May Day I flew out of Mad to Nantes, France. I got in two hours late. Dad met me at the terminal and I could tell he was tired. We talked a lot on the bus into town, eating sandwiches and drinking tea.
In the morning it was drizzling. Even though we got up early (9-ish) it took us a while to get going. By the time we ate and picked up supplies, it was eleven o´clock. I bought us tasty spiced pita and goat cheese from a little lebanese place, ¨manned¨ by a twelve-year old fellow. Pop and I were quite impressed by his mature, yet good-natured demeanor.
Nantes used to have a bustling ship yard but it wound down about a hundred years ago. Now it has a fairly thriving arts scene and is a popular tourist destination, from afar and from within France. We un-hitched our bikes from in front of the train station and took a spin around the little island in the middle of the Loire. There we had a great view of the now defunct port facilities, the empty docks, and the massive motionless cranes. I told Dad how it reminded me of the miles of cranes along the docks of Oakland. On this little island in the middle of the Loire used to stand the Union halls for the harbor workers. Now, the massive warehouses and meeting halls have been converted into art galleries and community spaces. Inside one such converted warehouse was a giant mechanical elephant, fully articulated and powered by means of a complicated pneumatic system. Round about this time the drizzle let up and we set off pedaling down the D107, along the northern bank of the Loire. Dad kept telling me about this amazing bike path that he had noted on the map, that ran next to the river. It ran the roughly seventy kilometers to St. Nazaire, our destination for the day. We kept passing points where, on the map, the bike path crossed the highway, yet, this path was no where to be seen. The rail line, however, kept mysteriously appearing where the bike path was supposed to be.
"Dad," I asked time and again, "Are you sure that's the bike trail? I think maybe it's the railway."
"Ah, no, it's the trail! The man at the map store told me about it. He said we could take the D17, almost all the way, too."
"Okay, Pop," I'd say and nod.

Finally, fifty klicks in, I looked at the map legend. The "bike trail" was indeed the rail line. We'd been riding on the trail, concurrent with the D17, all along! I have always known I get my excellent sense of direction (HAH!) from my dear old pop. Our erroneous quest for the bike trail led to many interesting, if circuitous, diversions like this one:

We climbed up a bunch of long hills and rode into Saveney right about nine o'clock. We were beat and it was a holiday but luckily there was an inn open. After a steak dinner (breaking my three-week veg streak) and a couple of pints of tasty, tasty Leffe, Pop and I crashed. I watched some really weird David Bowie movie until I passed out. Bowie played a time traveling alien and I understood nothing because it was all dubbed in French.
The next morning we got up early. The sky was cloudy but quickly cleared and was wonderful the rest of the way. I drank a lot of coffee and ate a ton of food. We kicked off down those big hills and blew across the flats all the way to St. Nazaire. The East side of St. Nazaire is an ugly, ugly place. There's about ten miles of refineries and industrial harbor. I found a sweet radioactive magnet that's about a square foot. It was lying by the side of the road. I suppose it fell off the back of a truck. After a pit stop for more beer, and some conversation over pita and goat cheese by a really gross canal, we set off again. The countryside improved immensely as factories gave way to beach, farms, and resort towns. Our pace was much better the second day: we made fifty kilometers in just three hours. Of course, we still had twenty to go! It was a great feeling when we got to the beach on the West side of St. Nazaire. The last haul to Le Pouliguen went smoothly and when we hit the crescent bay, there were hundreds of kites flying in the sky. Here we are, 110 kM after leaving Nantes:

Mama and Olivia came walking up from the train station right as we were chaining our bikes in front of the hotel. It was great seeing them. We went for a stroll along the beach and ate crepes.
I took a photo from a jetty in the canal leading to the ocean.

The next day we spent being family and walking way too much. We all had to be somewhere Monday, so we caught the train back to Nantes (the line that ran along our "bike path"). After a cab ride from an Iranian cabbie who blasted Chuck Berry, we all found ourselves at an airport hotel. There was no staff, only computers. Everything operated by barcode or credit card. I was really creeped out. That must be what things are like in Japan. My flight left at five a.m. and after a few hours of sleep my whole family walked the five hundred meters to the airport. Olivia and I downed espressos, and recounted our early morning experience with the gigolo at Termini station in Rome. My folks saw me off. When I got home I crashed for most of the day. I think I saw Ilana but I can't really remember. Monday morning, I was back at work.

Happy bicycle day. Looking forward to tomorrow.
El Coco lent me his fixed and I rode 21 km through the pouring rain, hail, and Madrid traffic. This race occured simultaneously in twenty-odd cities across the planet, so we started off at 14.00. I came in eleventh out of fifteen. Don't let that fool you! I was the second to last to finish; three dropped out. From the Patio to Lavapies to Cibeles, then to Olavide, Moncloa, Plaza Castilla, and finally back to the Patio.
Juan (from Asturias) won. A kid named Federico from out of town placed second. Coco came in third. The other Juan is in a wheelchair 'cuz he fractured his pelvis in a wreck. He still showed up, though. He was in the video down at the bottom. It's from a local newspaper. Coco, who lent me a bike, is the kid in the yellow jersey who says: "Riding fixed brakeless is like drinking decaf your whole life and then drinking espresso."

After the race we drank beer and smoked cigars.

Now I'm beat. Gotta eat and take a shower. Then maybe I'll look up a certain blonde...

Enjoy the video. It's from the last race.

Peace.

The bells were ringing when Emily and I got into Orgiva. It was eleven fifteen as we shouldered our rucksacks and headed towards the plaza. "Hey Z,” I said, because that’s what I call Emily, “How do you feel about coffee?”
“Coffee sounds like a good idea..." Z is a bike messenger from Greenwich Village but she goes to school in Berkeley.
We ducked into the first café we saw. The Slavic woman behind the bar made cafes con leche and the bells kept ringing. I noticed the napkins were for our hostel and asked how to get there. The bartender pointed upstairs. We had good luck the whole trip.
Z and I had spent the last couple of days at a hostel in the Albaycin in Granada. The Hostel was called Terrapin Station and run by an affable, and very stoned, young American named James. The only other person staying there at the time was a young Italian named Nicolai. He slept a lot. During the day Z and I would wander the streets, getting lost and arguing about how to get back. Invariably she'd be right. It took me a couple of days to unwind. Madrid is nicknamed the "fascist tomb" and the metaphor is double edged.
Plus, my roommate Eduardo had gotten really upset with me for having loud sex. I'm not even going to talk about work. And Buffalo Bill is dead. Another stupid death. Another friend I will only talk to in dreams. It also didn’t help that throughout Granada resounded the ominous, wailing music of the Holy Week processions as hooded parishioners carried bloodied saints through the streets.
Things finally relaxed the second evening, on meeting up with Jose Luis and Pastora. Pastora has begun painting again after being preoccupied with teaching photography for the last few years. Jose Luis received great acclaim at an international puppeteer convention in Iran for a puppet show of his. He "revolutionized puppetry in Iran," with his 3 minute magnum opus. Over tea in a teteria the couple invited Z and me to stay at their place there in Granada and offered to leave us the keys for their studio in Baeza (a UN heritage site). Then they took us out to dinner at a "Japones" noodle shop. They marveled at our Yankee aplomb with the chopsticks.
In the morning Z and I took the bus down the hill from the Albaycin, breathing the cool air and observing the descent into the new city. The bus to Orgiva left at 10 and we dashed through the bus station as the P.A. announced the bus was leaving at that moment. Of course when we got to the bay it was exactly at ten but the bus hadn't even arrived yet. "Welcome to Spain," I quipped.
Z slept on my shoulder as the bus whizzed around curves atop cliffs, heedless of oncoming traffic. The mountains were beautiful and every so often the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevadas slipped into view. Near Orgiva there is a valley full of windmill generators looking very 21st century.
After coffee and stashing our packs at El Semaforo in Orgiva, we found a hippie named Jose playing the flute in the plaza. He told us how to get to Beneficio: "Go to the West, out of town, until you find this one tree with this one graffiti, and there you make autostop. Everybody going to Beneficio."
Z and I spent the rest of the day drinking beer in an abandoned lot on a pile of rocks surrounded by gnarled old olive trees facing a graffiti laden corner. We wandered some more along the edge of town. Right by the city limits towards Cigarrones was a burro standing hitched in a field, a thin blue stream of smoke curling up from the bluff below, set against a backdrop of the Alpujarra mountains. On the way back into town Z and I stopped at an old inn where we ate Roquefort, drank wine, talked about our families, and eavesdropped on the French backpackers. Back at the Semaforo we slept until dark and after a spliff at the plaza, watching two little girls race, we went to a cafe so Z could sketch and I could write.
The next morning we set off, following Jose's directions, and quickly found the "one tree with one graffiti." A low stone wall stood at the edge of the hill. There seated on the wall, surrounded by plastic bags, contentedly munching a breakfast of bread and bologna, was a thin man in an old tattered Army jacket. He saw Z and me puzzling over the map discussing whether to hitch or hike. The thin man asked "Vere are you going?" "Beneficio," I replied. "Sit," said the thin man, emphatically. "Here you make autostop." He smoked cigarettes and talked as we waited. His name was Zoltan and he was from Budapest. Zoltan was tall, skinny, and clean-shaven with cropped grey hair. Zoltan’s face was long, with a hawk nose, sharp cheeks, long jaw and clear grey eyes under bushy eyebrows. He was wearing jeans and an old army coat. He'd hitched for many years. "It is hard to make autostop here in Spain. Zey don't give a shit about you. France is good, Germany, okay, but here, zey don't give a shit about you. You get only rides from South Americans. Ze Argentinians are ze best." A car would approach, Zoltan would take a drag and stick out his thumb. The auto would zoom past in a cloud of dust and Zoltan would burst out "Fuck you, Spanish Pig! Yes, you!" and shake his fist. Finally, after Yusef, another Beneficio bound hitcher showed up, the four of us got a ride from a woman. "Bless you, lady, you're the first," said Zoltan. The woman was about forty and a potter. Her name was Isabel. She drove a tiny little Citroen. Zoltan was heading up the hill to the other town, so Yusef, Z, and I got off at the top of the hill. We walked along a dirt road at the edge of the valley. On arriving at Beneficio, the first thing is the car park. It's full of R.V.'s, vans and dodgy old clunkers. There's a tiny little internet cafe/estanco out of the back of a wood paneled lorry with a bamboo-fenced patio. The path through the lot is lined with people and dogs. We got there in the morning so everyone was washing plates or building fires or simply lounging in the sun. Out of the car park you cross a small bridge over the "Rio" Sucio. It's definitely a stream, not a river, but the sucio (dirty) part is accurate. The first thing everyone said to us after "Hello," was "Don't drink from the river."
"I wonder what came first, the name or the hippies?" asked Z after I translated the name of the river.
Inside the valley, there are three plateaus. Two are large, with the stream running through the middle. Men, women, and children live on the lower plateau. On the side of the lower plateau, the third, much smaller plateau rises from the Eastern side of the valley. After first entering the valley to the West of the stream there is a forest with a few small clearings and several homesteads. This includes two bakeries, a goat cheese maker (who also has chickens), and a yogi. Most of the settlement, however, is on the East side of the river. There is some forest on that side but much of it has been cleared. The majority of the Eastern woods is just North of the car park. Then there is garden space, the main Teepee, and a small plateau above that, which also has a cluster of buildings. North of the plateau is a more agriculture space, a physiotherapist, and about a dozen homesteads, including yurts and teepees. Up the side of the valley is a big house which has solar panels. This is the community house. There is a I-Ching on a mural on the front porch. North of that there is a cliff and a ten meter water fall, falling from the plateau above. The valley continues up the side of the mountain for kilometers and becomes national park at that point. On the higher plateau the settlements are not nearly as dense and are inhabited almost exclusively by middle-aged, single men. One of these men was a fellow named Randy. Skinny, with a only a day's stubble, and dressed in black, Z and I bumped into him on the path. He noticed Z's CBGB shirt and cracked into a wide grin. "CBGB's - I used to work there, back in the 80's," he said. "Small world."
Cooking on a fire was a smoky experience. The first night we cooked potatoes in the main teepee where everyone was very, very stoned and continually bumming joints off of each other. After that we cooked outside.
The next few days I spent wandering up the valley, gathering firewood, or just looking around. Roberto, a Peruvian friend of James' who'd stopped by Terrapin Station back in Granada, turned up there in Beneficio and we would often bump into each other.
Wednesday afternoon Z and I found Zoltan's campsite. Oskar, the young Estonian, said: "Zoltan? He's over there. He's a bastard and he steals, but he is tremendous." A young, angry, and very pretty girl with platinum bleached hair in a huge fluffy sphere was leaving his site as we arrived. Zoltan was lounging in bed, soaking up the sun, and smoking a cigarette. "Come. Sit down," He said. "Welcome to my land, vere I am king and you are my subjects."
He told us of his many travels, all over europe. "I've been to every country except Norway and Greenland. Now, I would like to go to Africa. I would like to try African women," he said with a smug smile.
"Ever been to the States?" I asked.
"No. I would like to go, but I don't go until I can smoke on ze fucking plane. If I pay for ze ticket, I should be able to smoke on ze fucking plane." He told us of a place on the Spanish coast (Almeria, I think it was): "Zere are cliffs und you look down into ze vater und it is clear und zere are zeez gigantic round rocks under ze vater und it's fucking good." His voice was filled with a tremor of passion at this recollection.
"When was the last time you were in Budapest?" I asked. "Do you miss it?"
"I vas zere last December to visit my muzer. Is vere I am from, but I feel at home all over eastern europe." Here he rattled off a long list of Slavic countries. "I go into bar und zey know my drink, yes? So I feel at home. It has changed a lot. You have no idea vat it is like to live under a Communist system."
Z and I left Beneficio on Thursday. Several kids had told us of a big electronic music festival called "El Dragon" at an Okupa'd plot of land next to the Rio Seco, called Cigarrones. The nearest village, Tablones, is tiny. Of course, it was raining when we left Beneficio. We hitched a ride from some Italians in an old VW micro camper filled with puppies, leather works, and the reek of hachis. The festival was exactly what you'd expect: lots of drunk punx, hippies, painted lorries, and a general carnival atmosphere. Everyone was crowded under big top tents when we got there but the rain let up in a matter of hours. I'm pretty apathetic about electronica. When it comes to my preferred ear-shattering noise I prefer old NY punk or Japanese grindcore. Z, being from the bay area, is more into that kind of thing. She's into Haifi (or however the fuck you spell it). I still had fun. It was very surreal, seeing the "green" powered shops with their diesel generators and giant sound systems blaring megawatts of robot noise into this beautiful river valley and the Sierra hanging in the background. At night the fog machines would come on, along with the projectors, disco lights, laser shows, and swirling spot lights, creating a garish spectacle to accompany the incredibly loud thump crash skreech of the sound systems. The moon would shine serenely as it neared fullness.
The rain left behind huge puddles of water and children would leap onto the bumpers of passing vehicles to ride through the puddles. Occasionally a toothless, shirtless, punk would zoom by on a dirt bike, spraying bystanders with filthy brown water and drawing cries of outrage. Each time he had one more person on the back, up to three. After the rain children would walk around with trays of chocolate cookies, crying out "Bonbones de Marijuana!" Everybody was always drinking booze and the tangy scent of hachis hung in the air like Cincinnati humidity.
I would estimate about eight thousand people were there. Apart from Spaniards, there were lots of Germans and English. They all drove amazing caravans. I got the best chai tea of my life from a Swiss rasta named Christian.
Z was going to stay till the end of the festival on Monday and head back to Madrid then. I had to return to work, so I headed back to Granada on Saturday. The wind in the valley was ferocious. As Z and I tried to find the bus stop we tried to cut across the river delta to the road but we got hopelessly lost in the bush. Another surreal moment: A plump, freshly dressed Brit stepped out of nowhere in a clearing to bum a cigarette, said "Thanks," and then went on his way.
Z finally steered us into town (what can I say, I'd be lost without her). After drinking a beer, the excellent Alhambra Reserva Especial 1925, while sitting on the sidewalk I left Z at the pay phone in front of the empty churchyard. I hiked up the hill to the highway and caught the bus to Granada. It was threatening to rain when I got in, and the wailing processions were still going on. I called Jose Luis and met with him. He told me that Pastora had gone to the Dragon with a bunch of friends to take photos! Jose Luis' British friend Matthew, another theater person who now does freestanding rock compositions, was also due to arrive. I took a shower while we waited for people to arrive. It was my first shower in more than a week. I had just gotten dressed as the group from the Dragon arrived. After a couple of hours of art-sharing we went out for drinks. Jose Luis, Matthew, and I discussed the Catholic church, terrorism, and politics. By 4 A.M. though, we were telling dirty jokes. The next morning Pastora and I talked about photography and I told her of my (mis)adventures back in the States. After a delicious lunch of pasta with onions, apples, and walnuts, topped with cheese, Jose Luis walked me towards the bus station. Pastora and Jose Luis were incredibly hospitable and I was really humbled. It's amazing having people like that in your crew.
After a painfully slow bus ride back to Madrid(7 hours opposed to the usual 4), I got home and crashed. I started teaching new classes this week and now I'm settling in for the long haul to July.

Once upon a time in Mad-town, I wrote a letter to KD

sometimes i wake up and wonder if i'm as much of
an alcoholic as you are...


i'm not sure that's such a bad thing.




so.


you wanna know what livin' in the old world is like?

okay. lemme lay it on ya.

it's fuckin medieval, kate, it's fuckin'. medieval. I'm usin' every las' street hustlin' trick the thugs, skaters, n' ho's taught me when i was fuckin', fifteen? i mean, how much is too much?
these kids make me feel ill, as in, viejo, fuckin', old, kate, fuckin' seen-too-much, kinda thing. i mean.

(and this is where i take a heavy sigh)

gutenberg gave me my name. grandaddy phil, well, he was a Drucker, and in deutsche that's 'print-maker.' Cain't be no print maker if y'ain't got no press now, kin ya?" But my point is. And i don't care about the other boys. I come from a long line of information addicts. understandable, i think, for information is life and life is the hardest addiction to kick. Like Jews, the purveyors of knowledge are prone to persecution.
anyways. i have seen the future of information and it is the desert. in the desert mana falls from the heavens. Here in babylon they make you pay, kate, and i hate payin'. (sob) i'm a country boy (wail) i'm a..., (mama!).

(bebop band)


curtains.

Kristen P. flew in from Frankfurt to visit me in Madrid.

The first night, Friday, I took her to Pio to look at the city from the top of the buried trash heap. The view was magnificent; one could see from the river Manzanares in the south all the way to Plaza España in the far north. We went to bed fairly early as Kristen was tired from the flight. In the morning we got up around ten. We smoked and went to the Retiro for a stroll through the Bosque del Recuerdo (the Forest of Memory). Art at the Reina Sofia took up the rest of the afternoon. I took a nap at siesta while she read Thoreau. The race was the "Yeti" Allycat and I came in dead last but a kid named Juan offered me a spot as a bike courier. The courier service is called Trebol. I was wanting to make some extra money. I don't know if it's worth risking life and limb though. Kristen took some photos and I talked about fixed gear bikes with the couriers. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sunday morning we caught the train and two buses to Manzanares Viejo where the Piedriza is. The bus took us through plains and past lakeshores to the little city center. We jumped a fence and climbed around the old castle. It was completely empty, standing over the lake below. Kristen and I sat in the plaza and ate a Spanish tortilla from the cafe, drinking sangria. Then we walked up through town till we got into the hills and kept climbing up through the boulders strewn about. When we got to the top of the hill we sat down to smoke and watch the sun set behind the lakeside city and the old castle, the mountains off in the distance.
It was pretty cold waiting for the bus on the way back but after the long haul in the early winter dark we walked up the hill to Lavapies from Atocha and went to the place with no name to drink Te del Bosque. Later, when we were at home and about to fall asleep, I thought about 30,000 miles ago to the last time I'd fallen asleep with her. It'd been a February morning and I'd set off through the frozen snow down at the end of Ohio headed for Chicago. I told Kristen "Feels like my life is going by real fast, sometimes." Looking at me with her big green eyes she said "Only when you look behind." That made me chuckle. She is twenty-one, now, and full of thunder, ready to storm. It's a wonderful thing watching her grow up.

This morning when I kissed her goodbye underground at the metro I said to her what Bones said to me: "I'll see you when I see you."

It's a long way back to Germany.
It's a long way back home.

peace.

madrid put up its christmas lights so i guess the holidays are here.

i had to make merry christmas posters at school. i almost said no, but then thought better of it and bit my tongue (would you ask a christian to make a satan poster?).
this illustrates the nature of my job: I get paid more than a $1500 a month to make construction paper posters and yell at kids to sit down properly in english. i don't think any of them are actually learning anything because the administration is a bureaucratic mess of joe heller proportions (surprise surprise). i'd try to change it, but i'm basically an intern with no power and i'll be gone in six months. while in terms of actual work it is the easiest job i've ever had (and the highest paying!), in terms of job satisfaction/lack thereof, it's probably on par with my stint making sandwiches at subway when i was seventeen.

*sigh*

at least the kids are cute (2nd grade! ouf!) and i have lots of free time. speaking of which. i finished the first draft of the novel, around 50,000 words (on the slim side, i know). copies are available upon request, but you'd better actually read it and give me feedback. i'm now in the endless revision process. maybe by the time i'm unemployed i'll have it done. it'll give me some false premise for hope before it gets rejected a million times and i burn the manuscript and cut off my ear and mail it to my agent in a fit of rage. then i'll die penniless and unloved in an alley. shit, i need to find an agent. i'm really not looking forward to that part.

i had a psychedelic experience the other week when a friend of mine came over gave me some infusion. she said "it doesn't have caffeine or teateine in it," but neglected to mention that it'd make you feel reeaaaaal funny. i thought i'd been shroomed at first. luckily, it only lasted a few hours and on the whole was very enjoyable although it pretty much made me incapable of rational speech.

i've been riding my bike all the time, eating loads, and working out, all to no noticeable effect. i probably still weigh 120 pounds like i have since i was fifteen. i got lazy my first few weeks in madrid and grew out a goatee and ended up keeping it. sometimes when i lean down to talk to a student s/he will grab it and give a good yank.

i'm trying to go veg (again). i only buy/cook fish and tofu and am too broke to eat out. sometimes i slip 'cause there's this greasy spoon around the corner that has the best cheeseburgers i have ever tasted in my life and they're only 3 euros. the place is called Los Gauchos, which means the argentinian cowboys.

for christmas i'm going to gay perry* (get it? get it?) to visit my dear sis and see the folks, then olivia and i are off to rome to revel in the new year wih the pope. she and i had a blast in dublin. i have a great picture of us on the beach. it looks like the end of the earth. i'll post them when i get to a scanner.

oh yeah, for the record, i would like to state that EVERYONE HERE HAS A MULLET! yes. a mullet. men and women. mullet-hawks, poodle cuts, bangs plus mullet combos, even DREAD MULLETS!!! sometimes i crack up on the street. it's too much.

well, i'm off to the bicycle co-op. gotta be a good collectivist.

i miss you all and everyone take care.


love and rockets,
rafe


*paris

What I Did My Summer Vacation:






















































































Looks kind of like america, don't it, ma?

So for the last seven weeks i´ve been in a different city every weekend like so:

berkeley
boulder
chicago
cincinnati
lexington
nyc
madrid

Since February I´ve traveled around of 18,000 miles. That is about 3/4 the circumference of the Earth. Now I´m in Madrid and this is my home, at least for the next year. I´m still gonna be ramblin´ but not quite so much. I will have a real job and a place to call my own for the first time in a year.

I haven´t been posting much because after the Heaven Hill EP was finished, I´ve been working on the manuscript for City of Pigs. The whole thing is sketched out in note form. Now I must type it all up. I´m currently at 25,000 words (halfway to novel length!). Once it´s all typed I can actually start editing it and turn it into a coherent narrative instead of just a chain of related vignettes. I would put my overall progress at 33%. When I´m finished with it, I will post it. It´s about you all anyway, so you might as well read it.

NYC with mikey was crazy. we slept on scaffolding over a brooklyn sidewalk. met an asian guy in a suit with a ¨sea rabbit¨ under his arm walking around coney island right after we saw a model puke her guts out after a shoot at an abandoned amusement park. went to some nifty underground clubs (monkey house and nebulon) and saw some jazz. slept on a roof top with a magnificent view of manhattan. went to the empire state building. drank forties on park ave. saw some dj´s at some afterparty in manhattan. there´s more i´m certainly forgetting.

i almost missed my transfer in dublin. my feet are bruised from running through the dublin airport barefoot. dottie mae was in my arms (along with my shoes and my belt and my socks and my backpack and my jacket) and i was running top speed because i only had 3 minutes to get to my gate after i got through customs. but it´s alright. i´m in madrid now. i am at my destination. i have a phone and i talked to my folks and now i have to find a place to live. i´m really broke (´cuz dollars ain´t worth shit - it´s at $1.50/€1).

i miss everybody. especially my family.

lots of love from the heart of the iberian penninsula.

i'm up to my eyeballs in girls but the only one i really want is 2388 miles away
for the last week i've been hanging out in what is probably the last hobo camp in america.

the newest employee at my work, the dishwasher, is pre-pubescent.

i witnessed (and aided and abetted) an old lady tear down an american flag.

i've been writing. i made six pages of notes on jared hoft's character sketch alone.

i have saved up around $800.

i haven't been performing but i've been recording.

my grant from the ministry of education in spain got accepted. i'm going to madrid to teach in october. 634 euros a month, 12 hours of work a week.

i'll leave the bay area behind in about a week: the friends i've made, the songs i've sang, and the places i've come to call home for the last three months. i'm headed to eugene, oregon, to visit meizlish & mccartney, hippies at law. i'll spend about a week there and then i'll roll across to chicago and empty a bottle or two and sing a few songs with my boys there. and whaddaya know? cincinnati 'round the 26th; we ALL know what goes down in the big nasty. i'll tell y'all tells that'll make you bust with pride, blush with shame, you'll get sick from envy, get thankful it wasn't you, and get toe cramps from all the sexual innuendo.

'til then. love and rockets, young 'uns.

'cross the breeze...
now i left the so-cal yuplings behind in daly city and i packed up my things right when the sun was rising and i hitched my guitar over my shoulder and walked out the door (just like in a blues song) and

now

i live in a co-op in berkeley with the best and the brightest young 'uns i've seen in an indiana minute. i sit on the roof and sing the "sputnik blues" which goes something like this (bossa nova no-wave blues, of course):

space is big
laika is dead
sputnik is alone
so far from home

and now a word from the satellite

where is yuri g?
he knows where to find me.
russia hear my radio call,
mama, don't let me fall.

on the solar wind
is that the bark of a friend?
i was wrong,
just the electron ghost song.

where is yuri g?
he knows where to find me.
russia hear me calling?
mama, i'm falling!

and so i lost the cold war race.
my body burned as it fell from space.
goodbye, laika of my youth.
radio four told me the truth.
just one thing before i go:
russia, i loved you so.

the last thing that i felt my rivets were starting to melt.


city of angels upcoming, contact with agent N.W. le tiers imminent.
sayonara from the east bay, agent deth fuzz signing out.

chicago
i wrote this on the bus: she tells me she loves someone else and most of the time, i believe her.

it's snowing outside. i'm playing a show tonight, the formalton fest in wicker park. my bossa nova no-wave blues, in a corner of a crowded sweaty apartment performance art piece, can you dig?

and then tuesday, i'm riding the wheels of steel across that big wide open to the california coast.

i'm vibrating i'm so free.

chicago cold and grey, the old lady on the L last night said to her old man "que feo, chicago." the winter is so desolate and beautiful but it forces people together to keep warm and high...is this why midwestern kids hang together like they do? it makes sense. the south beach looked like brighton beach in the 1950s. piles of ice on the beach, visible from a 7th storie penthouse filled with photographs of a dead sister and capitalism. it breaks my heart but then mary jane and the ramblin' travelin' keep me and the kids! the kids! the kids. youth culture will save everything. i have faith in it like my mexican gramma has faith in the virgin mary. the funny thing is, it's pretty much the same thing.

sal looked at me across the couch this morning and laughed with a glee so good and said "lookit, rafe is in chicago learning the blues." and i didn't say a goddamn thing. i've always known the blues, i'm a refugee from agrarian culture, it's just now i'm figuring out how to play them.

thanks for that, baby.

i miss my boys. i miss my girls (everyone knows where my weaknesses lie). but then i remember i'm doing for them just as much as i'm doing it for me. it's a good thing being free. i love you all. peace.

|\|00 200|\|$
In the forest far from the city
I was searching for the bodhi tree.
Cortés the Killer went there to weep
as Aztlán burned on the noche triste.
Fire came with her breathy roar.
I was consumed; I could witness no more.
It was dark, I could not see.
But I was not tired, I was not thirsty,
just hungry like I’ll always be.
The only thing I’d ever hold the way
Juan Diego held the Virgin’s rose:
One lonely lily, white as the snow,
in a desert of ash: the bitter ends
of mother of father of lovers of friends.
My mind a mirror my cup empty,
I had lost the path when Dakini found me.
A salty kiss, warm inside.
She closed around me like the sea.

I felt the wet of your sweat,
the hot of your breath,
and the cold of death left me.
I made you groan.
Yes, I made you groan.
Like a ship ‘bout to break.
Like a string and a bow.
Like the earth in a quake.
Like branches in the wind.
Like closing a door.
Like the world 'bout to end.
Like a whore.
Like a lover.
Like a friend.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhi_tree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noche_Triste
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Diego
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Philosophy/Taichi/chuang.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakini

spent the last week ignoring compass spin. i didn't fuck up (though i did come quite near). starting to wonder if it's really worth it. i really just want to find my musical soul mate, know-whadda-mean? i'm tired of the dictum "if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself." being true. i want to be able to count on someone else.

i've been listening to tales of young girls getting thrown out of trucks by spirits dressed all in white in the middle of the jungle and then refusing to wear clothes ever again, of running away from machete wielding guerrillas and goverment soldiers, lining up in a valley to kill each other, of a woman who delivered every baby born in the village for the last forty years.

the things we do for money.
the things we do for what we love.

i went to go see hilly d.j. the other night. made me realize how stultifying cincinnati is. so many good things, so many beautiful things going to waste. i really don't know if i can stay any longer. i feel right now like i'm watching my good chi, my resources (physical and mental), just dwindle away, just disappear. there's nothing that's keeping me from saving it; it is being wasted through inaction. that's what gets me.

i'm so tired.

Last week I went to Lexington. My mexican grandma turned 78.

She wanted to go to the races and this is what I saw there:


Then I came home and went to school.

And on Sunday I will play Risk!

The End.

Life without second chances is worthless.

I got into two car wrecks this weekend, one saturday morning and one sunday morning. Neither were Ash's fault (she was driving both times). We're both okay. Her car is totaled. My car didn't even have a scratch.

I saw Bruce Meizlish. He told me to go be young. I'm glad what i'm doing makes sense to somebody else.

Friday night I started training at the Red Pepper as a waiter, which is never going to work out, but I met all the cooks. They are Mexican (with one Honduran). The oldest is Mario and he is 54. The youngest is Berlin who is 15 (his uncle, with whom he came, is named Moscow). They fed me and gave me beer after the shift saying "We are comrades and must stick together. We're all crazy vatos." I brought Ash their apartment. We spent the night drinking and singing. They haven't had a chance to talk to a woman in a while, or anyone outside of their little group. The spanish you learn in school is so useless. It is a completely different language from the bar-room lingo that gets slung around. This is a neglected part of my education.

I miss my sister.

Animal City Tour July 2006 - Prelude to Queen City Blues

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replaced rear-view mirrors...
i had a great weekend.

friday i skipped school as all my classes were cancelled. ash & i went to a junkyard, ash's first, and then we went to lexington to visit mami. saw dan vantreese, jade, and eli, too. jade's pregnant. like, what the fuck. i've known her since i was fifteen. seems to be doing well, i guess. she's living on a farm in berea with her super-hippy baby's daddy. i hear josie lamb's back in town, too...i need to get in touch with her.

the next morning we went to shakertown, a nice drive with lots of garage sale pitstops along the way (we came back with so much stuff: a couple of sweet jackets, a pair of jeans, two (!) rubiks' cubes, a Dr. frank-n-furter rubber ducky, a couple of military-issue web belts, a copy of hello nasty, and several books - i'm forgetting things, and that's just my stuff). the sun was shining and we listened to the beatles as we drove along the winding kentucky backwoods roads. we took photos at shakertown, and on the way back had cheese-and-tomato-on-french sandwiches under a bridge and watched crawdads and tadpoles. more garage sales, and back to lexington for sqecial (one of my favorite bookstores ever). got some coffee at common grounds and then blew back up the seventy-five going about 90 (i drove). blew off band practice to see my folks and hang out with my sister. watched the fireworks from the front porch, ash in her new coat.

sunday i spent walking with olivia and heather (her best friend), slightly drunk and not writing the papers i had due today. got an e-mail from john beard who is in japan. i built ash a bookshelf and did a little cooking. talked to dad. basically spent quality time with some people i really love, the perfect way to wind down an eventful weekend.

i've been keeping a real pencil-and paper journal for the last few weeks and it's full of those boring details that seem pointless to record right now but when i'm 42 and find a shoebox in the top shelf of a closet with this little notebook with a van eyck on the cover it will probably make me cry.

it's kind of fun.

i miss stopping by amy sue's after class and drinking coffee and talking her ear off.

as soon as i scrape together the $1 and change needed for postage and buy/beg/steal/borrow some envelopes, three of you have letters coming, .
as soon as i scrape together the cash for some film i'm going to start taking photos again.
as soon as i scrape together the money for a hub, i'm going to finish the Burleigh and i will be the envy of bike pirates everywhere.

since i haven't been working, i've been getting a lot done school wise. right now i believe i have 95's or higher in all my classes. mmm...tasty. i'll probably find a way to blow it before the end of the quarter, though. i signed up for fall classes this morning and FINALLY FILLED OUT MY COURSE SHEET FOR THE ENGLISH DEGREE!!! yay. spanish may be a hassle, as there's a grammar class that is offered at akward times, but make do i shall. maybe i'll be like mitch, and be six credits away from six different degrees and just drop out. it would be rather characteristic of me. what the hell do i do if not school? gah!

i've been spending a lot of time with ash. not wanting to jump to conclusions, but we seem to fit together rather well.

mauri: I don't know if you'll like it, i don't know if it's your thing...
me: nothing's my thing.

koan: homeslice walks up to gran' massa' 'n says "word up, ol' codger, this here young 'un be dee-lighted if you'd impart to me that there enlightenment whazzit."
to which gran' massa' sez "ya gots t' leave it all behind, 'n give up all ya gots." whippersnapper homslice grins this here grin, real big like, and goes "aw shucks, gran' massa', but i done did that there leavin' behint. i gots nuthin', nuthin', nuthin'." gran' massa' hits whippersnapper homeslice with his stick right up there on his crown n' sez "leave that behint too."

i know these are from two weeks ago, but still...

coin-op



subterranean homesick blues...


mr. kato

mike + kat @ hilly + tori's

i'll tear you in half with my naievete!
yeah.

went with marta by bike to mt. storm on friday to lie in the sun and read "love in the time of cholera" to each other in spanish. i fell asleep listening to her...

but that was then. and i'm not gonna do a goddamn thing. hahah! i'm like a greyhound, all i like to do is run.

the night before ashley told me that we should hang out because we live around the corner from each other. so i said sure. and knocked on her door late one night...
we saw chico. he told me he's got cancer. pancreas. no insurance 'cuz he's doing the social work thing for runaway kids. that man is one of my favorite people in existence. maybe a year left? he's twenty two. i don't want him to die. he deserves a long life and a couple of kids and smiling friends and family and a good meal on his 83rd birthday.

go go go go.

i like anarchists. they are ridiculous and never ever get a goddamn thing done but they're fun to be around. good people.

saturday night ashley was speaking in rhyme. we also had a conversation using only hand signs which was completely effortless. she drives like a maniac and is something fierce. i like fierce. fierce means you believe in something, have some hope, maybe.

(when i was in france i met a man who's wife of nearly fifty years had had a stroke and was in a vegetative state. he cared for her by himself, continously. he showed me a picture of her, nineteen and beautiful, standing on a slope in the alps with a smile on her face and then with the saddest and most proud look i have ever seen he said to me "elle est une femme formidable.")


the end.

Steve and Steve, somewhere in the polish part of brooklyn. I can't remember the name of the place as I was inebriated.


Steve and Steve.


a shop in soho with EVERYTHING.

Dieders' birthday par-tay:

zach. being fabulous.


the illustrious Mr. Mayhem. hawt.


a nice young lady, with vince being a cock in the background.


the birthday girl herself!


Banzai Biehler!


mirror! mirror! it's in focus.



hillybonez straight thuggin'.