destroyed by bombing so many years ago. As we left a group of 100 people in costumes sort of danced into a line on the lawn, playing loud techno music and mooned us. I think the government was the target but we got caught int he cross fire.

Cyrus

"Everyone benefits if we can leave our cars, walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives."- President Obama

Cyrus has spoken suckas! That's why I voted for the guy.

Alemania 1: learning how to eat

Several weeks ago we went on vacation. We had to “sleep” on the hard linoleum floor of the airport prior to our early morning flight because the metro doesn’t run at night, and a taxi would probably cost as much as the plane. In Europe, the kings of budget flights are Ryan air who seem to save you money but put you through all kinds of scams first. For example they fly to Frankfort-Hahn airport and call it Frankfort. It’s not. So we flew in almost sleepless, and commenced taking buses to Bonn, Germany. The plan was to meet up with Becky’s friend Liz in Bonn, at the house of their mutual friend Hagen and his girlfriend Lena. Hagen, Becky and Liz had all lived in a communal flop house in Michigan for stoners and skallawags. Someone asked Hagen his favorite memory from the house and it was some time he was so wasted that he didn’t remember it…he only knew the story from what other people said. So in other words he couldn’t remember his favorite memory. Good times. I call mine “the lost years”.

Neither of us had actually thought much about Germany, it was primarily the place where we would meet up with people and launch our journey to Czech, Hungary and beyond. It turned out to be really beautiful and we were catching it in full fall colors. By pure chance, our initiation was the Rhine valley which is dotted with castles and blanketed in deciduous forests, in addition to having nice cliff faces from time to time. I didn’t really know what Germany looked like…really nice actually. We ended up staying four or five days in Bonn because it was simple, easy, and a totally pleasant place to hang out. I had a vague and totally unfair image of Germans as being uptight and robotic and always one step away from attempting to take over the world (the true motive behind the European Union as you may know). They were not, not and not. Actually totally courteous and perhaps not outgoing, but friendly. All around a very civil society. And stuff was comparatively cheap there, which was a nice surprise when travelling Europe these days.

Hagen and Lena became our part time tour guides which was great. Hagen did display some funny German traits. For example, meticulous precision and a desire to control: we ate pasta one time and he said he liked the pickled cabbage with it. I promptly started mixing it into my pasta, when he clarified that the way to enjoy it is with the cabbage on the side, and perhaps mixing in a little with each bite. He was very clear that German bread should not be eaten with peanut butter. The barley bread was not to be toasted because all toasted bread tastes the same, and that would ruin the unique flavor of the barley bread. It was the most rigid, and amazingly specific eating regimen I have ever seen. Besides learning how to eat, we also went to Koln, which is nearby, to see the cathedral, the chocolate museum (never quite made it there) and have the local specialty beer style: Kolsch. As a brewer I have tried and failed to get my head around Kolsch, first it is fermented warm like an ale, then it is lagered. So it starts like a steam and finishes as a typical light lager. It is served in really small glasses dismayingly reminiscent of the Spanish cana. The KEY difference is that there is a dude walking around who takes note of whether you have finished your beer. Unless you place a coaster over the top, the default is that you want another, and it arrives in seconds. To be honest I thought the light German lagers were about as lame as the American counterparts. But I was enjoying the BIG food…finally a place where people eat enough for an adult, instead of child-sized tapas reminiscent of cat food with an olive in it. Later I sampled some German dunkel beers which were generally damn good, the Weisse were good too, the best in the world if you are into that sort of thing (a little sweet for me but Becky likes them).

On one of our last days we all went to Berg Ells, a castle in a beautiful river valley. The castle came about gradually as a series of large houses with a shared inner courtyard and shared walls. The tour was the perfect level of information and interp, really pretty fascinating. You usually don’t think about how things like castles came about. In this case, according to their version, the castle belonged to a family which regulated the trade route, i.e. the river valley within which the castle seemed to be sort of a guard station. What they didn’t say, but is likely to be true, is that traders had 3 choices: 1) travel really slowly over roadless hills and forests, 2) pay these people for safe passage, or 3)be killed trying to pass without paying. Repeat this cycle a few centuries and you have have a family rich enough to build a castle and still rich today after the collapse of 2 German empires.

Germany has a sort of web-based ride share board which is totally cheaper than the train. Any traveler should use this, but our first experience was pretty flipping insane. With our German translators’ help we arranged a ride to Berlin after a few days. Lena was given a description of the guy that sounded like a personal ad: SWM, 6’0’ sandy blond hair, slim & athletic, 30 years old, enjoys Nordic walking, seeks like-minded passengers to Berlin. So we were planning the ride to be Liz’s first date with this dude. The driver was a freaking maniac. He was in his 50’s and the first thing he did when I recognized him and tried to wave him down was nearly run me over. Really! The autobahn sounds really cool, but actually it is terrifying. If someone was driving too slow in front of him (less than 100 mph), he would pull up beside them, honk the horn and make sure they saw him flip them off. All of this was done on the autobahn at 100 mph or so…that’s right no eyes on the road just finger and angry face aimed at some haplessly same person who doesn’t want to drive that fast. He was a retired trucker than took a van load of people back and forth from time to time. The roadside gas stations had robot pay toilets which cleaned themselves after every use. I peed in the bushes instead, i don't pay to pee...but nobody told me about the robots before hand, that might have changed my mind. I might pay for robots. When we arrived in Berlin, the maniacal truck driver turned into a really friendly chatty guy, cheerily dropped us off at the hostel which was in his neighborhood and bid us goodnight. Schizophrenia.

Toledo....not in Ohio

These are a few pic's from Toledo. We were so disappointed when we got there that it wasn't Ohio. Actually it's a medieval walled city built up on a crag, which was occupied by Moors for a long time and reflects their architecture. It was also famous for sword-making. It's got one of many cool gothic cathedrals in Europe, which you can only see from a distance. This is because all buildings share walls and streets are just windy alleys which always smell like pee. So from half a kilometer away you may see the pointy spires. But unless you wander down the right alley you could never encounter the thing. It's a totally cool place to visit and is only a short 30 minute train from Madrid. I almost had a meltdown in the train station. We arrived in time for a train to Toledo, only to find out that the machines do not vend tickets for the high speed trains and you have to go to the ticket office which was a SISBN (Standard Issue Spanish Beaurocratic Nightmare). We actually had to take a number and wait the better part of an hour to purchase a ticket....as a train with empty seats left for Toledo. I felt that having a few more people manning the empty counters would have been a better expenditure of resources than the number dispenserr and digital paging system, but what do I know. We talked to a couple who had tried to get a train ticket to Toledo the day before and had just given up. But its ok we made it.

Anyways Toledo was a month ago, since then the guy I voted for and actually like really got elected. I thought it was the first time ever, but then I remembered that I voted to re-elect Clinton. I didn't really like Clinton, but the guy who ran against him was such a douche that I can't even remember his name. Some old white man. Douche. So that one doesn't count, because I was mostly voting against a douche rather than for somebody.

Turns out voting abroad is a total sham, to make you feel sort of OK like it matters. I got everything I was supposed to receive, and got it sent off. My problem is that the official receptacle for the ballot is an envelope which has both my name and my registered party on the outside. I thought the United States had a secret ballot system. What if the mail carrier is a racist? Or what if I live in a small town and he/she knows me and doesn't like me. Becky was way on the ball, and well in advance requested her absentee ballot. It turns out that her request was sent to the old address of the voting registrations department (or whatever the hell its called) which was changed. Seems pretty important to forward these things right, or notify people that the address changed right before the most anticipated election in decades?? She didn't discover the problem until it failed to show up, and then it was too late. What a load of shit. At least this time it wasn't very close. Maybe my vote counted, and Becky's didn't but in our respective states it didn't end up mattering.

I´m totally not dead!

no posts because no internet. no tengo internet.

!que mierda¡ ¡hijo de puta! ¡Joder!

i am living well enough however. my girlfriend has moved in, we comiserate about how rude madrileños are on the metro, we went to the medieval city of Toledo (really neato), and we went on vacation to germany and the czech republic. I think if I hadn´t already payed the extortion, i mean rent, I would have actually saved money compared to Madrid. I´m a little down on Madrid right now after seeing how civil Germans are (they wait for you to leave the train before barging in like the running of the bulls), how efficient things are (i really doubt it takes 2 months to get your internet installed in Germany) and how comparatively cheap life is (we stayed in what seemed like a swank luxury spacious apartment for rich yuppies, and found out the whole place cost only 40% more than what we pay for a room in an apartment with no living or dining room....and we routinely and easily found decent vegetarian meals for around 3 euro) . Maybe I should have gone to Germany? It was getting cold but the fall colors were amazing. Also my daily commute is making me exhausted all the time, it seems like all I do is work or travel to work. I underestimated this.....but the alternative was to stay in Mostoles which is plenty boring after 2 weeks or so. Can´t win. Becky is still on vacation in Budapest. I´ve got pics, keep checking in they´ll show up one of thes days. I´m coming to the states this winter, just bought the ticket. I fly on Xmas day to detroit with Becky, then at some undisclosed point I will come out west.

Oh yeah, i think prague might be the most beautiful city I´ve been to, you should go.

london baby

i took maybe 7 pictures in London, i like these three (especially together). i'm not telling what they are.

The riddle of steel....and other assorted crap

It appears that a whopping 4 people voted to name my bike, and indication of how many readers there are not named my mom. El guapo was the favorite, it got 2 votes. It goes well with the fact that I am in Spain, and that bike truly is a handsome devil. I also got two write-in suggestions "Conan the bikebarian" and the "taint bruiser". Taint bruiser sounds like an enemy, not like my best friend...so I have to pass on it despite the catchy ring. The Conan one is good, but i think maybe Conan already has some richer material. I forgot a rather obvious option suggested by Thulsa Doom....the riddle of steel. Conan the barbarian is full of awesome manly dialogue, e.g. swordmaster- " what is the best thing in life?" Conan - "to crush your enemies, drive them before you and hear the lamentation of their women." I'm actually surprised that Surly does not make a bike called the riddle of steel. All of the Surly frames are steel, in fact Surly is a steel cult, as are many of the custom craft builders. Steel is a rebellion against weight-weenie roadies in their neon lycra silly suits, it's old school, strong and proletariat. It's union-made PBR. When Conan is a boy, his dad, a blacksmith, makes a sweet flippin' sword (not a carbon fiber sword, a STEEL sword) and tells Conan that he must learn the riddle of steel. Shortly afterward, Thulsa Doom rolls in on his Harley and lops everyones heads off, burns the women and rapes the houses. Conan lives and is made a slave otherwise the movie would only be about 6 minutes. Later the adult Conan is beaten to a fleshy oozing pulp and has this chat with Thulsa Doom:

Thulsa: You killed my snake! Forgrim is beside himself with grief. He raised that snake from infancy.

Conan: You killed my mother! You killed my father! You killed my people!

Thulsa: Ah! Probably in my younger days, no doubt. In my quest for the riddle of steel.

Conan: The (gasp) riddle (gasp) of steel?

Thulsa: (emphatically)Yes! You know of it boy! Do you wish to know the answer? It’s the least I can do to tell you before I kill you. Steel is not strong. Flesh is stronger! What is the blade compared to the hand which wields it?"

...at this point Thulsa doom beckons to some floppy-necked drugged out hippy chick who hurls herself from a balcony(gasp) . Then, proving his point...he says (emphatically) "THAT is strength boy!" I don't know if he's right...it's more like an example of what religion can do to a brain. I imagine the dialogue there wouldn't have been as poignant if he said (emphatically) "THAT is how dumb you are if you join my snake cult, boy!" So there ya go...the riddle of steel now you know it and you didn't even get your ass kicked.

Another name option is Cyrus. CAN YOU DIG IT SUCKAS!!!! Or maybe you're all turning fag-got! Cyrus is the gang leader from "The Warriors" who gets assassinated by the Riffs who blame it on the warriors, who need to get home to Coney and could easily, EASILY , do so if they just took off their colors. But they don't want to act like faggots or anything so they decide to wear their colors and fight everybody instead, it's kind of like US foreign policy. One strange thing is the resemblance of Cyrus to Thulsa Doom, both physically and in their Cicero-crushing, mad oratory skills. There was actually gang warfare in the theatres when this movie was released....so you know it's good.










Thulsa Doom, Cyrus....great orators, cult leaders, misunderstood tragic heros. One was a part-time snake, one got popped early in the film.

So what do you think, el Guapo, The Riddle of Steel, or Cyrus?









How's this for a segeue (spelling? what is the deal with French vowel abuse? And furthermore, what is the deal with full grown japanese girls and mickey mouse shirts, watches, hats, backpacks, etc.?)...











Obama- "Can you count SUCKAS!!!! The future is ours, if you can count!!" Websearch this, you won't be dissapointed. The first debate is all over the TV here. but more importantly... McCain has 13 cars, Obama has one hybrid. Score 13 for Cyrus, suckas. And I've seen pictures of Barack on a bike. 13 more for Cyrus! Thats 26-0 if you can count.

Finally, this appeared on another blog that I read sometimes. I have to admire the way he is taking this D-bag senator to task. I once had a guy turn right in front of me forcing me to slam on my brakes and just barely avoid hitting him. Then I confronted him in a parking lot. I told him he was a fucking asswipe and he almost hit me. He told me I shouldn't be riding on the right of the lane (not true, that is the legal position when not changing lanes, preparing for a turn, or avoiding a hazard). I said some other adrenaline-gibberish, after which he said "leave me alone" and drove off, completey unconcerned about any problem I might have. He was right, what was I going to do, punch him, or dent his car? Then I get arrested, sweet, good solution. I called the cops with his license and a reckless driving complaint, I'm sure LV metro was very concerned too. "Um yeah, we've got our hands full harassing homosexuals and black people, we'll advise a squad car to keep an eye out". It was a demonstration of the fuedal system of the road, bike serfs and SUV barons. But anyway, this time the D-bag is a mercedes senator, and I reckon he isn't enjoying the attention the following incident is attracting. Turns out that the internet is not only a source of bad information and porn, but is also empowering:

September 17, 2008

Senator Jeff Klein
Legislative Office Building
Room 313
Albany, New York 12247

Dear Senator Klein,

RE: My request, as a member of the board of Transportation Alternatives, to meet with you to discuss transportation policy as it relates to bicycle safety, carbon emissions, the cultivation of New York City quality of life, breathable air, and traffic congestion.

Though you may not know my name, you may recall that you and I met today under rather unpleasant circumstances on New York City’s Broadway, just north of City Hall. You were driving your black Mercedes. I was riding a small folding bicycle and wearing a purple helmet.

To refresh your memory:

Traffic was moving rather slowly and you were heading in the downtown direction, as was I. You were in the far left lane and I was riding on the curbside of that lane, near your rear passenger door. Suddenly, you began to veer your Mercedes to the left, potentially crushing me between your car and the cars parked on the side of the road.

With nowhere to go to get out of your way, and to avoid serious injury or death, in desperation, I chose to knock on your window to let you know that I was there and that you should avoid veering further in my direction.

At this point, you brought your vehicle to an abrupt halt, not to avoid hitting me, but because you apparently needed to communicate something to me. You rolled down your window and said, “Get your hands off my car, you fucking asshole.”

I said, “You were veering into me and going to crush me.”

You said, “You better not touch other people’s cars. You might find that touching other people’s cars is more dangerous than traffic.”

This gave me the impression that you were threatening me.

I said, “I think my life is more precious than your car.”

You said, “I didn’t see you.”

I said, “If you’re driving a car, it’s your responsibility to see what’s in road space before you veer into it. That’s what your driver side mirror is for.”

You said, “I looked in my mirror.”

I said, “You should also turn and look over your shoulder since you know there could be a bicyclist.”

You said, “Yeah. Well, maybe you should watch where you’re going.”

I said, “Where was I supposed to go? I was there. And you were veering into me.”

I was about to remind you that, in the past week, two cyclists have been killed by automobiles in New York City, but you made a gesture which implied you considered this conversation a waste of time and drove off. That is when I saw that your car had special license plates proclaiming your membership of the New York State Senate.

A red light stopped you at the next intersection. I rode alongside you and, more cautiously, tapped again on your window. You rolled it down. I could tell by your face that you weren’t happy to be talking again to this particular New York State citizen, on whose behalf you govern.

I asked you, “What is your name, Senator?”

You said, “Senator Jeff Klein.” This is how I know it was you.

Now, the thing is, Senator, I don’t particularly call you to task for calling me a fucking asshole. If the roles had been reversed, and I had a big black Mercedes and you came up in a purple helmet, knocking on my window, and I didn’t realize I was on the verge of crushing your legs, I might have called you a fucking asshole, too.

I’d like to point out, however, that, as mad as you were about my touching your car window with my hand, you could double or triple that strength of emotion when it comes to how frightening it is to be on the other side of the Mercedes driving wheel, especially when that particular Mercedes is coming toward you.

Weigh it up: “he might scratch my black Mercedes” against “he might cause my little girl to be left fatherless.”

Weigh it up again: One guy is riding a bike that weighs a grand total of 22 pounds and has a relatively small potential to harm others. The other guy is in charge of a powerful machine that weighs a couple of tons. Which person has the greater responsibility to watch out for the care and welfare of people who may get in their path, by their own fault or not?

As a State Senator, I’m sure you especially feel the weight of the obligation to look out for the welfare of others, no?

Again, this is not to say you did not act like many other humans in the same situation. But it is to say that transportation policy in New York City currently falls way too short of making sure that unintended confrontations like ours–and worse ones that end in fatalities–don’t occur.

Proper policy, which provided ubiquitous segregated bike lanes or which limited traffic congestion, could reduce such incidents without having to depend on drivers of black Mercedes, for example, remembering to look in their driver side mirror or over their shoulders.

It is for this reason that I hope you will honor my request to visit your office, along with Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Paul Steely White, to ask you to reconsider your current platforms on transportation and traffic congestion in New York City.

As you know, the United States’ dependence of foreign oil contributes significantly to our current economic crisis and is a matter of national security. Furthermore, the planet’s future ability to support human life is in peril because of global warming caused, in large measure, by the overuse of the same foreign oil.

At the same time, countless studies show that making the streets of New York and other cities safer and more convenient for bicyclists and pedestrians would reduce automobile use, dependence on foreign oil, carbon emissions, and traffic congestion while contributing to breathable air and livable streets, improved retail business, and the physical health of New Yorkers.

Yet, until now, your platform has presented obstacles to the adaptations that might bring these benefits to New York City. Not only did you oppose congestion pricing, a measure intended to decrease vehicular traffic, but you proposed eliminating the tolls on bridges and tunnels into Manhattan on holidays, which would bring more traffic into the City and further encourage automobile use, just when it should be decreased.

I hope you’ll consider that these policies are out of step with the current times. I hope, too, seeing, in the case of our confrontation, the result of your policies when it comes to impact on personal lives, in general, and the safety of bikers, in particular, might also give you cause to reconsider your position.

Policies that make New York City safe for bicyclists and pedestrians–the people who live on the streets as opposed to the people who just drive through them–is best, both for our citizens and the planet.

I look forward to hearing from you regarding my request to meet in person to discuss these issues.

Yours sincerely,

Colin Beavan
aka No Impact Man,
Board Member, Transportation Alternatives

Readers, if you would like to support my request to meet with Senator Klein or to generally register your thoughts about his confrontation with me, a telephone call is the most effective means of communication. But if you can’t call, please email.

You might also care to register your concerns with his more senior colleague, the leader of the Democrats in the State Senate, Senator Malcolm A. Smith.

editors note: i was a few days late in hearing about this and posting anything about it. In the meantime, so many people called the senator that no impact man is going to meet with him about transportation alternatives.

big bang, lavapies style

Is it just me or does an underground facility to replicate the big bang seem like a bad idea?

I'm just writing to say I'm still alive, just busy and without internet at home. After my vacation I had a trip to London for a nerd conference, and I did a talk about nerd stuff to some nerds. I stayed on with the kids from the lab for the weekend and drank proper british pints, spoke proper English, and I saw THE proper Rosetta stone among many other cool objects. I saw like half of Egypt, Greece and Rome in the British museum, but for some reason I was really impressed that I saw the authentic rosetta stone among all this stuff that the English plundered.

I'm stealing internet from a neighbor now (actually he's probably stolen all the info off my computer by now, so good deal for him). My landlord has asked the internet company to begin our service, a month ago. Classic Spanish style, that's just normal to wait a month for installation apparently.

So since the quick London trip, I have moved into Madrid, at the north end of the Lavapies neighborhood, the former Jewish district centuries ago. Now it's sort of "ethnic town" with immigrants from Africa, India, and several other parts of Asia. The bad news is now I'm a subway commuter, but the city is so much cooler than Mostoles. Plus I can get a little work done on the subway so its not totally lost time. I can find food I like! And cheap! I can buy a half pound of cumin for a freaking euro. Five minutes away is an Indian buffet, 8 euros (this is pricy compared to the states but it's practically giving shit away in Europe). I went jogging the other day to the palace, the cathedral and the Egyptian temple. And everyday I walk somewhere new and interesting. I've never had such an interesting jogging route before, or so many "old world monuments" five minutes outside my door (In fact none...ever). I live on the top floor, so theres a big terrace where I enjoy my morning & weekend "chill with coffee" time. Downstairs, so close I could spit on it, is my favorite bar in the neighborhood. It has a logo with a Tom Waits-like demon face. Actually I think its a Satyr not a demon, but its a dope bar. The tapas are a crap shoot though. I can never recognize anything they bring me, and its different every round. Once they brought me baba ganoush which I was psyched about, then they brought some mayonnaise slop with stinky fish in it. I tried a little city cycling the other day, and its really pretty chill even on the larger streets. The truth is traffic does not move very quickly so its easy to keep pace with automobiles most of the time. This despite the warnings of how dangerous it is, from all the people (like my new roomate) who have never once ridden a bike in the city. But, so far, for anything in the city it's quick enough just to walk and that way I don't have to worry about bike theft. The weather is super nice again and I've been back on the bike a little, discovering new cycling paths which take me south to the river valleys instead of north to the mountains (just for something different). One of these days I need to make a map of all the places I've ridden, with notes. I would have liked to encounter this very thing on someone's website before arriving.

Soon some pics of the new house & hood...

Becky arrives in only 7 days. I can' t believe it's been 6 months.

Heres a fun one....I live on Jesus & Mary street (Calle Jesus y Maria) and my landlord's name is Christ (Cristo). If he can heal lepers you'd think he could get the internet to work. Fraud! Charlatan!

my most ridiculous hitch hiking experience ever

All this talk of Ireland and Irish folks I met in Alaska reminded me of a funny story from the past. I was at the Talkeetna bluegrass festival in Alaska, which is a pretty long running event. It was my second one and right when it started getting way too big for its breeches. I'd guess its 10 times worse now. It is 3 or 4 days of late nights, all day booze, bottlerockets zipping past your head as you try to find your tent in the blackness, and security provided by the Hell's Angels. On the day after I woke up and decided to pack up and go, staggered through ground zero, stopped by Johnny and Sarah's school bus to say what up and became aware of some major irritation in my eye that was getting worse. It was watering and really sensitive to light and I couldn't really open it. I said goodbye to all the scallawags and walked out to the road to hitch back up to the Denali area to camp somewhere. There was about 20 hitchikers trying to leave and the one in front told me to go down the road after the last of them...this is hitching etiquette in his mind. I couldn't see so I didn't argue or tell him that the reason he can't get a ride is because he looks like an angry dick. After 5 minutes my ride came, bypassed the angry dick and the 19 other hitchikers and came right to me. Karmic retribution in action...or so I thought. One remarkable thing was that it was an RV leaving the festival that stopped. RVs are so unlikely to pick you up that they are not worth the effort of extending an arm, let alone your arm AND your thumb. The driver was some stoner about 30 years old that had "borrowed" the RV from his grandmother. There were several teenagers on board an a guy I used to work with who also happened to be hitching. The first thing anyone said was sorry about the smell, which proceeded to nearly make me puke on my feet. The shitter was broken or full...or something, and it was hideous. But If I could tolerate it for less than 3 hours I could set up a quiet camp and rest, otherwise it was waiting for 20 other guys to get a ride before I did. So we zipped along merrily in a possibly stolen and at least dubiously borrowed RV full of sewage, and I couldn't open one eye. Before too long the driver stopped to pick up another hitchhiker, which ended up being a native woman that was completely shithoused. She was stark raving loaded. So now I've got one good eye left, a nose full of shit smell, and ears full of the incessant cackling of this old drunken coot. Shortly after that, we get pulled over by the highway patrol for speeding. During this intermission everybody is ID'd, and guess what? Me and the guy I know (Hal, if I remember right) are the only ones who have driver's licenses, and Hal did not bring his with him to the festival for fear of losing it in the melee. Because the driver had no ID, It delayed the policeman from learning the probable truth that the guy did not own and probably did not have permission to use the RV. We had made sure to say 10 times that we were hitchhikers to preemptively absolve ourselves from anything these dipshits had done. At this point an amazing thing happened....the drunk woman decided to just walk away down the middle of the highway pushing the cop out of the way when he tried to stop her. Since he was probably patrolling 300 miles of highway alone, he had no choice but to deal with her and let us go. But he ordered me to drive the RV because I had a license. I feebly said "But...my eye" or something like that, which of course he had no time to hear about. So off we went, without the cackling drunken hag at least, but still with an RV load of dipshits, enough shit smell for 1000 hells, and the guy that can't see (me) driving a probably stolen RV....BECAUSE A POLICEMAN ORDERED ME TO (that is the punch line, hence the caps). After a half hour or so I am really struggling because I just can't see and my eye really hurts, we were low on gas anyway so the original driver says he will drive after we get gas. We figure we are off the hook with the cops because the only one probably had to go pretty far south to put the drunk lady in jail. So the guy has no money to purchase any gas. So here's what he does, he takes out the stereo and trades it to the gas station owner for a fill up. What this means is that if he was telling the truth and he borrowed this RV from his grandmother, he will be returning it with a broken shitter badly in need of emptying, and no stereo. Nice guy. He drove the rest of the way and I was so tired of it all I just fell asleep. When I woke up he dropped Me and Hal off at Denali. We didn't really have to say anything we could read the exhaustion and relief on each other's faces.

Epilogue: I hitched another short stretch with somebody I can't remember and decided to stop in and see if I could just crash at Brenda and Kathryn's trailer in Healy. I was really not in the mood for one eyed camp setup in the dark with rain coming. They had a trailer that was so off kilter than you just sort of pitched and tumbled downhill until your fall was cushioned by the bed, cleverly positioned at the lowest point. Kathryn was around so we went to the payphone at the Totem Inn so i could call my dad. He's an optician so I thought he might know something about eyes and what the hell I should do. He thought I had probably scratched my retina or maybe a cinder from someones campfire got in there. But there was nothing I could do at 11:00 pm except see if it got better (eyes heal fast), and if not see a doctor. So we had a few beers, then I went to sleep and woke up with my eyes functioning normally, no shit stench, no borrowed RVs, and no police. So if your eye is ever inexplicably fucked up you should just have a beer and go to bed. The end.

So...back to Ireland. I ended my Ireland trip with a visit to Kathryn's house about 12 years after the above experience. She and her fella Dunnock have a nice house near Clonakilty with a flat floor, no pitching or tumbling, easy access to the beach (they are surfers), and close to Castle Freke (pronounced "freak") owned by none other than Lord Freke. Also they have a new baby, good work.

Dingle pensinsula and Killarney

I took a few days on my own to see parts of Kerry I had always wanted to see, including the Irish-speaking Dingle peninsula. After my last trip to Ireland, I had met a crazy Swiss guy in Scotland who had spent 3 weeks in Ireland and never left the Dingle peninsula. Seemed like a good place to go according to what he had to say....although the same guy seemed to think that since we were sleeping in an airport in sleeping bags, it would be ok to just whip out a camp stove and cook dinner and play hackeysack inside the airport.

One of the draws is a walking route called the Dingle way, which is a totally silly name. It sounds like the way of life for a gnome-like race of beings called the dingles. And where do they live? In Dingle town of course. Usually people take about 2 weeks to do the whole thing, but I just wanted a sample for 1 or 2 days. Since I got the bus to the town of Dingle, I walked from there to Dun Cuoinn, about 20 km away. Also Brenda had recommended this stretch. Her and Kathryn had done the hike years ago, forgot tent poles, but went anyway. Don't let minor inconveniences like a lack of adequate shelter stop you!

The walk turned out to be my best day. The route is constantly changing and impressive for different reasons. Walking over to the town of Ventry takes paved country roads, and extraordinarily muddy cattle runs over a minor pass, then you walk about 2km on a really nice beach. The sun had come out here, so it was hard to remember this sunny beach was in Ireland. I managed to waste a couple hours having a coffee, laying on the beach, buying stuff for dinner, and totally misunderstanding where the route was supposed to go. I was unconcerned because I thought I was traveling 14 km , not 20. After the beach you make your way through some some roads and mud, and emerge pretty unexpectedly at some stunning rocky cliffs along the coast. I stopped to see a prehistoric hill fort only to learn that that town over yonder was not my destination, and I still had 8 km to go, and it was already 5:00 with fog settling in on the mountains. So I was hurrying... the route goes over the top of the uppermost pastures on the hillslopes, just below the fog. I passed numerous other hillforts and beehive huts but didn't have time to stop. I just remember the sheep had done a fine job of mowing everything down to a homogenous golf course like turf. The hillslopes were covered with mazes of gray stone walls. Basically this was the Ireland you see in movies, on postcards, and advertisements from the board of tourism. I think the first photograph I ever saw of Ireland may have looked just like this, and consequently I've had a life-long interest in Ireland. Nice to finally see it. I made my way finally to the town which also featured my hostel and the westernmost pub in Europe (this claim seems dubious, but it was a decent pub). The rain came in shortly after I arrived. The hostel owner thought I was nuts to have walked all that way in sandals...but why not, it doesn't matter if sandals get soaked right?

Turns out the next day was pretty rough weather. The rain wasn't so bad, it was the body flattening wind. Since my only opportunity for a bus back to Dingle was that day, I took it, otherwise it was hitching out in the wind and rain, or a sand-blasting while walking on the beach. Dick Mack's is in Dingle, and it is probably the perfect example of an Irish pub, a fine place to read a book and have a beer while the wind rips off peoples heads.

The next day I was going to bus back to Cork to visit another friend, but since the weather had calmed down I took the opportunity to stop in Killarney and tour the National Park and the lakes frenetically on the shittiest rental bike ever. Usually when you rent a bike, it has actually been tuned...but I had to do that myself. It really felt good to get back on a bike, I have been wondering about Ireland as a touring destination...but people have widely differing opinions on this proposition. European national parks are decidedly more tame, but the history gives them alot of character that most of our parks lack. For example, In addition to lakes, mountains and waterfalls, this park has an old abbey, a castle, and some sort of mansion I didn't have time to see.

How I learned to stop worrying about nutrition, and embrace the curry chips diet

I was skipping along the Dingle way, making merry with an elf at one elbow, and Fungie the dolphin with his fin crooked through my other arm. We sang, and sang...and laughed. Good times! We stopped at the chip house for curry chips. Fungie had dolphin-safe tuna and washed it down with a bottle of T-bird which had floated across the ocean. Then, satisfied, he lit up a discarded cigar stub that some careless tourist had thrown overboard into the harbor.

You probably can't think of a single Irish food, except perhaps corned beef, which is neither common or popular in Ireland. This is probably because they have a rough climate for growing a variety of crops, and had a long history of poverty (until 10 years ago, about) and having other people take all of the fruits of their labor. But there is a fast food delicacy (oxymoron?....I say "no!") in Ireland. Everybody knows of fish and chips and that it is perhaps the only popular food export from England. But its also common in Ireland and the attraction isn't really the fish, its the spuds. They put the wierdest things over a pile of chips: cole slaw, stuffing, peas and carrots. The best is a curry sauce....I looked it up, its made of apple, onion, tomato and curry powder (nothing too dubious). Going to Ireland and not having curry chips is like not having a stout...seriously what the fuck is your problem if you don't have a stout at least once. I don't care if you don't like beer, you can have one once. After departing from Cork, with nobody watching, I ate curry chips daily. Go ahead lock me up, I'll just do it again when I get out.

The other thing you need to know about is brown bread, the best bread I've ever had and a type of soda bread. People have offered me homemade "soda bread" in the states before and i thought it was total crapola. They always make the white variety (always much lamer in my opinion), and then totally ruin it by adding raisins and shit like that. It's like a giant dry scone. The brown variety is made with a really course whole wheat flour, buttermilk, and it uses the an acid-base reaction between the buttermilk and baking soda to "leaven" the bread...no yeast. It stays fresh for days even if you leave it out, and fits nicely into a muddy, dank backpack. I have no idea why this bread has not become popular anywhere else.

ireland pt. 1

I just returned from my first trip to Ireland in, I think, 8 years. I missed the "celtic tiger" economic and housing boom, but heard the phrase at least once every day. I first noticed the increase in cost of living about 10 minutes after arriving in Dublin, when I ordered a pint and it was 4.50 euro, about 7 bucks! last time i was here a pint came in at just under 2 pounds (less if it was Beamish, which is my favorite anyway). I think this is due to the boom, membership in the EU and the price of fuel...but what do i know I don't live there. Everything got a lot more expensive, but I am a master of as cheap as possible. Which is what I was thinking when I booked my flight on Ryan air from Dublin to Cork, for 0 euros (only 26 euros in hidden fees!!! fuck you Ryan air). the only problem was I had booked the ticket on the 29th not the 19th, which was why I was not in Cork, rather I was in Dublin drinking a 4.50 pint. I like to think I'm fairly smart, but when it comes to booking travel or managing money I am the Titanic, the Hindenberg, Katrina, etc.

The upshot was I got to catch up with my friends Johnny and Sarah, who I had not spoken to in years. They used to have a school bus in Alaska, and throw parties on it at music festivals. Despite all the booze, I remember (in between the inexplicable forgotten parts) those as being great times full of freedom. I used to work really hard while going to school at the same time, tenaciously saving small amounts of money. Then when the Vegas heat was unbearable I would take my paltry savings rarely exceeding $500 and escape to Alaska to live the life of a born free scallawag and relish my unemployment and near total lack of expenses or plans. I would encounter the same people year after year (other scallawags), then they would bring their friends who went on to become people I would run into year after year. This was how I met all of my Irish friends, and their friends, and so on.

After the stopover in Dublin, I got the bus down to Cork City and on to Bandon, which is near where Brenda and Jeff live. They are running an organic farm there with Brenda's brother, Eugene, and living in a really cool old house which had not been lived in since the 60s. Its on their family farm which used to be a dairy farm, in fact at one point Eugene may have been the world's only vegan dairy farmer.
There was no running water or electricity, so in alot of ways it was reminiscent of the Alaska experience. In the farming operation they use a no-till system, and simply cut grass repeatedly and apply it as mulch on the beds. The spuds like this just fine and they are incredibly easy to harvest...although its a tough year for all the farmers because there hasn't really been much sun, basically no summer.

Heres a few more of my favorite pics from County Cork. The ruin is the 14th century abbey-cemetary at Timoleague, and the coastline is near Courtmacsherry. Then we were all devoured by slugs (no picture available).

Maxibon, you vex me so

Its been pretty hot. not quite phoenix or vegas hot, but pretty hot. Every other street corner in metro madrid has a little stand that sells Maxibon, a brand of ice cream sandwich, cleverly hybridized in a Frankenstein sort of way (you can see the bolts and stitches) with a chocolate covered ice cream bar. you can hold the ice cream sandwich half while you eat the ice cream bar half, while only getting your hands moderately sticky. One of the stands were I go running often is run by africans, and is sort of a hangout for africans who congregate there every night and play chess. every stand has a picture of some guy, I'll call him maxibon for simplicity, sometimes alone and sometimes with his zany friends. They are so cool, they are always doing crazy things like eating ice cream bars sideways. From day one I have hated this guys face, and his straight white teeth so frequently exposed. he looks like a guy at the university, raul, who i like but something in the back of my mind remembers maxibon and how badly i want to punch him (maxibon not raul)....poor raul has no idea this thought is crossing my mind and probably wonders why i have such a difficult time concentrating when we speak. Maxibon is like the jingle you hate, then one day you are singing it to yourself walking down the street and you realize it and want to just leap in front of a bus. if i ever see maxibon in the street im gonna deck him right in his toothy ice cream cavern....right in his dental dairy processor...right in the moon pie...right in the vanilla vurmhole...right in the chuckling confection composter.....MAXIBON.

i'm going to ireland next week, i hope its cloudy every second, with plenty of water falling out of the sky, and noone has ever heard of sunscreen.

big trouble in little china

My culinary experience is improving dramatically. I had been getting into this rut where I would walk into the grocery store in my neighborhood and not want to buy anything there. I'd proceed to make myself get the handful of shit I always get and leave as soon as possible. But I think it's just my town. Madrid seems to have everything, though it may cost you dearly, and you may need some insider information. Once in a while you score big. A Korean guy in my spanish class told me about this market where he was buying Kimchee really cheap, and he said they had lots of other stuff to. It is really hard to find as its in a very cryptically marked brick building, but inside is a traditional spanish market which consists of stalls operated by various sellers. Despite the traditionalness, it turns out theres alot of foreign stuff there also including 500g blocks of tofu for 0.60 euros! Incredible! Previously I had chalked tofu up as unattainable because it cost 3.50 for 250 grams! I aint a rich man. But this tofu is made in madrid and even cheaper than the states.

I also got a tipoff from some expat blog about a secret chinatown underneath plaza de Espana. The plaza is a nice small park with a monument to Cervantes, and I have noticed, much like the blogger, that there were two dodgy looking staircases going underground in the plaza, supposedly to a parking lot. When you go down there, there is a chinese travel agency, a bar which serves chinese food, and a full blown asian market. The first thing I saw in the window was Huy Fong Sriracha! It cost dearly, but come on, that is worth it. If you take the time to shop around for stuff you will find some incredible bargains, and enormous differences among brands. I was feeling triumphant as I left, and right as I emerged from the stairs to the street again I saw the critical mass (bici critica here). My first impulse was to body check one of the riders to the ground, like the cops do in New York. Or maybe flip out and drive a car right at them like they do in Seattle. But instead I just checked it out and hooted and hollered. It looked like a fun group, maybe 300-400 that I saw, and there must have been at least 50 pirates among them...must be the local CM style. I know alot of people think these rides are counterproductive, but I just think : how fun to dress up as a pirate, team up with 300 of your friends and ride at will on the streets of the capital. That can't be that bad can it?

We’re here because stop signs are a pain! The world is watching, fascist pigs!

Some of you will want me dead….but I have been looking forward to gas prices rising this high for a long time. The reason is that, while it will hurt now, it will force us to do something that will preempt much more pain in the future. It’s a risky moment because we can choose some things over others, and certain things won’t benefit us very much in any long term way and will create an opportunity cost because a workable solution was not pursued (again and again). A lot of people will want to see the US increase drilling for oil, as if our demand could be satisfied this way. It can’t, it would only help some and for a while, and it would force us to do things we thought were a bit unsavory in the past: more offshore drilling, drilling in wildlife refuges, seismic explorers next to national parks…that sort of thing. The simple facts are: we’ve always known oil is finite, but we still bought a less than efficient car, we still chose to live far from work, we still had 2 or more cars per family, etc. Now we’re screwed. The only president that ever told the truth about this was Jimmy Carter, and he’s been retrogressively vilified for it…basically he said “we’re going to have to use less oil”. The only true thing Bush ever said was “America is addicted to oil”, then he proceeded to do nothing about it.

So what do we have to do? Lots of things will be a piece of the solution which maybe I’ll write about another time. But number one is: find a way to live our lives while using less oil. I’ve been happy to read recently that a lot of people are actually doing it…by riding bikes. I’ve read stories from many different cities about this radical change in behavior and attitude. And then I open MSN and see this link “Increase in bike riders fuels new road rage in Oregon”. It links to a short newsweek article by Winston Ross, and talks about a series of incidents I’ve been reading about on bike blogs for a couple weeks. First, thanks Winston for throwing gasoline on the fire. The article talks about some drunken douche that beat a man with his bike, then a drunk driver who tried to run down a cyclist on purpose supposedly to kill or at least maim him. Both road rage incidents. Then a cyclist ran a red light and had a crash, nothing to do with road rage (furthermore, how many cars ran red lights and got into crashes that same day? i reckon more than this one cyclist that is so important to talk about). Then a cyclist and a guy in a car got in a fistfight because the guy in the car said something about the cyclist not wearing a helmet. Ok, sort of road rage but more like a regular argument turned fight, unclear who the actual first puncher was. Not mentioned, was a recent incident in a Seattle critical mass ride where the news reported a man and his family were cornered in their car, tried to escape, and then were attacked by an angry mob of cyclists. Later eyewitness reports indicated the man gunned his car directly at a cyclist and dragged him, then hit another, and then…the cyclists beat the shit out of his car (The sequence seems pretty important here). I’m really annoyed by this article: why?

1) Right off the bat, look at the link…there is road rage because there is more bike riders is what the link is actually saying. In other words bike riders caused this. Nowhere does the article indicate that anyone involved in anything was a new rider, thus the link between these things and new ridership is unclear in the article. Furthermore, why doesn’t it say “Idiots with cars talking shit, threatening or assaulting cyclists fuel new road rage in Oregon”. Obviously that’s a loaded title, but about as accurate as the real one. There are incidences where both cyclists and drivers are being total idiots, and incidences where its unclear who the idiot is. This journalist is turning all of these events into “a pattern” and the result is that he makes the new trend of increased bike use as a car replacement into a bad thing.

2) After setting the scene of this media-accelerated pattern, he goes on to ponder why. We are told in one sentence that most cyclists say drivers act as if they don’t exist, that’s it…the cyclist take on things. It says that motorists are pissed that cyclists run red lights, but some cyclists defend running red lights because it’s a pain to hop off their bikes. Nobody hops off their bike at intersections, that’s just silly. And its not about it being a “pain”…I think the argument is more along the lines of this: traffic laws are written by and for people that drive cars. Most of the time they make good sense for regulating bike traffic too. Occasionally some of these rules aren’t the best for bikes because bikes are a different type of vehicle. Because a bike can stop in a much shorter distance and enjoys a completely unobstructed forward and sideways view, some people would like to see laws that permit bicycles to treat stop signs like yield signs. Cyclists lose kinetic energy that they have created using their own power when coming to a complete stop, and must slowly restart after the stop. Any bike commuter will tell you how they feel when they need to make a left turn from a complete stop, with 10 cars waiting behind them. Like a fucking rodeo clown without a barrel. You can breakaway must faster from a slow roll. The faster you can ride the safer you are. People in cars often misunderstand this slow-roll-instead-of-complete-stop behavior as “Oh my fucking god that maniac is just going to dart out in front of me!” and then they slam on their brakes, which causes the real hazard because the cyclist has already fired the synapses to move his legs and dart through the hole that would have opened had the car not slammed on the brakes. I’m not saying that idiots that just blow full speed through stop signs are in the right (they are dumb and at least endangering themselves, and they are probably riding brakeless track bikes in the city), I just want to point out that that the above explanation is at least a little different than “I don’t stop at lights because it’s a pain”. That’s just shit journalism. It’s kind of like when they show some protest or something on TV, then have invite some random stoner over for a sound bite to explain the whole thing: “We’re here because stop signs are a pain! The world is watching, fascist pigs!”

3) The article devotes a paragraph to some guy (why him? Of all the people to devote a paragraph to, such as ….I don’t know…the people involved in some of the road rage incidents?) who is angered by cyclists not wearing lights and wearing helmets. What does this have to do with the central theme of the article? Nothing, it’s a total red herring. And what is the helmet obsession? Yeah, if you are in a wreck a helmet will reduce the probability of a major head trauma, no arguments here. But here’s the thing: automobile accidents are the most common killer of people under 40, and despite seat belts and airbags, head injuries are still common, and over two thirds of the people reporting to a hospital after a car wreck are there for head injuries. So, lives would be saved and injuries prevented, if people driving cars wore helmets too, its not just a cycling thing. Furthermore, there are many things that people do or don’t do that make them less safe, like not using turn signals or traveling too fast. Almost every driver speeds at least once a day. So why is everyone going on about helmets in this article…because they are a device to portray cyclists as lawless and too lazy to ensure their own safety. If a drunk driver ran two red lights dragging nuns on the hood and hit an unhelmeted cyclist, the ensuing news article would find a way to blame the cyclist because he wasn’t wearing a helmet. That’s the state of the media. The guy wonders why the cycling community doesn’t insist everyone wear helmets and lights…first off there’s not a central command station for the cyclists. And most bicycling organizations do in fact advocate the use of helmets and lights. If I was “the guy” who had nothing to do with anything but got picked to be interviewed in the article, I might have said “Why doesn’t the automobile community insist that every driver be tested on sharing the road with cyclists?” I’ll bet none of you reading this had a single question on your driver’s license exam about the bicycle statute for your state. Get this…in Copenhagen and Amsterdam there’s literally millions of cyclists. Almost none of them wear helmets, in fact they think they are ridiculous. I’m sure accidents occur, but cycling is quite safe. What’s the difference: I think it’s because there’s better bike infrastructure, and even though there’s still a lot of cars there, drivers are much better educated about how to share space with riders. It’s a good thing to avoid a head injury if you get hit, but it’s 1000000000 times better to not get hit because people on bikes and in cars know how to coexist.

So more people are riding bikes now. This is undoubtedly a good thing, because it means we are using less oil which is the root of our most pressing problems today. Don’t listen to dipshits like Winston, who want to make you afraid to ride a bike, or rile up your indignation at the lawless bike pirates. YYAAAAAARRRR!!!! I propose we all just get along and stop acting like assholes.