June 2007
TRAINS
Hello;
I like trains. I like them for many reasons. I suppose that the first reason why I like trains is because I take far too many plains every year and I am getting a little bit tired of them. Also they are very contaminating and it will be nice to stop using the means of transport that make this world that we live in a little bit of a cleaner place.
Trains can go almost everywhere and thou they also destroy some nature while they get build or while the rail tracks get set in the long run they are much less dirty with the environment.
Another reason why I like trains is that they are very comfortable to travel in. You have the opportunity to look through the windows and no matter how fast they go you get the opportunity of looking at the landscape. And there are so many beautiful things to look from the trains because they always go through places where there are not roads or where the human touch is very small. I know that sounds a little bit of a contradiction but if you think for example in the Eurostar they do not have many stops so apart from the chaos of London and the super populated Paris the rest of the journey looks as if you are travelling through the land of nothing. Or the other example is the AVE in Spain. The train crosses the mountains of Andalusia and you will not be able to admired the beautiful fields of olive trees with the little lakes who kill their very little thirst and all those rocky mountains that will welcome you to the sunny Andalusia. When you are looking through the windows you really fell special.
The other reason why I like trains is because it is a very old way of travelling. You can get still very old trains to travel to places in the same way as they would have done it many years ago and then you can get the most modern machine that exist to travel to places as if you will be in a sci-fiction movie.
Then you can stop and the get it again that gives you the felling that you are having a much closer relations ship with the place that you are travelling through. I do not mean that you have to leave the train and the wait for the next one to come in the station. What I mean is that there are people coming in the train with the life of that station and that village where the train stopped and that get mixed with the life that was already in the train. So when the train arrives to his destiny it is like a little country getting dump into the big city. In that moment the whole population of the train disappear like when you poor a glass of water in a river.
Then it is the bar or the restaurant of the train that you can walk to and get a drink or something to eat. I do not like it as much when they come with a little trolley for me that belong to the planes. In the bar you can talk to people and know about more things from the people that you are travelling with.
And now go to see Callate in Edinburgh at the Assembly Rooms.
Have fun.PEP TALK
Hello;
“So this is how is going to be guys, In Edinburgh last year the show did not pick up until really late, and I mean a week after we started. This time it cannot happen like that.
How is it your warm up? Do you do line runs as part of your warm up? Because I think it would be very good for you to do a couple of minutes line runs when you are in Montreal. In Edinburgh the show and the rhythm of the show had a delay because there was one or two second gaps in your delivery of the lines. Once the show was up and running the show picked up his pace and it goes amazingly well.
So do not let the things that happen outside to affect what is happening in the theatre. You concentrate yourselves in your work in what you have to do. I know that it is difficult to forget what is going on outside but that is not your responsibility. If someone that we have invited has not come then forget about those persons and concentrate in the people that are there.
!!! Come on guys put yourself together!! Kill the fuckers with laughter¡¡ You can be great and you have to be great so you can make this theatre to roar with laughter and that you will never stop working. So, come on!! Put your hands in the middle!!! And give it to me S, P, Y, M, O, N, K, E, Y, !!!!Spymonkey¡¡¡¡ and now go out there to Canada and kill them with laughter”
Michael Brezier came to give us a pep talk. He did very well with his fighting acting and he was also very supportive with his comments. At the end of the run we did with him looking he gave us a little bit of a pep talk, something very similar to the one I have written up there but in that one I have taken it to another step further by taken the piss a little bit of the whole thing.
Now we do not need the pep talk too much, we are the first one to know what is in stake in Montreal and perhaps if they play very well our cards and if we do very good shows which I think we are going to then there will be lots offers coming towards us and perhaps we might even get a TV proposal. But we do not want any tricks, everything has to be very straightforward and everything has to be based in everybody wanting the best for Spymonkey. And I do have to say that it is us the ones that wants the best for what we do and for what it is us.
Sometimes we get so many people telling us what is the best thing for us, they come to us telling us with absolute certainty what is the best thing that we can do with Spymonkey. Then all the decisions that we would have taken until then starts to crumble and it is not easy. But even with all the interferences that come from the outside we are closer than ever before so we do not care anymore.
The hounds is out of the west end so if you are in Montreal come to see Cooped and if you go to Edinburgh this summer go to see Callate at the Assembly Rooms.
Have fun.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Hello;
Happy Birthday for the Brighton theatre Royal, yes, today is its birthday but it is such and old theatre that it is very difficult to know the exact age and also it would not be polite to say the age of a honourable lady. She is definitely full of history. When we played there last year we got a tour around the theatre and we were shown the dressing rooms where people like Bette Davis and Sir Laurence Olivier got changed and ordered oysters and champagne after the show. We got a meal in a local Mexican and then we went to have drinks at the Spiegel Tent. You can see the differences in glamour or …is it not fair to compare us with the greatest actors? Probably not but after being rehearsing the whole week and working really hard from nine in the morning until very late in the afternoon there is not other thought in my mind.
We have been invited to the party and it is today at ten thirty but let me tell you there are not enough people in this world to make me able to go out at that time of the night. I am tired. We do the dance four times a day or more. We sing the songs for an hour in the office everyday and then we do physical scenes of the show during the whole time and then is Mr. Flop and he is there all the time and that also makes you physically tired.
Well, Petra is having the time of her life. She is really enjoying the time that we are spending working in the show. She really is a busy body. Perhaps it is Stephan and me the ones who are not used to work so hard anymore. Toby is also in his element and I have to admit that I am a little bit jelous because the work that they all do here pays off not just in the acting department but now they are becoming a little bit of small personalities in the little world of theatre. So they enjoy their hard work and when you are a little bit well known that gives you more opportunities to find work.
And we are working a lot this week. We are going to work at nine o'clock in the morning and then we work usually until five and then we go to the office of Spymonkey to do an hour of singing, and I was saying to Stephan that or is better to say that he was saying to me that quantity does not stand for quality. And I have to agreed because my body is really tired and I have not been sleeping in a very comfortable bed and we work really hard and then after the whole day you are very tired and my concentration becomes shit really shit.
And then we have been following the instructions of GPH about what is what the show needs to change in their opinion to become a better show and some of their suggestions are good but others we are nor agree with. Tomorrow Michael will be here and he will teach us a stage fight. They should have put some money to do the show better, to put an injection of enthusiasm into the show in order to take it completely alive to Montreal.
So there is not Hounds of Baskerville anymore, we are going to be with Cooped in Montreal from the 9 th to the 22 nd of July and Callate is going to be at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh.
Have fun.
GOOD IDEAS
Hello;
That is the thing that is funny when you talk about what is a good idea.
Judith Hibberd, head of performing arts, for Arts Council England South East, said: "I have enjoyed many performances at the Theatre Royal over the years but watching Spymonkey - a hitherto small-scale theatre company - take command of the large stage and the full Theatre Royal audience was really inspiring.
"The mixed audience roared with laughter - a woman near me getting near to tears and my eight-year-old daughter was bouncing on her seat.
"The aftershow discussion was just as lively with most of the conversation seeming to concentrate on how the cast had all got away with the nudity except 'the boring good looking' character. 'Why was that?' an audience member asked. 'Stage secret' was the reply. 'What do you mean?' 'He doesn't have a comedy body' she was told. More laughter.
"A really good evening and I felt proud that we had funded the production."
This is a little piece that appeared at the Argus in Brighton celebrating the 100 anniversary of the Brighton Theatre Royal. It is quite flattering and there is nothing bad to say about this is nice to be mention in any paper. So I want to carry on talking about good ideas that happen when you least expect them. Like today working again in tightening the show in Small Dole Cal had a good idea and we had put it in the show and we cannot wait to go and do it in front of the audience to see if it works.
Because you could say that there are very good ideas and they will always be good ideas as far as I am concern and another very different thing is that once you put them in front of the audience they do not work as good as you thought they will.
So there are some things that you think they are good ideas and the reaction with the audience is not great, but that only says that they audience does not find it amusing.
Does that mean that they audience has the key to what is a good idea?
I do not think so. I think the audience is the measure for what it works but when it comes to decide what it is good idea or good material they generally go for the easy and cheap staff. Yes, I believe that is exactly what it is because we, the audience we are a little bit lazy. We go to see a show and we do not want to make an effort and with the shows I think are very good you have to make a little bit of an effort to go into the show and have the best laugh ever.
So go to see Callate at the Edinburgh festival and have a very good time with a funny show.
Have fun.COMEDY GENIOUS
Hello,
But it makes me fell really frustrated when I think about what is it that I want to do with my life and in what kind of life do I want to have but mainly the most important thing what is my next incredible nice project that I want to do with my friends. Because there are many things that I have tried to do with people and that there have not gone anywhere and it is not just because I have not tried.
But I do not want to go into a very intimate confession with you all. This is not for you to go through my private miseries. Miseries are a fantastic thing to talk about and I am sure there is all kind of miseries that people go through but mine are my favourite ones. And when it comes to other people they have the most amazing miserable miseries and it would be deliciously depressing to hear about them in the same way that you enjoy hearing about mine. Because when you here about the miseries of somebody else sometimes that gives you a more clear view of your own ones. Miseries are very personal things. They appear or grow in your live like mushroom in the forest. They do not grow everywhere but in some specific moments of the year there they are to make you have a really hard time.
There are cases where to hear someone talking about their miseries makes you fell that your own ones are thousand times harder and unbearable.
In fabulous world of miseries you can find miseries of all kind, the most common ones I believe are the ones that have to do with you physical appearance. You can be miserable because you are really fat, o because you are really thing thou this kind is borderline with being completely mad because who would be miserable because is thing when have of the world want to be as thin as the other half, well, yes probably the thin half want to be as fat as the fat half. Or another physical case of misery if because you are getting old and that is why there are so many clinics for plastic surgery and they make so much money.
And then it is the misery of the underachiever. I am suffering from that one at the moment. I want to do more things but I do not do them and that is because I am a lazy bastard and that makes me fell really miserable. If I would do all the things that I say I want to do I will fell miserable because I am too tired to do anything so I do not think I am going to be able to get rid of my misery like that.
The theory that we learn from this is that everybody is miserable. Everybody have miseries of different kind and it is up each person how to deal with them. The small miseries are easier to deal with the big ones some times needs professional help. In any case to have a misery helps you to savour your life and enjoy what is happening around you.
Cal has created very nice new things for Cooped and once again the comedy genius has been at his best. And we are still in the middle of Small Dole getting Cooped ready to go to Montreal.
Have fun.
SMALL DOLE
Hello;
Small dole should be called Small road because that is as much as this little village is. So, for you to understand Small Dole has a road in the middle of the village, one industrial state and a dump. The three things combine make the whole place a little bit of useless place and this is the place where we are going to be rehearsing this week. The actual place where we have our set up is quite nice. It is the storage space and offices of the famous Brighton troupe STOMP. They very kindly have donated the week for us to be working here for free. Since that day Small Dole has become paradise because when something is free then it is always very good specially when there is not money what so ever.
It stroked me that there is just one shop in the whole town. It is one of those shops where you can buy a little bit of everything and anything. It is part of big chain of shops called Londis and the idea of getting a sandwich there it makes my stomach jump.
Then when you go out to have a little bit of fresh air the beautiful smell of the dump comes to you mixed with the air from the sea creating and amazing combination that makes you go back to work as fast as possible.
Not that we have the opportunity to be out side a lot because since the day that we have arrived to Brighton is raining non-stop. And of course all the blame to the global worming situation that probably had nothing to do with it. The reality is that it has been raining all the time and thanks to the fact that we are working we have not go completely wet.
And that is as far as Small Dole goes. I believe there is a pub and they serve food we have not gone there to eat for the same reason that we did not go outside to enjoy the weather. We have come to Small Dole to work so we have to try to do as much as we can of what we are doing.
When we finish working at the end of the day we do not stay there one more minute thou the guys that work at Stomp storage are great people and have been really helpful with us. One of them is called Fritz and the other JD, or something similar. As you all know my English is not very good so I make mistakes like that all the time. They have been taking care of us while we were working here and they have had a nice sense of humour if you ask me.
Now it is time to leave Small Dole for today and tomorrow we will be back. We have to go and practice the song we do in the show and in order to do that we go to the offices of Spymonkey. The offices of Spymonkey are also at the Stomp offices in Brighton. At this point of time we will be nothing without the generosity and help of Stomp so Thanks ever so much.
Have fun.REHEARSHING COOPED
Hello;
Well, set the set up in the position that you can work comfortably. But that is just an assumption that because the old set like the new one they can not be comfortably set in one day. The sets for Cooped need in order to be set to work comfortably a couple of good days of work. The set bubbles and moves and changes like an alive animal so in order to calm it down you have to do lots of thwacking and adjusting and it is Stephan an ex joiner the one that does the job the best.
The set we will be using in Montreal has already gone there and the costumes and the props so what we are going to do here is to clean and put up to speed the show.
Cal has been very generous and he has donated a week to the company so we can work together for the best of the show. We had the show in a very good shape while we were in Edinburgh but we have not done it since then so we really need to have a go to everything that happens.
We had other plans for the show but in order to put those ones into practice we need it to put money into the show and we are completely broke. We are really broke and I say this twice so if you out there have some money to give to an arts organisation like ourselves then we may be your best choice. If you want to do a donation please contact us via e-mail and we will send you our bank account.
But let me go back to the subject, we get lift to the rehearsal space in two cars. One of them we have rented and the other one belongs to Toby. Once we are there, there is nothing we can do apart from work in the show. The place where we work is in the middle of an Industrial State and even to get food for lunch there is a little truck that comes and all the people working there come from their offices to get their daily lunch.
We all seem to be in good spirits and we are taking the show from the very beginning to the end and re thinking every single line and thing that we do. I think we are cutting and reshaping far too many things. The show is in a very good state so If is not broken do not change it as the saying goes. Of course I am clown they tell me and a fundamentalist clown and that why they say I do not want to change things but I do not agree with that.
We have to make changes and those changes will make us not to relax and sit in what we do. It is true that we work better with a kick in the ass but we are not children and a little bit of respect will do us very well.
I am the worst thou.
We will be going little bit little through the whole show and then we will run it together at the end of the week to see how it works. It is a funny show, that is for sure, you may not think is good but it is funny.
Have fun.
EVAN ALL MIGHTY
Hello;
Two hundred millions dollars a studio has spent in this horrible piece of shit and probably I should stop talking about it now. What else apart from that could I say about this very bad movie?
That I saw it thanks to Matt Muller because he gave me a free tickets to go and see it in the press session. So there I was on a Sunday morning surrounded by children with popcorn and coca-cola waiting to see a movie with an actor that I find very funny. The whole presentation was a little bit silly with balloon blowers and children with painted faces and everybody screaming and shouting until the beginning of the movie.
The story as you can imagine is a reinterpretation of one of the bible stories. The one of Noah's ark. So God tells Noah that he has to build a big Ark to put a couple of all the animals that exist in the world because there is going to be a big flood and you should make sure that one kind of all the spices should be shave from a certain dead.
I have told you everything and I am sure, as you read the first words of my writing have guessed the argument of the whole thing. Yes they transported the whole story to the twenty first century in Washington and try to put the whole global warming in the pot. The actors are not bad but it is quite naff and done with very poor taste.
And now let me tell you about Steve Catrell who is starring the whole thing. I believe he got this roll because in the “God All mighty” movie he was very good playing the uptight weather newsman. Now he is the big Noah man and he is the one that has been chosen by God to build the new Ark. He plays well but it is really boring because he is doing the same thing all the time and it is upsetting.
Then…listen I cannot talk anymore about that movie because it does not really deserve it. So I left the movie theatre to go home and then go to Brighton to start what it seems is going to be a very good rehearsing week. Cal was waiting for me because we were going to travel together to Brighton.
I like being at Cal's because after so many years in living there I really fell, as it is my own place. I hope my humbled assumption does not insult them.
We arrived there and Lucy had prepared a great dinner for all of us to start the week in a very nice and positive way. Lucy is just really amazing. She has a fantastic spirit and she is so helpful for Spymonkey and I do not believe we could anything without her.
And then back to our usual sleeping quarters in Joanna's flat. Cal, Stephan and me will stay there while Petra will stay at Lucy's house. It is the best for them so the girls can bond together and the boys get a chance to bond together.
There is a very hard week ahead of us re fitting the show that we like a lot to do. The show is going to be in Montreal and we have high hope for it. So if you are in Montreal then come to see us at the Centaur Theatre.
Also go and see Callate in Edinburgh at the Assembly Rooms.
Have fun.TRANSFORMERS
Hello;
The movie theatre was shaking with the volume of the movie. Everything was shaking as if the makers of the movie have created a really loud soundtrack that will give the audience signs of how and when to react to what was happening in the film.
The actors the director and the producers were there. As a movie I have to say I did not think much of it but as spectacle I really had a great time and I regretted not to have got popcorns and coca-cola at the entrance of the theatre. Because if anything this is a movie for popcorn and coca-cola non-stop. It is packed with action and a very hot love relationship. I mean the girls is super hot and the guy is a little bit silly looking but guess what? They end up being together and by saying this I do not think I am spoiling anything for all of you our there that are planning to go and see the movie as soon as the have a chance.
The premise of the movie is classic, the bad robots are trying to take over the earth after they have destroyed other planets plus their own one. And group of good robots have been following them overt the centuries and galaxies to avoid them destroying any more worlds. So now the good and the bad robots are living in disguise between us and they are protecting us.
So you see I have told you almost everything because the only thing left is that the USA government is going to try to destroy them and for that they use very clever people like John Voight, John Tourturro and many good actors like that in need of a new house in LA or the University for their kids or things like that because if not it does not make any sense that good actors like them would do such a terrible movie.
But then I had fun. I stayed in the cinema for two hours and I got excited with the special effects and the fact that the big fights were happening at the Hoover dump and that brought me lots of good memories.
At the entrance of the Movie theatre because it was the showing for the press they took away all the mobiles and recording devices. They did not need to take mine because it is so old and primitive that I would not have been able to record anything. For once I was happy to have such a shitty mobile phone.
I like blockbusters because they make me have a very good and easy time. When I watch movies I do not really need to think in anything, sometimes I just want pure and stupid entertainment and this one thou perhaps it is too simple was very good entertainment.
Now do come to see COOPED in Montreal from the 10 th to the 22 nd and then go to see CALLATE at the Edinburgh festival.
Have fun.
AT THE NATIONAL
Hello;
How brilliant it is to be at the National Theatre in England. No, I was not just in the middle of the building and looking around like many of the foreigners having a look around the wonderful place that now is the Southbank of the river Thames. We were inside the building mingling around in the green room with the big guys of the National Theatre. When I was there I was thinking would anything like that would ever happen in Spain? Would I ever be having a drink at the bar of the people that works in the Spanish National theatre with the director, actors and technicians? Well it is difficult for me to believe that I would ever be there.
But it was really good for Petra and me to be there being talking and talked with people that do theatre in England. The theatre that they do you may like it more or less and it may be very good or very bad but in my experience I am sure it is always exciting.
Spymonkey could do with Cal a very good show at the National Theatre. We have speculated for some years the possibility of doing a stage version of “The Tale of Two Cities” for example or something like that. The most important thing of our show would be that we would try to make a funny show. Yes, believe it or not our proposal would go for making the famous Dickens story funny on the stage. And I am sure that I would work because usually there are not funny shows in the National. I am sure that there are shows that want to be funny and that even try to be funny but no one has ever try to do there a really funny show. It is for that reason that I say to you National Theatre; we Spymonkey with Cal McCrystal could do a very funny show in your lovely house. So please give us a room, give us money and we will do the funniest show the National has seen in the last ten years at least.
And that is a fact because there is a cast of people who are ready to do that show, there is a big group that can do very funny things and have done very funny things working all the time at the London Theatre.
But for us it was nice to drink beer inside the National felling really special. We were surrounding by the actors of the play that we has just seen and we were being very well treated by Mr. Morris, Tom Morris one of the directors of the National and one of the writers of the play that we have just seen, and adaptation from the movie “Matters of life and Death” by the Cornish company Knee high.
I think Tom felt a little bit guilty because he never replayed our mails and we have sent him many. In the pass he was a big supporter and I suppose the now he has gone to support other people but we wanted his support now also with a show in the National Theatre of England. I am sure we are not the only ones.
Have fun
GOING GOING
Hello;
Marc this day in your diary because it is going to be an important day for the rest of your life. Your flight is in the morning and you will be arriving to London to get ready for rehearsals for Cooped. The show is going to Montreal and it has to be rework and redone before it goes into the west.
So, please do not forget that once again you will be staying in Cal and Matt's house and that you have to be very thankful for their hospitality and that you should try to upset them and be the most discreet because you are a guess there.
Also remember to see Paul and Hailey because they have offered you a job and you cannot do it but you do want to have a good relationship with them. Paul and Hailey are lovely people and great artists and you just had a great time working with them in the latest Paul show at the Young Vic.
And do not forget that you have a ticket for the 21 st to go to see a show at the National.
Toby Park is in Brighton doing his music things and making sure Spymonkey becomes a big international act that can make us all extremely rich. So you should remember to call him to see if there is anything that you can do while you are there before stating to rehears.
Also do not forget to call Petra. She is not having the best of times and it is in those times that are when you need more the love of your friends.
Do not worry about contacting Stephan he is in Vienna and he does not want to be bother or molested by anyone until it is completely necessary. He is coming to London on Saturday and he is going straight on to Brighton. He will be at the house of Toby's mum by the time you arrive.
Also do not forget to pack in you bag a considerable amount of smokeables because it is not easy to find really good shit in Brighton. As you should know by now Brighton is all reputation and nothing else.
Finally try to have as much fun as possible. You have to make sure that everybody is in good spirits to do the job that you have to do in order to achieve that start by yourself and hopefully that would be contagious and you will have the best rehearsal week ever.
I am sure that you, aitor and that is serious have had a very good luck to the script and to the DVD so when you go to do the show no body has to tell you what is next. Remember that you have a very bad memory and that you are a real mess when it comes to remember things that you have said in the shows you did in the pass.
So good-bye and I hope that you have a very successful and productive week.
Have funVENUE CHIEF
Hello;
I am going through the schedule for the gigs we are going to be doing in Montreal in July and next to my name there is the title of Venue Chief. I do not think that Spymonkey has decided to make me venue chief. First there is not way I can be a venue chief, second I would not like to be a venue chief and third I do not think Spymonkey thinks that I can be a venue chief either. Therefore I had to look closely and then I understood. I am there to be with the venue chief and it is Stephan and I the ones that have to make sure that the set and all the shit gets put up for the show on the tenth and for the rehearsal on the ninth.
Of course it scares me because it is quite of a responsibility to be in charge of something like that but there is nothing else I can do because Toby and Petra are easier to take responsibilities so at the end the German and the spic do the dirty jobs.
This is not a complaining blog this is an awareness blog because going through the whole schedule as I said before I realised that the two weeks we are going to be doing at the JFL festival are going to be very hard work.
I have to take with me my leatherman and my gloves and my tools so we can build the set just with our own things and we do not have to be asking for things all the bloody time.
I have the plans in my computer and as soon as we arrive to Montreal I will be study them so I am ready for what ever is need it.
The worst thing of all is that there are going to be unexpected things. The show is so big and complicated and we do not have enough people to do all the building and loading and setting all the things up that we are oblige to do them all ourselves.
Toby is taking care of the office and the publicity and everything else and Petra is taking care of the marketing and the PR things and also the accommodation and Stephan and me will take care of all the shit that will happen once we are in Montreal building the set and all the props we use in the show.
It over takes me all that responsibility and there is nothing I can do to get rid of the petrifying power of having such a big responsibility. I wander how the others do it. They probably just forward know that they are going to make mistakes and that is part of the deal. They are aware of that and when things happen they just get them out of their minds once is repair and if they cannot do anything else then they call someone else to finish it. And also as I have said in the pass in Europe the people of my age have a very difficult education where to take decisions and to take risk is much better appreciated so they are more relax mentally to do what they have to do.
Then there is the very important factor of Laziness but I do not think that is just my case or I am lazier than anyone else I just have different values.
So, go to see the hound of the Baskerville in London, Cooped in Montreal and Callate in Edinburgh.
Have fun.
TODAY
Hello;
My bicycle needs to get repair and soon because when I was coming from my daily ride I thought it was going to get broken in two. The gears are not working well at all and now that I have the gear to go and do all the riding in the proper way it is my extreme machine the one that is not working properly.
I went to the beach this morning cycling so I did a little bit of cardio. The beach was gorgeous thou the weather does not end up being good.
I bought my paper in my local and I went back home to leave the bike and get change to go to do my daily shopping. I thought a menu and I did not have all the things I needed to make the meal. I bought a lettuce and a couple of frozen fishes and then I got a bar a bread and I went back home.
Miren was not there yet so I checked my mail. There were some from Montreal. We are looking for a couple of boys to play the dummy and a couple of girls to play Margo Woodespoon. The problem is that we cannot pay them so we have to ask them to do the job for us as a favour. It is not easy because as soon as they find something that they can get paid for they would have to leave us. We have a boy called Hughes Sarra-Bournet and a girl called Anna Ward. From here I say to the world THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Also I am struggling to find a place to do a workshop in Canada and I have received lots of e-mails of support but nothing has happened. I do not think is going to happen.
So after I did the mailing shit I got into cooking for my girl. I clean the lettuce, I crusted some walnuts and I chopped some spring onions. With a little bit of goat cheese and crab meat I put everything with a lovely mustard vinaigrette in the salad.
Now before I finished the salad I chopped onions and I peeled some potatoes and I chopped them and put them in a pan with a little bit of water. Once the whole thing was a little bit cooked I put the fish inn and I covered with water.
Miren heats if the potatoes are not completely cooked. Then she will not eat anything of what I have cooked and I heat that and then the whole thing becomes the battle of heats.
When she arrives I have read my paper, I have cooked my meal and I have set the table up and I have opened a bottle of wine and I am ready for her to eat.
After lunch we will have siesta while watching TV and perhaps if I am lucky I will get shag, a fuck.
After wards Miren will want to go for a walk and depending of the day of the week we will go to different places like the cinema or drinking or going to see someone but today we are going to go for a walk and to enjoy the really nice weather that we have here. I am leaving on Wednesday and I do not think the weather is going to be as good in London where I am going.
At night we will be at home watching a little bit of TV and reading our books and mails and then we will go to bed after a good night spliff.
It is the time for you to see The hounds of the Baskervilles in London, go also to see us in Cooped in Montreal and then to end a wonderful summer of comedy go to see Callate in Edinburgh.
Have fun.
THE MUNCHIES
Hello;
Crisps, jelly beans, jelly bear, roasted corn, pieces of cheese, liquorish, lemon ice cream, chocolate ice cream, cookies, peanuts, roasted almonds, sun flowers sheds, pumpkin sheds, coca-cola, donuts, pepperoni pizza, pizza margarita, Chinese crackers, hummus, taramasalata, strawberry ice-cream, toffee, jelly fry eggs…
Pop corn, sweet popcorn, sugar cotton, ginger beer, Asian mix, dry roasted peanuts, marshmallows, Brighton rock, lemon lolly pop, wine gums, rice pudding, custard pudding, banana ice cream, roasted nuggets, goat cheese on brown toast, pate in crackers, monkey nuts, Pringles, strawberries, coconut, pineapple. Dry fruits, watermelon, cherries, cheese and onion crisps, banana muffin, doughnuts, Hagen Dance, Ben and Jerry, cheese and jam pastries, jam doughnuts, Serrano jam, cheese sticks, carrots sticks, cheese pops, cream doughnuts, waffles, hot dogs, spicy almonds, choc co crisps, flap jacks, club sandwich, oysters, coca-cola, champagne, pasta putanesca, pistachios…
Mars bars, snickers bars, wine gums, chorizo sandwich, fries and eggs, bratwurst and fries, apple strudel, peach strudel, fish fingers, marmite and bread soldiers in a boil egg, prawns with pink sauce, king prawns barbeque, seas kebab, m & ms,SLEEPLESS
Hello;
It is sign of age to suffer from insomnia. The fact is that the time to die is getting closer makes the body to react to wake up the survivor kit. The body fells the signs of danger, the signs of time getting pass and end of time in this earth and tries to keep the body awake for a very long time to make your time in this earth longer.
The animal-human wants to hold on to life but he knows that time is running out. So you spend your time awake and not knowing why you are awake in the middle of the night and you fell anxious. You try to go back to sleep and you cannot. Then you call the help of drugs to make you sleep in an artificial way and you get really high but you don't manage to go back to sleep.
The fact that the whole thing becomes more problematic makes you even more anxious and you cannot sleep. So you wander, you walk up and down, you grab a book and you try to read but you cannot concentrate so you leave the book and think about going back to bed. The people sleeping in your bed start to complain, what are you doing go back to bed and lets as sleep! You leave the room and switch on the TV, perhaps a movie will make you sleep and then by mistake you put the TV too loud and you hear moments later a shout from the bedroom where people are sleeping saying ¡ put the volume down! So then you get more anxious and your time to go to sleep get further and further away.
Then you start to watch the movie and you cannot concentrate either, by that time the high is coming down and you have to take a little bit more. Now that you are awake you may as well get completely high and whenever your brain stops working you will just fall sleep wherever you are.
The body refuses to go to sleep because it knows that it may never wake up. Your body is tired but is not old enough to not be able to put up a good fight. So he keeps awake and your brain fells as if it is going to explode. The images and the thoughts go through your brain as a movie being fast forward so you open your eyes to avoid going sleep.
Now the problem has been identified and you start to give up going back to sleep and you get ready and comfortable to have a night with no sleep what so ever.
Once you are at this point of no return then you are quite fucked because you will be completely tired for the next few days.
It is in that moment when you have given up when it is more likely that you will be able to go back to sleep because your body knows and you do not care anymore.
Go to see the show of our friends at the Dorchester theatre in London then come to see Spymonkey in Montreal from the 9 th to the 22 nd July and then Callate of Cal McCrystal at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh.
Have fun.
THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA
Hello;
I have let Seville today in the AVE. I spent the day in Madrid. I went for an interview in a production company in Madrid and it was quite nice but I think they do not give a shit. My friend Josu told me that before and I did not really believe him. He is a casting director and he knows what is he talking about.
Anyway after the interview I walked through Madrid and I had a siesta after lunch. It was so hot. I like hot thou. My friend Candela Fernandez has given me a ticket to see her act in a play that she was doing in Madrid. The play was and is by Federico Garcia Lorca. It was one of his most famous plays ever “La Casa de Bernarda Alba”. Being completely honest with you I am not a big fun of that play but I have to admit that it is a great piece of theatre. I have seen it so many times that it feels as if I now know some of the text or better said that all the text sounds familiar.
This particular version had an amazing cast of actresses. They were all-famous on their own right before doing the play and with their talent did make of this production a very successful one. My friend Candela was by far my favourite actress of the entire team. She looks really good on the stage and when I say good I mean really beautiful and also acts very well. She needs for my like it to put a little bit more weight but for the stage and for the screen she looks completely like a girl ready to be a star.
The other actresses I liked them very much thou I have to say the woman that played Bernarda a very famous French and Spanish actress did not do it for me. I like her much more when I see her on movies. For me in the theatre she was all the time over playing and she did not have any charm.
The theatre was packed thanks mainly to Maria Galiana a very popular actress because she plays a big part in a very successful television series about Spain in the seventies.
She is great in the show and she is very herself or what we know of her.
After that I had some drinks with the cast. We laughed and laughed a lot. I like being in the company of actresses who do their work in Spain. It makes me dream about the possibility of becoming an actor in my own country. That really would be amazing to be able to work in my own language and in my own country.
When I left it was because I was about to loose my bus back home. Nevertheless I arrived to Bilbao at the early hours of the next day. But I would have stayed the whole night there drinking beers and talking about what they do and about what we do and compare and carry on drinking. It is good to do what you like to do and do it for as long as you want.
Go to see the Hounds of the Baskervilles in London then come and see us in Cooped while we are Montreal in July and then go and see Callate in Edinburgh it is the latest Cal's show.
Have fun.
CAT
Hello;
As you all know I am in Seville at the moment. In Seville I have many friends and do you know why I have so many friends in here?
Well this is the blog when I will tell you things about my time in Seville and why did I come here to do the time I did here.
When I was looking for a place to study theatre I look in all the important places in Spain but the one that I like the most was here in Seville. It was called the Centro Andaluz de Teatro. At the time, the CAT had an amazing group of teachers regularly teaching the students, from John Strasberg to Philippe Gaulier and with lots of additions from Russia and Argentina and France etc. The rest of schools of the country had very good teachers but they all seemed very academic and boring so I earned a little bit of money and I went to Seville to do the auditions and I passed, and a month later I was leaving in the city and I stayed there for the next three years.
When I left I was devastated. I was ready for more and new adventures but I had got an amazing mole stocked in my heart for the rest of my life.
Then the place, the actual building where I did my studies was absolutely great. It was an old convent that had been donated to the school by the diputacion of Seville. In there we were something of a hundred and fifty students with their teachers trying to learn something about theatre and how to do it but more that anything else to have fun and to do that we had the best place in the world. We were in Seville and we were in Seville in a fantastic place. The convent had four squares with marble floors and church and a patio with an orange and a lemon tree and we had a big room to do acrobatics and a room with a copula to do the dance class. The weather was always good and our lessons never end and the parties were the entire time happening.
While I was there everything made sense and I learned a lot. But the things I remember the most were the fact that while I was inside the school I was safe and it was a place where I was going to learn a lot and I was going to have a lot of fun learning.
And now, today in fact, when I visited the place the whole thing has changed a lot. Now it is not a school anymore, now it is a place that hosts offices of the government to administrates the dramatic arts. When I went in some of my friends from the time I was there thy still were there making a living, like Pedro at the door, or Esperanza in one of the offices but then as I went in the place seemed completely round down.
Now there are no actors going around and nobody takes care of people destroying the place. I felt really sorry for the big opportunity that the people like me in the future are not going to have to enjoy that place and learn theatre as we did on my time.
The people there have lost their enthusiasm because they do not believe anymore in what they are doing.
And today I tell you to go and see the shows I recommended yesterday.
Have fun.
SEVILLA
Hello;
Seville is the capital of Andalusia. The town in the fifteen-century used to be the biggest town in the world. It had almost a million and half habitants at the time. All the gold from America known in Spain at the time as the Indies was coming into Europe through the great town in the south of Spain.
It has everything now a days, the river, the old town, the new town, the island of La Cartuja, and the very close beach who made possible to say that Seville has a beach being a very long time away from Seville.
The city has lots of great bars where the people from Seville does one of the best and most favourites pastimes of Sevillian people which is to go to eat Tapas. If you ask any of them they will never say that to go for Tapas is a pastime what they will tell you is that they are eating. And in fact it is actually completely true when you eat tapas you are eating but not in the normal way. You are drinking at the same time and in order to carry on drinking without getting completely drunk you eat something and at the end you end up jumping what we know as lunch.
And then many people will tell you that the whole Tapas thing is a heritage from the times when the Arabs where over there. The Arabs were used to eat small bites instead of the more Christian thing of sitting around the table to stuff your self with lots of food. In Seville I know people that think that they should be Africa, they should be the North of Africa and that when the politicians keep trying to make them part of Europe they are completely wrong.
Then is the people who makes this town one of the more incredible towns I have ever been in my entire life. You get to know and meet hundreds of people every time you go out. You have an amazing time with them during the night when everybody is out and it last as much as the whole time is dark and in the summer days the night mixes with the day and the party never ends and then the next day many of them would not remember that they meet you. In my humble experience that is a way of not committing yourself with anything and with anybody so you can have more casual encounters with people the next time you go out. In Seville adventures are completely normal and everyday life is something that does not have any value in the stock market.
Never the less you do not have to marry someone because you had sex with that person. We are humans and we do things just for the pleasure of doing them and in Seville that is completely sure and leitmotiv of their lives.
And now here we are Petra, Lucy, Belinda, Rocio and myself to enjoy this city to the full.
And now go to see the Hounds of the Baskervilles in London, go to see Cooped in Montreal and Callate in Edinburgh.
Have fun.
ON HOLLYDAYS?
Hello;
But not, I am not going to Seville on Holydays thou I am really happy to be here. It is a very long time since I had been here last. Yes, ten years ago I left Seville for the last time. I left Seville happy for going to other place and ready to carry on with my studies and my learning of how the world works and also very sad because I was leaving behind a big bunch of very good friends. I have not bee very good keeping in touch with lots of them and now I am coming back to Seville and I will see them and I am not going to be very embarrass.
But here I am and I am going to make the most out of it. I am going to see all the important people I can so I can get jobs in the future for Spymonkey and for me. And also Petra, Lucy and Belinda are coming to stay with Rocio and I am sure that we will have a very good time going around Seville.
Belinda is writing a book and need to learn things about flamenco and bull fighting. She writes books for girls, it is not I the one that says that is her, and the male protagonist of her latest book is a dance teacher of Latin dances. So flamenco is in that category and she wanted to go to Andalusia to research and we all thought that it was a very good opportunity to visit the wonderful Andalusia once again after ten years that have gone too fast.
But my point, the point I am trying to make is that when you are not working do you have the right to have holydays? I do not think so but when you do the kind of life that I do is completely normal to mix both. Who can tell that is not holydays and work at the same time to see Pepe Quero in Seville? He is the chief of Los Ulen and he could give me a job any time or perhaps if suddenly Juan Carlos Sanchez needs a new teacher for his school in Madrid perhaps he will give me a job because we have met recently. So my point is clearer now, I am on holydays working and I know that it does not make any sense and it is a contradiction on itself.
But today walking around Seville I felt like when you get out one very old jacket that still is new or that has come back to fashion and you take it from the back of the cupboard and put it again. The felling is of familiarity and conformability and thou you find places that pull or that you do not seem to remember or that perhaps have shrunk and you do not fell as comfortable as before still fells absolutely good. My feelings towards Seville are like that I get lost in her old streets but then I find myself again in places that bring the best memories. And all these memories make the time in this city the best time since a lost time. All my fears of not belonging anymore to the people that I loved here disappear as I meet all my old friends like the Giralda, El barrio de Santa Cruz or my dear old friend La Alameda.
So I am going to be here working and holidaying for five days and that is going to be just fine.
Go to see the hounds in London, Cooped in Montreal and Callate in Edinburgh.
Have fun.
THE AVE
Hello,
From here at the top of the Santa Justa station I can see the train that has brought me here to Seville. The train has done the seven hours journey in car in two hours and a half and I have to say that the whole trip has been very smooth.
The shape of the train is like bullet. That is probably the reason why they call it the bullet train. Well they call it the AVE. I am sure that those letter stand for something but I do not know exactly what is it and I do not want to go into the internet to find out. If you are a train aficionado please be my guest and go a search for the meaning and then kindly share it with the ones like me that are too lazy to look for themselves.
But the whole thing starts in Atocha in Madrid. Yes, that the one. The station that became very famous when the Al-Quaeda department for Europe decided to blow some trains in Madrid to show the president of Spain that it had not been a very good idea to join the world against terror. That would teach them they thought. The only problem was that they used Spanish technology to prepare the bombs and of course the whole thing did not work as the terrorists planned. The clocks in the bombs did not work as they expected and the bombs instead of exploiting at the same time they did it one by one so they did not kill as many people as they expected.
But lets stop this macabre thing and go back to the AVE train. A train that goes from Madrid to Seville very fast and it is very comfortable and reliable. It fells as if you are going in a very fast plane but not flying. The plane goes just over the plain at a very fast speed like a big eagle ready to kill a rabbit running parallel to the rail track. No, I know this is not the best simile but I am not very concentrated while I write but I am sure that all of you have enough vivid imagination to understand what I am saying.
They play you a movie, my one was “something Beethoven” and there is a very good bar, and they give you papers and by the time you think you are going to get bored and tired then the train is already there.
My favourite thing is to see the landscape as the train is getting close to Despeñaperros, the mountains that divide the south of Spain with the rest of Spain. Everything looks really dramatic through the windows of the train. There are plenty of olive trees that look as if they have been there for far too many years and now they cannot go anywhere else.
Then the colour of the soil is red. It is as red as when you drop a glass of wine in the sand and that soil covers all the mountains. The green of the olive trees make the whole landscape to look like polka dot skirt.
Then when you are actually crossing the mountains there are small lakes that look really blue. The water is dark blue and it looks really cold. The speed of the train does not allow you to see the details but suddenly the mountains stop and you stop in Cordoba. The city that everybody says even the people from Seville that it is the most beautiful city in Andalusia.
When you arrive into Seville and his station you have already go throw a good half of the city. The train leaves you in the middle of Seville so lets have fun.
And of course go to see The Hound of the Baskerville in London, Cooped in Montreal and Callate when you hit Edinburgh.
Have fun.
M.
Hello;
I am writing to you to let you know M. that we are sorry. I am writing to you because we do not want you to be upset with us because we like everything that you have done for us and because Spymonkey will not be what it is now without your support, help and generosity.
We have become a team of people and that creates problem of communication between the members of the team. Sometimes, many times the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. For that reason sometimes many times we get into troubles that we do not want. I choose the word want because I suppose the word deserve does not apply here but that is the way we fell when problems like the one that we have with you happen.
By the way we do not know why you are upset. A dear friend of us or our dearest friend told us that you were upset and he did not believe that we knew the reason why and he wanted to help us to short out the whole thing.
From Paris where we are now I tell you M. that we love you. Spymonkey, Petra, Toby and Aitor love you and do not want you to be upset with us. We want you to be our friend and need your support and your advice because you have been there for the last ten years and for us loyalty it is not just a word but also something that we follow.
For all of you who do not know M. or are asking yourselves why I am not saying his/hers name in full is because we have found out today as I write that he is upset with us and that he is going to drop all his/hers support, the official one at least and suddenly in our own little world a big catastrophe has started. Our brains now they have just one occupation and is to resolve this problem because it is very difficult to work knowing that someone out there is upset with you and you do not know why and you have not done the necessary things to try to resolve the problem. If after trying the whole thing has not been resolve then is a completely different thing because you have try and then it is not anymore up to you.
With Spymonkey I suffer a lot lately. Every time there is a problem my head gets block. I cannot think and I fell a big whole in the south of my heart that allows me to breath with difficulty. Then a big battle starts inside me to relativise the problem so I can carry on functioning. After sometime, usually is hours I manage to make the whole problem not so extreme and from then on and I can enjoy other things that life brings me. So you can imagine how the last two years have been.
Also I am starting to think that are just panic attacks. Yes. It is a sickness from the twenty-century. But then I think why would I panic if Spymonkey does not do very well. I would be able to do cappuccinos in a bar or go to pick up strawberries in Somerset or Apples a little bit further up the north like all the other emigrants from the south do in England. My life will be free from panic attacks and I will not suffer so much in my spirit.
Go to see hound of the Baskerville, and Cooped in Montreal and then "Callate" in Edinburgh festival.
Have fun.
W.C. FIELDS
Hello;
“The Fatal glass of beer” A man comes into a wooden hood in the middle of a snowy night. The wind is blowing outside and it has not been easy to make it all the way to the not very comfortable house. He managed to open the door and as he is going in he managed to shout a legend to the outside and as he is talking a big amount of snow hits him in the face.
Then he gets into the house telling his woman that he is hungry and that he wants food. The woman sets the table and the man gets ready to eat. He grabs a napkin put it around his neck. It is a big white napkin that hangs over his overcoat. He sits at the end of the table and takes the plate in his hand demanding food.
The woman gives him a plate of soup and piece of bread and the man grabs a baguette with the other hand. So he eats the soap with a spoon and also soaks the baguette in the plate and tries to eat it while being interrupted by the woman that is trying to tell him the story of how their song got caught by the police stealing bonds.
Eventually the son comes back while they are still eating and because he had not shared the profits from the robbery with them they throw him out of the house.
This more or less the little movie of “the Fatal glass of beer” by W.C. Fields. I have to say that it is more less or more than more or less because I saw it in very difficult circumstances. We were in a house and the movie was shown through a projector and the quality of the sound was quite poor. I could see that there were many funny things but I was not really amused by it. I could not understand the English they were talking and for quite a while I thought they were talking about bombs not about bonds.
W. C. Fields was a character and a very funny comedian. He did know how to write for himself but more important I think he was a very skill full performer that knew how to make things work. And lets not forget about his amazing talent as a juggler. He was able to do incredible things with his boxes and with balls and my favourite thing was the way he will manipulate his hats. He will joggle with his hat and then he will hang it in the stand with a brilliant shake and throw of his hat. It is worthy to visit You Tube to see some of his work because he was a little bit of a genius.
When I saw the sketch I mention before I was in Paris, a little bit drunk, a little bit tired and the sound was not very good so…
Anyway remember to go and see the shows I told you specially Cooped if you are in Montreal from the 10 th to the 22 nd of July and Callate at the Edinburgh festival.
Have fun.
HAPPY
Hello;
I am happy. I fell very happy today. It seems that the demons that had been haunting me for the last months have gone and a new light has appeared in my soul.
I am happy to try new things and I am happy to be with Toby, Petra and Stephan. The last months I was not very happy to be with them and I wander why that was. Perhaps I thought of myself a much more important person than my other friends and I did not like to be treated like they were treating me?
Perhaps there was a little bit of too much relationships between the same people all the time and my soul was telling me you have had enough and I was not able to perceive it?
Perhaps Stephan, Petra and Toby had become a bunch of bastards and they were making sure that I was having the hardest time of my life while I was with them? Perhaps I was suffering from a very obscure illness that did not allowed to fell happiness at all?
Perhaps the fact that the earth is getting warmer is affecting the way a function hormonally and I cannot have normal relationships with people that I got to know quite a while?
Perhaps the fact that I did not know how to ride a horse when they go really fast was creating a bomb in my regulator of happiness and I was not been able to enjoy that amazing experience?
Perhaps the idea of doing a show with the same bunch of people and having to go through the same similar things was boring me so much that I could not find my pleasure?
Perhaps having to deal with all the politics of a small company of people that have been working together for a long time was getting into my head and it was not allowing me to function properly?
But now I am happy. I am very happy because I am ready to work and I am ready to deal with all the things that we are going to have to do if we want to go ahead with the Spymonkey shit. It is not going to be easy but it is never easy especially if it is good.
We worked yesterday in a squat in Paris where someone has drawn a picture of Osama Bin Laden with a stamp of the eleven of September two thousand and one. It was quite incredible to see something like that. It is not surprising that in France someone fells like that about USA.
Also we ate in a fantastic Chinese restaurant. I did enjoyed very much but I was so hungry that I ate too much and then I could not move properly.
We are staying in a seventh floor apartment and there is not lift to go upstairs so we are doing an incredible amount of exercise.
Spymonkey is back. The Spymonkey that I remember is back and I am having a fantastic time. Spymonkey more than ever, is the four of us. That makes me really happy.
Go to see the Hound of the Baskerville in London and then Cooped in Montreal and then Callate in Edinburgh.
Have fun.
DENNY WILLIS
Hello;
Denny Willis was one of the heroes of the English comedy. I said it was because I believe he is dead. If I am wrong I apologise and write to me telling me the contrary. He used to do lots of funny physical numbers that you now can watch in You Tube.
I just learned about him while in Paris working for Jos. Denny used to have a very famous TV show in the seventies or even before and he was the preserver of the legacy of the vaudeville humour and funny numbers from that time in showbussiness.
We saw this number where he is doing a routine with four dancers and singers and he gets bitten up and kicked and thrown around like a puppet. It is very funny and especially Petra got completely fascinated with one move where he gets grab by one of the dancer by the neck. The dancer has his elbow bend against his own neck and by pure chance Denny has put his head through the space that the arm create. So every time the dancer moves Denny have to jump up and down and that looks really funny.
There are thousands of people like Denny Willis who did all the circuit of theatres here in England and then try to emigrate to America when the circuits started to be more successful over there. The greatest like Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, etc, etc they all started there. They run all their numbers in double or triple sessions until the numbers became flop proof. They became really famous and then when the TV and the cinema came in they tried to do the same things in front of the camera. In fact the Marx Brother always toured their shows first in theatres. Once the gags and everything was working with the audience then they will go into the studio and they would shoot the movie of the show they had been doing for several months.
For an actor it sounds as the ideal thing to do. You come up with things that you think are funny and then you have to put them on the stage. All those things do not work always first time they need time to grow and that is what touring does to all of that. Then you put them in film and from now on you just have to count your money because people is going to love your movie and buy so many tickets that you will never have to work again. And that is not necessary true, I am sorry, that is what I would like to happen but sometimes when you change what you do to a different media then your things could look completely horrible.
Fro Denny things went quite well and still if you type his name in goggle you will be able to enjoy his genius.
I love that kind of humour. The performers play really stupid but all of them have a very high degree of skill and that is always a very pleasant thing to see.
So you should go to see the hound of the Baskerville in London to see an example of what I am trying to say in this blog and also go to see Cooped in Montreal and Callate in Edinburgh when you go to the festival this year.
Have fun.
IN PARIS
Hello;
In Paris when is summer you fell like the time does not pass. It is just something to do with the fact that day have day and night but times fells endless because there are many things to do and people are never in a hurry. There are many places that are inviting you to spend your time doing something as simple as to live and enjoy life to the full.
In Paris girls are always pretty and boys are sexy and they know it and they exercise it. I saw this couple in the tube going back home from work. They were in the middle of the train and they were not very comfortable and as soon as we arrived to one station some people left so they move to the end of the wagon. Once they were there the boy grabbed her and put her on his side. The girl, a beautiful and modern North African looking girl was quite comfortable but then she grabbed his man and put him behind her lining against the wall of the train and then she lined against him. He understood immediately and he grabbed her by her hips and Holt her slightly. Now they were comfortable felling both very sexy.
In Paris beer comes from many places. In Basque restaurant or bistro like they say here there is Basque beer and it is really bad. The colour is kind of pink and it tastes half beer half this liquor is mixed with. I have to change the beer because I do not like it at all. But I do not want to stop drinking a beer because that allows me to be sitting here in the table of this bistro by the road where everybody sits forward like they are at all times having the most interesting conversation.
I see a couple in a table close by. She is with her arm resting on him and the boy looks at the face of the girl with the smile of love. She caresses the chest of him. She caresses like investigating if is true that he has a nipple and when she caresses the nipple gets hard. She carries on and laughs and he still looks at her with a smile of love. She moves on the chair and rests her hand on his nipple and put one more piece of ice in her glass of wine.
In Paris everything is hot.
The parks are full of people. The people sit everywhere and look around with the face of someone that knows that everything that is around them is envied by the whole world. So they are not afraid of showing their bodies, their dresses, their suits and sunglasses …and then in Paris in front of the Pompidou Arts Centre people is sitting looking at the building like praying to very weird icon. They sit in many different ways. Many of the people sit like worshiping the amazing building they have in front of them and others, the most of them sit as if they have already finished their prayers and now is time to enjoy the company of a beautiful presence. And in Paris everybody sits in front of the beautiful buildings because they like to watch beauty and that is why this great city is full of beautiful buildings, art and beautiful men and women.
And go in London to see The Hound of the Baskerville and in Montreal Cooped and in Edinburgh go to see Callate.
Have fun.
ST. MICHEL DE NOTRE-DAME
Hello,
The hordes of white and pink fat tourists are crossing the bridge in front of me. I do not think that this gorgeous bridge that has been here for many years in front of the St.Michael the Notre-Dame is not going to be able to hold any longer. Here the characters of “Les Miserables” escaped from the horrible police of Robespierre and now hordes of Canadian teenagers chewing gun and Americans of all ages with digital cameras and digital video cameras and mobile digital phones taking pictures of anything that moves around here. It fells as if with every picture the take with them a little bit of the endless life of this stones that make the bridge and cathedral.
A big group of Canadians stopped in front of me. I am ridding my book with my suitcases on the side while I wait for the Spymonkeys to come and pick me up. The get hold of their cameras and I carry on reading my book pretending and have not noticed them. Then they take their cameras to their faces trying to point to the objective of their pictures. I have not moved yet and I cannot believe that they are going to take a picture of me. I am not French I want to tell them and they are getting closer and closer. Then I lift my head and see them coming towards me. I move my head around with fear and I see at my back that a big boat is crossing underneath the bridge and that the boat is the objective of their cameras. I relax and I let them do.
Then seduced by the group of Canadians taking pictures I decide to do the same and I get hold of my camera. The gorgeous cathedral of St. Michael the Notre-Dame is in front of me and I must take a picture of her. The sky is completely blue and marc the silueta of the cathedral. I can see people on the top of the Cathedral; they are probably Canadians and Americans using their digital cameras to grab a little bit more of Paris. I try to delete them from my picture but thou my camera is quite good they have not invented yet the discriminatory camera so I put it close to my face and I get ready to do the picture. I can see the whole church in my little screen. I use the zoom and it gives me a closer view of the cathedral. I know is going to be a nice picture. I send the order to my finger when I hear a whistle. I recognised the whistle. It is the way Petra whistle when she wants to let someone know that she is around. But I am ready to make the picture and I have done all the preparation and it looks like is going to be a nice picture so… I decide to ignore the whistle from Petra and take the picture. We are going to be together working in Paris for five days so I have plenty of time to recuperate this time with her.
I get my finger ready. Also during all that time the camera has been in front of my face. I am pressing the switch to take picture and then I hear coming from the same place where the whistle was coming “FATSO” in a very laud voice. Now I can fell how all the American and Canadians on the bridge are looking towards me. I do not want to take the camera from my face. It is really embarrassing. I have been in Bilbao for a month and I got really porky.
The person screaming is Stefan. He does it again “Fatso” and this time I grab my suitcase and let my camera hangs from my neck and walk towards them. He has managed to bully me again. I will come one of these days to take the picture.
Go to see the Hound of the Baskervilles in London, Cooped in Montreal, and then Callate in Edinburgh.
Have fun.MADRID ME MATA
Hello;
It really does. Madrid kills me in the very good sense of the word. There is nothing like going out in the morning while still the air is fresh to have breakfast in a bar. Once in the bar you should have a coffee with churros. Churros are one of the best thing that you can have in Spain. They are made with very airy dough that you put in a funny machine that looks like a grinder and by moving a big wheel the shape of the churro gets into the fry pan. The fry pan has to be very full with very hot oil. The churros swim for a little while in the pan and then they take them out and leave them rest for a while. Then you sprinkle with sugar before to be served.
Before you go to take your churros you should get the paper and have the first contact with the news of the day.
By the time you have finish your breakfast the air conditioning have avoided you to fell the real heat out side. As you leave the bar do not forget to put your sunglasses and I am sure that you will have to get rid of you jacket.
You should go for a walk around the old part of the town because it is like travelling on time. Madrid has a very big old quarter and you can have a very nice walk around that area until the moment to have your first beer comes. Believe me, it is like travelling time and because travelling in time is something that has to take time you should never hurry in Madrid.
Then you should go to one of this little and very nice squares in San Bernardo and get lunch. For some people specially the ones that live away from Spain the lunch thing get resolve with a mere sandwich or similar but for me or for the people in Spain to have lunch it is a more important business. You have to sit down you have to go to have lunch with someone and you have to have a coffee after lunch with a little bit of conversation after lunch. You are going to have to be working until eight or seven so take you time. Madrid is a place where you have to take your time.
After your lunch you can try to find a place where to have a small power nap. Do not underestimate the force of the power nap, especially in Madrid, especially during the hot months of the year, especially when you have had a fantastic lunch and you do need to carry on working for a little bit more time.
Then I strongly recommend if you do not have to work in the afternoon to go for a nice walk in any of the nice museums that Madrid has. The most famous one is El Prado. There you will be fresh and you will be able to see some of the best pieces of art in the history of the world.
And then there is the night and there is not time to talk about it in here but in any day of the week Madrid is a party. And parties take a very long time to finish in Madrid.
Go to see the hound of the Baskervilles and come to see Cooped in Montreal and then go to the festival and see Callate because they are all very good shows.Have fun.
CASTILLA
Hello;
There is this said in is Spain that says “Ancha es Castilla” which mainly means that Castilla is very wide. I imagine that when this started everybody was really amazed about how long time will take to go through Castilla. They probably had to go through Castilla walking or in donkey and in the best case they had a horse to run through the big prairie.
The fields are almost green. I said there are almost green because there is this felling of going through a second spring. In April the sun was shining like in July and then in May it has been raining all the time so now the weed is green after being yellow. Do not ask me how did that happen but there is not other explanation.
There are big green fields and then in the horizon you see some mountains. I could not tell what mountains they are but in between those mountains and the fields you find little towers. You see the little towers far away and then you can see small groups of bricks. They are villages. They are groups of houses made with bricks that surround the church and from far away you see just the tower.
The Castilian prairie use to have trees all over the place and the legend says that before the king Felipe II cut all the trees a monkey from Gibraltar could cross the whole peninsula from side to side without having to touch the ground. Then Felipe II cut all the trees to make ships for the Armada and that was the end of what today would have been an amazing forest.
But them it is an amazing prairie and has all these villages full of history. When you visit one of then you could find the most modern and advance technology mixed with things that are still being used since five or six centuries. Like for example the tools to work the soil. Most of them when the exploitation is very small have been passed by many generations and still get used for the same purposes that were used centuries ago.
The bus does stop in one place. The place is called Lerma. This town has the most amazing Parador. It is a kind of hotel. It used to be the castle of the king when the moors where the owners of Spain that is six centuries ago. The place was a place where the nobles-warriors could live and also protect themselves. You should stop on your journey and had a meal there because it is really beautiful.
The bus after that stop does not stop anymore until it arrives to Madrid in the middle of the peninsula. Madrid is not just in the middle of the Peninsula is also in the middle of Castilla. Once you leave Lerma the landscape starts to become hilly and it means that in an hour the mountains of Madrid will be waiting for you to let you know that you are entering in the capital of the country. They are beautiful mountains and incredibly meaningful for all the people that live in Madrid because they are the lounges of the big city. Without then Madrid will stop breathing and will disappeared. The bus gets into the city like a big suppository going into the ass of the biggest and dirtiest city of Spain and will leave me in his intestines.
Remember that we will be playing in Montreal in July and also go to see the Hound of the Baskerville.
Have fun.
SOYUBE
Hello;
Like the big warriors from the past, the heroic men who defended these lands from foreign enemies we gather at the door of the local church of my village. We had our bicycles and they believe that the task that we have given to ourselves could be achieved.
We looked at each other's and we fixed our helmets. We checked the health of our rides and we departed in a single line to our destiny.
We were ready to go to the top of big mountain and we will make to that place in limited amount of time so after wards we could go a have some wines before going to have our well deserve lunch.
The sky is grey and there lots of threatening clouds. As we all rode on streets the spirits are high and time seems to be flying. The group of men fells confident but when you look deep into theirs eyes there is a strong sense of fear. In the pass more than one had to stay on the side of the road and be carried by the car that comes with us in cases of troubles.
We arrived to a place half an hour away from the place where we left and the group gets split. The head of the group had gone too far forward and the gap was too big for our own good. The group left behind, I was one of them decided to take another way to go towards the beginning of the big mountain that we were going to climb in our bikes.
At a place called Larrauri we all stopped and waited for the rest to come. We drunk some water and we ate some energy bars and dry fruits. The next leg of the trip was about to start and we had to be full of energy to be able to go all the way up to our destiny.
Some of the riders started the ascend of the mountain while the rest of the group tried to repair one of the bikes that was the first casualty of the journey.
One rider took the lead going fast in his bike. He disappeared in the first bend and the next two side by side give themselves conversation to be able to do the whole leg of the race. The drops of sweat were big and it looked as if it was impossible that so much water was coming from a human body. The helmets were getting really heavy and the atmosphere was getting colder and colder as we were getting higher and higher. The clouds were surrounding the mountain and we should not stop or let the bike stop because the legs were so full that they could break in any moment.
“One more bend to the right, a little hill, and then going to the left in a big bend and we are at the end of the first part of the climb” one of the riders said. The other did not mention anything apart from a sign saying that if he talked then he would have to stop. You could see in his face that he did not have any more energy.
One more bend the riders passed, the little hill did not fell as little as described and the big bend to the left felt like a second mountain and then the mountain broke and the riders started to descend. They were flying and resting to get the last leg of the mountain with renovated energies.
The second part of the ascend started with a phone call on the mobile that could not be answered. The houses on the side of the road were silent witness the heroic challenges. Like big warriors in their horses the riders were arriving to the end of the challenge. They were destroyed and tired but full energy coming from a challenge passed.
Go to see the Hound of the Baskerville and Spymonkey in Montreal.
Have fun.
BOYS AND GIRLS
Hello;
To the whole of the world, so you know, Spymonkey would be playing Cooped at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal, Canada from the 10 th July to the 22 nd July. Spymonkey will be playing at seven thirty at the Centaur Theatre and everybody who lives in Montreal should come and see it.
In order to do our show to the best standard we are looking for a boy and a girl to do a small collaboration in the show. It is what in the show business world we call a “cameo roll”. They will not be feature in the show very big but they will come out of the performance completely satisfied. The more boys and girls we have the easier the work would be for the once who do it.
At the moment there are two boys and one girl that have showed interest in doing the job. It has the problem that the actors will not get paid for their work. They will not get paid because there is no money. Spymonkey is doing the Montreal gig to try to get more work in America with what is it until now the flagship show of the company. This show has not been seen enough so if we do it in America we may get the chance of being discovered. I know that is a joke because we are very old to be discovered but nevertheless if Hollywood discovers us we may be doing movies and TV series in Los Angeles and that would be very nice.
But that is not the point; my point is that we are still looking for a boy or even two boys and two girls who could play the part of Margot Woudspoon and Pierce Murdstone in Cooped.
So all of you out there send and e-mail to www.spymonkey.co.uk to let us know you availability and we will make an appointment for the 9 th July to rehears you into the show. But remember we do not pay and the job is in Montreal so you have to be a Montreal actor. We also do not have money to pay the flights for anybody.
At the moment Hughes, and Mick are the two boys who have shown some interest and then there is Anna but she would like to share the job with somebody else.
Anyway, let us know. Also we may be giving a workshop for actors in Montreal while we are there. There has not been much interest until now because it seems that the schools have finished their years by that time but the lady from the British Council of Montréal Sarah that is being very helpful says that things are still going so we all keep our fingers crossed and hope that everybody will come to see the show and that everybody will want to do the workshop and that we will get two boys and two girls to do the most important “cameo roll” of the festival.
Go to see the Hound of the Baskerville in London and come to see Cooped in Montreal and tell everybody how funny they are.
Have fun.
