Uplift Inc.

Have you seen the video where the lesbian groundhog saves the muslim whale from the burning toy factory for left-handed orphans? Of course you did. You posted it on your Facebook feed, a little smile breaking across your tear-stained face, before clicking on 38 Things You Can Only Understand If You Were Born In October 1975. It's true, you thought, shaking your head. I did used to eat breakfast cereal with a cartoon character on the box. It's like they know me!
I don't want to get all bah humbug on everybody's party, but enough! As an elderly gentleman sitting on my e-porch, I'm old enough to remember when Facebook was for pictures of food, pets and babies. Maybe those were simpler times, but dammit we liked those times. They were our times. Not the times of websites whose entire business model is based on making you laugh or cry and then feel a little better about yourself.
I promise that I'm not being cynical. Tear porn click bait is. I believe we can be stirred by each other  without thirty second life-is-a-box-of-chocolates clips manufactured to capture advertising revenue. This shit is James Frey distilled for the Vine age. It's manipulative, disingenuous and fake. We are better than that. I am lucky enough to have a ton of awesome friends who do really cool stuff, and I'm way more psyched to hear about them than about any combination of firemen, dancing, school kids, hugs, animals, etc.
In 2014, let's resolve to uplift and inspire each other with what we do, not with what we copy and paste. Happy new year everybody.

Groins of Steel

You may have noticed I haven't been blogging much lately, and by lately I mean 2013. You've noticed, right? You've felt a nagging lack in your life where Salient Green used to be? Hello? Anyone? Bueller?
The reason for this is simple. I am lazy live a life that, while interesting to me, doesn't seem like the sort of thing worth discussing with the internet. Lately I've felt like leaving the pithy bon mots to Twitter hoaxers and focusing on the more pressing matters of trying to get the damn waiter's attention for another round. I'm just not doing anything that I necessarily feel like sharing. That is, until yesterday afternoon. That shit needs to be shared.
Yesterday, I went to a roller derby. As a child of the seventies, I remember the tales of women on roller skates beating the crap out of each other for fame and fortune, but I always thought that, like Jesus, it was something made up to sound cool. But like Paul on the road to Damascus (just like it) yesterday, I was made a believer.

Amen!

We took the subway to the end of the line, where the mountains that frame the horizon of Barcelona are strikingly close, snaked through a humble neighbourhood of low houses and bars to the local sports centre. There, we discovered two teams of women in spandex and roller-skates (not roller blades) engaged in the high speed, full contact sport that is roller derby.
The whole event had a very punk-rock vibe, from the pierced door girl and the tattooed announcers to the actual punk-rock music playing over the loud speakers. The Barcelona team, named Groins of Steel, (really!) were hosting the less imaginatively named Roller Derby Porto. (From Porto. Duh)

Barcelona's mascot is a cockroach

The athletes all have groan-worthy nicknames like Cam Pain and Lady Di-struction, but after watching them fearlessly smash into each other while flying on skates, I'll leave it to a braver soul than me to mock them.

eg: AnnieWhere

The rules of the game are difficult to explain, but easy to pick up in person. After about ten minutes, I had a decent enough understanding to follow the starts and stops of the match and cheer at the appropriate moments. It got really competitive and violent, with moments where almost entire sides were sitting in the penalty box for throwing elbows and such, but the vibe was fun, with the crowd and the competitors enjoying themselves immensely, high fiving and grinning all the way through. And really, what's not to enjoy about standing with a beer in hand (unlike the football stadium where alcohol is banned) watching some wheeled athletic ladies in tight clothes throw each other to the ground. I think  I've found my new sport. Suck it New York Jets!

The Manitoban Candidate

Thank you America! I live in a country where it is common knowledge that the president accepted under the table payments of embezzled party funds, but you guys have made this banana republic seem like a functioning first world democracy.
Watching a small band of lunatics hold the country hostage in a failed attempt to deny the poorest amongst you cheaper healthcare has been a surreal experience, and this from the vantage point of a place where the king's own daughter was a front for shady land deals.
Watching the laughable debacle known as the Tea Party squirm around like a senile old uncle with shit in his pants sitting at Thanksgiving dinner and complaining about the smell has led me to one conclusion: beware of Ted Cruz! Now, my liberal friends, I see you smugly shaking your heads and saying "yeah, thanks, we know" but actually I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to you conservative dupes: Ted Cruz is obviously a Canadian spy. Crazy like a fox Teddy boy has obviously been sent across the border to infiltrate and undermine the Republican party. How else do you explain the actions of a guy who acts like dragging the party's popularity into the sewer is some sort of grand victory, and who, on his first day back at work, continues to  act like a spoilt child by holding up a government nomination over a moot law. This is the work of a master agent provocateur. He will not stop until the Republican party has been decimated and communism rules the land. And you idiots want to run him for president. 

Ten Lessons in Ten Years

Yesterday I went over to my friends' for a barbecue. What better way to spend a sunny Sunday than eating meat and drinking beer? None way, say I, and so was meat eaten and beer drunk and all were merry. One of several featured desserts was a cheesecake with a big number ten on it, commemorating my decade in Barcelona. (How long is Noah going to milk this? - You. No more after this, I promise. Probably.)
"Speech! Speech!" came the cries. "Tell us ten things you've learned in ten years."
Fortunately, attention spans had been shortened by booze and everyone was easily distracted by the cheesecake itself. As well as ice cream and brownies, all of which were far more interesting than my ramblings would have been.
However, I have now gone for over twenty four hours without dessert so I'm ready to present my list. If you should happen to have cheesecake or brownies or ice cream at hand, stop reading this and start eating. I guarantee it will be much more rewarding.
For all you poor dessertless folk remaining, I give you the ten things I've learned:

1. First and foremost, beware a British barbecue on Sunday. While I love the grilled flesh of beasts and the alcohol it comes with, if your host and/or most of the guests hail from that foggy island off the coast of France, think long and hard before you engage in a midday meal with them on Jesus' day, for they are not like us. Your Monday will thank you, as you will at the very least avoid beginning the week with a dry mouth and a headache, and at most, save yourself from getting lost on a bicycle in countryside vineyards after dark, forcing you to careen blindly along dirt paths until you find a kindly rural drug dealer who is willing to put you up until the first train can take you back to the city next morning.

2. I really love the beach. If you follow me on Instagram (noahdjgreen) you know I love the seaside the way people love cats and food. Floating suspended in warm salt water watching the shore makes all my troubles just slip away. It's easily the number one reason I'm still here.

3. Spanish. I thought I spoke it before I arrived. I didn't. My first apartment was full of Argentinians who spoke no English. On my first day there, I sat on the corner of my tiny bed in my tiny room contemplating the huge mistake I'd made. However, not wanting to be the creepy roommate who spent all his time in his bedroom (that came later) I ventured into the living room and desperately tried to follow the conversation. It took several exhausting months, but it got easier. Eventually, having a Spanish girlfriend helped. Especially with the slang.

4. Catalan. It's the other language. Didn't even know what it was before I arrived, and now I speak it like a New York taxi driver speaks English. That counts as learning, right?

5. Everything is late. Try eating lunch before 1.30 or dinner before 8.30. Enjoy your McDonald's, cuz that's what'll be open. I pulled more all-nighters as a teacher in my 30's than as a musician in my 20's.  I recently went to a movie, dinner and drinks with friends, but didn't call it going out because I was home by 1.30 in the morning.

6. Racism. Coming from the States, you'd think I would have this one covered, but when you get to a country where the locals call Arabs Moors (while wearing keffiyehs), label convenience stores Pakis, and hate South Americans more than the Tea Party does, you realise you're playing in a different league. Generalisations and dismissals of entire ethnic groups are the norm. It's a thoroughly pre-PC society where speaking English badly is speaking like an Indian and racist jokes/skits/theme parties are hilarious. Olé.


7. Corruption. In a country where rules are treated like suggestions, I guess it's not surprising that entire local governments get hauled off to jail for illegal land permits, regional politicians are found with trunkfuls of cash, the president gets paid under the table with embezzled funds and the royal family sets up shady deals with questionable regimes.

8. It ain't a party till you start a fire, endanger some kids and torture an animal. All Spanish celebrations include at least one of those activities. Whether it's building a giant statue and burning it down, or parading through the streets dressed as a fire breathing dragon (fire included) something's gotta burn. Next, line up your newborns so the village demon can long-jump them, or send your toddlers to the top of a teetering human tower. But don't worry, they're wearing a helmet. (Not the newborns, cuz fuck 'em.) Finally, throw a goat from a church tower or play piñata with a hanging duck. Catalunya banned bullfighting and will thus claim moral superiority, but they will still set a bull's horns on fire and chase it into the sea. For real.

9. Dancing is hard. I wish I could say I'd learned to swing dance, but after six months of class, I've picked up just enough to embarrass myself with strangers, apologising profusely as I sweat all over them while stepping on their toes and twisting their arms against their natural articulations.

10. The Wire is the best show on TV ever. Not related to Barcelona in any way, but I watched it while living here.

Decade two, day one

How fast does ten years go? Pretty fucking fast!
I had punctuality beaten into me as a child. (Not actually beaten. I'm not accusing you of anything, mom.) So engrained in me is it that after all this time in Spain, a country where even Christmas is celebrated two weeks late, I cannot help but show up on time for things, knowing that I will inevitably be waiting for others. I always explain to the chronically late that time inexorably goes by at the rate of one minute per minute, but now I'm not so sure.
I mean, it doesn't seem that long ago that I stepped off the airplane, suitcase in hand, into a city I had never visited where I knew nobody and barely spoke the language with the vague idea of checking it out. I blinked and a decade had passed.
I woke up yesterday well rested for the first time in a week. I had spent a long weekend eating and drinking my way across southern Spain, getting up early to catch various modes of transportation or to visit some culturally relevant building (the latter to justify all the eating and drinking.) Prior to that, I had suffered a four night bout of insomnia that kept me staring at the walls and dreading the innocuous melody of my alarm. But yesterday I opened my eyes after a full eight hours of blissful sleep to begin my day, which consisted of classes with adults and children in companies and homes around Barcelona. One student, a 40 year old engineer, is leaving for Qatar next week, so we concluded our class with a relaxing cup of cafe con leche in the restaurant across the street from his office. After a year and a half of classes together, we have something approaching a friendship, or at least a cordial professional relationship, sharing personal anecdotes (and the twenty-first century equivalent thereof - funny youtube clips.)(Speaking of which, everybody on Facebook posted the Jimmy Fallon/Justin Timberlake hashtag skit, so I watched it and chuckled. #insertobvioushashtagjokehere)
In the evening, I dropped by a friend's house to borrow an amp, so that I may annoy my neighbours as I experiment with my keyboard. Les Fat Jones continues to be the most productive, best kept secret, as we jam regularly, write songs frequently and play shows hardly ever. We keep promising ourselves that will change. I also keep promising myself to get back to running in the mornings, and you will notice that wasn't included in this super fascinating glimpse into my schedule.
For dinner I had some curry and wine, and went to bed.
That was my day, the first day of my second decade here.
Despite myself, I have become a settled, semi-responsible adult. It wasn't really the plan. When I left New York, people said moving here was brave. To me, it felt like the opposite. I was running away from the end of my twenties, from the end of life as a rock star, from the reality of finding a job or going back to school, of living a normal life, something I had studiously avoided up to then. Yet here I am, with a job, living with my girlfriend in a nice apartment in a cool neighbourhood around the corner from my family and friends with whom I get together, drink too much and laugh about bullshit. It's awesome. Let's see what happens in the next ten years.
Just don't blink.

Spring?!!

This year Primavera Sound was a misnomer, as a cold front gave the concrete expanse of the Forum, where the three day festival was being held, a decidedly wintry feel.
It ran from Thursday to Saturday and was an exciting weekend of great music with highs and lows.

Worst Pre Party
I got off to an inauspicious start on Thursday when my washing machine died at the same time that a pipe in the building sprung a leak that shot water like a geyser into the utility room by the entrance hall. After ascertaining that the washer had indeed given up the ghost and calling a technician to come and perform last rites, concerned by the lack of water running from my taps, I left my apartment to investigate. I came upon neighbours, an elderly couple, staring distraughtly at the jet of water slowly flooding the ground floor of the building. Nobody else was around and their frantic gestures were doing nothing to quell the rising tide by the elevator. There was a number posted for the building superintendent which went unanswered when I called. I then tried the emergency number for the water company. I was greeted by a resolutely unhelpful woman who seemed determined to eat up my cell phone's minutes without actually taking any action. She informed me that the water, once inside the building, was no longer the water company's problem while the woman of the couple yelled disconcertingly in my ear. Finally, the alleged water company operator (for the help she was, she might as well have been an Avis agent on her break) asked to speak to her. Worried that I might be missing some crucial information getting lost in translation, I gladly obliged. The old woman snatched the phone. After a minute or so, she also came to understand the absolute lack of usefulness of the operator, told her to go fuck herself and handed me back the phone, which I hung up without bothering to continue the conversation. I called the super back, who this time answered. The sound of gushing water was clearly audible over the phone and the super sent a plumber over immediately, who quickly fixed the leak and returned water to the building.

Clearest Illustration of Results of Laziness
Over 100 000 people came from around the city and the world. I'd had my ticket since Christmas and could easily have gone to get my bracelet pass earlier in the week. I didn't, and as a result had to stand in a line that snaked around the entrance of the park to get in. Shockingly, most people respected the line (I attribute this to the high number of foreigners who may be more used to doing what they're told) and I was inside in under half an hour.

Best Daytime Performance
Rock and roll is better in the dark. It's infinitely more powerful when the atmosphere is concentrated in the light generated solely for the performance. In a festival, the earlier bands lose out to the sun and often struggle not to diffuse into the air. Despite her preternaturally powerful voice, Neko Case couldn't overcome the time slot she had been given and was underwhelming. Django Django were affable Scottish lads who reminded me of Franz Ferdinand 2.0. Tame Impala lived up to their Aussie psych vibe and serenaded the sunset like a bunch of stoners would.

Biggest Conflict
There always comes the moment when several bands that you want to see play at the same time, and choices must be made. For me, the biggest one was Bob Mould vs. the Postal Service. I love the album Copper Blue more than Give Up and Silver Age is mostly great, but I was the only one in my group who felt that way. With a heavy heart, I passed on Bob Mould and went to watch the Postal Service. Cool surprise: Jenny Lewis was in the band. Weird surprise: she was dressed like a college freshman trying to get into a stylish bar and had a cruise-ship holiday romance vibe going on with Ben Gibbard who added dancing to his singing and songwriting as proven qualifications to be named Whitest Guy on Earth. Nevertheless, they have some festival-ready hits that were fun to bounce along to, and a good time was had by all. (Except one friend who was too disturbed by the aforementioned vibe and left to see Deerhunter.)

Best Climbing into the Audience
The giant Heineken stage hosted big bands playing for huge crowds, and the singers felt compelled to bridge the gap between them and the audience, climbing the security barrier and wading into the front row. Nick Cave did it in leather pants. Damon Albarn stayed to sing a couple of anthems from Blur's hit-o-riffic set. But the clear winner was Thomas Mars of Phoenix, who came down for the hit, stayed to serenade tearful girls with an acoustic version of "Sick for the Big Sun" before surfing halfway across the crowd to sing to the rear half of the audience.

Best Throwback Band
Every year, Primavera trots out some reunited or still raging star to draw the old folks (i.e. me) to the place with the Animal Collective and the Grizzle Bear and the dubstep. This year was heavy on the past with Dinosaur Jr, Jesus and Mary Chain, Dead Can Dance, Meat Puppets, My Bloody Valentine, Blur and more. For me, it was a tie between the Breeders playing Last Splash and Wu Tang who, despite the absence of Raekwon and Method Man, rocked the Forum for over an hour without a lag in energy.

Best Time to Go Home
Eventually, the guitars are replaced with MacBooks and it turns into a rave. The Knife brought costumed dancers and Crystal Castles rocked when they weren't conducting noise experiments, but at some point, the lady and I realised that we were the only ones not on MDMA and bed was calling.

Total Time Spent: 23.5 hours

The Kindness of Strangers

Dumpster diving is a popular sport in Barcelona. Even before the crisis hit and sent a multitude of unlucky souls scurrying for the discarded remains of the more fortunate, it was common to find folks digging through the trash for hidden treasure. The day the city collected large objects was particularly awesome. I became an expert, finding several chairs, a bed frame, a couple of mirrors and other random furniture that has decorated my apartment over the years living in Barcelona.
It's been a long time since I've picked anything up, but today on the way home from work, I saw this shelf.

I moved recently and there has been a shelf-shaped void in my apartment where some things could be stored, so despite the rain, I stopped and called the lady-friend to get her opinion. She agreed that it would be a welcome addition to the household, so I stood guard, fighting off other scavengers while she came to help carry it.
When we picked it up, it was heavy. As fuck. For realz. We staggered down the street towards our house, only a block away. As we did, a fifty something year old woman who was coming out of her door offered to help us. Although we politely declined, she gamely grabbed a corner and walked with us the remaining 30 meters to the front door of our building.
We heaved the beast (the shelves, not the lady) through the lobby where we immediately ascertained that it would not fit in our tiny elevator, which can hold at most three slim people who are very comfortable with each other.
Our apartment is on the third floor of the building, but that's a Barcelona third floor, which comes after the bottom floor, the between floor and the main floor before you get to the numbers. I'm not kidding. In France ours would be the fifth floor, in America, the sixth. (When you see how they count, the financial crisis in this country starts coming into focus.)

This is the view down to the lobby from the stairs of my apartment. That glow all the way down there is the entrance.

We were ready to return the shelves to the street and call it a day, but our new moving buddy wasn't having it. She immediately began calling people and, despite our protests, summoned her housekeeper and son to help us get it upstairs.
Half an hour later, after some heaving, lifting, pushing, negotiating tight corners and much sweating, we triumphantly set the beast down in our dining room, where it fit perfectly.

Trashing the Catalan, especially for being stand-offish and cold, is a time honoured hobby of all those who move here, a right earned through cold stares on the street, dismissive comments in shops and abysmal service in restaurants. Tonight, however, I am deeply indebted to the selflessness of the family of a local woman who literally would not take no for an answer. Merci.

Rock Report April 12th 2013

Scientists have got it wrong. They were off by a whole 24 hours. All this time,  we were worried about Friday the 13th, when in fact the dangerous day was Friday the 12th. (Disclosure: my understanding of what scientists actually do may be limited.) Someone tell Jason he gets to sleep in.
It all started when I was informed that I had not sufficiently contributed to the cleaning of the apartment and became determined to make up for my prior lack. Armed with paper and spray, I attacked the glass surfaces of the bathroom - the mirror and shower door. Unfortunately, they attacked me back. The metal frame of the shower sliced my finger tip open like a razor, causing me to run to the kitchen for paper towels, spewing blood and a stream of obscenities. After applying a tourniquet (ok, a bandaid - but it was promptly soaked through, needing a second bandaid. The horror!), I left for work.
Fridays find me with time to kill between classes near a friendly restaurant where I go to enjoy the menú de día, a Spanish tradition that includes an appetiser, a main course, a desert and a drink for a reasonable lunchtime price. I unknowingly ordered roast pork with glass, which I discovered to my distress when something crunched in my mouth where no crunch should be. The waiter was suitably apologetic and accommodating, so my freaking out remained silent, as I imagined my intestines being shredded by undetected shards I had already swallowed. I still expect to drop dead from internal bleeding at any point.
Then on the way home, I was taken out, missile-defense-style, by a soccer ball as I rode my bike. I wish there was video footage of the event, because from another perspective, it must have been hilarious to see the ball connect with the back of my head, sending me sprawling and dazed to the pavement. From mine, however, it was merely confusing. One moment, I was riding along, glad the weekend had begun, then suddenly, all I could think was "my head hurts" as I lost control of my limbs and subsequently, my bicycle, and found myself lying at the feet of two women who observed me, unperturbed, from a bench. "He's fine", they diagnosed as I got to my feet, stunned, and a child ran over, apologising profusely.
I approached the evening's gig, surrounded by heavy lighting and sound equipment, electricity and moving musicians, with a fair degree of trepidation. I would have preferred to cower in bed for the remainder of the day, but as Les Fat Jones gig calendar has been rather sparse lately, I didn't want to miss the concert, bleeding limbs, guts and head wounds be damned!
Although we have been playing concerts with the frequency of eclipses or comets, we have maintained a faithful schedule of rehearsing, meaning we have new songs that we know how to play, so the performance went well, the crowd was small but supportive, the main act Julieta Jones were fun, but most importantly, I lived to see the dawn. Put one in the win column.

Cover Letter

to: Vatican HR department

Dear Sir / Madam (Just kidding. No girls allowed. I know!)
It has come to my attention that you have a vacancy in your organisation that you will no doubt be looking to fill. Please find attached my CV, and believe me when I say that not only would I be interested in the position, I think I am uniquely qualified.
Let me first draw your attention to my time spent as the Director of Studies at a language school in Barcelona. (Beautiful churches, by the way. Great job on that!) In that job, I was responsible for managing an unruly group of people from diverse backgrounds whose primary aim seemed to be avoiding a life of responsibility while vainly attempting to convince the unappreciative masses of the necessity of their particular line of work. If herding socially maladjusted semi adults through weekly get-togethers to explain the importance and intricacies of a system that fails to hold up under scrutiny is the sort of experience you require, then I'm your shepherd.
My prior time spent as the vocalist in a touring band has uniquely prepared me for being thrust into the spotlight to receive the unmerited adulation of large groups of people. Granted, my previous experience in taking advantage of such a situation has been solely with consenting adults of the opposite sex, but I think an interview, rather than a letter, is the correct forum to defend and negotiate this choice.
Of course, there are some discrepancies in my experience that you might consider roadblocks. Foremost, I'm not a Catholic, never having been baptised, confirmed, communed or forgiven. True, I am a Jew, but I think we both know who else was, and you guys literally worship the ground he walked on. In a stunning coincidence, (or is it?) I was born on December 25th to a single mother. I'm not saying I'm the messiah, but God Himself's choice to lead His flock? It seems like an apt fit.
There are a host of areas where my personal philosophy diverges from church dogma - homosexuality, birth control, abortion, stoning, and witches to name a few. However, I've been led to believe you are no longer that strict about the stoning and the witches, so maybe we could let some of the other stuff slide too. Again, I believe that in an interview, I could better discuss how to appropriately ignore the word of God when it is convenient to do so, and will be able to provide documentation from your own organisation to back this up.
I understand that I'm not the only candidate for this job, and that you will be looking at people who have spent a lifetime in the church working towards the position. Let me just say that many successful organisations have been revitalised by the injection of some fresh blood at the top, and I believe yours would not be an exception. The Lord, it is said, works in mysterious ways.
Yours faithfully,
Noah

Whose Side Are You On?

Of course it rained today. In the decade i've spent in Barcelona, it has never failed to rain on Carnaval weekend. Considering it's a holiday which, being tied to Easter, moves around the calendar, this is quite a feat. But it was inevitable. Even my shitty weather app, which is wrong enough of the time to completely distrust it but not enough to rely on it for consistently incorrect forecasts, warned me. The sky was filling up with threatening clouds so I decided to forgo my bike and take the subway to work.
We all know that the nineties are back. From rock to hip hop to fashion, the world is partying like it's 1994. Barcelona, being the bad fashion idea capital west of the Urals, reached into the same bag they pulled mullets and poopy pants from a decade ago and produced this.

Not pictured: the smell of stale beer and damp human

These specimens were sitting in the seats across from mine, ready for their Vice don't close-up. But before you assume I'm about to launch into a tirade about their obviously deeply flawed decision making process, take a quick look at this.

This was the woman sitting opposite me who wasn't even trying to hide the contemptuous gaze she would periodically cast their way, then look at me, one eyebrow slightly raised, in complicity. I smiled, amused that I have crossed a definite line in the one-of-us camps that generations have drawn.

The Sentence of the Year

It's only February and I'm convinced we have a clear winner for the best collection of words assembled in 2013. It will be hard to top.
"It's all untrue, except for some things."
This, courtesy of our fearless leader, Mariano Rajoy. The Spanish president was responding (finally) to questions about the financing scandal that has rocked his party, where the treasurer embezzled millions of euros and used them, among other things, to pay under-the-table bonuses to party hacks, including the president. Now we know for sure that none of it happened, except for some of it.
With this genius bit of linguistics, he also accomplished something I never believed possible. He made me feel sorry for Angela Merkel. The German chancellor has been riding over the european economy like the general of a Panzer division, forcing poorer countries to swallow society-choking cuts to their social nets so that the euro remains viable enough to justify producing Mercedes SUV's. She is the least sympathetic German since GODWIN'S LAW ALERT. Yet, I could not help but pity her as she stood on the podium next to Rajoy as he uttered the bestest defence/denial ever. Knowing she would appear in all the photos accompanying the quote, she must have thought "What the fuck am I doing with this clown? Get me the fuck outta here. Schnell!"

Hard Rock Battle of the Bands

Les Fat Jones have joined a battle of the bands at the Hard Rock Cafe. I've been working on my swordsmanship, but it turns out that was unnecessary. (So far!) Instead, they've opted for the much more genteel solution of having people vote for songs on a Facebook page. (Tyler Durden, eat your heart out.) Please go to it here and download our song "Other Cities" to vote for it. Much obliged.

This Guy for President

A boy in the north of Spain, worried about an impending parent-teacher meeting, faked his own kidnapping in an attempt to divert attention from his less than stellar academic record. Seriously.

This kid is already set to be a high-ranking politician in the Spanish government. He's got all the attributes:

1. Family connections (dad's a cop)
2. Mediocre performance (recent grades)
3. Refusal to accept responsibility (parents and teacher to talk? oh no!)
4. Ludicrous diversionary tactics (calls dad "from trunk of car" to communicate his ordeal)
5. Failure of diversionary tactics (dad notices keys to second home missing. finds boy hanging out there)
6. No consequences (see number one)

Sounds about right. One of the parties, and frankly it doesn't matter which one, should snap this kid up and promote him through the ranks. They've got a future leader on their hands.

The Whatever Case Situation

"A lo mejor..." said Joan and stopped, looking at me inquisitively.
"How do you say that?" he asked. (Joan is a man's name, the Catalan version of Juan.)
It translates literally as "at best" but that's not what it means. These instances are called false friends, where two seemingly identical words or expressions mean different things in different languages. My favourite is constipado which means congested, resulting in a ridiculous number of times every winter that my students inform me with bleary eyes about their terrible constipation. A lo mejor simply means maybe.  I figured this out years ago when a roommate once answered a question of mine with "A lo mejor si, a lo mejor no," giving me no clue as to which was actually the preferred outcome.
I gave my students the explanation and the story of my discovery of it. Anna thought it was hilarious, saying it showed cultural differences, with the Spanish unwilling to commit to an actual statement. This echoes something that the language and culture geek in me has been fascinated by since my arrival. What do linguistic choices say about the culture that made them? When like and love are the same word in French, and want and love are the same word in Spanish, does this reflect their view of what love actually is?
Perhaps (a lo mejor) the most extreme example of this is the Spanish use of impersonal verb forms. Se ha roto means it broke itself. You never break anything. If you want to admit your involvement in the events that led to the item in question's current state, you say Se me ha roto, or It broke itself to me, making you the victim of the item's nefarious breakage agenda. Likewise, should gravity snatch it from your noble paws, Se me ha caido. (It fell itself to me.) Never do you drop anything.
Sure, in English, it fell or it broke absolve you of the blame, but Se me ha olvidado? It forgot itself to me. I think when you report this situation as a memory escaping from your brain of its own volition, we can safely say that the Spanish have removed all notions of personal responsibility from the language.
This goes a long way to explaining the politics of this country. They are not necessarily more corrupt than other countries where those in power continually game the system to their own advantage, but consequences here are different. SPOILER ALERT: there are none.
This week's outrage is courtesy of the ruling right wing Popular Party (PP). It was revealed that the former treasurer, forced out due to a previous corruption investigation, had squirrelled away 22 million euros in a Swiss bank account. Maybe (a lo mejor) I'm being idealistic, but I think that in other Western democracies (with the likely exception of Italy) when the guy in charge of the country's money is found to be taking that money for himself, hiding it with the keepers of Nazi gold and using it for illegal payoffs to his own party members and South American politicians for land acquisition deals, that government would be out of power by the end of the week. Here, the government sent threatening messages to the TV station reporting it and promised an internal audit. My math skills are weak, and my accounting knowledge nil, but I'm pretty sure that money circulating under the table won't show up in the ledgers being audited, since the money was UNDER THE TABLE in the first place.  However, the PP seems to feel it has done enough to address the situation and got back to the important business of running the country by introducing a law that says being a convicted felon is not a legal impediment to running a bank.
Spain has a national inferiority complex vis-a-vis the western world (mostly due to the racist shame of having been ruled by Arabs for centuries) and when their institutions act this way, I want to pat them on the head and give them an E for effort.
They might (a lo mejor) want to look into it.

This Is 40

So that happened.
I don't mind being this age, but rather, I'm shocked. I really don't feel like I've been alive that long. Perhaps my terrible maths skills have infected the entire world and we're all just wrong on this one.
Stuff that's happened as I begin my fifth decade:
Les Fat Jones were rated one of the top ten local independent releases of 2012 by local music mag Mondo Sonoro. (Slow clap.) In the coming year, we plan to record again with a different Catalan indie luminary. We've entered a battle of the bands where people will need to vote for us. Once voting begins, expect constant harassment from me.
Questular has landed a new client. Woo hoo! It's a company with fancy properties all over Europe. As Creative Editor in charge of content, I was hoping this meant jet-setting around, exploring them all, but no such luck. Instead, I will spend the next few weeks parsing emails and pouring over Google street view. I like to think there's a certain glamour in that. (I also like to think there's glamour in teaching English so my definition is clearly self serving.) Rather, much work and little money lies in my immediate future, but hopefully, internet millionairedom lies somewhere beyond. (knock on ALL the wood!)
Will 2013 be the year we finally see some new 2 Skinnee J's music? Watch this space.
Finally, I took up dancing. As in, I signed up for dance classes. Man. I figured I'm a musician, I've been dancing for fun my whole life, I'm black for Christ's sake. This will be a piece of cake. Yeah. It's a big piece of terror cake with frustration icing. I spend the entire class staring at my feet and counting while self-consciously sweating on whichever poor woman has been partnered with me. Good times.
And that's middle age so far. Apparently adolescence is not quite over yet.