Why Jogging is Stupid (Part 2: Organized Sports)

I am not a team player. I’m not a team player necessarily because I’m a glory hound. I’m not a team player because more often than not, the team would rather not have me as a player. I don’t think it was part of the natural order of things for someone to be as athletically uncoordinated as I am. I can shoot a basketball with the best of them, I just can’t actually get it to go through the hoop. I’m a champion bat swinger, unless I’ve actually got to hit something and as far as catching a pop fly, I will root myself down underneath the shadow of that son of a bitch and it will bounce off my glove. The ball can be falling down on me in slow motion and I will still manage to close my glove moments before it lands. I wasn’t bad at playing football if you discount my magical fumbling techniques. Croquet pisses me off, ping pong wouldn’t be so bad if the damn ball would just stay on the table, golf is dumb regardless of how many watermills and clown heads you give me to hit through.
I was pretty good at volleyball, I had a wicked serve, but boys aren’t supposed to be good at volleyball so I had gender issues about that one. Not to mention here in Spain it is legal to volley with your feet. What in the hell is it with this country and kicking shit? The other day I was standing on the street corner reading while waiting for my bus and a group of 15 year olds came and started kicking me around back and forth between themselves. It wasn’t until I spoke up that the part of the brain that involuntary makes their legs swat anything not bolted down relaxed and they set me up right again putting me back where they had found me.
I don’t enjoy soccer. I have tried and I will continue to try for the time that I am living here. I don’t like the fact that I can turn around to ask the bartender for another beer and have missed the only interesting thing that will happen in the whole 90 minutes. Soccer is huge amongst Spaniards and I think it is even bigger in the British expat scene.

Here’s a riddle for you:
Q = What did the American say to the group of British guys at the pub?
A = He didn’t say shit because he knows fuck-all about soccer.

It’s not a very good riddle, it’s sort of a work in progress.

I do know an American who can bullshit about soccer. I’ve heard him, he can go on for a while before they find him out and beat on him for being a “wanker”. The Canadian expat scene seems to be open-minded towards soccer, but in the end it’s all about hockey. I’m okay with hockey for the reason that those bastards can take a punch. For as masculine a sport that soccer pretends they spend an awful lot of time rolling around on the field holding onto various parts of themselves. I think I’ve even see some of them cry. They then usually run to a referee who immediately reprimands the “bad player” by showing him some red and yellow construction paper. This is apparently to remind the player not only will he have to sit down from the game, but he won’t be allowed to partake in arts and crafts after the match. In hockey when someone wrongs another player, it’s going to result in an ass-whoopin. Nobody runs to the referee, he just shows up because everyone knows it’s not easy to scrub blood out of ice. The offending hockey player is then thrown in a glass encircled cage until his lust for blood has calmed and he is deemed worthy of re-entering society, but nobody cries.
The one European sport I enjoy is rugby. There’s no rolling around here. If a rugby player were to start pulling that melodramatic nonsense, the referee would run over and start kicking him too. These guys can take a hit, they’ll walk off the field with someone else’s teeth in their mouth.
Valencia has a sport that is specific to the region. It’s called pilota valenciana. This sport involves two teams of two hitting a ball against a wall. It functions similar to handball in that sense. I don’t know what the ball is made of, but it is smaller and harder. The players have to wear special gloves so as not to mangle their “thwacking hands”. The interesting thing about this sport though, is that the players appear to be safer than the audience. The players are at least armed with some sort of protective device, the spectators however, not so much. The audience is seated all along three sides of the court. They are seated along the left hand side, which is probably fairly safe, except for a few stray shots that wander off into their direction. They are also seated behind the players, this can get hairy because the ricochet or a missed ball goes firing into their lot. It’s the unmentioned third group that has me concerned. This group is sitting above the wall that the players are smacking the ball at. The two other groups of spectators are at risk of a sound thumping, but from a ball traveling at a diminished momentum (albeit still pretty damn fast). This group above the wall however, they’re looking at a direct shot from the ball at its maximum velocity. I have not attended one of these in person, so I can’t say for sure, but I’m curious to know how one ends up in these seats. Are the “flincher” seats the same price as the others? Do they have their own versions of the gloves that they bring with them to the matches like fans at a baseball game?
I believe that the root of my cynicism towards organized sports comes from the clichéd excuse of always being picked last in gym class. The teams would generally flip a coin between me and the girl that had to wear the corrective back brace. In an attempt to retain my dignity I would often try to cheer up my reluctant team members by reminding them that when I fell down I didn’t need someone else to roll me over off my back. This last attempt at dignity was generally shredded as she was coming down from her 10th rebound and I was still trying to figure out which hoop I was supposed to be running towards.

Why Jogging is Stupid (Part 1: The Gym)

I’ve started jogging again; we’ll see how long it lasts. I do this every now and then, I get on a fitness kick and pay attention to the calories I’m eating and go to bed with visions of my dancing biceps and monster abs. In reality I don’t have the patience for dancing biceps, monster abs, rock hard gluts or any of that extreme anatomy nonsense. Essentially I just want to continue my beer drinking, ice cream and pizza eating lifestyle and not have it reflect physically. In order for me to do that I have to either: join a gym, play some sort of organized sport or jog.
I joined a gym last year. This gym had a special fitness instructor that would personally design the workout plan best suited to your body type and your desired end results. The gym was air-conditioned (always a plus when exerting yourself during the Spanish summer), they had a free juice machine, free video rental, and foxy Spanish ladies working at the front desk. I was sold. I signed the dotted lines and tried to understand Miguel Angel, my personal trainer, who knowledgeable of my foreign lifestyle tried to explain things to me through a series of grunts and gestures and didn’t understand that I came from across the Atlantic and not the Middle Paleolithic. It didn’t matter, after a few demonstrations of how to plant corn, start a fire and the brief introduction to the wheel I was off and going. My workout started with a run on the treadmill. I enjoyed the treadmill, I enjoyed the fact that I could watch television and it was still considered working out. I enjoyed stepping off the treadmill and onto the sides and making it go really fast while I looked on wondering what would happen if I stepped back on it at that moment. I never did. But I did do several faceplants as my flailing arms would occasionally catch the emergency kill cord bringing everything to a confusing and starling halt. From the treadmill I would move on to my assigned workouts at each assigned machine.
Regardless of the explanation given me by my silverback instructor, he was of no use to me anymore. He had pretty Spanish receptionists to be flirting with. His job description was to give me a quick once over and apparently we were done. I can’t help but imagine that he had to have seen me over there, if not only out of the corner of his eye, snapping my tibia from my femur while trying to wrap it around the big padded dealie. I know he saw me sprawled upside down while attempting to achieve my pull up on the machine with all of the chains and ropes (whatever happened to the bar bolted to the wall, I could figure that out). At no point did he even express interest in helping. It finally took a 78 year old lady in her track suit to explain to me that I was supposed to be sitting down and facing the machine as opposed to my impressive feat of having thrown one leg over the top of the machine while having wrapped my other leg around the column of weight plates.
After a while I noticed that everyone had been given the same weight plan. I noticed this as 8 of us stood in line to use one machine while the others remained untouched. I had time to look at their training plan cards. None of these people looked anything like me, one was fat, one was old, one was already in good shape and it had dawned on me that that 78 year lady had been trailing me pretty closely as well. I was beginning to think that our trainer Miguel Angel wasn’t really giving his all to his chosen profession, especially considering that by this point he had stepped outside for a smoke with the foxy receptionist.
It didn’t take me long to remember that I don’t like gyms. This was the fourth gym that I had graced with my presence and it had all immediately come back to me as to why I had left the others. I don’t have the patience and I don’t really like gym people. By gym people I mean people who go to gyms, people who work in them and even people that walk by gyms on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. It seems harsh, but by proximity they’re gym people too. They have a discipline that I will never have and in all fairness that is reason enough for me to not like them.

May 2007 - Book Read

Books Read
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
The Chocolate War – Robert Cormier
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
City of Glass (part 1 of New York Trilogy) – Paul Auster
Ghosts (Part 2 of New York Trilogy) – Paul Auster
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil – George Saunders


I went through literary burnout at the beginning of the month. I read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which I had never read before. In all honesty I hadn’t enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. The book that I was reading also had Through the Looking Glass within the same binding. My intentions were to read both, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had started reading Looking Glass and found that I was coming up with other things to do to get away from reading it. Considering that most of my reading time is in the mornings while waiting for and riding the bus, as well as riding the buses and metro in the afternoons, my other option was to play solitaire on my cell phone. That was a good inclination that it was time to put Lewis Carroll away.


I had tried to read The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner two summers ago. I was too easily distracted by other things that were going on, so I had to set it down. I haven’t yet picked it back up, but I will eventually. Instead I went for As I Lay Dying. I liked the idea behind the novel, it is about a woman who dies in the first few chapters. She is to be buried in family plot in a different town. The progress of the story is narrated through the perspective of different characters who are carting her over to the burial plot amidst the only bridge being washed out by a flood and the inevitable rotting of the corpse. The body herself even makes an appearance or two to let us know what is going on. I didn’t do this book the justice that it needed. From what I can figure Faulkner books need to be written in. I needed to make notes to keep characters straight as well as subtle characterization clues that were thrown in. However, being a library book and riding while reading with some 20 odd screaming teenagers and toddlers didn’t serve this book in the way that it deserved. I should probably toss this one onto the re-read pile.


I am trying to catch up on my young adolescent reading. I’ll be teaching 7th grade again next year and I’ve got plans for them to do quite a bit of reading beyond the specific assigned texts. I’ve found that the best way to battle the resistance and complaints is to have prepared a handful of books to recommend. Regardless of whether I’m in Spain or the States, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series is always a safe bet, with boys especially (Nat turned me on to the series when I was in sixth grade). This book The Chocolate War did a good job of not being predictable like most other young adolescent books are. The ending of this book might be one of the more bad-ass endings I’ve read. The main character gets his ass handed to him in a fight. He is beat senseless. Yet, there is no retribution or forgiveness, the main character doesn’t fight back or win, he essentially lays there bloody and knocked out as the book ends and that’s it. Seriously, that’s bad ass.


Their Eyes Were Watching God saved me from my burnout. This was a fantastic book that I couldn’t put down. This was one of those where I found myself turning in early so that I could read it before falling asleep. The story is told through flashback as a character is telling the story of her absence upon returning to her hometown. She tells her story in three main parts that coincides with the three men in her life.


I like Paul Auster, but I’m finding that I like his later books over his earlier works. I really like Brooklyn Follies and Oracle Night. Leviathan was alright and I had a hard time staying focused on City of Glass, Ghosts was better. City of Glass and Ghosts are parts 1 and 2 of the New York Trilogy. Eventually I’ll go back and read The Locked Room (part 3), but more out of obligation to finishing the trilogy than out of interest.


The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil was another fantastic book. It is only 130 pages and I finished it in an afternoon. The narration is satirical, innocent and almost child-like. The story focuses on a fictitious nation of robots and assorted aliens who see Phil, the local bartender’s, rapid tyrannical rise to power and genocide of a neighboring nation which eventually ends in a mass smiting. I don’t suppose the story in and of itself is innocent or child-like, but that’s where the satire comes in. If that doesn't do it for you then you should at least pick it up and look at the pictures.

Indian Thriller

C/O N. Duffy

Tarta de Palomitas Dulces

http://www.geocities.com/endymion87/33936691.JPG

Cazuela preferiblemente alta. Cuchara de Madera y un vaso. Carton redando con orificio en el centro. Un vaso lleno de palomitas, un vaso de azucar, medio vaso de aceite y ralladura de limon.
Echar todos los ingredientes en una cazuela al fuego vivo tapandola con un carton al que se le hara un orificio en el centro metiendo a traves de el una cuchara de madera ya que hay que estar moviendo continuamente las palomita. (sobretodo cuando empiezan a abrirse) teniendo cuidado de que el azucar no se queme por estar todo demasiado tiempo al fuego, ya que si no sabria amargo.
Cuando las palomitas han abierto se vuelcan sobre un recipiente redondo, y se aprietan con fuerza para darles forma, actuando el azucar quemado como pegamento entre ellas.
Una vez frias, se vuelcan sobre un plato quedandose la forma del recipiente seleccionado.

Confessions of a Reformed Serial Blogger

When I had started this blog I had nothing to say. More than anything I was curious as to what I could do with it and what I would do with it. I began by posting pictures and brief synopsis of my life in Spain. However, within a few months my life here had gone from noteworthy to normal. When I had first moved here everything was worth noting and sharing with other people, as time went on these things either stopped happening to me or have since gone unnoticed. My guess is that they have been going unnoticed. In no way am I suggesting that Spain has become boring or that I have somehow figured it all out, but with time my attention has been drawn to other things. I suppose it is all a part of the acclimation process.

As I progressed with the blog I realized that as much as I had wanted to share my experiences with people, I wanted to know what was going on stateside as well. After every posting I would constantly check back to see if there were any replies. I needed to know that someone was reading what I was posting and I wanted the communication of such. I had signed up for a counter service several months back. Every week they would send me a log of how many people were checking my blog. From November to January things were rockin’. Shortly before Christmas I had gotten 100 hits in one week. I didn’t know who was checking my blog (might have only been one or two people), but I had an audience nonetheless and it was time to let my voice be heard.

But, I still had nothing to say. So I began writing less and less. I didn’t want to bore my (two-man?) fanbase with nonsense, so I decided if I couldn’t give them quality then I wouldn’t give them anything. By February the numbers had dropped down to zero hits per week. I tried to kick start it in March with my Fallas entries and I saw a bit of a boost as a result (15 hits that week). The Fallas entries provided a bit of unfulfilled disappointment on my behalf. I had been determined to somehow summarize the experience in words and pictures. I wanted to capture the feeling, the moment and the energy, but I felt as if it all fell flat.

As it stands I still have nothing to say, but now there is less pressure because you’ve all gone. I can’t say that I blame you, considering I left as well. I couldn’t be sure if anyone really cared about what books I was reading or what music I was listening to. I’ve come to realize though, that in a way I was doing it all for me. It is an interactive opportunity for my to post my writing, which all I really wanted in the first place was somewhere to hang my words. I’m not comfortable putting my stories up here, if you’ll look to your right you will find a friend of mine who does just that and he does it well. He gets the feedback that he is looking for and he has developed an audience. Maybe someday I’ll do that as well, but for now I’ll just continue putting words together as they come to me so that I can go back through the archives later and reflect on which words came to me on which dates.

Old Greg, The Funk and Bootsy Collins

c/o Brian Finn

Vader Sessions (Best of Edit)

For the last week or so I've been bouncing back here trying to think of something to post. I still can't think of anything, so enjoy this.

Sweep the Leg Johnny

Last night I watched The Karate Kid for the first time in years. At first I was just glancing at it while grading essays. After a little bit came the moment where Mr. Miyagi saves Daniel from a skeleton style ass whipping (shown in the opening of this video). I was hooked and it didn't matter that I was watching it in Spanish.
This video was directed by William Zebka (Johnny) and he gathered the original cast to reprise their character roles some 20 years later. While Johnny is trying to gather his glory days the rest of the guys are in a trailer saying their dialogue to the move. I thought it was kind of funny and should be shared.

La Crema in Plaza de la Merced March 19, 2007

This was filmed by Enrico. It's about 10 minutes long, but he captures it all in that 10 minutes. The signal of la crema is the brief fireworks display to call everyone to the falla. After the fireworks they set off the traca (string of firecrackers)the traca (with the help of strategically placed bags of kerosene) ignites the falla.
You can see the firemen spraying down the buildings and anything else nearby that is not supposed to burn.
You'll also notice the anticipation before the big pieces fall. Plummeting balls of inferno always get a big reaction here.

Mascleta - Valencia, 2007

From March 1 to March 15 the Plaza Ayuntamiento plays host to the Mascleta.
The video camera's microphone doesn't pick up the sound or the vibrations to do it proper justice, but you get the idea.
In the end you'll notice as everyone rushes the pyrotechnician to congratulate him.

Diary of an Honorary Fallero (self proclaimed) [abridged]

Part II




Sunday March 18, 2007
The one thing that can be said about Las Fallas, is that while they appear all inclusive, they’re really not. Fallas is a celebration for and by the falleros and falleras who make up fallereiens. These are groups of falleros from the same neighborhood or street that make up a sort of fallero gang. Many of the falleros are born into fallereien, but through marriages and conflicts they can split up and join with other groups. Traditionally falleros are members of the same groups as their parents, grandparents etc. These groups work all year long to get the money to pay for the Falla sculptures which can cost from 10’s of thousands of euros to 100’s of thousands of euros depending on how much money is raised. Now keep in mind they are also paying for their clothing, which for the women can cost hundreds to thousands of euros a piece. The clothing needs to be available for at least 15 days intermittently and 5 days straight, so they are looking at about 3 outfits per fallero y fallera. One way that they have discovered to making some of this money (outside assorted fundraisers, donations and as of recently corporate sponsorship) is to host verbenas or casals. These are parties hosted by each fallereien in honor of themselves and their work over the last year. Verbenas are giant street parties held outside with either a live band or a DJ. Casals are similar functions, but held within a garage or the falla base of operations (big reception type places). They make their money from these by setting up a bar and charging for drinks. Anyone and everyone is invited to the parties, but you’ll be buying your own drinks and they’re not cheap, unless you are invited.
We were invited to two verbenas in Carcaixent, one invitation from good friends in the Canovas group and the other from the St. Jaume 1er (St. James 1st). The Canovas verbena was huge and took up an entire city block. The live band of about 9 was rocking their thing pretty fierce. They played a mix of traditional Spanish and Valencian music, classic Spanish tunes from the 50’s and 60’s as well as contemporary jams. One of the four singers spoke English, so they got in some English tunes as well. The four singers, while maybe seemed like overkill, as it turned out were necessary. When one of these groups is hired to play a verbena, they are expected to perform from midnight until 4 in the morning every night from March 15 to March 19, that’s a hell of a set list and a hell of strain on a person’s voice. I’ve also been told that these guys make good money during this time (a career move I hadn’t before considered).
The party was kicking as old and young alike were partaking. The real little ones were dancing away in the hands of their mothers and fathers. The 5-12 year olds were away from the crowd blowing shit up. The early teenage girls were sulking in gender specific circles while secretly eyeballing the early teenage boys who were laughing hysterically every time one of them threw a firecracker in the vicinity of the girls. Those in the late teens to not quite retirement age were out on the dance floor (street) with drinks in hand and tearing it up. The post-retirees were either scolding their great-grandchildren for being pansies and not holding the firecracker longer before throwing it or scolding their grandchildren for being pansies and not getting that firecracker into the circle of girls and shaking things up a bit (On several occasions I have actually seen old ladies teaching young 5-10 years olds how to light and throw firecrackers…the bit about the taunting I just made up).
After the Canovas verbena we made our way to the St. Jaume verbena. This party was slightly more subdued than the other. The Canovas group had recently been awarded 1st place for their falla in the competition and was partying off their elation. The St. Jaume group didn’t seem terribly thrilled with the outcome of their falla sculpture, but they saw fit to proceed with the celebration. Where the Canovas crowd’s party was situated just off the main street, the St. Jaume verbena was tucked back a few blocks from the main plaza. Where the Canovas verbena had all ages involved, St. Jaume’s verbena was split by a Joven Casal nearby (young people’s casal…essentially an abandoned auto garage that was hosting a rave…well a Carcaixent rave anyway). The Canovas verbena had a tight live band that was giving everything they had to offer and the St. Jaume verbena had an early 30 something duo rocking out tunes on electronic drums and synthesizers (this isn’t to say that the St. Jaume wasn’t making the most of what they had available with their insistence that the well-endowed young blonde female portion of the duo, “unleash the beasts”. She never obliged, but seemed genuinely flattered by the persistent requests and did slip off her coat to prove it). By the end of the night however, St. Jaume did have one thing that Canovas did not…me. I was given a pin and named an honorary member (self-proclaimed) of the Fallareien Jaume 1er de Carcaixent. The pin says that exactly (except for the self-proclaimed bit) along the outside and on the inside is a blue sky with a gold dragon. Beneath the dragon is the shield and quiver of Carcaixent (the town’s symbol, Carcaixent literally means people of the quiver…quiver being the little pack that bow and arrow hunters would hold their arrows in…they were hunters apparently…or just fond of little packs that hold arrows in them. It was a long time ago). Surrounding the shield is fire or the “Honorary Fallero (self-proclaimed) Bad-Ass Rockin’ Flames of Hell” as I have lovingly dubbed it.




Monday March 19, 2007
Today is “La Nit de Foc” which translates from Valencian to “The Night of Fire”. Each pueblo or town usually has several fallas on display around town. On the night of March 19 starting usually between midnight and 12:30 they start burning them down (la crema) one by one in descending order of rank. It works out so that the 1st prize is the last one to burn. In order to signify which falla is burning and when, they are signaled by a 20 minute firework display. In smaller towns such as Carcaixent or Benimamet this 20 minutes gives you the time you need to start hoofing across town from falla to falla. In Benimamet where we are surrounded by Valencia, Paterna and Burjossot it is absolutely insane as I counted 9 fireworks displays going off at the same time in different parts of the night sky (Valencia being a bigger city and impossible to see them all so they do it by city sections). Each falla is made to burn and it is made to burn fast, so there are generally 20 – 30 minute intervals between each colorful explosion to where you can see giant balls of fire and smoke consuming various parts of each city to the faint or blaring (depending on where you are located) sounds of traditional Valencian anthems, until it dies down and 7-8 more fireworks displays ignite in different parts of the sky.
Benimamet’s crema will last an hour and a half or so, while Carcaixent’s will likely go until 3 in the morning. From Benimamet we don’t actually get to see the big fallas from the city burn, but we have the advantage of being up on our roof (which overlooks the horizon of Valencia to our east and the aforementioned cities on our north, west and south). There is one falla about a block behind our house. It has taken last place for the last two years (last year’s was an homage to Jules Verne and this year was an homage to the aging baby boomers). The beauty of this is that we can go down and watch it burn. When it burns down we can go up to our roof and watch everything else go simultaneously.

I have been trying to come up with how to describe Las Fallas since seeing it for the first time last year. I took loads of pictures only to be disappointed at how little they captured. The depth, the noise, the atmosphere, the colors, the smells…none of it was there. The notion of being so close to a fireworks display that you can smell the sulfur long after it’s over; The idea of being dwarfed by a night of fire and being able to see your shadow as it is snatched from roof top to roof top as the world erupts around you in celebration; None of these things can be captured with my little PowerShot digital camera. When having a few drinks with a Canadian couple on Thursday who were visiting Valencia for fallas (two of the 1,000,000) someone had asked them how they would describe this to their friends and family back home. His response was, “I’m not. I’m just going to tell them they have to see it for themselves.” I’ve been thinking a lot about that as I have been taking notes and writing all of this down. No matter how descriptive or eloquently I can try to put it, in reality I can’t. You’ll just have to be one of 1,000,000 next year and feel free to look me up, I’ve got an extra bed.

Diary of an Honorary Fallero (self proclaimed) [abridged]

Part I

Thursday March 15, 2007
While the firecrackers and mascleta have been going on since March 1, the official beginning to fallas was Thursday. The first of los castillos (the fireworks display) was held down in the riverbed. The fascinating thing about el castillo is that every night is a different pyrotechnician who will try to outdo what had been done previously. The first one to go on March 15 is the one who sets the bar as each successor will try to one up him and then the next guy and so forth.
Thursday night’s castillo relied heavily on masclets, these are sometimes called dry fireworks. This simply means that they are giant firecrackers that make a flashing pop, but don’t release a colorful display. This guy would send masclets up with the fireworks so that there was a mixture of noise and color.
We had located ourselves directly on the other side of the riverbed from where they were being fired off. It was amazing to watch as the night sky exploded right overhead. I could look directly up and watch as they showered down above me. It got a little unnerving when one cinder didn’t burn out on its way down and landed a few yards away from where we were standing. Marta at this point had the foresight to seek shelter underneath a nearby overhanging balcony, I was too caught up in the moment to have paid any attention. The display ended with an eruption of masclets that left my ears ringing and my stomach lurching.
The show lasted roughly 20 minutes. By 12.30 a group of us got comfortable in the corner of a little Irish pub in the neighborhood and commenced to the next few hours of drinking…so it began.



Friday March 16, 2007
I was startled awake at 8.00 in the morning by a loud explosion outside on the street below. Before I had time to put my head together another came from the other side of the house. These large explosions were followed by smaller ones and were soon layered upon with the sounds of horns blasting and drums beating, accompanying the chants and singing of a crowd moving through the streets. Below the foreground noise I could hear and feel a constant rumble. It was if I was sitting on volcano that was about to go off. The rumbling continued after the more localized noise had moved farther up the street and began to fade into the distance. The rumbling did not, it remained. I later realized that the foreground noise was the falleros of Benimamet as they moved through the town’s streets. The continuous rumbling that I felt below me, was the larger and more populated falleros of Valencia, Paterna and Burjossot surrounding me from every other direction. It took me too long to put all of this together. Justifiably, I had only been working on 3 hours of sleep, nor had the beverages from the night before properly worked their way through my system.
By the time we had been able to track down a cab that previous night we got home around 4.30 Friday morning. I was asleep by 5 and up again by 8. La Desperta had begun. “The Wake-up call” as it is translated, is exactly that. The falleros and falleras have a responsibility to wake everyone up on their way home at 8 in the morning. Depending on how many groups of falleros and falleras are in the area depends on how long La Desperta continues outside your bedroom window. Benimamet, thankfully, only has a half hour’s worth.
It is said that this tradition had was started by Franco. Valencia was a stronghold of Republican support, (the opposition to Franco) so during and after the Spanish Civil War, fallas, for obvious reasons, were not held. It wasn’t until several years later as Franco was trying to reunify the country that the festivities were being encouraged. However, Franco was also weary of any activity that seemed to promote Communitat over Country. Fallas belonging to Valencia and only Valencia was one such activity. His agreement to allow the celebration to go on was that everyone was expected to get up and go to work the next morning. No matter how late they had been out the night before, shops and businesses were to be open and ready the next morning. This is said to be the beginning of La Desperta.



Saturday March 17, 2007
I was woken again by La Desperta, this time on 3 ½ hour of sleep (getting older). This time however, I was only awake long enough to realize that it was happening and went right back to sleep.
To bring you up to date, I had mentioned in a previous post from February that I had been told to expect 1,000,000 more people in Valencia on top of the 800,000 that already live here. The grand total of 1,800,000 people in a city built for much less than half of that was a close proximate. According to recent numbers it was 1,000,000 foreigners that came to Valencia for fallas. That is 1,800,000 people made up of Valencianos and people who have flown in from other countries. This figure does not include the people that come from other parts of Spain: Madrid, Cataluna, Basque Country, Andalucia, Alicante, Castellon, etc. As stated earlier Valencia is the only part of Spain that has fallas. This year Castellon’s annual Magdelena festival happened to be on the same weekend, so that might have kept a few hundred people at bay, but not enough for any relief to the city. From Friday night onwards the city of Valencia was filled beyond any possible explanation.






photos taken from: http://www.levante-emv.co

Cafe Infinito

Congratulations to Frankie who, after years of slaving it away for the man, became his own boss and opened Cafe Infinito on Sunday March 11, 2007.

Cafe Infinito
calle poeta Mas y Ros 35 bajo,
Valencia 4602,
España

Guerilla Huggers in Valencia

I found this on YouTube. If you ignore the fuzzy love-fest, this video gives you a good sense of what a blurry, jiggly Valencia is like at night.

Ladies and Gentlemen...BOB LOG III!!

Bob Log III is coming to Barcelona next month. I am going to do what I can to make sure that I am there again front and center. It's been a couple of years, Bob and I have some catching up to do.
Enjoy

January/February 2007

Reading
Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig
Brooklyn Follies – Paul Auster
America – Franz Kafka
The Art of Stealing – Chris Brookmeyer
The Invention of Solitude – Paul Auster
Oracle Night – Paul Auster
Chis y Garabis – Paloma Bordons
Eats, Shoots and Leaves – Lynne Truss
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman – Ernest J. Gaines
Ghost Stories – Roald Dahl
The New Spaniards – John Hopper

Listening
Everything All the Time – Band of Horses
Irresistible Bliss – Soul Coughing
Kicking Television – Wilco
Dingly Dell – Lindisfarne
I’m Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass – Yo La Teng
Pearl Jam – Live at Benaroya Hall
The Shins – Wincing Away the Night
Norah Jones – Not Too Late
Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News (archives)

In order to properly tell why Live at Benaroya Hall by Pearl Jam was a significant find for me, I’ll need to go back a number of years and introduce a new character. Go back to the late fall or early winter of 1992. I had recently acquired my driver’s license and had gone to Relics Records (when it was originally run by Jerry and the other guy whose name is escaping me) with D Moore. After doing some browsing we met back together to share our finds. D had come up with a Black Sabbath bootleg with some old Ozzy tunes and I had uncovered a Pearl Jam bootleg called “Black” which was the MTV unplugged performance. For reasons at which I’ve long lost track, I willingly swapped the Pearl Jam bootleg for the Black Sabbath bootleg. I think my logic was something to do with the fact that Ozzy was no longer with Black Sabbath and Pearl Jam at this time was still a bunch of young pups, so naturally the Sabbath disc would be better. We went back to D’s house where we listened earnestly to our new purchases, while undoubtedly thumbing through his collection of horror comic books or perhaps discussing the logistical differences in musicianship between Hank Sherman of Mercyful Fate and Andy LaRocque of King Diamond, or something equally tantalizing. The Black Sabbath album had turned out to be crap; the sound quality was terrible. D’s Pearl Jam album however had proven to be the better buy. At that point in time I had been minimally interested in Pearl Jam. I had bought the Ten album as was required by all angst ridden, long haired, pimply young lads. It was listening to it in D’s bedroom stripped away of from the studio magic and hearing the band rage through “State of Love and Trust” and “Alive” acoustically that made me sit up and take notice. The clincher was that particular version of “Black”, which on Ten had been one of the songs that was too slow and I would skip through. There was something raw about the acoustic version that got to me.
I immediately took my leave of D and drove through the snow and sub-zero temperatures the 20 minutes back downtown to Relics Records. I tried to exchange my Black Sabbath record for another copy of the Pearl Jam bootleg. As it turned out that was the only copy that they had, but he would happily buy back the Sabbath disc for 1/5 of what I had paid for it.
That was 1992 and as silly as it seems I have been seeking a proper Pearl Jam acoustic disc since then. I had come across a few other bootlegs over the years, but they were bad quality. Now, fast forward to late winter 2007 in Valencia, Spain where a happy-go-lucky, long haired, no longer pimply faced, man-child is browsing the shelves of El Corte Ingles’s Musical Pyramid shop in Nuevo Centro. I was looking specifically for either Modest Mouse or The Shins’ new albums. On my way from the M’s to the S’s, I saw the bright yellow and orange album cover under Pearl Jam. It wasn’t the 7 disc that D had bought several years back. This was a double disc with 26 songs, recorded in October of 2003. While its version of the song “Black” may not be quite as ambitious and fresh as it had been in ’92, but the acoustic versions “Nothing As it Seems”, “Man of the Hour”, “Sleight of Hand”, “Fatal” included alongside covers of Victoria Williams’s “Crazy Mary”, Johnny Cash’s “25 Minutes to Go” and Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” more than makes up for it.

Fallas 2007

March must be drawing near. Outside my window the more impatient Valencianos are already letting off their petardos (firecrackers). They’re warming up their wick-lighting thumbs. They’re shaking off the cobwebs of their throwing arms. I have tried unsuccessfully to explain fallas to those who have never experienced it. This year I hope to do a better job. I, myself have only experienced it firsthand once and I am dreading while at the same time a bit giddy by the experience that is going to overtake the communidad in two weeks.

How do you compare something to which there is no comparison? For instance, I know what fireworks and firecrackers are, but the prior knowledge that gives me an image of those does absolutely no justice to what fireworks and firecrackers are capable of being. Every day from March 1st to March 19th at 2.00 pm, the city lets off mascletas in the town center in front of the town hall. Every day at 2.00, hundreds sometimes thousands gather around the strings of firecrackers that explode with the ferocity and force of…



You see, this is where I trail off. What do they explode with the force of? I have nothing to compare it to. Fallas is like nothing that I had ever experienced. Instead I can only explain how the old lady next to me warned me not to close my mouth or the force would burst my eardrums. `…They explode with the force of ‘burst eardrums’´ (?) It doesn’t work, but you get the point that these things are seriously loud.



On or around March 1, various parts of the city of Valencia are closed to traffic as giant several storied-high papier mache sculptures adorn the streets and plazas. These sculptures are the fallas themselves. Artists spend an entire year creating and preparing these for their 5 day viewings. They are generally made to spoof global or local politics. Every year the city government sponsors a falla that is placed in front of the town hall. This is considered the grand falla of the celebrations. It is excluded from the contests that are held to determine which are the best fallas and is the last one to burn. Its incineration signals the end of fallas for that year. Last year I was fortunate enough to see the creation of the government sponsored falla, “Imagine”. “Imagine” was created by Ramon Espinosa, the father of a friend. His sculpture is on record as the largest falla ever created. It depicted a woman holding her newborn child towards hope and prosperity with evil and corruption at her back. His design had been inspired by both John Lennon’s song of the same title as well as the paintings of Gustav Klimt.



What is the most amazing part of this experience to me is the fact that these artists spend an entire year working tirelessly on these sculptures to see them burned to the ground in a pile of ash and cinders during La Crema on March 19th. On March 20th the artists go back to work to prepare for the next year. The history of this tradition goes back hundreds of years. March 19th is Dia de San Jose (St. Joseph´s Day). San Jose is the patron saint of carpenters and on this day the carpenters would do a little spring cleaning of their shops by bringing out all of their old scraps and useless bits which they would pile up and burn. Somewhere along the way someone got creative and molded those useless pieces into an effigy of sorts. From there it became an art form and developed into what it is today.

‘Los Castillos’ are essentially seven nights of fireworks displays. You have to understand that these aren’t quite the same as sitting on the bank of the Cedar River and watching the show from May’s Island choreographed to Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American”. While the synchronicity to Mr. Greenwood’s timeless ostracizing call to unnecessary arms is nothing short of… (there it is again, how do I compare levels of mediocrity in saccharine-sticky patriotic country songs?) Last year I tried desperately to capture it all on camera and finally gave up when I realized I was only capturing a fraction of the show. Los Castillos are set off from the original gates to the city, Las Torres Serranos, near the riverbed. The show lasts about 30 minutes and the colors that dance through the sky for those 30 minutes seem to disrupt any natural harmony in the heavens. I remember watching what appeared to be the sky being ripped apart above me, thinking that this is what the Apocalypse might look like. At times the smoke from the recently discharged explosions got so thick that there were just blasts of indistinguishable color erupting from behind the black shroud.

As if the din of Armageddon erupting in every direction wasn’t enough to keep you awake, every morning between 6 and 8 is what is called la despertá, which translates roughly as the wake-up call. It is this portion of the festivities that exits solely to make sure that if you did nod off for a quick nap, it won’t last long. Local falleros and falleras (the official celebrants of the festival) on their way home from the previous night´s festivities bring along a brass band and march up and down the streets with the horns and drums taking the lead while they toss off a few more firecrackers.




I have been told that Valencia did a major international push behind this year’s festival. America’s Cup will begin in the port of Valencia in April and go until July. The city sees this as their opportunity to put itself on the map. It has been estimated that close to one million people (these figures have been supplied to me by a group of 10th grade students, so do what you will with them) will come to visit Valencia for fallas this year, this is 1 million extra people being crammed into a city that is built to hold 800,000. The anticipation swells as I see them setting up the central plaza for the mascleta. But damn, that’s a lot of people.


http://www.fallasfromvalencia.com/
http://www.fallas.com/

Tom Waits "Lie to Me" on David Letterman

Happy New Year (2 weeks ago). Submissions have been sparse as of late and will remain so through the rest of the month. Here is some Tom Waits to tide you over until things start to slow down a bit on my end.

"Funeral" by Band of Horses

By request here is some more Band of Horses.

"The Great Salt Lake" by Band of Horses

I haven't really had the chance to sit down at my computer these past few weeks. So until I get that moment I will leave you with a video from a band that I've been digging on, "The Great Salt Lake" by Band of Horses. Their athletic ablity reminds me of another certain softball team (the rise and fall of The Giant Sloth...for one glorious summer they were America's amateur softball team).

December 2006

Books Read:
A Parrot in the Pepper Tree – Chris Stewart
The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society – Chris Stewart
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
Frannie and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
Wicked – Gregory Maguire (not yet finished)


Listening
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards – Tom Waits
Okonokos – My Morning Jacket
Death By Sexy – The Eagles of Death Metal
The Little Willies – The Little Willies
Bows and Arrows - The Walkmen
Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone - The Walkmen

The first two books that I had read this month served a metaphysical role in the guise of reading a book about Spain written from the perspective of an Englishman trying to immerse himself in his recently adopted country. Chris Stewart has written three books on the subject now along with Driving Over Lemons being the first of his trilogy and these being numbers 2 and 3 and read in that order. I guess that I was hoping to relate to Stewarts musings about his family, home and friends…oh and the fact that he used to be the drummer for Genesis. Outside of laying down the rhythm section for a hugely successful prog-rock band (I don’t mean to name drop here, but you all may remember my frantic bass work in bands such as Hung Like a Moose with our break out epic masterpiece “Iron Dick” or perhaps 3 Matts and a Scott…classic) Stewart’s Spain and mine are absolutely incomparable. Stewart’s Spain involves neighbors that come from miles to assist in rebuilding a washed out bridge to help reconnect our protagonist to society. My neighbor is pushing 40 and still lives with his mother. He blasts his television while playing FIFA Futbol on his X-Box as the two seem to constantly be yelling at each other over the din. I can’t even get this guy to hold the elevator, let alone assist me in metaphorical manual labor.
Stewart’s neighbors come together to assist in the shearing of the sheep and the rescuing of lost cattle. About two weeks ago, it was 11:30 at night and there was a kitten stuck in the grill of a gray Renault 5. Marta and I could hear the delicate mewing through the windows up on our 5th floor flat. We had some discussion about the kitten’s fate when the owner would leave for work the next morning. We decided we were going to rescue the kitten. When the light of our flashlight hit it, the kitten began tearing through the motor of the car. We could see tufts of fur as the thing blurred from one end of the grill to the other like the Alien in ventilation ducts. The gentle mewing became angry and turned to hissing. Neighbors began to gather. I had been reading A Parrot in the Pepper Tree at this time and I found myself thinking that this was it, this would be my Christ Stewart neighborly moment. However the neighbors seemed to be there merely to provide color commentary to the evening’s main event. The two older women were reminding us that there was a cat in the car, they would then turn to each other and bicker about something or other. The middle aged man and his son discussed what tools we could use to excavate the cat. The owner had meanwhile wandered down to watch us watch her car. When we explained to her why we had gathered around her car, she offered little more than, “yep, it’s been there all afternoon”. My role had clearly been assigned, I was the flashlight holder, Marta however was taking matters into her own hands and had requested that the lady pop open the hood and get her some gloves. With the hood open and Marta now fully gloved, she began the delicate procedure of removing the kitten that had somehow wrapped itself around the radiator. The kitten began hissing and with claws fully extended began swiping. I knew this because I was able to see it, Marta knew this because she was the one being swiped at, and however, our play-by-play announcers were perched just at my shoulder to remind us of anything they were afraid we hadn’t fully witnessed. Like a shot the cat took off down towards the wheel wells. The rescue was futile; this cat didn’t want to be rescued. By this point I was already citing destiny, if it chooses to wrap itself around the engine of a car, then that is the fate the good Lord has in store for it.
Out of nowhere the owner’s voice came upon us all.
“This is the fourth or fifth time that this has happened to me,” she observed.
Everything stopped and we all looked at her.
“Que casualidad, no? (what a coincidence, no?)” asked the middle aged man
“Que raro (how weird)” piped in his son.
“Why do you think that is?” asked John Madden (or Dick Vitale, I’m not sure) taking her eye off the action under the hood for a moment.
“Well, I deliver fish all day in this car. That might be it.”
Marta said nothing. She took the gloves off and calmly handed them to their owner. My job as flashlight holder had ended. The light came off and I shut the hood of the woman’s car. Nothing more was said between us. The crowd dispersed just as quickly as it had gathered. In the end there was no communal shearing of the sheep, or rescuing of the cattle there was only a stupid cat and a car that smelled like fish.

Benimamet News

Benimamet has lately seen an influx of what are coming to be called The Zombies. I don’t know what drugs these people are taking, but there is an entire community of them that wander around the streets in an absolute stupor stumbling around, often yelling at objects of distraction (hands and articles of clothing seem to be a popular target for the vented outrage). They gather in the fields behind my apartment building. When I look out my window, I can see them milling about in the fields like fish bugs from a recently overturned rock. They didn’t generally stray from the fields but to get money.

Tuesday December 5, 2006 (true story)
A dazed gentleman wandered up from the fields with two others in tow. They made there way through the streets, past the stone church, beyond the fountain, on the other side of the old town hall (before the ever reaching fingers of Valencia grasped onto it). His objective was money and his persuasion was his knife. How this young man came to choose his target remains a mystery. Together the three of them feeling more astute and aware as the surge of adrenaline poured through them walked into through the door ignoring the chimes and rings of the neon slot machines. They ignored the sedimentary layers of chatter that upon evaluation could determine the originator and point of the buried conversation. They walked directly to the man behind the bar. Our hero (up to this point his name has not been released) pulled out the steel 7 inch enforcer and thrust it towards the man behind the counter demanding all of the money from the cash register. Continuing to wash the beer glass in his hand, the man made no moves to the nature of the request, however perplexing our hero by an unexpected look of familiarity. The man’s mouth was moving and the beer glass was gently set on the counter while the man kindly reached across. Our hero in a panic began thrusting blindly at the air being squeezed closer together between him and the man. Upon the instant revelation of the familiarity of both the face of the man and the bar belonging to his father, our hero fled the bar leaving his comrades behind in a stunned gaze and ran upstairs locking himself in his bedroom threatening to kill himself should anyone ever speak of the incident again.

Sandberg to coach Peoria Chiefs

Having grown up a Chicago Cubs and Ryne Sandberg fan I may be one of very few that cares about this particular placement in the Chicago Cubs line up. Incidentally Sandberg will be replacing former teammate Jody Davis, who was my brother’s favorite player at the time.

As I'm heading back to the Iowa this summer I imagine I'll have to check out a Cedar Rapids Kernels vs. Peoria Chiefs games, who knows maybe they'll bring him in to show 'em all how 2nd base was meant to be played.

http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/6241384

http://www.ishkur.com/posters/

No Better Time to Gloat than the Afterlife

Just click on the below website and you can send a message to your heathen brethren after the Rapture. I'm not sure who will be in charge of the delivery of these or if heaven has a postal service.
http://postrapturepost.com/index.html

http://www.ishkur.com/posters/

November 2006

Books read:

Why Not Me? – Al Franken
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nite-Time – Mark Haddon
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
The History of the Middle East – Peter Mansfield
Peter Pan – J.M. Barrie (abandoned)
Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths – Bernard Evslin
The Complete Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby

Music enjoyed:
Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene
The Foo Fighters – Skin and Bones
Lily Allen – Alright Still
Gomez – How We Operate
Alex Camaaño Mix - Secret Lunch Hour of the Librarians

I was riding high above the road in the charter bus on my way home from school when I first really got the chance to sit down and listen to Skin and Bones by The Foo Fighters. To my left was the blackened sky that together with the dark sea spiralled off into a black infinity only to be broken up by the occasional commercial liner ship, floating beacons of civilization trudging infinity. To my right was the purple sky of the setting sun. The undulating mountains provided the background of shadows blocking the sun while the palm trees in the foregrounds were indistinguishable yet through shape. The scene to my right was of shapes that had been cut out of black construction paper and placed on a dark purple backing. Why is the dusk sky purple in Valencia? None of this description has much if anything to do with The Foo Fighters or their new acoustic live album, but it has everything to do with the image that will be in my head everytime I hear this album. This album can’t mean the same to someone else like it does me because they weren’t there to see the purple sky and the black palm trees. No one else was paying attention to the perfectly lined glowing globes floating across pitch black nothing to my right. No one else was being re-introduced to “Marigold”.
I met Marigold in 199_. I was blown away by its restraint and by the fact that the drummer was singing, Dave Grohl could sing…who knew? Of course that realization seems silly by now. Yet Marigold remained a needy infant that demanded inclusion into my mix tapes. I couldn’t deny it and from 199_ until 200_ Marigold graced at least one version of a mix tape or CD that I made to win over new friends. You know what…Marigold is all grown up now and he doesn’t need me anymore. The quiet little bedroom tape has given way to a full on aurchistral experience.
I like my live albums muddy. As far as I can tell the mastering and recording of Skin and Bones is near perfection. You can hear the strings restrain against the guitar pick before they leap off into their protesting sigh. It is crystal clear, as if I really was carrying the band along with me in my Dell mp3 player. I shouldn’t like it, but I do…it seems right.
I read on the bus on my way to school and I listen to music on the way home. One way is too loud and I need the book to escape, I couldn’t hear the music anyway. The other way is too dark and I need the music to escape, I couldn’t read the words anyway. I get most of my reading done either on buses or while waiting for them. Here is what I have learned in my bus stop literary conferences….I don’t like Peter Pan. I have been trying to read it for about three weeks now and I keep finding other books to pick up so that I can interrupt it for something else. I continued to do this until I could justify it to myself why it was that I wasn’t able to connect or care about this book. In between my experience with Peter Pan I read The History of the Middle East. I would have made a terrible physicist or European/African/Asian. Once we start dipping into negative numbered years I have problems. The BC(E) dates mess with my head, my grasp on time is very linear and it can only move in a progressive direction, once the numbers begin to digress so then does my comprehension. It is impossible to accurately discuss the history of the Middle East without counting backwards for a good portion of the book. The beauty of being an American is that there isn’t much math expected from me in my history lessons. The other beauty of being an American is that I can make ignorant statements such as the former and it can be shrugged off because well…I’m American.
I started reading The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby and I am stealing his format. I don’t look at is theft I look at as an exercise in free verse thinking. Lately I have been trying to hard to coherently connect dots with lines that would form into a cohesive short story with an absolute beginning middle and end. I had all three of those things and then I lost the ends. A little while later the middles stopped happening, now I am forced to suffer notebooks of beginnings. Eventually those are going to go away too. I am exercising, I am writing….there is no beginning other than to describe a particular Thanksgiving evening in Valencia Spain while listening to a particular song, which incidentally transpired at the end of my day…there goes my beginning.
I wonder what’s on television right now….

When was the first time that you heard Blister in the Sun?

This past week I went to see The Violent Femmes here in Valencia at Sala Cormoran. Arab Strap provided an unimpressive opener that was difficult to hear through the talking of the Spanish audience. At several points the lead singer would mutter something inaudibly into the microphone and the rest of the band would laugh, obviously on behalf of the joke being made at the inattentive audience’s expense. I wasn’t particularly interested in what Arab Strap had to say or the songs that they were playing, but I did pay to hear them and not several hundred Spanish people yammer on. I also knew that my patience was going to wear thin if they insisted on talking through the Femmes as well.
From the very moment that Arab Strap stepped off the stage, what I had already perceived to be a packed house doubled. The venue had been packed so tight that the late stragglers had to watch from the doorways of the entrance. The moment The Femmes took the stage all attention went forward. Not only was the applause between songs thunderous, but also the crowd singing along with Gordon Gano’s distinctive twang. The band opened up with “Blister in the Sun”, the crowd went mad clapping to the beat and singing along word for word. I was stunned at the turnout and response, expecting the show to be filled with a few English teachers sipping tea and watching from a ratty sofa.
That night, on the way home, I asked the New Yorker, the two Italians and my wife, the Spanish representative in this equation, if any of them remembered the first time that they had heard “Blister in the Sun”. None of them could. I couldn’t place ever hearing it on the radio and to the best of my knowledge I have never seen a video for it on MTV, which growing up were my only two sources of new music. Somehow we had all come together knowing of the Violent Femmes and all being able to sing the song forwards and back without the accompaniment of the actual tune. I simply chalked it up to generational.
The next day, in order to bring real life events to the novels that we discuss, I had mentioned the Violent Femmes show to my 10th grade class. Understand that this wasn’t a case of the newly anointed 30-something English teacher trying to prove to his students and ultimately to himself that he’s still ‘with it’. In the middle of a free jam during “Black Girls” the bass player, Brian Ritchie, had pulled down from his (Ampeg) bass amp a pink and white conch. He had blown into this conch to signal the end of the free for all jam, which the 8 or 9 ragtag assortment of paid musicians and random guests from the crowd respected and ceased playing. Ritchie, with the moment to himself, broke into a conch solo---which within itself was interesting --- before bringing the song to a close. For anyone who has read The Lord of the Flies, understands that the character of Ralph is able to guide and gather the other characters through the guidance of the conch. It is this that I was trying to convey to my students. I hadn’t actually expected any of them to know who The Violent Femmes were.
Until Isabel raised her hand and asked me, “Don’t they sing “Blister in the Sun”?” I stopped my lecture right here and responded that, “Yes they do.” I immediately followed by asking her how she knew. She just shrugged. Another student leaned in and asked “Que?”, to which I responded, “English only”. Isabel hummed the first few bars of the song and the inquiring student immediately knew what she was talking about. The same thing happened when I taught the next 10th grade class later in the afternoon, there too were two students that knew “Blister in the Sun” and there too were two students who couldn’t tell me where, why or how they had heard it…they just seemed to know it.
These four students had blown my generational theory out of the water. Incidentally all four of them were the eldest children in their families, so that also did away with the older brother/sister used to listen to it theory. All four of them are, however, huge Nirvana/early to mid nineties Northwestern United States music scene aficionados (from which The Violent Femmes are not, having formed in Milwaukee Wisconsin and having released their first album in 1983, but are considered an influence to the grunge genre), which does offer explanation to them having crossed paths with The Violent Femmes at some point.
“Blister in the Sun” was released in 1982 as a lead off single for their debut album The Violent Femmes in 1983. In 2005 the song was voted as the only English speaking song allowed on Ireland’s Irish Language Radio Station, likewise it was voted in Australia as one of the Most Essential Songs of all time.
Unfortunately, like much of everything else that I have been writing lately, there is no conclusion to this, its merely a work in progress (if in progress means “will never be touched again after I post this”). I guess I’m just simply starting a discussion for those of you that remember when you first heard “Blister in the Sun” and those of you who will happily admit to never having heard the song.

My Morning Jacket - "Gideon" - Late Show with David Letterman

U of I Needs a President, Jim Leach Needs a Job...

In light of the Democrat's victory last week I can't help but express voter's remorse over voting against Jim Leach. It seems silly, having never actually met the man, but I liked him and he was a good congressman. For the first time I voted a straight ticket going all democrat. Leach had always been the republican who was okay to vote for, now he is gone and rather unceremoniously.
In expressing my voter's remorse someone had sent me an email about Jim Leach being a good candidate for the next president of the University of Iowa. I looked through my emails to find who it was so I could give credit, if it was you let me know.

Violent Femmes "Add It Up" live 1993

Running Out of Steam

http://thefunniest.info/top.html

New Tom Waits - November 21

The Democrats now control the House and the Senate and Tom Waits has a new 3 disc collection being released in a few weeks time. Apparently karma is making it up to us for the last 6 years of Republicans and Green Day.

The Results are in...(most of them anyway)

Senate
Missouri
McCaskill (D)

Montana
Tester (D)

Pennsylvania
Casey (D)

Tennessee
Corker (R)

Virginia - Webb is currently declaring victory, but Allen has yet to concede
Webb (D)
Allen (R)

House
Iowa 1
Braley (D)

Iowa 2
Loebsack (D)

Colorado 5
Lamborn (R)

Florida 16
Mahoney (D)

Illinois 14
Hastert (R) - I kept my eyes on this one just in case, but hadn't really hoped for much

Governor
Iowa
Culver (D)

*Sam if you are reading this, what the hell man? ...Corker?

Races that I'm watching: Statistics taken from slate.com, as of Friday, Nov. 3 6:59pm

Senate
Missouri
McCaskill (D) 48%
Talent (R) 47%

Montana
Tester (D) 48%
Burns (R) 45%

Pennsylvania
Casey (D) 51%
Santorum (R) 40%

Tennessee
Corker (R) 50%
Ford (D) 45%

Virginia
Webb (D) 47%
Allen (R) 46%

House
Iowa 1
Braley (D) 48%
Whalen (R) 37%

Iowa 2
Loebsack (D) 48%
Leach (R) 47%

Colorado 5
Lamborn (R) 47%
Fawcett (D) 40%

Governor
Iowa
Culver (D) 53%
Nussle (R) 42%

Statistics taken from slate.com, as of Friday, Nov. 3 6:59pm

November Reading and Listening Recommendations

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nite-Time by Mark Haddon
Set in 1996 outside of London, The Curious Incident… is narrated by Christopher Boone a 15 year old boy with Asperger’s Syndrome whose mother had recently “died” (note the quotation marks around died – I’ll have to leave solving that mystery up to you). It is narrated in the manner that Christopher is writing a book to solve the mystery of the death of his neighbor’s dog, which he is immediately accused of and held by the police. His innocence is cleared within the first 20 pages and we learn of the real killer of the dog by the middle of the book. What starts as the catalyst for Christopher’s books, which has been suggested by his teacher Siobhan, becomes more of a back story as he stumbles further into his naïve investigations. For the record I don’t like mysteries, but while this is constructed as a mystery it really isn’t as such. I read this book as more of insight into the mind of someone with autism or Asperger’s syndrome. In fact this is the first book that I could definitively say should be taught in Math class of all places. Christopher’s obsessions lie with prime numbers and the chapters are numbered as such. He is fascinated by math equations and puzzles solving and offering several thoughout the book and providing an answer key after the last chapter.


How We Operate by Gomez
Gomez is a prolific British indie band that started in 1998. How We Operate is their 6th album. I’m not entirely sure if I am a Gomez fan or a fan of Ben Ottewell who makes up 1/3 of the band’s lead singers. Ottewell has a distinct voice that could be loosely compared to that of Grant-Lee Philips, as well as more of a folky songwriting style. Should the band have been fronted by only Ian Ball (another 3rd of the lead singers) they could have been billed as more of a dreamy alterna- band with heartwrenching lyrics and doe-eyed ernestness, which isn’t bad, but would make 12 songs worth a bit hard to swallow. As contrasted with Tom Gray who is a little brit-poppy for my tastes, with his ‘sha-la-la’ lyrics. Together the three of them (plus drummer Ollie Peacock and bassist Paul Blackburn) put together quite a solid and enjoyable catalog of tunes. The music seems to be written collectively as a band which allows for consistency as opposed to the impression of listening to a mix tape. What each singer seems to offer are the lyrics and the melody.
The keepers on this album are the title track “How We Operate”, “Chasing Ghosts with Alcohol” and “See the World”. The fillers are: “girlshapedlovedrug”, “Woman! Man!” and “Don't Make Me Laugh” (all of the brit-poppy bits).

Karl Rove, Republican Guru/All Around Sketchy Fella, Predicts Rupublican Domination on Tuesday

In an exchange between Karl Rove and NPR’s On the Media, Rove unnervingly declares a Republican victory all the way around come Tuesday. He claims to have secret polls that the rest of the media does not have access to. It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0610/S00422.htm

Solve this equation: Floria + Republican = Republican (Florida + Democrat = Republican)

According to the Miami Herald several early voting Democrats are reporting that they have been pushing the button to vote for Jim Davis (D), but their review screen has been showing a vote for Charlie Crist (R). Here we go again.

Nah...Never Mind, He's Doing Alright

Apparently Castro reads Inner Sense Abroad and has gone before news cameras to prove me wrong.
Fidel Castro "is still not dead!" but for any of you opportunitsts it might be a good time to start getting those resumes in.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15461843/

Castro May Have Left the Building

Brazilian president da Silva mentions that it was too bad Castro hadn't been able to democratize Cuba while "he was still alive." He has since claimed that he mis-spoke, but the fact remains that Castro hasn't been seen in over a month.
Apparently Venezualen president Hugo Chavez has his eye on the job should it come open. This is all according to the Wall Street Journal anyway. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB116191499193705599.html

Vote Tuesday November 7, 2006

In case you have forgotten why you should be voting on November 7th, take a look at this thorough recap of the last 7 years from Rolling Stone magazine. (Its a long one, so give yourself some time, but it is definitely worth the read. If you weren't paying attention this does a fantastic job of catching you up. If you were paying attention this will remind you why you've been so pissed off.)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12055360/cover_story_time_to_go_inside_the_worst_congress_ever