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Monday, July 10, 2006

Mind rambling

A few weeks ago I wrote about a fight I witnessed from my third story window. One thing I didn’t mention was that I actually know the guy who busted the other guy’s nose. I used to work as a stage hand – roadie without actually hitting the road – for the likes of Operacion Triunfo, Metallica, and the Stones - to name a few. This street brawler was one of my coworkers.

Quite a motley crew we were. Since I was a yank – or gringo as they liked to call me - I got a lot of flak as all of them were “artistic” types: squatters, musicians, painters, and some university students. On top of that, the Iraq war was just starting. Nothing like arguing with people that wear mass-produced Che Guevara t-shirts.

So the street brawler in question used to work with me (at least he didn't wear a Rage Against the Machine t-shirt). He, like me, has “artistic” aspirations. But, unlike me, he has the thespian muse.

About a week ago I ran into him on the street and he invited me to his theater performance, called, “De noche justo antes de los bosques” (At night, just in front of the forests). This took place last Saturday night, in a locale on Sant Pere Mitjà – a dark and dingy, high ceilinged bajos that triples as his living quarters, workshop, and slapdash stage.

I knew this guy was slightly insane. Actually I’d seen him get a little too passionate during Champion’s league in the neighborhood bar. I spoke to other’s who had seen him in another bar (bar Bahia, specifically), getting really worked up when the DJ played his favorite song, drumming on the bar and practically screaming.

Anyway, I thought I have to see this insane guy’s theater performance. And it turned out to be fucking amazing. It was a totally lo-fi, somewhat ragged piece de teatre on one of my favorite themes: being lost. And there’s a hilarious drunken tequila sequence that defies all description, which I will go back and film at a later date and get permission to upload.

The funny thing is that the performance consisted of two principle actors. One was my former coworker, but the other was also strangely familiar.

In one part they are literally hopscotching through the city: bar to bar, restaurant to restaurant, "sitios fashion" (which is a disparaging way of saying “trendy” spots) … So they start arguing about which after-hours to go to and I realized then that they were the exact same two guys that I had seen a few weeks before. Only that time they weren’t arguing, they were brawling - on the street, in front of my apartment. I thought for an ephemeral moment - and this would be even more amazing if it were true - that it could have been Stanislavsky's method acting. But busting someone’s nose is going too far even for the most hardcore method actor.

This is the kind of story no one will ever believe. Like the “moros” trying to break into my building just a few minutes later, that very same night. I talked to the owner of the bar on the corner and she added to the story (she was the one who alerted the neighbors in the first place). She said the kids trying to break in called it off when she started yelling. They tried to figure out where the yelling was coming from, then made a call on their cell phones. A few minutes later a scooter came buzzing up the alley and stopped in front of my building. At first she thought it was an undercover mosso cop, early on the scene. Then she realized the guy on the scooter was looking up to see where the warnings came from. He didn’t find out, but this confirms that a lot break-ins and robberies in this neighborhood are organized.

It turns out that after all this – the bloody brawl, the two Moroccan kids trying to break into the apartment, there was an attempted rape down by the fountain on Verdaguer I Callis, which is right next to the Teatre Antic. A girl who lives on Sant Pere Mitja was walking home about five or six in the morning when a drunken individual – La Guardia assures me it was one of the kids trying to break into the apartment – came up and groped her from behind. She backed him into the fountain and elbowed him before anything happened and was lucky to make it home before he called his buddies. I don’t know if this was attempted rape as La Guardia claims, or just drunken foolishness - but I know if I was in the girl’s position I sure as hell would be freaked out.

Last, but not least, my friend Larry Kovaks would be pleased about the mossos latest bust. It’s a real-life case of Guiri Gone Bad.

Turns out this perv was filming children on the beaches of Barceloneta. Someone noticed inappropriate behavior and called the mossos. He was caught in flagranti while filming little kids taking showers. They brought him back to his hotel, searched is room, and found two computers and massive amounts of extremely explicit child pornography. They also mentioned that this individual was American.

It’s hilarious. Not the child pornography part, but the amount of perverted guiris strolling the beaches of Barceloneta. I have told many people of the countless pervs taking pictures of topless women on the beaches. Obvious tourist types with camera gear that go around with almost complete impunity taking pictures of semi-naked beauties. I bet there are tons of websites and newsgroups with pictures from Barceloneta. Kovaks and the Mossos are doing the best they can. But, everybody, please watch out for middle-aged guiris taking inappropriate pictures. You may find yourself en pelotas on the world wide web.

Joe Joe was a man who thought he was a loner

But he knew it wouldn't last.

Joe Joe left his home in Tucson, Arizona

For some Barcelona ass.

Get back, get back.

Get back to where you once belonged

Get back, get back.