post backlog #2

If you look in Google Earth, Almeria is surrounded by mysterious seas of white rectangles. These are structures built of white shade cloth for pseudo-indoor crops. I guess the white protects them from the sun. They look kind of like something to keep E.T. in quarantine. Becky thought they looked like refugee camps. Adding to the wierdness is that the countryside is full of ruins abandoned during the 20th century when people just picked up and went to the cities. Often you can't even see the ruin from a distance, but you can see the amazing growth of cacti that were apparently planted as ornamentals long ago. Most hillslopes are terraced, another vestige of recently abandoned agriculture.

A local researcher showed us around his various study sites. We were closing to turning cannibal when our hosts finally decided it was about lunch time at 4:00. This followed a hearty breakfast of toast with tomato and olive oil seven and a half hours earlier. After all that all i got was gaszpacho, and some pisto with a gross egg i didn't eat for lunch. So this long awaited meal amounted to tomatoes more or less. Later, i lobbied for pizza for dinner, and the spaniards thought two app. 12-inch pizzas was sufficient food for 4 people and figured i just didnlt know what i was asking for when I ordered two larges. Spanish people eat like children. The Mediterranean diet is just a clever way of saying starving. I wonder if its like this in Greece, Italy, or other Mediterranean nations. We insisted we were getting more food and if there was extra, well, we could eat it the next day. We ate it all, no problem. I know porky americans are in a poor position to tell other people about nutrition....but shit, these people eat nothing. Over here they don't eat the pizza directly with their hands. They put each slice on a little cardboard triangle. i don't know if they are afraid of getting their hands dirty, or the pizza dirty. i think its related to the fact that they use throwaway plastic gloves for selecting produce, and for pumping gas.

I was happy to get to see the Tabernas badlands, which I've been reading about in geeky science papers for years. This is also one of the main sites for western movies of the 60's. I hate westerns, but I like to see the sets. I used to work near similar sets near Kanab, Utah, like the Bonanza ranch for example. Many of the so-called spaghetti westerns were not shot in Italy but in Spain (Paella westerns). There is actually a place there called "Texas Hollywood", which seems to be some sort of movie set/ tourist trap. It has a typical old west main street with the saloon, etc., in addition to a Mexican pueblo, in addition to various arabesque structures. I think the nonsensical name "Texas hollywood" is indicative of something: if you asked a typical small town Almerian to tell you what they know about the United states, Texas and Hollywood are certain to be mentioned right after New York. When I move back to the states I'm going to open up a place called Paris Alps Rome, it will have all kinds of Europy shit like cathedrals and escargot. One of the study sites was a set from the young Indiana Jones television show. Literally, there's all this erosion and runoff monitoring equipment right next to a deteriorating and fake (styrofoam) mine entrance that was made for the show. I think the last crusade has some shots from here as well, maybe the high speed tank chase part with those zany Nazis up to their typical shenannigans.


When we got back to Madrid some friends invited us to an anarchist squat bar. I was skeptical, most "anarchist squats" in the states are junkie hives. This one was a derelict building that has been taken over as a community center where noone actually lives. They have a community garden (apparently on the roof), FREE spanish classes and legal assistance for immigrants (the poor kind not the united statesians, woe is me), a bike workshop, and various art projects and workshops. Again in the states, for this to work there would have to be strict no drug, no booze rules, but this place has a bar. And its cheap, and they have reggae shows there. They sell beer in "minis" which despite the diminutive name are the largest beers you can find (0.75 L, i mean this is approaching Bavaria proportions) for 3 euros. Of course one would be shared among like 5 spanish people passing it around spreading herpes and swine flu, but I like having my own big boy beer in hand and i'll just catch my own diseases thanks (in recent months i have been totally ravaged by almost every cold to come down the pike, so i'm a bit sensitive on this spit and disease sharing issue). I wish I had the insider information to know about places like this a year ago.

may is over, post backlog #1

A couple of becky's random shots from el Escorial. the monastery-palace of felipe 2 (one of those inbred Hapsburgs form Austria with their f-ed up noses and hairlips), and the dehesa landscape of the nearby mountains. It's worth going to Escorial only for calzones.


Still wonder why i don't like Spanish food?? Well, let me serve you up some tripe and eggs. This was from the Fiesta de San Isidrio, the patron saint of madrid. People put on their special costumes and go over to the park for drinking and traditional foods, such as tripe. Have you ever cleaned your stove with a sponge soon after cooking, and the sponge touches hot metal and emits really rank steam probably containing botulinum at the least or maybe ebola. That is what tripe smells like. The cuchinillo (roasted suckling pig) is not nearly as disgusting, but it really reminds me of dissecting a fetal pig for 3 weeks in a biology lab. We met an ecuadorian friend and a colombian firend over there at the festival, in addition to a spanish guy and had a fine old drunk in the sun sort of day. Its really funny when we can't totally speak spanish (we are getting better though) and they can't totally speak english, the conversation has a way of drifting in and out of the two languages, and sometimes just combines them in the same phrase. This is why some clever sod coined the term "Spanglish". Despite that this city of millions sponsored a festival in one park, apparently nobody thought it might be a good idea to provide a toilet anywhere. The gutters ranneth with urine.


Now playing at the palacio de cristal...rat and bear. This is bear. This is art.

La Criticona

Last weekend we went on a bike ride around Madrid with about 2500 friends. La Criticona was a special annual mass ride where people from everywhere were invited to Madrid to participate. This is somewhat nonsensical because they didn't bike from Rome, for example, just to come to this ride...but whatever. Why get all hung up on being a purist, the result was thousands of riders absolutely taking over Madrid. Teresa was up from Granada so she went along. Despite having lots of friends form work who regularly go to the monthly ride, I've never gone because: a) i never remember, b) I have mixed feelings about critical mass. On b, the cruel irony is that I have been personally responsible for about 30 rides in two cities, and have personally contributed to some of my own grievances. I have seen that being in a mass ride is exhilarating, and inspires regular people who don't ride their bikes much to ride more because they suddenly realize they are part of something. And its just fun, especially when people bring a sense of theatre and humor. If you haven't been to one, the idea is this: cyclists meet at a known time and place, and proceed to ride slowly in a group, usually in a meandering path. Most places, the mass must stay together or its defeated, so if a red light occurs which would split the mass, the riders just keep going with the aid of corkers who just sort of park their bikes in front of the cross traffic. Theres themed rides, costumed rides, and naked rides. I think they are coolest for everyone involved when they feel like a circus-parade hybrid. Although it is sort of a vague protest (of global warming, isolating car culture, construction of cities for cars instead of people, lack of bike safety, lack of bike infrastructure, marginalization of cyclists, etc.), I think it fails the most when it becomes more of a protest and less of a celebration. This leads to anger and confrontations. This is not really a venue for changing any of the above grievances, theres no follow up city council meeting and the mayor is not standing there thinking "we're gonna have to add more bike lanes". If the mayor were there he would more likely be thinking "riot squad?". Also, while the very heart of the whole thing is doing for a couple of hours one day a month, what cars can do 24 hours a day every other day, when it starts leading to feelings of revenge upon the world rather than elation at all the other cyclists and all the smiles on their faces, it can go to bad places. I have a citation for "obstructing a public thoroughfare", technically an arrest for a criminal offence (no shit), to prove it from a ride that wanted to be an Iraq war protest (of course we were 174% right, but in the political climate at that moment this was a touchy subject to say the least). Once you realize you are not changing the world with your ride, you can be free to enjoy yourself, which in turn leads to enjoyment in those around you, even many of those stuck in cars that cannot go anywhere. Usually when you are stuck in traffic there's not a juggler standing and performing on your front bumper...that's more fun than getting home on time.



Anyways, this was near the ideal. It was the biggest mass I've ever been to, and a tie for most theatrical. There were so many of us that were literally could not move for minutes at a time.

The highlights:
1) We started near the Plaza Cibeles about a km N of Atocha train station. The first indication that we were an outlandinshly large group was that, travelling in the direction of Atocha, we looked to our left and saw the front of the mass travelling in the opposite direction. They had made a U-turn at the roundabout by Atocha. At that point, we were at least half a km from the trains station...if you get out a pencil and some paper and your graphing calculator to do the difficult math.... that means the mass was a km long on a road with 4 lanes in both directions! But, what speed were they travelling, and did they reach Cleveland faster that the train from Philadelphia with an average speed of 100 km per hour?

1a) The ride was so big and slow, we could have stopped at a terrace, had a coffee, and rejoined the ride.

2) Early on, a bus became trapped in the mass. I thought when we passed he was going to be a swadling bundle of road rage. Actually he was cheering and taking pictures of the never ending stream of cyclists swarming around him. And why not he was getting paid, and you don't this somehting like this any old day.

3) In Moncloa, the mass encountered another mass. Apparently we had split into multiple monstrous groups, and then recollided.

4) The entirety of one direction of Gran Via, the Spanish Broadway Boulevard, full of bikes as far ahead of us as we could see.

5) The mass observing pedestrian crosswalks, but not allowing automobile cross traffic to penetrate. The pedestrians were applauded.

6) Would-be penetrators stranded in the middle of a sea of bikes with people camping out on their hoods. A few pissed off (like cabbies, the diplomats of the automobile world), but some just laughing at the futility of their attempt.


7) We took the tunnel under Plaza de Espana. Normally this would be like riding into a meat grinder, but we made it our bitch.

8) The ride ended at the plaza in front of the palace. New riders just kept rolling in. Someone with a big stereo had started playing techno and 80s dance music. A dance party was slowly beginning. We ended up going somewhere else, but I'm curious how this all went down, looked like the makings of a good party.

9) Skeletor got our backs.


The low point: There's only one. At one point the mass was split by cross traffic in the tunnel. A few riders started a surge to encroach, stop the traffic, and rejoin the mass. One guy in a car may have nearly hit someone, and was enraged. There was a cop at his wit's end, trying to calm the guy down and tell him to wait. Not helpfully, some riders were taunting the guy as the rode past. During all of this there was a little girl in the back seat, terrified by the near accident, her dads anger, the presence of a cop, and the crazy cyclists hurling insults at her dad.

All told, a great day with one shitty moment and about 3 hours of good moments. The regular ride is at 8:00pm, last thursday of every month, Plaza Cibeles.
http://bicicritica.ourproject.org/web/node/265
I'm not sure what city has next year's criticona. First in Rome 2008 (5000 riders), then Madrid 2009 (2500 riders), 2010????? Here's the link
http://lacriticona.ourproject.org/index.en.php

pass the pork

I'm not afraid of swine flu or terrorists or socialism, I'm afraid of cars. Chances are pretty solid that mostly everyone reading this will succumb to a death linked either to cars or cheeseburgers, not pig diseases. Why are we freaking out that a couple hundred people died of the flu? Get a grip. With socialized medicine you could just go to the doctor for treatment. The people that died waited to long, or more likely couldn't afford it. It's wierd what people do and don't fear. Social medicine is not Stalin, and swine flu is not the chevy bearing down on your ass right now (don't look!). If people start turning into zombies, go ahead and be afraid. i've seen enough movies to know that shit goes downhill from there.

I haven't felt like writing at all recently as you may have noticed. I bought becky a bike so we've been taking a few modest adventures, nothing outlandish. We're talking about a possible august bike tour in scotland. I'm feeling a need to do some longer rides soon. I've recently learned about randonneuring, and although I'd heard of it I just thought it was some kind of bike race so dismissed it. I don't care about racing, i'm not fast and I'm old. But randonneuring is different...theres no winners just finishers. The goal is to ride, self supported (carrying tools, food, clothes, water, etc.), a certain distance in a limited time, depending on the event. If you complete an entry level one, you can enter the next highest level. the entry level is 200 km in 13 hours, and they range, i think, up to 1400 km in I don't know how many hours. So it's touring, but balls-out, no time to sleep or stop riding touring. So anyways, I'm inspired, And I want to try somehting like this but I'm in fairly poor shape right now heading into the summer when all riding must cease.

We've also gone over a couple times to escorial, just an hour west of Madrid to check out the town and/or hike. It's a cool small town with a palace/monastery, but most importnantly it's in the mountains in one of the few human-managed landscapes where the management actually increases biodiversity.

We almost went to Galicia for the upcoming holiday, but got smacked by the high last minute cost and the heinous 8-hour train trip. So we're hanging around Madrid while a friend visits from granada. Galicia will have to wait until june as I've got two work trips in May to the south (read: hot as balls), conveniently scheduled over weekends. So to make up for my lack of posts heres some random pics that becky took with her sexy camera.

attack of the 50 foot virgin

We just returned from Valencia and Las Fallas. Las Fallas is a festival in honor of St. Joseph in which sculptures, some enormous, are constructed, paraded and then burned on the final hellish day. The statues are satirical, depicting fuckery in all of its major forms.

As i have before in other parts of spain, I walked away with a Disney sort of taste in my mouth after my first visit to Valencia. First the Fallas (the sculptures) themselves can best be described as "pinnochiod", and are like little pieces of Fantasyland spontaneously scattered in plazas all over the city except that some of them have their balls or breasts hanging out. Aside from the Fallas, there is also a 'Tommorrowland'. The city of arts and sciences (tommorrowland) is a bizarre collection of museums and concert halls, and best of all an example of 1960's futurism (except that its only a decade old). Why is it that whenever someone wants something to look futuristic it is either white or polished naked metal? I've always liked this kind of imagery, partly because it has such a short shelf life....if you wait a few decades you quickly find out how dumb your vision of the future was. This is why I've always liked airports (I think I'm the only one). Did you ever notice that the only place you ever saw a monorail outside of disneyland was in some airport? futurism. Aside from the Fantasyland cells, and Tommorrow land, there is a giant statue of the virgin made of flowers brought by hand by parading women. We can call her Snow White. The parades literally last days, all to bring flowers for this thing. We thought they might burn it too, but then figured that these catholic idolators might not be into burning a giant idol of the mother of Jesus in front of the cathedral which houses the holy grail (more on this later). Finally, there is no Adventureland or Frontierland, but during las Fallas Valencia has something else that is a little of both and then some. At least every 30 seconds you are scared shitless by some form of explosion. Every kid in the city is lighting off firecrackers that are REALLY LOUD, every day at 2:00 there is a 45 minute long firing of cannons in the city accompanied by fireworks, every night at 1:00 there is a fireworks show. You never experience any smell other than gun powder and you wonder why you keep blowing black snot out of your nose. If you ever wondered what living in a warzone was like, here you go...... Beirutland! I liked the pinnochiod sculptures, the 30-years-too-late 60's futurism (in spite of the lack of a monorail), the attack of the 50 foot virgin, but i really, really, really hated the stupid firecrackers. hated them. really.

a pinnochiod fantasyland cell hiding among us and waiting to be activated.

the towering virgen, right before she came to life and destroyed a city block in rage.

in the world of the future buildings will serve no practical function.

The burning was pretty awesome. Predicitably my photo card was full the second they lit off the falla we had chosen to watch burn. we picked one in the plaza next to one of the gates still standing form the city wall which is no longer standing. but becky got some awesome shots. really, this is catholocism?? it's really different than all those heinously boring sundays when i was a kid. i could have gotten into this.

these people are patiently waiting for an inferno in front og them as one erupts behind them.



beirutland- this was one of the smaller childrens fallas which they shot with a rocket launcher.

after the burning, valencia actually got a bit boring. we ran out of things to do. we were just too jaded after beirutland. FYI the aquarium and science museum at tommorrowland are overrated and overpriced. aparrently the vatican reconginizes that the cup used by jesus at the last supper, aka the holy grail, is located at the cathedral in valencia. huh???!!!! isn't this the famous lost relic that the arthurian legend and an indiana jones movie were about? they should have just gone to valencia. isn't it also a figure of speech, refering to a thing that despite infinite searcing cannot be found-with the implication that quite possibly it doesn't exist. do you believe its just sitting in a church in valencia? i don't. sounds like another shroud of turin to me. but anyways, we never quite made it over there when it was actually open, so we are also still searching for the holy grail.

valencia food review: There a few things you are just supposed to eat when you go to this city.
Paella: ????, I went to Valencia and didn't have any paella. to be fair to myself, i have had paella on numerous occassions cooked by a guy who learned it from his mom, who is in turn from valencia. also i like the theatre of making paella in a big pan especially over a fire. but, alas, most paella is lost on me, even if i did eat meat i would not want to eat a plate of rice befouled with a stinky sealife diarama on top. i cannot stress enough that seafood makes me gag, sorry its the way i am and i can't change it. i don't want sea bugs cooked in their own gut contents just dropped whole onto my food. the few vegetarian ones taste exactly like what they are, a big plate of salty ho-hum rice with way overcooked veggies. big deal. so totall unfairly, my grade for paella is C+. But maybe you would like this stuff...

Bunuelos- These sounded really exciting and unique. They are basically donuts with pumpkin in the dough, served straight out of the frier, and dusted with sugar. They definitely were good, but after all the talk I was expecting something incredible. Also I had hoped they would actually taste a bit of pumpkin, they don't. they are decent but I'll take an elephant ear any day, B+.

Horchata, Orxata- I have written before about how much I love Spanish horchata. Mexican horchata is good but his stuff is 1000 times more complex, and is made of a sedge tuber. To me its like a lowfat milkshake with a touch a cinnamon and a dash of sprite at the end. and i'm just tallking about the cheap shit you can get in the grocery store, and no they don't add cinnamon and sprite the tuber just has those flavor elements. In valencia, there are horchaterias everywhere and the stuff is great. You can get it in liquid form, or slushy, and best of all with coffee. A+ (paella is an overrated fad, just go straight for the horchateria).

punk rock week

oh did you want to hear about cuenca? i thought i might just post a bunch of cryptic pictures for a change. old cuenca is built on a narrow ridgetop above the confluence of a river and a smaller stream. its famous for its "hanging houses" which are on one side of the ridge. the most famous one is in several of my pictures and is an abstract art museum now. it has a cool all white room, which is itself a piece of art. Actually it is far cooler than the art it houses. the landscape around cuenca is really beautiful and mountainous, and semi-wild. much more so than madrid anyway, we would have done some hiking if it hadn't been unrelentingly wet. every new city we go to i tend to like more than the last. valencia is next on the agenda for las fallas, one of the wierdest festivals in this nation of wierd festivals (more at 11:00).

in the time since, we have jumped through all the beaurocratic flaming hoops and becky has a signed contract. i have refrained from posting about this process because i already lived it and all i can say is it sucks and theres nothing i can do about it. but its mostly over, at least the hardest parts.

this week my friend from work, alberto, played a gig with his punk band. two days later, stiff little fingers played. the last time i saw stiff little fingers was in portland a few years ago. everybody i went with was extremely excited because noone had any idea they still existed and they were a favorite of pretty much everybody. i told lucy, an irish friend in portland, about the show and she said "really! theyre old belfast rockers!". i said "duh!!!!"(it's hard to imagine more punk credentials than growing up in late 70's belfast. maybe if they were from somalia or something it would be more impressive). she rounded up a friend from alaska and her old boyfriend, both huge fans. i rounded up some old vegas friends who lived in portland. my friend mark elected not to go becasue he thought it would be a bloodbath of skinhead violence. for some reason the irish punk bands, e.g slf and the pogues, have a fan base in the US that includes these guys (not the racist kind, but rather the ones who will kick your white ass to prove they are not nazis. which is worse, i wonder? at least the nazis just come out and say "we are fascists"). he was right about the rivers of blood, but it was worth it, and my friends and i did not personally recieve face smashings. at that time the guitarist from the jam played with them and chad made off wth his pick after a show of hoarse sing alongs, fists punching the air, etc. we were totally prepared to be dissapointed, like going to see david lee roth on life support at a casino on an indian reservation, but the band was incredible and we left unable to speak and drenched in sweat.

this time, i went alone. becky was not interested, and niether was alberto. the scene couldn't have been more different. the place was full of grayhairs who looked like average 30 and 40 somethings off the street, and it was astonishing to think that all of these people in there had once been punks. not a single skinhead face stomping, or even a punch occurred the whole night. the band was just as tight as ever, though they must be really bored. people only want to hear their songs from 30 years ago, including me to be honest. jake burns looked like a middle aged suburban dad or possibly grandpa. there's no pretention as he doesn't try to look cool or younger than he is, he just literally limps out behind his big belly. he would look at home in a golf cart. but he can still totally sear your face off when they lay into "suspect device". i like that element of surpise. i accidentally punched the ceiling for that one. then i lost what was left of my voice on "alternative ulster". made it home at a respectable gray-haired 12:30.

Cuenca