the bright commons

last saturday after posting a blog i went downstairs and had breakfast with josé maria. wow, we talked a lot about his life, very interesting, lived in the desert in algeria for 3 months with 2 80 year old french guys. no running water, electricity, etc. they used to walk 100 miles through the desert to the town to pick supplies. he spent a bit of his life as an ascetic, i'd say. he told me about when he left for algeria, he didn't know if he'd ever come back, so he got rid of everything he owned here in spain, said goodbye to his kids, family, parents, friends, etc, and took a bookbag with him overseas. evidently, he came back! anyhow, very fascinating. i left to go meet up with clara and javi at about 12 30, and we walked around barcelona. it was so neat to be back! it's like returning your old neighborhood, or seeing an old friend, and everything slowly comes back to you. we walked all around la ramblas and the area around there. i think i'm ready to be a decent tour guide when cj arrives! later we went to clara's house, and met up with her parents. spanish fathers are always so intimidating, asking about your work, your future, your education. in this case, asking me about natural resources and political history of central asia. ah!!! and i just came for the drinks? ok, ok, kidding .. .. we left, and on the way to javi's house we stopped at bar tomás, which is well known for its patatas bravas in barcelona. patatas bravas are potatos that are boiled, and then fried, and then served with a hot garlic sauce. so good! so we went to javi's house and had dinner around 10 30. here in spain, the eating schedule is so so different. people eat breakfast around 10 am, lunch at 2 30, and then dinner around 10 or 11. it's so damn late! anyhow, we had a bit to drink, and went to go to some bars in barcelona, with a 2 liter water bottle refilled with rum and coke. pretty ridiculous to be in the metro stop openly drinking! anyhow, went to a few bars in la rambla, all was well. by the time we got to some discoteca, i was so dead that i just sort of sat outside until the others were ready to leave. it was nice to sit in the fresh air, seeing the people walk around. we got home at around 4 30 am, and i was hurtin. the next morning i woke up and felt inspired, so i wrote a pretty lengthy treatise on how i felt about life, comparing it to a similar morning 3 years ago. i hung it on my wall, pretty nice to read from time to time. anyhow, javi and i went back downtown to check out barcelona. went to els 4 gats (the 4 cats), which is a bar where modernist poets and painters used to hang out, the most famous of which is picasso. the name comes from a spanish saying, roughly, "there's 4 cats there," which means that it's empty, no one is there, it's dead. kinda funny when it's the name of a café or bar. it's up there with les deux magots, the two cigarette butts, a parisian café for thinkers of yesterday. came back to sabadell, and started feelin rough, had a fever for about 2 days. i spent most of the week drawing with colored pencils and playing guitar. colored pencils are coming along, and i wrote 1 1/2 new songs. i need to finish the second one! it feels good to be writing again. i feel like i'm finally in a mental space again where i can begin to do so. however, my drawing of bedroom eyes, to me is just as expressive as a song could be. the symbolism is completely different, but still powerful to me. what a wild experience. i went and bought a really nice sketchbook with thick watercolor paper that will be sturdy enough to sell to folks. we'll see how it goes! gerald is telling me he wants to see me out in the street painting, drawing, doin my thing. i told him i'll write him in 15 years when i'm in south africa with a suitcase full of oil pastels and renting a shitty apartment with money i'm making from selling landscape drawings to tourists. ahh! life's crazy. well, today i am going to go out and draw a bit outside. it's very nice out. other than that, i plan on finishing up my new songs and relaxing. we work on monday, but tuesday is fiesta, so we have the day off. saturday i pick up cj, and we begin our immense journey (loren eiseley reference). for those who are interested, in order, we are going to .. barcelona, sabadell, tarragona, granada, sevilla, córdoba, madrid, toledo, barcelona. in andalucía, the area where we'll be travelling, it's very common for the bars to give you tapas when you order a beer. a tapa is like a snack, like a bowl of olives, mini sandwiches, patatas bravas, for example. so in granada, it's not uncommon to go to a bar and have 3 rounds of beers and get a lot of munchies. i suppose you leave feeling pretty well satisified. well, off to the real world. keep in touch!