The important issues of work, where I go out at night, and other mundane trivialities

Two Fridays ago I dined with my ex-family,

And despite the fact that I’m now standing free,

Our natural, liquid chemistry

Came back even pre-wine, quite immediately.

Next night, bar-hopped at the Plaza de Santa Ana

With Austrians, the Venezuelan brothers, and a South Africana.

Chugging calimochos (a mix of red wine, coke, and a

Swab of the sweat of Erica Bana).

Sunday I saw “There will be blood”

With a student who’s become an out-of-class bud.

The following week I worked like a stud.

I’m collecting money like earthworm researchers collect mud.

See, I’m saving for a sensual saunter to Santiago,

A one-month pilgrimage through Northern Spain’s montaña, campo, and lago

An experience on the spiritual level of eating Ikura and Tamago,

Or, hell, just finding a nice table at Spago.

Anyway, I work hard, I play hard, and the weekends are good,

Especially Thursday night in Chueca, the gay neighborhood!

Although even that night we started at a Basque bar in La Latina, where wine tastes like wine should.

And ended in Tribunal, at La Via Lactea, my best discovery since earthworm cages of wood.

On Friday, Santa Ana, in a discoteca playing oldies songs,

With my Austrian and Venezuelan friends, dancing the whole night long.

Next night some Spanish buds and I watched Real Madrid whack around its opponent like ping-pong

Then, out from the sports bar, we hit “Moby Dick,” a club near the soccer stadium.*

Sunday night I returned to my old host family’s house,

To watch the second Spanish Presidential debate, a true verbal boxing bout.

Today, ETA killed a Socialist ex-councilman: Spain mourns…and wonders which side the attack will help out.

Two days from now, after Sunday’s elections, we’ll have an account.

*Just work with me on this one. Pronounce “stadium” like “stadi-ong.”

A run-down to make up for my copious amounts of not updating

A lot has gone on
since I last posted, weeks back.
Chronologic'ly:

Cold, crisp enero
saw visits from Alex, and,
later on, Adam.

Alex took quite well
to the Madrid nightlife, and
to Toledo, too.

Adam and I hit
beautiful Salamanca.
Both left way too soon.


Febrero started
with an Independence Day,
a move to a flat

right in the center,
shared with two Madrileños,
close to the nightlife.

Skateboarding 'round town --
dodging old ladies, cars, kids;
wind blowing through me --

completes the image
of my newfound liberty.
Ellis Island rocks.

Leaving my family
made victory bittersweet,
but we'll still meet up.


By day, I tutor,
giving English lessons to
the upper classes:

teens with rich parents,
execs, lawyers, researchers.
Often, they teach me

of law, linguistics,
culture, and clean energy.
(They also pay well.)

By night, I explore
a town with a severe case
of insomnia.


Two weekends ago,
I visited London for
Naomi's birthday.

Last weekend, I met
my uncle Ken in Paris
for sights, food, and wine.

This particular
fin de semana I'm back
in Madrid, chilling,

teaching and billing,
and writing haikus in the
subway to fill time...

I be time-filling!
...Like, um, petals of a leaf.
On calm, still waters.

Hilary and McCain win New Hampshire

I would have liked to see the Democrats wrap the contest up quickly. I would have liked to see the Republicans spend the next month or two bloodying each other while whichever Democrat had won Iowa, NH, and Nevada sat pretty. And most of all, I would have liked Obama, who has the best chance of winning the general election, to have been that Democrat. (No, it´s not knee-jerk partisanship. The Democrats take global warming more seriously across-the-board than the Republicans. Of the Republican candidates, only John McCain, and, to a lesser extent, Mike Huckabee, speak about climate change with the urgency that it deserves. The Democrats are also the party in which every major candidate has put forward a universal healthcare plan to fulfill the government´s basic duty to help the helpless.)
Despite Obama´s loss, seeing Iowa´s choice rejected by New Hampshire was nice. Iowa´s caucuses are a joke, if what you´re looking for is democracy. And Iowa´s outsize influence in choosing winners and losers perverts policy in Iowa´s favor - "If they held the first caucuses in Idaho," someone once said, "we'd be subsidizing gasoline made out of potatoes." NH sends a valuable message that Iowa isn´t the decider.
And Hillary is not bad at all. Obama talks about change, but many of the most important changes from the George W Bush years would be returns to the Bill Clinton mode of operation: international cooperation in fighting wars, fewer unnecessary hot-button choices that hurt America´s image in other countries (I speak of keeping Guantanamo open), and spending that doesn´t sprint past the government´s ability to pay for it. Those changes, plus moving full-speed-ahead to limit CO2 emissions and working towards healthcare reform, will leave America much better off. And we could reasonably expect all of the above from Hillary. But only if she won the general election, a big enough "if" for me to throw my support behind Obama (on policy, very similar) instead.

McCain´s win in New Hampshire gives me mixed feelings. He used to be a force for campaign finance reform, although who knows whether that´s still true. Quite recently, he tried to pass immigration reform legislation, but failing might have left him once burned, twice shy, and unwilling to try again. He has been a vehement supporter of the Iraq war from the beginning; the initial support is worrying, but the continued support is obvious, as Iraq is not ready for us to leave. And then, of all the Republicans, he seems most serious about fighting climate change. I´m hesistantly hopeful he´ll be the Republican candidate; I´ll root against him but the prospect of him winning won´t be so bad.

Obama wins Iowa!

Walking along the Paseo de Prado, I thought of the nuances of Spanish culture, and how the discovery of America sparked a golden age but later hobbled Spain with crippling inflation. Christopher Col --
Just kidding. I´m way too obsessed with what´s going on back home to be thinking about anything else.
Obama won Iowa! This is huge!
Okay, it´s a win in a tiny state. With a victory based on a voting system in which two pillars of democracy, the secret ballot and one person one vote, are missing.
But even non-Obama supporters have to get excited about a half-black candidate´s ability to win a state that is 90% white. And for Obama supporters, winning the first contest takes some of the bite out of Hillary´s asburd claim that she´s more electable. And then there´s the strange but reliable tendency for voters in other states to imitate Iowa (Obama is suddenly up in NH by 12 points).
I´ve been a hesitant Obama supporter ever since I faced the music and admitted Bill Richardson wasn´t going anywhere.
For me, this election comes down to climate change. It is the single biggest threat to our national welfare, with the single greatest ability to lower the living standard of every American (and human being).
Across the board, the Democrats take climate change more seriously than the Republicans (for a good comparison of the candidates, click here). Combined with the Democrats´ big advantage on proposals for universal health care, I´m pretty partisan this election cycle: I want a Democrat in the White House in 2008.
And Barrack Obama, with his ability to cross party lines to pick up votes, with his ability to attract independents, with his impressive oratory skills, and with his early opposition to the Iraq war, is the most electable Democrat. (Early opposition to the war doesn´t help solve the mess, but this war is hugely unpopular, and I´m looking for a winning Democrat, and those against the war from the start have the best chance at winning.)
New Hampshire should be interesting. I predict and hope Obama keeps rolling.

Happy New Years!

My German friend Steffen and I decided to go to Lisbon the Wednesday before last weekend, Two days later, we were on a nightbus heading east.

We slept on the bus, came into the Portugese capital at 7am, and headed to the hostel to drop off our stuff. A young lady greeted us and sent us to the kitchen where we got a free breakfast of crepes.
From there, we took a trolly tour around Lisbon and saw what I think was the Lisbon Cathedral:

We visited the Muslim (and later Chriatian) castle:

Then, we went to Lisbon´s ancient district, Belém, and visited the Tower of Belém (the name could have used a little more originality). Of all the castles and palaces I´ve been to in Europe (and at this point I´m starting to take them for granted), this little fortress on the sea was the best thing I´ve seen. From the outside, it was intimidating, but on the inside it was breathtakingly beautiful.

In this picture, the tower in the front is the bronze model of the tower, and the real tower is in the background:

It had a dungeon downstairs. I´m crying because I´m a prsioner who got stuck trying to escape:

Lord of the Rings inspired interior decoration: A view from (near) the top of the ocean:

And looking in the other direction, the city of Lisbon:

I found zen in the meditation turret:

Tired from walking up all those steps, we took a short swimming break:

From the tower, we went to the largest stone statue of a ship I have ever seen and predict I will ever see again. Steffen, the red dot just a bit to the right of the white car, gives some perspective.

We took a trolly back to the hostel to shower and unwind before dinner. There, we met a Portugese guy named Marco who invited us to his birthday party, which he happened to be holding that night at a Fado club. Fado is Portugese folk music, invented, I was told, by melancholy Portugese sailors at sea. Here´s a sample.

We went with Marco and some Chinese and Brazilian people from the hostel. I had "bacalhau" -- salted cod, a Portugese speciality -- and Steffen had octopus, the other dish that you´re supposed to get when you go to Portugal. Both were ridiculously good.

As we ate, two guitarists tuned. Then, the lights dimmed, and the waitress herself sang, backed up by the guitarist. We literally had a private show; for reasons totally unknown, perhaps because of Marco´s birthday, we were the only group let into the restaurant. Soon, the waitress took a break, and the owner sang, and the owner´s wife sang, and the guitarist sang. Everyone pitched in to give us a shot of spectacle.

Here´s a picture of the guitarists. It´s bad quaility, but it gives a feel for how up-close we were. If the guitarist had scratched his neck, he would have knocked over the wine:

We finished dinner around 12:30 and had a drink in Lisbon´s nightlife area, el Barrio Alto. We headed back to the hostel, climbed into our beds, and were asleep in minutes.

The next day, we breakfasted on homemade eggs (this hostel was incredible). We rode the gondola near the Vasco de Gama tower:

After the expo, we saw the naval museum, which might have been more rewarding had I known anything about boats. We also stumbled upon a celebration of the newly signed Treaty of Lisbon:




Near dinnertime, we took a ferry to the other side of Lisbon, and saw the city at sunset. "If you were a girl," I told Steffen, "this ferry would be our first kiss."


Nicely sums up the trip:

We took a night bus back to Madrid on Sunday night, and I had my first Christmas. Two huge meals, one a dinner that lasted until 2am and another a lunch that started at five in the afternoon. (Quite Spanish.) I gave Hector and Dario a stegasauras and a something-else-sauras, respectively, my host parents Ozomatli and Yes CDs, and Margie (the babysitter and housekeeper) a stuffed animal dog for her daughter. My host parents gave me an awesome shirt and a striped sweater (which I´ve needed for teaching at risk of showing my students that I only have one nice outfit in my whole wardrobe).

Last night, I ticked down 2007 at Sol, Madrid´s version of Times Square, with Steffen, the friend with whom I´d gone to Lisbon. There had to tens of thousands of people. We met up with my friend Sophie, also from Germany (but whereas Steffen´s from the part near Austria, she´s from the part near France), and met two British girls who had come to Madrid for just one night (weirdos!). We went bar-hopping, then went back to Steffen´s apartment to unwind watching Scrubs. I left at 6am, and due to major horrible disasterous outrageous ridiculous public transportation woes, I got home a few minutes before 9am. I suddenly realized that everyone on the west coast was celebrating midnight, and I felt nostalgic for LA -- Happy New Years!. Seconds later, my head was on the pillow and I was asleep, a wonderful Christmas break behind me and thoughts of going to Sevilla soon swirling in my head.

Hitchhiking

This past week and a half started off with good luck and continued rolling. Late for my first day of classes in my new (and way improved) Spanish school, I fidgeted with my pen at the bus stop. A lady pulled up.
"¿Anyone going to Moncloa?" she asked in Spanish. I was. So was another guy. She needed to pick up at least one person to be able to use the carpool lane. I got a free quick ride, arrived early to Sol (where my school is), ate a nice second breakfast, came to class a few minutes early, and got the best seat in the class (second row, far left).
Later on that week, I went to Alberto´s mom Eloisa´s house. For the first time, I really followed the conversation through and through. Before, I had made sure to have a prominent role in any conversation so that, if I needed someone to define or repeat words, I wouldn´t be interrupting. This time, I sat back and listened, to see if I could. The conversation centered around the question of whether women´s equality, while just, had made family interactions more complicated. I caught the drift, I caught the nuances, and I caught the details, almost as if I were listening to a dinner conversation back in Santa Monica.

Lately, I´ve been going out a lot more frequently to the Madrid bars during weekdays, but last weekend, after months of clubbing and bar-hopping, I had my first stay-at-home movie night. My Venezuelan friends live in Spain, and I came over to their house with a few others to play basketball and watch Jarhead. (Speaking of which...kind of a mediocre movie.)
It was a journey to get there, though. Their house is even more in the suburbs than my host family´s. I overshot, and ended up hitchhiking a ride with José, a shy Spanish guy who wore braces and, as if inspired by the improvements made to his own mouth by the orthodontic correction, was studying to be an orthodontist!
The Monday after the weekend, I had an interview for a teaching job at an English school called Tutordidact. Victoria, the friend who had recommended I apply for a job at Tutordidact, was coincidentally at the school before my interview.
"Nervous?" she asked.
"Cold as ice," I said.
Yeah right. But I got the job! The school provides the clients and the resources -- the books, photo-copiers, and folders -- but from there basically gives teachers full independence. It´s what I need right now: the full reign and responsibility that will make me get good at teaching quickly backed up by resources and experienced teachers with good advice. My first permanent client is the director of a company that owns multiple golf courses. (And if that weren´t intimidating enough...he´s a beginner, in my opinion the hardest type of student to teach.) And I´m substitute teaching Victoria´s classes (she´s in Canada for Christmas) -- two groups at a renewable energy company.

This weekend, Victoria, Steffen, Erika, Victor, Cesar, and I went to Ávila. We had been to Segovia about a month before, and Segovia had been beautiful and incredible, with an intact Roman aqueduct, a castle that looked straight out of Disneyland, and a gorgeous Cathedral. We expected Ávila to be similar, and it was nice, but basically all it has is a very old city wall.

Through all this, I´m still giving lessons to Oscar, the coolest Madrileño I´ve ever met. At this point, we split our time between paid classes, conducted mostly in English, and chilling, conducted mostly in Spanish. At first, this arrangement was a little awkward. Friendship and business don´t naturally mix. But I now just stop counting hours when the lessons seem to have ended and the chilling sessions seem to have begun. And the truth is, I´ve probably learned as much Spanish culture and slang from him as he´s learned English from me.

Borders

This post would not be complete if I didn´t say something about my new life long love, so I´ll start with her. She´s got curves, and she´s beautiful. I ride her nearly daily, sometimes nightly, and always ever so rightly. (She´s usually on bottom). She likes to go fast, which is good, because I do too.
I bought her second-hand at Dak-Tak, perhaps the only skateboard shop in Madrid. The best €70 I ever spent - riding that board through the streets of Madrid fulfills fantasies.

Britney, a good friend here, left for Canada. It was a sad night, though we made it a good one (we being Britney, her Swedish friend named Daniel, and me). We went to my favorite bar, a cidrería called "El Tigre" in Chueca, the gay neighborhood, where giant tapas (free food that comes when you buy drinks) nicely set off good cider and dead moose on the walls. From there, we went to another gay bar, and after that a jamming jazz club.

The fun night was interrupted by a reality check. While in the second bar of the night, I decided to get a breath of fresh air outside. On the plaza, shady-looking group asked me if I had a light. I didn´t, but they started chatting with me. I take any chance I can to talk in Spanish, so I chatted back. One guy asked me where I was from.
"California," I said.
"¡California!" he said. "¡Fútbol, sí!"
"That doesn´t really make sense," I remember thinking. "Sí," I said, non-commital.
He started demonstrating a football tackle on me. "I guess he meant American football," I thought, but still, I was a little weirded out. Plus, his friends were muttering, "No, Pedro, no hagas..."
Then he reached into my back pocket. Thankfully, my valuables were in my front pockets, and all I had in my back pocket was a "Calvin and Hobbes" cutout from a newspaper I´d been reading (actually, pretty valuable).
"¿Que haces, cabrón?" I yelled. (What are you doing, motherfucker?). I tore the newspaper from his hands.
"Broma, broma, broma," they said. (Jokes.)
I looked at them. Bewilderment mixed with growing anger as I realized what had happened. I went back into the bar, and we split. I was still fuming until we got to the jazz club.
At the metro, Britney and I parted ways. It was really a sad moment. She was the first good friend in Spain to leave.

Members of the Basque separatist terrorist group ETA shot down two Civil Guards members. One died immediately, and the severely wounded one died days later never having left his coma.
The two major parties united to demonstrate against terrorism, although the public split into pro-Zapatero and anti-Zapatero divisiveness (Zapatero is Spain´s President). There were smaller daily reminders, too; I was on the subway when it stopped for five minutes to honor the men killed.
Watching the TV reports the next day, my host dad Alberto saw Ibarretxe, the President of el País Vasco (the Basque Country), at the demonstration honoring the policeman who died.
"That´s good of him," he said in Spanish.
"Because even if he is a Basque nationalist, he still is against terrorism?" I asked.
"Yes," Alberto said.
Ibarretxe is trying to hold an independence referendum in 2008. Alberto and I began talking about the referendum.
"It would be unfair to have an election now, when ETA makes it dangerous to campaign against independence, but if there were no violence, wouldn´t it be better to hold the referendum?" I asked. "In Canada, Quebec holds referendums on independence, and I think there´s a lot less strife partly because Quebec´s citizens have the power to choose their autonomy."
Firstly, he answered, the referendum would probably fail right now, but Basque students read history books with blatant separatist bias, so sooner or later a majority in the Basque country will want to separate. The area has been part of Spain for centuries, and before Ferdinand the Catholic married Isabella of Castile, it was part of Aragon, but the textbooks stress the separate race and language. So eventually, a referendum would be more than an exercise of the power to choose -- it would make separation a reality.
"Okay," he continued in Spanish. "Besides the fact that it´s unconstitutional, that it´s illegal -- so, above the law, in high moral thinking -- is the referendum a good idea? Well, where does the Basque Country start and end? There are three parts -- Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia and Araba. And one is more Basque than others. And who should vote? How about the people who have fled because of ETA? Should they be left out?"
In talking about nationalism, I hadn´t really considered how important that point was. Borders are arbitrary, and that means self-determination is messy. Borders rarely capture the whole situation.

I wrote about my pride for the US in the last blog post, but there´s some contradiction feeling pride for a country that only has to do with me by chance -- born by chance within arbitrary borders.
Really, my pride for America is irrational, an emotional pull from wherever I come from. It´s similar to my love for California, for Los Angeles, for Santa Monica, even for Harvard-Westlake, recognizing its many flaws. And I think that irrational love is good, a force that gives cultures power to stick around, stay signifcant, and keep their variety.
It´s good only to a point, though. Eventually, love for the place you come from can separate you from where you didn´t, and at that point it´s good to remember that where you come from is a made up name with made up borders. Until then, it´s good to celebrate.