Video Games

Every so often, I miss video games. Case in point: Metal Wolf Chaos Trailer. Whatever you are doing, wherever you are, take the time right now to watch this. It's Rambo meets the current administration's storyline meets Voltron. There is an evil vice-president who can't stick around to watch the hero die because he has to go drink his afternoon tea. Remember video games as a kid with misspelled, nigh-nonsensical English? This is like that but with a multi-million dollar budget and advanced 3d technology. The technology is so advanced that they had no one intelligent left to write the thing. Also, this is the action movie I have been waiting for. There have been all of these movies about jet fighters. There are not going far enough. I want a man in a giant robot made out of weapons. I have not seen it, but I can only hope that the robot made of weapons is able to transform into a giant weapon of some sort. But he throws a tank off a bridge. That's good enough for me.
But it is truly mind-fuckingly bizarre. The fake ad in the middle that is obviously supposed to parody right-wing commercials. "A heart of justice is a heart that loves America. Surrender now while your crimes are still not so serious." How much American television have they seen? Are the actors really that bad or are they specially generated by computers to suck?
Regardless, I think you know how to vote in 2008.

Michael Wilson '08: Believe your justice.

Politics

A "friend" by the name of A. Cybulski IMed me and informed me that I could come home now because the Dems, the new good ol' boys, have won. I immediately started to scream, "Hallelujah! Praise lord Jesus!" as I fell and foamed at the mouth and spoke in tongues because God had answered my prayers.
No, but seriously. I'm glad that the Democrats are back in power. Now we can get back to the real task at hand. Preserving the status quo. Talking about maybe someday making a plan to improve the level of health care for the American public starting in 2050. Which will be about the same time when we find out that Russia II: The Soviet Son has had a secret empire lying beneath the former USSR that is even more mean, evil, and communistic than 10 Stalins! Unrelated to the appearance of this super-communist, 2030 will also be about the time when the War on Terror and War on Drugs will have been accepted for what they were: utter shams.
Yes, a glorious new day dawns upon us. A day when Senator and Congressman join hands — Democratic hands! — and skip in circles of glee because it is finally their turn! They can do whatever they want and get away with it, just because anything they do is better by sole virtue of not being Republican.
What is the huge difference that they are going to give us? Who will benefit? What will get better? Are they going to give more money to schools? Will gay marriage be legalized? Will abortion be legal or illegal?
Will the country be any better off than before? I'll believe it when I see it.
But this blog entry, Pop Culture Metaphors for Yesterday's Democratic Congressional Triumph did make me laugh: "Congress is a Bactrian Camel, but both humps are filled with Democrats instead of reservoirs of fatty tissue (Republicans)."
Republicans = fat. Ha.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I spent it with dogs. A lot of dogs. Fourteen or so, to be not quite exact. Though only up to four at any one time. Mulan was the first, a 9 month old UNHOUSEBROKEN puppy. Though really, we also had Seto and Khan before that. Seto is not Japanese, and I'm not sure that's how Khan's name is spelled, nor if his owners were Star Trek fans. All that I know is that he was a pain in the ass, though not as much of a pain as the first time we watched him, when he terrorized our alcoholic friend Lee.
But yes, Mulan was the first dog that I had to watch by myself. It brought new meaning to the word rage. There were times when I had to beat that dog unmercifully.
Mulan stayed with me for a very long month. Other dogs came and went over the next two months. In no particular order, I had Bruja, Billy, Llauna, Otis, Pola, Carla, Trini, Zeus, Tim, Dicky (Tamir or Tamiz was his real name), and Max (the dog, not the roommate). Then when Max came back, we also had A, or in Spanish, I guess it's E. He looked like part miniature collie and part chihuahua and he didn't stop shaking in fear the entire time he was here. It might have been that he could smell the dozen or so other dogs that had been here, but he was apparently terrified as soon as he left his owner's house and Max had to drag or carry him the entire way home. He went under a little table in the living room and seemed to be alright there except for when we tried to feed him, at which point, he would go back to quivering in fear.
There were a lot of amusing little things that happened with the dogs, but I will save those tales for my blog over at BeeDogs.com.
Still, despite all of the dogs and their shenanigans, I had a good summer. I look back on it as an idyllic time. Nothing like starting your day with coffee, a gin and tonic, and a dog walk. Then Dog Mike would stop by, we'd play chess, drink more coffee, play some guitar. He'd leave and I'd watch The Simpsons in Spanish. That was about all of the responsibilities I had that day, other than another dog walk in the evening. I did a lot of reading, though, of course, I didn't finish Proust. I'm now reading Nexus and taking my time because I don't want it to end. English teaching work has started again, Danielle and Erik are here. Chris is still... a fish creature from beyond Pluto.

Back again

Hello to whoever the hell reads this. I haven't updated in forever. I would say don't take it personally, but it is personal. I have a very deep hatred for you.

I return

My computer's been out of commision for a while due to the screen backlight not working properly. But it has magically started working again. Three guesses what I've been up to. That's right, drinking. And being addicted to Weboggle for the day and a half that I've once again had the Internet and my computer working. I've been reading various programming books and waxing nerdy, but I'm not this guy. Not only is he marrying someone he met online, but he met her through the William Gibson forums. I like William Gibson and all, but man... That place is NERD CENTRAL.

Seriously, this dog is completely blind.

Max had other adventures that day besides losing at quiz night. He had a lunch "date" with two of his students. Two of his buxom 19 year old students.

What was I doing while he laughed and chatted over Indian food? I was walking a blind dog named Bruja across Madrid in 90 degree weather. There's a metaphor for life in there somewhere.

But Dog Mike and I did stop by to ambush him. I was picking the dog up from a place very close to there. The girls were cute, though not the love goddesses I was expecting from Max's descriptions. He didn't exaggerate about the size of their breasts, though.

So the blind dog is sitting next to me, probably wanting to be taken out. Mike is supposed to show up soon with more dogs for me to watch and to take this one away. They will then be gone by next Sunday, only to be replaced by another dog or two on the following day, which will be here for pretty much all of July. This is how I'm paying my rent this summer. My school allegedly has some classes available also. I'm looking forward to working as little as possible, though.

Danielle was nice enough to bring me a bunch of books, which gives me adequate reading material for the summer. Max and Towely will be gone at a summer camp for basically all of July. I have grandiose plans to read "Remembrance of Things Past" this summer. For really real this time. Really. That and a bunch of computer books so that I can get a job.

According to various sources, getting a work permit for a computer job is pretty much guaranteed. We also heard of a language academy that helps Americans get work permits. They supposedly want two years of experience and a TEFL, though. Towely got an interview, but they apparently had problems when he taught a mock class. This means nothing, though. Max is applying, so we'll see how it goes.

The weather has generally been scorching and it doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. In fact, it's only supposed to get hotter. This is not really a problem as long as you don't leave the house in mid-day. Almost every apartment has shutters to block out the sun. That and the stone walls keep things comfortable. Though I'm planning on getting a fan eventually.

Max's room is going to be empty until the 26th of July, so if you can make it here, you can have a place to stay. Get in touch with me. Danielle is our PR agent in the States and she can tell you about what we offer here in Madrid. But, to give a brief synopsis of our services, we offer fun, in or out of the sun.

irrelevance

I am not going to Barcelona in July. I am immensely saddened by this. Max is out at "Quiz Night" at the ex-pat place we hang out at. I am home drinking white wine and eating fudge. THAT IS GOING STRAIGHT TO MY THIGHS! Fuck. I need to hide it. There, that's better. Christ, if someone put The O.C. on right now, I'd start menstruating.

But fortunately, I have been watching Pitchfork's 100 Awesome Videos. They're all displayed via YouTube, and if you ignore the inane, video-ruining commentary by the Pitchfork staff, along with their equally inane "No Chris Cunningham" rule, there's actually some pretty good videos. Even the rap/hip-hop ones are mostly good. I was going to link to the videos I liked, but it was far too complicated and only led to me getting distracted by yet more videos.

HOLY FUCKING CRAP! The L. Ron Hubbard documentary just finished downloading. Max is home and we must watch it. He lost the quiz because there was a whole round of questions about "Friends."

Fun in the sun.

 
Drinking on the beach is fun!


 
What did you say? I was too busy drinking?



 
I'm too drunk to continue this conversation.


Note: I did not add the weird shadows to make it look like we are in an episode of Speed Racer, the camera did it for me. 

The Mediterranean

 


"We made it! We finally made it! I claim this beach for alcoholic slackers everywhere!"

So... We finally made it out of Madrid, to Valencia. It was dirtier than Madrid and seemingly inhabited only by tourists. Our hostel had a drag queen (with a great boob job) checking in ahead of us. But it had a beach, damn it!

We were on the beach a little too much. I got sunstroke. It wasn't too bad, though. The day of drinking on the beach was worth a few hours of fever, chills, and delirium. But the aftermath of my shoulders peeling was too much. Peeling isn't the right word. It's basically like I molted. I have peeled off about 90% of the skin from my hips to my shoulders. The tops of my knees peeled, too, but not as bad. I couldn't wear a backpack for a few days. I hope this teaches us all a lesson about sun care and drinking.

But seriously. I'd been out in the sun for hours at a time before over the past week. I thought I was fine. And it was a windy day, so you didn't feel it as much. Even Max got burned. He peeled, too, but not as dramatically. Danielle was wise enough to avoid most of the sun and only got the back of her legs burned.

The next day we went to The Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, which was amazing. The pictures do not do it justice. It's funny because I saw an exhibit of Santiago Calatrava's at the Metropolitan when I was staying in New York right before my flight to Spain. I was blown away by the exhibit at the time. We didn't go into any of the museums that are housed within the various buildings because they were expensive and seemed a bit touristy. But walking around the buildings alone was worth the trip. They're still building part of it, too.

Max loved Valencia, but I think it was mostly because of the beach. Well, the beach and the unbelievably attractive topless young women running (literally) around on the beach. The entire city seemed dedicated to tourist places and shopping. At least in Madrid there are a lot more bars. There was a big park built in the old riverbed that was nice, though. Along with a lot of art and trees on the streets. I'm not saying that it was bad, I just can't pictures living there, despite the beaches.

One street had a park in the middle of a big road, with a lane on either side. There's a name for it in Spanish that escapes me at the moment. We ran across it at a place where there was a statue with fountain in the middle, shaded by 4 huge cypress trees. Then we started walking along it, past all of these statues done in some sort of vaguely classical style. A lot of them were broken in similar ways: detached parts of faces, detached heads, heads with missing sections. It was strange and at first I didn't think it was very intersting, but as we went walking past more and more statues, it developed a sort of surreal rhythm, and by the end, it was almost like walking around in a Dali painting.

Madrid doesn't have anything like that, but it does have a statue of Lucifer in Parque Retiro. We took Danielle to see that, but we unfortunately did not get a picture. I'll take one the next time we go. It's an odd sight, right around the corner from parents taking their children to see the people dressed in imitation Disney costumes. They look like they were designed by someone who was given a vague description and a bad drawing of Disney characters and made by children.

Man, that must be the worst child sweatshop job ever. Chained to a table and forced to make ripoff Disney merchandise. Assuming you don't die from beatings or startvation or whatever, you live in mortal terror of Disney characters for the rest of your life and have catatonic flashbacks every time you see a cartoon on TV.

But I digress...

My point was that there's this grandiose statue of Lucifer as falling angel in a Catholic country, built in the park that was the private playground of a Catholic king, that families now take their kids to every Sunday. But then, I see people walk their kids past a dozen prostitutes without blinking, so maybe it's not surprising.

Speaking of prostitutes, Max, Danielle, and I decided to go into Casa de Campo, the huge park that we're 5 minutes away from. We went just after dark and I was paranoid about running into a "platoon of hookers" as Max had described them. We'd already seen one standing with her breasts hanging out of her top walking along a road next to Parque Oeste, the huge-but-not-as-huge-as-Casa-de-Campo park on the other side of our neighborhood. When we got to a small, but very busy side road that ran alongside Casa de Campo, there were three kids, about five years old, playing by the side of the road near a restaraunt. And not 30 feet from them are a line of hookers showing their legs and god knows whate else to the cars passing by. We went up into the park where we didn't see any hookers, though there might have been some ninja hookers hiding in the bushes and trees. You know, ninja hookers. Ninjas that have fallen on hard times.

But again I digress...

On the way back, we saw more hookers, since it was getting to be prime whoring time. There were hookers wearing miniskirts and squatting with their legs open on the side of a traffic circle. At least one of them was also smoking. That is the sign of a true pro. I assume they were squatting to show off "the goods." I had a sneaking suspicion that they might be transvestites and that might be the whole reason they were squatting, but fortunately I was not able to verify this.

That reminds me of the other transvestite hooker we saw that night. Wearing heels, she was as tall as me, but built like a linebacker. I was mildly frightened because she was walking close to us and if she'd even fallen on me, she would have cracked a few ribs. She must hook just for the fun of hooking, because she could have mugged anyone she wanted.

Anyway. I hope you enjoyed these rambling prostitute-ful tales. Expect more, because, as you may have noticed, there are a lot of putas in Madrid. Also, another important piece of information I discovered, digestive biscuits are really graham crackers. 

Explosions and boobs

There was just an unnecessarily loud fireworks display. It just reached its deafening crescendo. As far as I can tell, it's to celebrate the day of San Antonio de la Florida, whoever he is. The fireworks were loud enough that I could feel the vibrations in the floor. I also heard at least 2 car alarms going off and someone walking by the front of my building saying something like, "Espanoles estupidos! Que ruido!" which means something like, "Stupid Spaniards! What noise!" I hope that my mastery of Spanish astounds you. All of this racket to end a week-long celebration that they don't even get a day off. But they did open the chapel across the street. The one that was painted by Goya. The one that also contains his corpse. I read a historical information signs a few weeks ago and discovered these facts. So I am currently about 100 yards from Goya's earhtly remains.
"Erin Brockovitch" is on television. Julia Roberts doesn't act any better in Spanish.A And the amount of cleavage that she shows is more or less standard for Spanish TV. Yes, Spanish broadcast TV generally sucks.
Lots of things have happened. Classes are slowing down. Danielle came and went in a whirlwind of drunken fun. We finally made it out of Madrid, to a BEACH!!! and I got sunstroke. I'll write more about it all when I'm not so tired.

"Party"

Max says he didn't kiss her, but they were "grinding together enough that the whole bar thought they were going to sleep together." I'll let his words speak for themselves.

I am a bad English professor. I never prepare lessons. There are long silences in class and I sometimes stare off into space. I am constantly late to my morning classes. I will probably be late tomorrow because I am still up now writing this. The problem is that they are too damned early. I'm almost never late to my other classes. Whatever. They're not going to fire me and they're not really going to affect my geting a job elsewhere. This is just a practice run of teaching. In September, no morning classes for me.

Oh, the things I could link you to if I wasn't too tired and baked to remember. Meh... Maybe next time.

We had a party last night. As Max said, "We would have left if it wasn't our party." But it was entertaining and we were very drunk. That's what counts.
Our friend, Lee, who redefines alcoholism by being falling-over drunk virtually every time we see him, showed up with a guy from Holland and a guy from Finland. The guy from Finland is a First Lieutenant of a tank division in the Finnish Military. He will mention this 50 times an hour. That and "Laurie [his name] is not a girl's name." He regaled us with stories about how World War II was where Finland defeated the Russians. They were also not allies with the Germans, but "comrades-in-arms." He didn't really give any further explanation on that. He also informed us that there are 188,000 lakes in Finland. "Lakes are like air in Finland! You just breathe them. They are everywhere!" He was not impressed by mention of America's Great Lakes, as there were only 5 of them. I'm not sure if he realized that Finland could probably fit inside them. He was also unfazed by Max and I doubled over with laughter after every time he mentioned the word "Finland." The Dutch guy said, "Laurie, I hope that I can get into a position of power so that I can attack Finland. I'll do it just because of tonight."
Lee passed out after about 5 minutes of this and thus did not have to suffer. But when he did wake up, he finished rolling the spliff that he'd passed out in the middle of rolling, smoked it, and promptly passed out again. I blamed this on him not listening to my warnings about the strength of the hash and proceeded to put random party detritus on his face, in his nose, and in a precarious tower on his head. Max took some pictures. He finally woke up, everyone left, and we passed the hell out.

The return

My computer is magically working again. It was like I'd lost a limb. The touchpad wasn't working, but Max used some of his chi to fix it, for which I am grateful.
I also managed to survive another all you can drink night at J&J's. The website is deceivingly serene. The day crowd are nice people that want to relax, have some coffee, and look at some books. The night crowd brings new meaning to the term alcoholic. After my 9th or 10th beer, I stumbled to the basement and locked myself in the bathroom, voimiting up ramen and shaking with cold sweats. Then I had a brief rest on the bathroom floor before going and napping in the bargain book room. I woke up and realized that the place was almost empty and fortunately made it out before being locked in for the night. I felt mildly ashamed about this, but Max told me he's had to go lie down there before, too. And our British friend Lee has been found passed out there also. So it's not like I did anything new.
But as a result of my disappearance, Max and I were separated and he was accosted by a "platoon of hookers" in Parque Oeste at 5 am on his way back home. Apparently, some of them were topless, but he was trying not to look directly at them while ignoring their shouts of "Oye, guapo! Donde vas?" Not that we aren't used to seeing prostitutes on every street corner in Madrid, I think he was just a little shocked by the sheer number of them. But despite Spain's relatively low violent crime rate and lack of serial killers, it's just old-fashioned hooker common sense not to hang out in secluded areas at night by yourself. Max managed to make it out unscathed, but if I'd been there, we would have kicked some hooker ass and taken some hooker names.
We are apparently surrounded by whores. The park on the other side of us, Casa de Campo, is supposed to be full of prostitutes at night, too. Our neighborhood is relatively nice, though, so I can only theorize that the parks full of prostitutes act as a kind of buffer for other crimes.
Well, speaking of whores, I have to go whore my language skills for another few dollars.

Fractal Food

So we actually moved into the apartment today. Our crazy landlady didn't have any of her crap moved out. There are many, many shelves in my room and all of them are filled with her junk. We left her to sort through it and said that we would be back later to help her carry anything she needed upstairs. I expect all of it to be in the exact same place that it was when we left. There was a ton of crap in the kitchen that she didn't even know was there until Max went through and pointed it out. But she did buy me a gihugic double bed, so I am happy about that despite the fact that it takes up about half my room. Still, we had to leave and go someplace to eat and hang out here in this miniature Internet café that is basically a closet with some computers in it just to avoid her incredibly annoying presence. And she's probably staying until Friday or Saturday. She said a few days, which Max took to mean Thursday, but that's wishful thinking. Signing the contract and getting a photocopy of Max's driver's license took two hours.

But we have an apartment at least. It cuts our living expenses by a huge amount. I want to start brewing beer, which may or may not save money, considering how much we drink. We've met a bunch of freaks and weirdos that we would love to invite over for a housewarming party. There's all of our alcoholic British friends, an Italian guy who claimed to be from one of the roughest neighborhoods in Italy that is trying to become a Freemason and is studying the Kaballah. There's some Spanish masseuse that agreed to trade massages for English lessons, which I'm incredibly excited about. I just hope "massage" doesn't mean "handjob." Max even managed to get a French girl's phone number, which he is very happy about. There's also my dog-walking boss, whose website is www.apaseomascotas.com, and his French bulldog, Federica, who is actually Jewish and another student of the Kaballah, who travels with him everywhere. When he drives the moped, he puts her in a duffel bag on the floor between his legs. I forgot to mention that when I described my white-knuckle ride with him. Plus all of the other assorted freaks that I've already mentioned. So it should be an interesting gathering, I hope.

Sweet merciful crap! The landlady just called to ask where we were. Max has been on the edge for days. I can't leave them alone because Max might start screaming at her or, you know, stab her or something.

So we had to pay 3 months rent to move into this place, which means I'll be relatively broke this month, but Danielle is getting here on the 25th and the partying will commence once more. I'm going to do a lot of reading in the meantime. Chris has a bunch of books and I still haven't finished everything that I brought. I also have to go check out the libraries and see if they have any comics or something simple to read in Spanish or else books in English. We also have a TV, which will help with practicing Spanish. I'm looking forward to watching "Los Simpsons" and the incredibly bizarre Spanish sketch comedy shows. And maybe I'll be able to catch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Spanish finally.

But in case anyone hasn't heard, we're looking to sublet 2 or 3 rooms or the apartment in July and possibly one in August. They're around €300 each. Two have double beds and one has a single with a pull-out sleeper. There's a big television, hardwood floors, washing machine, new fridge and stove, all the silverware, plates, pots and pans, etc. for cooking and it's only about 7 minutes to the metro and about 15 to the center. There's grocery stores, vegetarian restaraunts, and a mall nearby, and it's right next to Casa de Campo, which is a huge park in Madrid.

Alright. I'm off to shower, walk dogs and then to play chess, drink, and eat with Max and my dog-walking boss. Hopefully won't have to kill the landlady.

Happy Birthday, dear LSD

It was first synthesized in 1938, but it was on this day in 1943 that Albert Hoffman first discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD.
Also, I am overwhelmingly happy that Google now has a calendar. My Glife is now complete. All I have to do now is figure out if it's pronounced "glife" or "gee-life."

I have this one nightmare where I look in the mirror and Jesus is looking at me and he screams at me for hours and I can't close my eyes

http://wigu.com/overcompensating/2006/04/night-mares.html

This reminds me of the Semana Santa procession I witnessed last night. We were walking home at around 1 am, full of alcohol and god knows what other substances when we heard a racket coming from a side street. Great drums crashing and a band playing something mournful and dirge-sounding. We were not entirely surprised to see a procession of people that looked like purple-hooded Klansmen with silver staffs and 5 foot candles marching along in front of a float with Jesus on top carrying a cross. All in all, this this was at least 5 or 6 meters or 16-20 feet high. I know my conversion is not entirely accurate. These are round numbers because I was staring in horror at a giant statue of Jesus marching down the street as hooded, robed, creepy weirdos marched in front and a very military-looking (Falangist?) band followed.
Some people seemed to be taking it relatively seriously. There were people who had video cameras pointed at the statue of Jebus the entire time it was moving down the street, and it was not moving very fast. I have no idea how much it must have weighed, but the base of it was about as big as a car, then there was the statue on top of a slightly larger-than-life-sized Jesus on top carrying an appropriate sized cross. So I imagine it was pretty fucking heavy. There were at least 12 or so people underneath, carrying it, conveniently hidden by a cloth. They would move it forward about 10 yards or so and stop. Sometimes people would sing or something for a while. Then they would pick it up again, which would generate applause and move it a little further down the street. I have no idea how long they were going before we got there, but we were waiting around for at least a total of 25 minutes and it only moved about a block and half. I can understand taking a picture, but I don't know what they're going to do with 3 hours of footage of an unmoving giant Jesus statue other than freak out their children and grandchildren for years to come.
Other people did not seem to be taking this that seriously. They had beers and other drinks and would talk to the hooded people standing there and take pictures of themselves with the drinks in front of the float, pretending to give head to the bottle of beer and such.
I also have to mention that this float was covered in candles, giving it an even more impressive and ominous appearance and guarunteeing that it would haunt our dreams for the rest of our known lives. The five foot candles that the Katholic Klansmen carried were a dark red and the wax all over their hands looked disturbingly like blood. There were also pools of congealed wax on the street from where they paused during the march. The only thing they really could have done to make it creepier would be to give BeJeezus laser eyes, a mouth that shot fire, and have it scream things in Latin.
Max and I agreed that it was the creepiest parade ever, but Max was slightly more disturbed by the girl he saw on the metro wearing swastika pins on her jacket.

Gwyneth Paltrow Gives Birth to Baby Moses

This week is Semana Santa, which of course, the week when Santa sends all of his hot jizz down on all of the good girls and boys. I don't have to walk dogs this week, so I'm trying to use up the rest of the hours available on this 10-hour Internet ticket that I bought. I'm also attempting to regrow huge sideburns now that I have a job and don't have to attempt to look somewhat clean-shaven.
After spending all of our free time for the past number of weeks looking for apartments, we have found two that might work out. One is being rented by a woman who is Spanish, but has lived in Texas for 30 years. So she is more than a bit insane. She's very concerned about who is going to live in which room and where we are going to theoretically put bikes, even though we don't have any bikes yet. She's also living there until May 2, so we can't move in before then. She also agreed to rent it to some Spanish guy that she doesn't like, but now the both of them are reconsidering.
The second place is bigger, closer to the center, and has a small balcony. It's slightly more expensive, but it's worth it. We can also move in on the 15th of April. Neither one of these places is definite, but the bigger one said it wouldn't be a problem provided we had the money and pay stubs and the crazy woman said that it's fine as long as the other guy doesn't want it.
What is the point of all this? The point is that I am going to scream and rip people's still-beating hearts out of their chests if I have to spend another week or god knows how long looking at more apartments.

More meanness

Chunky girls keep trapping Max and giving him their phone number. This even happened the first weekend we were here. We were at a club and some girl who was like 6 feet tall and on E kept trying to give him drugs, sex, etc. Most recently, someone invited us to this birthday party where there were these two English girls. I talked to one briefly, who turned out to be a hardcore Catholic. She referred to all Protestant religions as subdivisions of the Catholic church. This all came up in reference to my Salvation Army T-shirt, which I was trying to explain to her and a Spanish guy. She was like, "Oh, we've had those forever. The Catholic Church invented the Salvation Army." So I started ranting about how I was a gnostic Christian and therefore my religion pre-dated hers. Because I'm, y'know, a dick.
During this entire conversation, the other (fatter) English girl had Max trapped on the balcony and was regaling him with stories of a former boyfriend that had asked her to piss on him, nude "bungee rocketing," and how she had been "technically celibate" for the past six years. Oh, and she's a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan.
I came out onto the balcony and Max immediately started trying to position me between himself and this girl while babbling about wasn't it about time we needed to go? She ignored this and recited portion of a Monty Python sketch from memory. This, along with other things we discussed when we all left together to get the last metro, prompted me to ask her frankly, "Sooo, would you consider yourself a nerd?" She replied in the positive and then we discussed comics, but she was apparently only into shite such as X-Men and thought that Jessica Alba performed admirably in the film version of "Sin City." I did not hesitate to tell her how completely wrong she was, but I didn't get the satisfaction because she had to get off the metro.
We also have a new favorite word, "minging." It's a British word that means, more or less, to be ugly. As in, "He was just minging," or "She was a real minger." The Chinese restaraunt called "House of Ming" next to one of the schools where we work has become endlessly amusing. When we later discussed that night and the insane nonsense that these girls were spouting, Max referred to them as "Ming 1 and Ming 2," at which I laughed uproariously. Then he said we're the meanest people we know in Madrid. And I laughed some more.

The meanest people in Madrid*

So I think I set some sort of new personal record last night. I saw this woman at an intercambio last night that had to be 6 feet tall or so and looked like Elvira with an '80s short n´spiky hairdo. I knew that she had to be Russian and I told Max that he should "mack it." We went sort of near her to talk to the guy who runs the thing by introducing people and he introduced us to Olga (a.k.a. Elvira) who, as it turned out, was Russian, from Siberia. With a lot of gold teeth. Max talked to her a bit before I chimed in, saying, "I speak some Russian." What I said to her was the equivalent of "I have wine, let's fuck." Only infinitely more foul because it was in Russian, the language of swearing. Let me state that I have said this to many Russian guys before and they all laughed. Olga did not laugh. She sort of stood there with a stunned look on her face and did a triple take. She didn't slap me, which Max thought she was going to do, so he quickly explained to her that I didn't really know what it meant. Which was sort of true. Anyway, she said, in broken English, that that wasn't something I should go around saying. I just stood there trying not to fall over from laughing. Yes, I was drunk. But I do feel slightly bad about it now. I didn't realize that it would offend her. I think that she took it as an actual proposition.
Another thing that happened while I was drunk that I also feel bad about is something that I didn't even plan or think about at the time. We were sitting at a table at this café that has a €10 all-you-can-drink night and this girl we knew came in. For the record, she's crazy, but this should be assumed about anyone that associates with us. She asked if the seat was taken, and I said, without hesitation, "No, but we're saving it for more attractive women." She said, "Well there's no chance of that happening" and sat down anyway. I thought that it was clear that I was joking and didn't give it a second thought. Only later when Max told me how shocked and chagrined he was did I stop to think about it. My thought process went something like this: "HA HA HA. Wait, that was mean. Well, whatever. She's still talking to us."
This is in addition to us making fun of everyone that we meet as soon as they're out of earshot. Binghamton has bred it into us.


* According to Max.

More nonsense. And a job!

Woo! It's blog time. My café irlandes (coffee with whiskey) was huge. It was served in a milkshake glass. I don't know why, but I'm certainly not complaining. My brunch of booze and coffee has energized me for the day.
After running around all fucking day yesterday to go to three interviews and take retarded tests that allegedly reveal my teaching style and skills, I have been offered 10-12 hours at €15/hour. HUZZAH! This is enough money to cover my living expenses, food, monthly metro pass, and some drinking. With the dogs and this, I'll be making plenty of money. There's also another school that said they were going to offer me hours, but they haven't gotten back to me.
Apparently March is a good time to look for jobs. The English-language paper, "In Madrid" had a whole page of adverts for native English teachers this month. The people I was interviewing with told me that, for various reasons, they need a lot of people this time of year. This may explain our troubles finding work before. I heard that Jan/Feb was a good time, but maybe we just arrived a little late and were lazy about it through the prime hiring time.
It is ludicrously simple to get a job here. No one checks credentials. I plan on openly lying in all future interviews. But even when Max and I came in and said we had no experience, we still managed to get jobs. Max is working with a guy who was a grocery bagger in the US and had a semester or two of community college. Now he's making at least €17/hour.
I think this all relates to the '80s-ness of Madrid. After the introduction of the euro, their economy has been on an relative upswing. Who knows if it will last, but people are partying while they can. And every time I watch Spanish TV, it's like I'm in the '80s. This weekend, I was dog-sitting at a guy's place and Dirty Dancing and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were on. Then there were Japanese '80s cartoons dubbed into Spanish. Plus re-runs of Mexican television, which could be from the '80s or could have been made yesterday. You can never tell with the Mexicans.
Max has a theory that Spanish society, or at least Madrid, is divided into Fraggles and Doozers. The section of the population that parties all the time, trashes things, and litters are the Fraggles. Then there's the limpieza, which are apparently combination garbagemen/street cleaners. They are the Doozers. They clean up the rubble in the wake of the drunken, insane Fraggle-partying. The Doozers are also responsible for tearing down and re-building half of Madrid. Everything is under construction here. The joke goes, "How do you like Madrid?" "It'll be nice when it's finished."
Max has also convinced me to read "Anti-Oedipus," bastard that he is. I'm really enjoying it despite its mind-boggling denseness. Allegedly the authors were aiming at 15-20 year old young men. Shyeah right. I have trouble with all the details of it, and Max admits that he doesn't get a lot of it either. I get the general ideas, but some of the details are unclear. Despite this hideous complexity, I think it would do a lot of people a lot of good if they read it. I just don't know if they'd be able to. I don't know if I'll be able to. But now that I'm 100 or so pages in, it's becoming slightly easier. So we'll see.
Also, I have discovered a better way to see Madrid, though it is even more dangerous than riding around with Mario. My dog-walking boss gave me a ride home the other night on his moped, speeding down the streets and telling me to watch my knees in traffic as I held on for dear life and watched my face grimacing in fearful delight, surrounded by hundreds of lights reflected in the back of his black helmet.
That's all for now. Time is out at the cafe. Adios!

The cast of characters

Max is off "teaching" private lessons to a painfully boring software engineer. This "teaching" involves listening to him talk about whatever and occasionally grunting some sort of assertion. And he's making €12/hr to do so. Of course, no one has responded to my offers for private lessons yet. I´m still walking dogs. I´ve had two teaching interviews thus far, though. Another place sent me an email offering me a job, and there's one other place that I haven´t called back yet. So hopefully something will work out.
I do enjoy walking the dogs, but teaching pays a lot better. Plus, the bulk of my income comes from one set of dogs that involves an hour commute each way. And 20 minutes of that is walking from the metro stop to the house. They´re the retrievers, Puskas and Ekita, that live in the ultra-rich neighborhood.
I was walking them last night, and it was incredibly nice out, though it was a bit cold and windy. There were clouds going by over head and I was out in the middle of the park I mentioned, which is really just a piece of land with some paths, but it's big enough that there are parts where you can't see any buildings. I was just listening to Four Tet and looking up at these clouds racing by the moon. Very calm. Very peaceful.
On the other hand, I'd only had about 4-5 hours of sleep for the last two nights due to having to get up early and run to an interview and look at an apartment (which was not very promising, though it was in Quevedo, a nice area close to downtown). So I was exhausted by the end of the day.
Another reason that I was exhausted is that we'd been out until 3 or 4 am with Mario. He took us to a jam session at "Beethoven Blues Bar." The first people up there were playing old-style, my-woman-gone-n'-done-me-wrong blues, and it just seemed so... white. I wish I could play guitar like the singer, but he just didn´t thrill me. Then this young guy got up there and played a song in some language I didn´t recognize. He was amazing, both his guitar and his voice. I talked to him later to tell him that I liked his stuff. I thought he´d been singing in French, but it turns out that it was Arabic, though he also spoke French. And English. And Spanish. Possibly more, but I didn't ask, because I was jealous enough. He was from Algiers and he even bore a certain resemblance to a young Camus.
Mario then drove us home, even drunker than when he picked us up, along with being addled from hash and god knows what else. He kept cackling and saying, "Don´t worry. You're with Uncle Mario!" as he careened around corners in his oversized shoebox of a car. I have to say, there's really no better way to see Madrid than zooming down the late-night streets with a crazy little drunk man driving and the radio blaring flamenco music from the '20s. To paint a better picture, Mario looks like the Mario of Nintendo fame. Or, in his words, like he's trying out for a role as a '70s detective. It was a blast.
We've also met a bunch of interesting people at the intercambios. You may think an Algerian who speaks four languages is impressive, but we'd already met a guy named Guillermo that works as a translator and speaks five languages. But he doesn't seem as cool now that we've met a flaming homosexual Dutchman that lived in Manhattan for a while and speaks upwards of 11 languages, including, but not limited to, Dutch, German, Russian, French, English, Spanish, Chinese, Romanian, and Japanese. Did I mention that he works writing, shooting, and editing documentaries? Yes, everyone in Europe is cooler than you could ever hope to be. It's annoying sometimes. But we're going to hang out with this Dutchman anyway. Not only because he has an apartment in Amsterdam that he lets his friends stay at, but because he's just so damned interesting.
I'm going to meet our friend Juan in a little while at J&J's, which has become our new hangout. That's also where Max is at the moment. And it's also where I will get completely trashed because tonight is all you can drink beer for €9. I'm going to attempt to be less of a drunken ass tonight. Anyway. Juan is our pseudo-communist friend. He was a member of the Communist Youth League when he was younger, but never a member of the party. He now considers himself more of a socialist, but still has various friends in the Communist party, which he always refers to as "the CP." Because, y'know, there are fascists lurking everywhere. We met him because of a sign he put up looking for people to hike in the mountains. He sells chemical supplies to high schools. He also took us to "Marx Madera," a bar owned by the Communist Party. He's definitely a weirdo, but he's been very nice to us and helped us find an apartment, though it unfortunately got rented before we could confirm it.
I have no time to write about our other acquaintances at the moment, because Juan and a bottomless glass of Mahou Clasica calls my name. Adios.

Quasi-recent updates

I updated more recently than I remembered, which is still not all that recently. A lot has happened. My computer´s hard drive died, to my immense frustration. My grandmother also died. Still waiting for my brontosaurus-like emotion on that one. I was fired as a children's magician due to gross incompetence, both on my part and the boss's. I am now a professional dog-walker. I actually enjoy it quite a bit. I walk about four hours a day, which does wonders for my insomnia and energy levels. One set of dogs that I walk are some sort of purebred lab retrievers. The neighborhood that I walk them through contains several embassies, Iraqi, Cuban, Jordanian, Ukranian, etc. The people who own the dogs have an enormous house, with multiple security cameras and infrared motion detectors, not to mention 24-hour armed security. I had to bring my passport to prove my identity. Just to walk dogs. But the park that I walk them in is incredibly nice, except for the dog shit everywhere. It's on a hill in the northeast of Madrid and on a clear day (which is most days in Madrid) you can see the Guadarrama mountain range that's on the northwest side of Madrid. My time runs out in 22 seconds. Adios, y'all.

More about Madrid

I´m writing this from a cybercafe in Madrid because we moved to a cheaper hostel that does not have a wireless connection I can steal from. All of Blogger is in Spanish and it´s a bit confusing. I think this is also the first time I´m posting sober, so that´s a change, too. And when I was here yesterday an enormous bug fell out of my coat when I got up. So I´m nervously eyeing the place. In general, it seems relatively clean, but I just can´t trust it.

I mentioned mullets in the last post, but I didn´t fully explain the situation, which is this: Madrid is infested with mullets. Every single guy under the age of 30 has one, as do a significant majority of the women. The women are really bad because they tend to look like they scraped some flattened roadkill off the road and fashioned it into a wig. I wish I was joking.

The guys have an astonishing array of mullets. Many of them shave the sides, to make them more nauseating, I assume. Some have relatively well-groomed mullets, but at best, they manage to look like members of Menudo. If my camera hadn´t been stolen, I would post a hundred or so mullet pics.

Other style notes: Huge sunglasses that cover half your face are in. So is the color orange. It´s a specific shade, though. Sort of an autumny/halloweeny color. For the ladies, you should be wearing heels 4 inches high and 1/8 of an inch wide. Preferably on boots that come up to mid-calf. Accompany this with capri pants or jeans that come down to about an inch above the boots.

That´s about all I have to say about one of the fashion capitals of the world at the moment. I have to go look up some magic tricks for my job as a magician teaching english to kids. And also to apply for other jobs because trying to amuse kids with a bag full of broken tricks after getting up at 6:45 is not my idea of a good time.

Madrid in two words.

1. Ham.
2.Mullets.

And if I had an optional third word, it would be "conflagublatious", which is a new word that I have just created to describe the ridiculous amount of partying this place has.
I was at a club where the DJ, named Gregor Tresher, if I remember correctly, played for 6 1/2 hours while we were there. We got there between 1 and 1:30 and he had presumably been playing since at least 11. I didn't even realize how long it had been until I started to get tired from dancing and looked at my watch and saw it was 6 am.
When we left, this group of kids invited us to some sort of after party, which we might have gone to if we hadn't been so exhausted. They were fine because they were on a ton of ecstacy.
There was also a kid who kept wanting to have his picture taken with me. He literally grabbed me out of the crowd and I thought something was up at first, but just protected my wallet and smiled for the cameraphone. But apparently it was too dark. So he took my picture again. And again. And then 5 minutes later. He asked me to do this at least 7 or 8 times over the course of a half hour or something. He seemed more sad and apologetic each time but he finally got a halfway decent one. He didn't mention anything about the movie, but my only explanation for his behavior was that he thought I was Napoleon Dynamite. However, this does not explain some girl coming up to me outside, patting me on the back and saying, "Tscheuess. It's good, ja!" or maybe "ist gut, ja!" as if I was Austrian. It was late, and I was a bit drunk, exhausted, etc, so I didn't question it.

In other news, the Museo de Jamon count has risen to 5, as well as at least two Paraiso de Jamons (Ham paradises). At a bar last night, they gave us potato chips with shaved ham on top as a snack. And when they give you shaved ham, they are cutting it off of a giant leg of ham that is often mounted into a holder on the bar right next to you. These things must weight at least 50 pounds. And every place that serves food has at least 20 of them hanging on the wall. I have often walked into a bar and saw before me a literal wall of ham. Max has given up all pretense of vegetarianism for the time being.

And speaking of the sweet mistress Jamon, I am sleepy and she awaits me in the smoky, flavorful mists of my dreams. Buenos noches.

Further (mis) adventures.

It's day five (four and a half, really) of our stay in Madrid. We've settled down a bit. After writing the last post, we went out and met our Madrileño friend, who took us out, introduced us to some people, and partied with us until 5 am or so. That was a tad exhausting, but I got to practice a lot of Spanish. People said I spoke well for only having studied for a year when I was twelve, but a lot of conversacion is still incomprehensible to me. The Castilian lisp still sounds very strange, too.
We also went out Saturday and Sunday nights. Saturday we went to various tapas places and had excellent "naturbiër" at a bar of the same name. Then we went to a hostal called Cat's Hostel. The bar/lounge area is nicely decorated, clean, and hip. If we were interested in shared dorm-style hostels, I would stay there. The real reason we went there was for the beer that's 2.5 euros for a liter. That's right. A liter. It's apparently 3.5 when there's a show going on. The beer was "Estrella Damm," which is ok, but there are much better beers around. The crowd was really young there and most people were absorbed in a soccer game, but we did meet a few somewhat lame weirdos from the Midwest.
After that, we checked out a place called "Sesamos," which translates to "sesame" as in "Open sesame!" This is because it's underground in this semi-cavelike bomb shelter/wine cellar sort of thing. The waiters have red suits and bowties and serve excellent sangria to you at your table. We had to wait a while to get in, but it was fun. Not a place to meet people, but good to go and have a drink and chat with friends. We also got to embarrass ourselves with our attempts at Spanish while in line.
We went to a few hopping clubs on Sunday, though not intentionally. There are guys wandering the streets that offer you free drinks. They take you to a club, you get in for free, get a free drink, and usually a card for discounted drinks. You could definitely get trashed by wandering around getting free drinks. All this on a Sunday night. New York really has nothing on Madrid in terms of partying.
After we were good and drunk from free drinks, we went to get some food at this little place near us that had various pizza-ish things. On the way in, some guys were coming out who started talking to us, one of whom looked obviously drunk. Unbeknownst to us at the time, this was our first encounter with Spanish pickpockets. We really should have seen it coming, as they kept touching us and getting too close and holding our hands. But we were drunk, it was a Sunday night, and they just seemed like overly friendly drunk guys. And we were basically in the doorway of this food place. They must have been fantastic pickpockets, because they managed to get Max's wallet out of his front pocket, get the cash, and put it back without him noticing. They also got my digital camera from the outer pocket of my coat, which they must have seen when I took a picture of a hostel's sign down the street that said "Speak Englisch" as we were walking up the street. We didn't even realize that they'd done anything until we were inside the food place and this homeless guy who'd been bugging us for change came in and told us they had my camera. After we deciphered his Spanish, of course. He tried to rip us off for 10 euros by saying he knew where they lived, but he was just jerking us around as we found out when we made him call the police for us and he gave different names for the pickpockets several times. Even then, we didn't realize they had Max's money until we went back to the place to buy food and saw Max's empty wallet. They even managed to get his cigarettes out of his other front pocket.
We kicked ourselves for a while after that and wandered the streets looking for an ATM and some food. I was really frustrated, annoyed, and disappointed for a while. Max did his best to cheer me up and it helped me keep from getting disheartened. In the end, nothing important got stolen. Our passports were in our room and they didn't take any credit cards. Max only had about 70-100 Euros in his wallet, so it's not the end of the world, though I unfortunately won't be able to share any of the pictures I took.
I woke up today and pretty much felt fine, though I've kicked myself a few more times for letting it get stolen. We even managed to survive El Rastro, which is a huge flea market and legendary pickpocket hangout, without getting anything stolen, but some drunk guys managed to fleece us. I hope I've learned my lesson.
Not to end on a down note, though. Today was a decent day. We walked around and saw a lot of sights. We also went to all the major phone companies and got information about their plans. We went back to an English used bookstore that we had been to on Saturday or Sunday night and met the manager, who is American. That makes two Americans we've met so far. Most people seem to think we're British or something. Americans apparently aren't that common in Madrid. Anyway, the bookstore, which is J&J's Books and Coffee, is a cool place, with reasonably priced drinks, and apparently a good selection of English books, though we haven't wandered into that section yet, being too distracted by the conversation at the bar. The best thing about it, though, is the events that they have. They have intercambio (language exchange) nights, all you can drink nights, etc. It's a cool place that we will definitely hang out in more.
We also tried another bookstore, FNAC, which was part of a big store that also sold music and electronics. There was a classical quintet outside playing various pieces from Mozart and Verdi. They sounded very good to my untrained ear. FNAC had a pretty good selection of English books and a huge collection of art books, including a six-volume series on the history of men's magazines (i.e. porn). Popular paperbacks in English are around 10 euros, which is criminal, but trade paperbacks are between 12 and 15, which really isn't so bad. They also inexplicably had "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" for 2.61. It was some Penguin thrift edition, though. By contrast, the prices at J&J's seem reasonably cheap. I saw a guy buy two or three paperbacks, a Dover edition of King Lear, a copy of The Teachings of Don Juan, and maybe one other trade paperback for 13.5 euros.
On the way back from all these shenanigans, we were walking along Gran Via, which is the most touristy, over-priced street in Madrid, when I saw this older white guy talking to a young black woman at the corner of a shop. He was obviously trying to convince her of something. The whole thing looked sketchy. I said that she was probably a prostitute, when we passed two more black girls that were standing at the corner of another store. They were made up and semi-obviously looking for attention. I said something else about prostitutes when we passed a fourth girl who must have heard us talking about prostitutes in English, because she said, "Excuse me, señors," and then said something about whether or not we wanted a "blowsjob." I couldn't exactly hear her. We just laughed and said no thanks and told her to have a good night.
I don't want to sound prejudiced or anything. They were very attractive young women. And they seemed like very nice prostitutes. But they were, y'know, obviously prostitutes.
My theories on minorities and monoculturalism in Madrid will have to wait until later because I need to sleep. I've got a big day of police reports and apartment hunting tomorrow.
Adios.

Hola Amigos!

I'm in Madrid. It's great! There really is ham in just about everything. Walking around today, I saw three Museos del Jamon (Ham Museums). These are restaraunts/museums with fuckloads of ham hanging everywhere. If you go in a bar that has tapas, there is a good chance they'll give you something with ham/pork on it by default and 4 out of 5 menu items will contain ham. The beer and food that I have had thus far is excellent. Things are slightly expensive, but nowhere near as expensive as New York.
The flight was a bitch. We did manage to get a few hours sleep in Dublin airport, despite an incessant beeping noise that we could not locate. We're still jet-lagging, but we're hoping to be over that by tomorrow. Our luggage got roughed up and was obviously rummaged through. We packed far too much. Lesson learned: Pack extremely light. The hostal where we're staying is very clean, with a private bath, but a bit expensive. If they give us a good discount, we'll stay, otherwise, we've already found a cheaper place, but with no private bath.
We're about to go try to find an expatriate bar and meet up with a madrileno friend.