M<rch 2006
SITE SEEING
Hello;
I am terrible site seeer. I do know that this word does not exist because nobody have never fell the necessity of use it. They probably knew other words to use instead or they did not speak English. I do not care I am going to use it and I am sure that everybody is already understanding what it means; a person that goes site seeing.
So I was offer by my friend Marie-Claire to take me out to see nice things around Sydney. And let me tell you there are lots of nice things around Sydney.
We drove north for an hour to go to see the northern Beaches and we stop there for a coffee. It was so beautiful that I would have stayed there for the whole day surfing and drinking juices and coffees and then at the end of the day a beer.
Then we drove back through the coastline. She showed me where the famous Australian Hollywood starts have their houses, very nice and very comfy. And then we drove to Malboral Beach. This is a very nice place in a natural bay where there are several beaches and it looks like swimming pool. There are also very nice restaurants there and we had lunch in one.
At the beach there was a big net that it was to stop the sharks to eat the swimmers. But I wander if everybody knows that the net is down that means the sharks are round I do not understand why someone will go into the water. I wait until the net is out of the water because that means that there are not sharks around.
We had a nice lunch of mussels and then I was going to pay but Marie-Clare was much faster and dropped out her wallet and paid for the bill. She took me to the ferry to cross the harbour all the way to the theatre. That was really great and while I was there I realise that I had forgotten my wallet at home.
It is like if someone goes to duel and forget the guns at home.
Have fun.
GREEN ROOM
Hello,
The Green Room at the Opera House is just fucking great. A little bit on the expensive side but I suppose here they have already given the service of the bar and a restaurant to someone else instead of having their own catering people and service.
It is a huge room that for what I have gathered you can access from many places. I believe all the theatres; the big ones have an access to the green room, specially the Opera House, and the music chamber o big room. Everybody takes there their lunches or coffees and the only day when it is close it are on Sunday. I think it should never close because the building never close and we need to eat and drink so they should stay open.
The big room has the kitchen at the entrance and elongates until a big window that sees the harbour. When you look from the window you do not see the bridge because it is a little bit further on the left. There is a bunch of old looking houses and one or two mansions.
The space immediately next to the window it feel always a little bit dark when you look at it from the distance but since I am here that is the place where I go to read my book before the show.
We meet all the technicians there and we have beers with them after the show.
It is very well thought with an area for eating and is for lounging and sleeping.
Have fun.
THE LANDON-SMITH FAMILY
Hello,
Well, this is the country of the Landon-Smith family. I am sure that by saying this, now I have lots of enemies but as far as I am concern they are my best friends here and they have been great with me. It could not have been any other way because they do not need to have someone like me coming to stay with them to be great. I have the felling that all of them are just great even if there is no one around.
Jeff, Colette, Marie Claire, Lita, Harry and Max, Mathew, Jonathan, Crish and Mel and John' girlfriend and Kevin, the Chinese lodger they all have come to see the show today. I know that some of them may be reading this blog just now but I am not saying this because I know they are going to read my words I say it because I really like them.
They came all together to see the opening night of the show and that was fantastic for us because at least some of the audience was a little bit on our side.
The occupied one long bench of the studio. They all sat together and when the show finished I run upstairs to see them. I wished I could have gone with them for a drink or something but I had to carry on working.
They were all there; all that there are were there apart from Collette and Geoff that are in India on holydays and Kristine, my friend that lives in England with her husband and kids.
Thank you very much to all of you for giving me a fantastic time in your country.
Have fun.
OPENING NIGHT IN SOH
Hello,
We did yesterday the preview and it was fine. It was not a very good show and that is how it is. It is a real pity because we are here at the Sydney Opera House, the show is funny but everything is a little bit more difficult than it should be.
The opening night is going to have enough audience to make it worthwhile. The room would be quite full and we will try to do the best we can. The problem is that we have not done the show for some time and we loos touch, we loose the expertise, we loose the magic… bla, bla, bla something gets lost in the time from when we do the show to the time when we do the show once again. I can really describe it because I am going to have to go into lots of hippy and spiritual shit and I do not like those things in my blog.
For all of you that come and see the show it is just the show needs to happen faster. We also fell something like that but the point of the matter is that faster is not going to make better.
We have all our props and costumes and now is when the hard work start.
The weather out side is really good and we would love to be out side instead of doing the show here. I am sure that it would show in the show.
I have gone for a last coffee before the performance to the Green Room and there is a big container ship crossing through the bay. I am sure that is the one that brought our freight to this country and now he is going back to where he belongs.
The coffee is good, flat wait, and I have a small sweet to get energy. The show is about to start and I am going back to the studio.
Have fun.
PREVIEW
Hello;
We are doing a run through. A technical run through before the first preview. Charlie and Toby are at the quarantine offices trying for the last time to get all our staff so we could do the show more or less in good conditions.
Meanwhile we have a not very good horse to take over the good horse, we have a much better dog tales, we do not have a bishop's car and we do not have pheasants. In fact with all the panic of the bird flu that is the main reason why all our things have been stopped because we were bringing into this country feathers from pheasant.
It is very encouraging that they have such an amazing control of the things that get into the country, into this country. But when we talk about birds there is so much we can do. They fly, as far as my knowledge goes wherever they want and they do not seem to have any troubles. So how could we stop them? It is impossible, we will have to kill them all and the population is enormous. Remember the movie “the Birds”, thanks they are not suffering from the same sickness.
Also I have received this e-mail about the bird flu and they said that it is all a big plot by the rich guys in America to get richer so why should we all bother with a feather of a dead pheasant that has been going all over the world before the bird flu appeared and nobody has had any problems? Why?
Have fun.
WOULDN'T IT BE NICE…
Hello;
The things to do the show are not coming. Well, they are here already but who knows if it is possible for us to take them so today was the day where we decided that plan B was up and that we were going to have B things of everything that is in the show.
Wouldn't it be nice if the dog tales would be here so I will not have to spend the next four hours sewing the new dog tales. The only good thing is that we are going to be able to use them in Brighton because the theatre is very big and the small tale we had will not be seen.
Wouldn't it be nice to have all my costumes that are really shit and that we bought them a rainy morning in Brick Lane for eighteen pounds five different costumes. They are really bad and with lots of help they have lasted all the time. I know them perfectly and they are my second skin. I will not change them for nothing and tomorrow I will have to use the ones I brought from Spain and the ones we are renting from a theatre company here in Sydney.
Wouldn't it be nice that all our normal props are here even if the show has far too many props and we could get ride of some. By now all the props are important even if they do not get laughs it create an atmosphere of stupidity that is great for the show. There is not going to be a car and there is not going to be pheasants….
Wouldn't it be nice if everything arrive on time and we do not have to use things that are not part of the show. Probably this new things are better than the ones we use but the old ones won their place here and I do not want to be spiritual but those things are the right ones by now so…
Have fun.
MEDINA APARTMENTS
Hello;
We live at the Medina Apartments in Chippendale. As far as I have gathered this is south East Sydney and it is quite close to the main station and Surry Hills and the University and the fish Market. I am moving today to the Apartments. I have seen them before because Petra, Angela, Roger and Stephan and Elke are already here. Toby and me are going to be sharing the room and I am a little bit nervous. The only thing is that I am sure that he is also a little bit nervous.
Jeff is going to give me a lift, which makes thing much easier. I have to go from Chatswood to Chippendale with my two suitcases and that is going to be impossible. My suitcase that you all know by now is very heavy and I cannot really push her all the way to the station and then from the station to the apartments.
Jeff has offered himself and I really appreciated.
The apartments have a small pool and a gym. I think I am going be going to the gym everyday and then having a swim in the pool. The water is very cold but if you have been running for a while in the pool it does not matter.
The biggest room in the apartment I know who is going to have it. It is going to be me, but I am afraid that I will take it because I am the first one to be in. Mr Murdston will have his revenge as soon as he can.
I like the Medina Apartments. I do not know how much it is a night there but I am sure it is not very cheap.
My favourite feature of the place is the barbeque in the courtyard. We are having one tonight because it is the first night we are all spending here.
Have fun.
BANANA BLOSSOM
Hello;
Please, do try to guess. What is it I am talking about here? Yes, the part that is a banana is very clear; a piece of fruit that is very nice and sweet and it has a quite distinctive shape. In the animal world is the monkeys the ones that are associated to it because they eat it all the time.
Blossom it is a verb and describe and action. As far as my knowledge go it is normally use for flowers and things like that. The fields are blossom because the flowers in the fields are blossoming.
And now lets do the exercise of putting them both together, banana blossoms. Well, I do know that bananas come from the banana tree and I am sure the banana tree blossoms like any other trees in the world. What I am not really sure is that the bananas in the trees of bananas blossom after the tree has blossom. Does it make sense?
Then there is the innuendo, a banana BLOSSOM; I do not think I have to go further in my description.
We went for dinner Cal and Matt are leaving tomorrow in the evening and yesterday we all went to this Thai restaurant that was very nice. Lita, the mother of the clan Landon-Smith, a very smart and elegant lady, told us that someone that she knows had recommended her the place and she thought it was a good idea to go there.
Marie Claire ordered the food, and we ate fantastically well. I love the oysters and also we had this estrange tapa of fish or prawns with onions and pepper and more things all very fine chopped placed in a small leave. You would rap the whole thing around and you will eat it. Fantastic, really good.
The restaurant was quite full and the service was very good. We drunk a little bit of red wine and white wine. I tried to drink white but I did not like it.
But let me tell you because it made me laugh, talking about innuendo. The restaurant, Banana Blossom, was full of groups of women having dinner. Groups of just women, some were gay but not all of them I think. Oh,¡¡¡ sorry once again I went into the sticky place.
Have fun.
BONDI BEACH
Hello;
My feet are touching the sand of one of the most mythical beaches in the world. In surfing history the name Bondi appear in big letters.
I rented a board and a jacket in a shop and I am running down the hill in front of the beach to get there as soon as possible. I got the board for an hour and half. I more that enough for me because I am jet lag and I am sure I am not going to be able to paddle much more.
The water is full of people. I do not think anyone there is very good but everybody makes surfer faces when they try to get a wave.
The waves are not very big on the contrary; they are small but perfect for me that the last time I surf I was in Maui and the waves where huge.
I go out and I start to paddle. It fells great. That is the reason why I love surfing so much every time you do it fell great. You do not have to be good to have that felling.
I go to get my first wave. I fell the push of the water and I gather speed. I am on top of my board and surf the wave for fifteen seconds. As far as I am concern mission accomplished. My goal today was to get one wave and surf in Bondi Beach.
I try to get some more and I start to fell really tired. A surfer close by tried to get one and I am in the middle. He jumps from his board and he gives me the look of “ you are not from here and you do not know how to surf, if you will not be big a hairy I will punch you in the face and you will go in crying like a hyena” and I say to him, sorry. He is paddling to the line up already and words get lost in the ocean.
I try to get my last wave; I think I have told myself this the last one already three times.
I go inn and clean the board and suit before I return them to the shop.
I had surf in Bondi Beach.
Have fun.
FISH BONES
Hello;
In silver place rest a fish. It is a dead fish. It is a cooked fish. He has been cooked with a little bit of oil and lemon and parsley. He got marinated for some hours before cooking and then in a very hot grill the whole fish laid there for not more than twenty minutes both sides.
He tells you when is ready to be served and eat it. The meat hold very lightly by the fish bones fell from them as soon as you move one of the bodies of the fish.
The head is still attached to the body and it has been cooked. The skin does not shine anymore, it has a dark brown colour and make the meat with the help of the fish bones to keep in delicious stakes of fish meat.
The bones are really long. It was a mature healthy fish before it got catch. He probably fought real hard against the fisherman. I can see in his body that some of the fish bones are broken. I am sure they got broken in the battle. Now I am going to separate the main bone that goes from the head to the tale so the none of the fish bones get in my mouth with some of the meat and then kill me because they get stuck in my throat.
The bones, the fish bones look really dangerous, almost transparent, are very difficult in between all that white meat. There are many different ones, from the big one that hold many of them to the little ones that are at the edge of the body of the fish where the meat and the skin meet. They are not so dangerous because you can chew them.
The big bone used to be use to make head of arrows and then kill other fishes or animals or human beings. The smaller ones were needless or things to make decoration, now they do not even give me any pleasure to shuck them when I find one. I pick them with my finger or the fork. They still look to me like weapons that could kill me.
The fat part at one of the ends can stay in the space between my teeth and I can pretend that my teeth now are growing to the outside and I have become a monster so from now I will be kept at the Aquarium in Sydney with all the big fishes there.
Have fun.
CRISSIS TWO
Hello,
The freight left England yesterday night and now is on the air in a big 747 that is crossing the Indian Ocean and it will be arriving to Sydney very soon. Once is in Sydney in a matter of hours will pass the costumes declaration and will be taken to the theatre. The costumes will have time to go to dry cleaners and we could check all the props so if any of them is broken then we can repair it on time for the show.
And then I wake up. And all was a dream. Now the only thing I can do is pray and hope that we have a selection of things that we can get for free here and then use them as replacement while our things arrive.
We have gone to the pier fourth in Sydney harbour to the place where the Sydney Theatre Co. lives to try to get all things we need for the show.
The place is on the same side of the harbour as the SOH but on the other side of the bridge. It is an amazing walk to go from the Botanical Gardens all the way to the piers on the other side of the bridge. It took me lots of time to find Angela and Roger but I was so happy to be there and mainly because I could see myself rehearsing a play there and then when you were tired jump into the water and swim for a while.
The whole pier is use for as a theatre and there are more companies that live there. That would never happen anywhere else in the world that I know, a prime real state development place use for the arts, that is fucking great.
We walked through the storage place of the clothes and props and between the three of us we have managed to find a replace for everything that Angela has in her list.
When I dream of the future that is what a see, a place like this one in a city like this one where we do our shows and our families come with us and we work and we have success.
I have been dreaming too much today. Dreams plus reality equal to what is really real. Dreams would be the fuel and the engine and reality the rocking pavement that does not allowed to go faster, the sum of both gives you your life.
Have fun.
PHONECALLS
Hello;
I received this phone call from Spain saying that I have lost the booklet of the bank that belongs to the community of owners of flats in the block of flats where I live. I said to my dear wife that I really do not know where did I put it because I have never taken it out precisely so it does not get lost.
I call back and things get shorted for a little while. I am jet lag so I can make phone calls with my mobile at a time in Spain where people are not sleeping.
I talked to many different people to short out all the other business that had not finished by the time I left. I spoke with the painter, I talked to the carpenter and I finished the deal with the guys who build our kitchen. Now our house is ready to go inn to live.
I received text messages from many friends and between us that is the best way of communicate until my phone start to do funny things.
I was going to meet with Cal and Matt and go to the beach. I sent them this message “ I am ready when you are” he answered me and I sent him another message saying “great”
Well I think Cal has been receiving those two messages for the last three days a media of twenty per day. I am going to pay a fortune when I am back in Spain. Every message you send costs something like fifty cents of a euro. That is already fifty euros easily with all the messages that I have already sent.
I spoke to the guys who provide my phone line and they told me they can not do anything until I go back so now I do not have a phone because I have disconnected so I am not going to spend all my wages in the phone bill.
Fascinating subject don't you think? I find it very boring but that is what people talk about and I wanted to contribute with my own experience, Thanks very much.
Have fun.
COLLETTE
Hello;
Australia for me so far is Colette and Jeff's house. I have been greeting here greatly. I do not have enough nice words in English to describe how good this now my friends have been taking care of me. I am a friend of her sister but I have never met them before and this is the other side of the earth¡¡¡¡ I am happy. I am also jetlag but I am enjoying very much staying here with this beautiful family.
I arrived really late at night. I left the airport late and the taxi driver did not know well enough were I was going so it took extra time. When I arrive where they live, it is a residential are north west of Sydney, they all were up still and they came out to great me. We sat in the beautiful terrace to have a real Australian beer, the first one of many. We talked for an hour before I went to bed.
In my room early in the morning, as the sun starts to rays I got woke up with the noises of the tropical birds and animals that live around the house. There is a forest with tall trees. Perhaps when they read this they would say that the trees are not very big but I thought they were huge. I could hear many noises like when a big expedition in a movie goes to Africa and the first night no one can sleep and the natives say things like “bwana is the jungle greeting you to its bound” “the jungle says good night to Bwana, do not worry”
I should have need a mosquito net like in the jungle but I woke up so early that it did not matter the noise or anything.
Also one of the dogs smelt me in the middle of the night and stormed in my room followed by Colette trying to stop him. It was like an apparition in the middle of the frame of light created by the door, a woman holding a beast by the collar, barking like mad. I thought that was it, the noble savage killing the foreign. Sometimes I think I have red too many books and I have seen too many movies.
The house is always full of people. It is a very big house so when it is full of people I am sure it is at its best. We had a barbecue with all the family and friends and I have to say the food was brilliant and also the company was fantastic.
Am I going to have to leave one day or can I stay here forever?
Have fun.
ALL THE MOVIES
Hello;
All the movies that I could watch in the plain where not enough to make me sleep so the big jet lag will not be killing me for the next whole week. I am very excited to be here and I am ready to have fun.
I am staying with Colette; she is the sister of my very good friend Kristine Landon Smith. When I was going to come here I asked her if it would be fine to stay with someone of her family and they say yes. I have just met them and I already like them.
All the movies that I could watch in the plain would not give an exact idea of how beautiful and great this town looks. I have been here for twenty-four hours and the view of the harbour; Bondi Beach, Manly beach etc are fantastic. I have gone for breakfast with the family and then we have gone to beach. I have been swimming in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the middle of March. They are not going to believe me in my town when I tell them.
All the movies that I could watch in the plain have not told me anything new about the crisis, mega crisis of not having the costumes and props in time for the opening of the show. Angela, Roger and me are going to be working all this week, our week of holydays finding all the things that we need to do the show in case we do not get our things on time from England.
All the movies that I could watch in the plain cannot help me to understand why the guys from the Coronet theatre and the freight company have not behaved properly with us. Why they are not super ashamed of themselves for doing what they have done to us. I have seen many movies about similar things. Where the pirates had swords and made people walk the plank and then they would eat with their hands but I never expected to face anything like this in the twenty first century. Well, it is not a problem of history is just I did not think that people behave like that still. I am too innocent.
All the movie that I could watch in the plain have not advised me of how much I was going to like this place to the point of thinking of moving here to live for ever. Many of my friends are here now so I can experience what it is to have almost everything I want surrounding me.
Have fun.
THE PLAIN
Hello;
I am getting two plains today. One is going from Bilbao to London and the next one is going from London to Hong-Kong and then all the way to Sydney. It is very early in the morning and I am wearing my travelling suit. I look so good that some people have asked me questions about how to go to the terminal two or which one is my gate, I could easily be an airhostess.
I have arrived on time to check inn and buy my papers and have breakfast in the airport. I will be in London in a couple of hours and I do not know which one is my terminal over there. It is a sunny day.
London; I am going to be late for my plain to Sydney. I have arrived to the terminal one and I have to go to terminal four. The cue at the x-rays door is endless and is going to take me at least an hour to cross and I just have on hour to get to the other plain.
Now I have done it but where do I have to go? Do I have enough time? And that is the main question the appreciation of time. Let me stop for a second and tell you what happen, I asked this man the questions above and he said “you better run” and then I asked another person, a lady and she told me “plenty of time”. Believe or not they were both working at the same counter and they gavc me correct information but very different so with that I run to the bus that goes to terminal four. I had to wait there for ten minutes because the driver had gone to do something.
I made it to the plain and I even had time to buy some water and a magazine but it was terrible.
Hong-Kong; I have been flying many hours. I have tried to make the calculation but I cannot make it. There is an inversion of time and I am not mathematical at all. Qantas has given as an hour and half free time at the airport while the crew change and they clean the plain. I wonder through Hong-Kong airport and I like very much the idea of being here. I read so much about this place. It is full of pirates and very good cooks of Cantonese cuisine and Chinese cuisine. The old airport it was one of the most difficult airports to land and the streets of this city have seen so many things in history that I would love to get lost here for a couple of weeks.
When we were landing there was a very thick heist that did not allowed to see anything and when the plain start to roll in the pavement the cloud of fog lift slowly letting me see a traditional Chinese ship with its sails open. I thought I had travel on time. The hills full of small trees and the buildings are almost higher than the hills. They always compete with Nature.
Sydney, Nine thirty in the evening and now I know that I have been travelling for twenty-four hours. The night in Sydney looks really nice and warm and being tired in a new city my insecurity grows bigger and I ask myself things like Did I bring enough summer clothes? Or why did I bring so many winter clothes? I am going to get a taxi to go to the place where I am staying.
Have fun.
MY SUITCASE
Hello;
My suitcase is black. My suitcase is too heavy when is empty. It is one of those cases that they were very good some years ago and still are but now the same model is super sophisticated and very highly technological that go by it. Literally when you get the case you also get a remote control and the small engine makes the case go by itself. I have seen small people riding their own suitcases in airports. It is very cool.
I can not do that because I am big and heavy but also because my case does not have an engine so I can rid it or even let her go by itself.
My case comes from the USA. It is Sumsonite. I suppose the firm that make them is old American Indian family. No, I do not want to be racist but you will be agree with me that the name is a little bit original. I also thought that it was one of those typical take over. A big Japanese company, The Sumsonites, buys a small American company that make suitcases. I can really work our what is the reality.
My sister in law bought it in America in an outlet for very little money. She never used it and when I started to travel she gave it to me. It is too heavy when is empty but it is very comfortable to go to airports and hotels and places like that because it has an amazing set of wheels.
When she bought it the suitcase it was broken, the lockers were smashed. I travel with her for one journey and as we arrive to airport I complain that my case had got broken in the fly and I wanted it to get repaired. I worked and I still have it. It has broken more times. Always in the same place, in the lockers, probably it is the weakest place of the case. It always break in the airports so the airlines paid for it.
I keep it black and I have not put any stickers or things like that and there is not a reason I just like it like it is, simple, firm and reliable.
Have fun.
MY MUM'S BIRTHDAY
Hello,
Beautiful weather today, the sun is shining and the sky is blue. It is on of those days at the end of the winter when the sun is trying to get through and they seem glorious, probably is cooler that it feels but the sun is warm and I am walking on the streets very happy.
It is my mum's birthday and we have gone for lunch to a very nice restaurant. We tried to go yesterday but the cook got to go for personal business so the tried to call us to see if we could do the meal today but they did not find us so once we arrived they told us and we end up having lunch in a very horrible place. I should say that better in a very nice place with very bad food.
Today, I can fell the “King” a blue fish very similar to “the Besugo” very well appreciated around these shores. Also the very nice and light red Rioja that we had with our meal is helping to digest everything through all my body. It fells great with the sun in my face and my jacket lay on my arm while I walk back home. The time to leave for touring is coming and I am getting a little bit sad.
We have had lunch at the old fisherman's port; the restaurant is very small but very typical. People loves this kind of restaurants that look typical but most of the time they are always very small and uncomfortable. They old fashion and now, in the present times restaurants can be very comfortable, not with those wooden chairs with very hard sits and the back also very hard and then small tables where everything gets really cramped.
Yes, I know that when the food comes you forget about everything because they are wonderful cooks but if it is not good.
It was my mum my dad and me. I think we had a great time. I go a little bit drunk and I entertain as much as I could. They have done so much for all of us that now is our time to pay back. How hard it is for me to try to make them happy? I do not see it any other way but also I get to eat in fantastic restaurants.
I love my parents they are great people, I am sure you all said something similar about yours, well, not, not everybody like their parents but I like and love them.
Happy birthday mum and I hope that you are around many more years.
Have fun.
CALGARY
(The First time)
Hello;
Lost in the snow, in the middle of the night and with nobody around. Stephan left to take Elke to the airport and we decided to stay here. He said that he would come here to pick us up once she has gone.
It was getting late and the bar closed. Petra and me moved to the local bank. Yes, I know that is sounds weird but when you think about it makes sense, people needs money when they are on the slops. The bank had a small room for the cash point and we got inn. It did pass too much time until the security guard came and told us that we were not allowed to stay there. We explain him what was happening to us and he told us the phone number of a cab company. So will call a cab and said that it was going to take quite while until one will be able to make it there. We waited and it was starting to snow. I could fell myself getting frozen and images of the famous movie “Alive” coming to my head, thinking I will have to eat Petra to survive.
The lights of the restaurant switched off and the last car left. We saw the car disappearing behind the bend on the road. The lights of the building where on and there was a security guard staying somewhere close by but still I was shaking like a leave not just because it was cold and we have been snowboarding the whole day, I was shaking of fear.
I am a sea person so for me the snow is like the water of the sea and if you are in the sea the only thing you can see is water all around you then you are in troubles. So I was doing the same analysis with the snow.
Petra kept really calm she is more experience in the snow business but I was starting to freak out. We have already being waiting for good five hours, it was dark and our brain was going all over the place, from Stephan had a accident, we should try to call the police. Perhaps walking back to the cabin, half an hour away in a car in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, and then when we see a car we try to stop it, lets make a fire and get warm, lets … there were so many things.
Suddenly we saw car light coming towards us. Stephan¡¡¡ the light came closer and it was a taxi. It was going to cost us lots of Canadian dollars but I could not face the fucking situation any longer, the not knowing was killing us. We got into the taxi and we start to leave the mountain behind us. We were so nervous that we did not stop talking to taxi driver about what just have happened to us. He smiled with expertise.
And then we saw the light. Another car was coming towards the slops that we recognised as Stephan's car and there he was. He had got lost going to take Elke to the airport and it took more time that he ever expected.
He told us all this after we left the taxi, we paid him the full ride, and we were driving safely back to our cabin. The storm was getting bigger and he had to be driving very slow, he also could not find the way back into the slops so he made a couple of wrong turns that made the whole journey much longer.
We ate and drunk very well in the house that night and we dreamt with the amazing time we were going to have next day back in the slops.
Have fun.
GENIOUS
“Admiramos a los genios, los amamos pero nos desaniman” “ Son grandes concentraciones de intelecto y emocion, nos da la sensacion de que han absorvido todo el poder disponible, monopolizandolo y dejandonos nada al resto. Nos parece que sino podemos ser como ellos, no podemos ser nada” Lionel Trilling “Homenaje a Cataluña
Hello,
Up here, over the hello word I got this sentence from a book I am reading thinking in the problems I and my fellow colleges are having between us and with our director Cal.
I am going to try to translate here but I fell that my possibilities of translating this accurately enough are not many. I am going to try thou.
“We admirer the Geniuses, we love them but they des encourage us” “ they are great concentrations of intellect and emotion, they make us fell that they have absorbed all the power that is available, monopolising it and leaving nothing for the rest of us. We fell that if we can be like them we can not be anything” Lionel Trilling
I think that there is something of this up here in our relationship with each other's
In a profession where TALENT, the sacred word comes so many times in a conversation and become the God at which all of us end up worshiping.
So between people who dedicated their time to create things that comment at the beginning of the blog about the way we fell with people that are considered super talented, genius I believe it is very accurate. It kept me thinking for a while.
I want all of this that we are going through to be a step forward no matter what happen. Perhaps a painful step forward but a step forward never the less.
I think there are far too many geniuses in the world that we live, perhaps fat too many who think of themselves genius and it is not up to them to think like that it is up to us to admirer them for the concentration of intellect and emotion but it is up to them to be grateful for our acceptance.
This quote made me think and I wanted to share it with you. It is all my personal opinion.
Have fun.HOW DIFFICULT IS TO WRITE A BLOG
Hello,
The amount of things that happened in a day is uncountable. We live our lives without paying attention to the little things or the big things that because either it happen all the time or because they are so small we do not give them any time in our thoughts.
When you get ready to write a page like this, I do not want to call it blog because that word does not exist in my computer and every time I write blog gets a red line underneath and it makes me fell vulnerable with my personal use of the English language, you recall all your memories, the big ones and the small ones and then you try make something of them. Also you try to relive how you fell when those memories happen and how do you fell now while you relive them.
As you use memories and collections of moments that most of the times fell like pictures in your head you also shared your opinions about the weirdest subjects. And then you revisit places, the nice ones and the bad ones and sometimes it is pain full.
It works as a very good exercise because you have to decide how does it make you fell or what do you think of certain things that in other circumstances you may not have bother to pay attention. You became the king of the little things; the most unimportant thing becomes the king of your piece of writing.
But I suffer from indolence and sometimes my feelings do not allow me to do anything. My brain in association with my body make a very good team and what it goes in my head stops my body and my body does not let anything to go into my head and then I died. And then there are not little things, they all are big and they do not fit in my blog, I cannot take decisions of what and who and where I like and it fells like stop living. Those days you do not get the fatspicblog but you could not tell because I do not load them everyday so when you come here like today I have been having a very good time and I wanted to share all this things with all of you… I am writing and my hand is shaking while I think of the next word or sentence, I do not know why she does that, tension? I wander.
Let you body and brain to go and be light and let everything to run and become words.
Easy to say but very difficult to do.
Have fun.
PLAN B
Hello;
Plans Bs, Cs, D, have been arriving to my e-mail account for thousands this morning and yesterday night. There is no morning there is no night, there is not time to eat and this is an emergency and the whole department of emergencies from the Spymonkey is up and running like British tank in the dunes of the desert. We will succeed; I do the sign of victory like the old Winston.
My work fill up this amazing list with empty spaces that has arrived from Angela. This empty spaces list will help us to know what do we need and what do we have and what we will have to get in Sidney and what we will have to bring from our own countries and then what we will have to buy and if that is the case the best would be to do it in Sydney.
Coat R P
Black trouser RP
Bow tie RP
Black Shoes RP
Briefcase RP
Chinese costume
Jews costume glasses, bear, hat and black coat
Inspector Detective
Coat and hat and tie and moustache
Wig RP
Dog tails
Bishops shirt, hat, ring and jacket
I did my homework and I gather from the wardrobe of my grand father almost all the costumes for Roger Parchment and I spoke with a friend of my mother if she could give me a small wig for the show. She said yes and I have taken two tickets for her for the Brighton opening night.
I have my shoes and all the details, like my briefcase. This is the problem with the show, everything has become important because if it is not like that nothing is important because the show is very silly and full of pointless things.
The plan Z arrives, it is very late at night and there are some words from Kathy “ I spoke with JP logistics and it looks like things will arrive here on Saturday so on Thursday we could go and monitor the freight of everything by plain to Sydney and the more vital things will be taken by Toby in his suitcase. He would delay his flight to the latest possible time so things like the masks would make it there no matter what”
Have fun.BIG CRISSIS
Hello;
Petra on the phone tells me if I have read my e-mail today. I tell her that I have not had a chance yet. She informs me that the freight that was coming from Greece to London and would have to leave for Sydney before us has been lying in an island of the Mediterranean sea for some weeks and that we are in danger that the whole freight would not make it to Sydney on time for the opening night.
What the fuck? Well, I did not know anything. Petra told me off for not being in contact properly with them and also for not taking care of my responsibilities. I disagreed with her thou I know that I am very bad taking care of my responsibilities. As far as I am concern is the job of a lifetime.
Anyway, Toby said that it would have been better to cancel the shows. Petra and Kathy said that it was no possible, we did not have any money and we had to work. I was agree with them so we set up to do what ever was necessary to do in the case that the freight was not going to make it to Sydney on time.
I was in Bilbo, Stephan flew to Melbourne yesterday and there are so many things we can do. Angela got in the picture and she is the best organiser in the world so she made a proper plan that started to take care of all the things.
I was felling useless and sad. My self-punishment machine was working like the good times of the Spanish inquisition and I was suffering alone in my mother's in law house in Spain.
I hope everything is fine because this job is going to kill me of a heart attack or is going to drive me mad.
Have fun.CRYING AT THE GYM
Hello;
My gym is a small place full of over weight people and teachers. Yes, I know, teachers, is very weird but true. For what I gather trough listen to conversations in the gym they all work in a school near by and before their lesson they come down to the gym and they work out for a while.
The rest is over weight women and myself. Well there are three men but mainly everybody there is a woman. I am there everyday for an hour and I fell over weight every time I am there. So what I do in order to fight that felling is to do bicycle as much as I can. I run there for half an hour every day and I sweat like a pig.
I do not know how to sweat in another way. I see people that when they sweat they just have a thin layer of sweat around their forehead or in the face that makes them shine. I pour water like an open tub trough the pores of my skin. The drops reach everywhere around me and sometimes is really embarrassed because when ever I leave I have to dry with the mop an around metro of space. Crazy¡¡¡ it makes me wander if I should stop trying to get thinner because it may be better to be call fatty than sweaty.
So because I have to spend a long time in the bicycle and it is boring and the alternative is to talk to the overweight women, one of them my mother, I take books with me to the gym. That makes me look like an intellectual more than a fatty or sweaty and also it intrigues the over weight women about what do I do and who I am. That always ends when my mum arrive and tells everybody that I am her son and that I do this, I live there, I am married, I ate that yesterday, Yes, he is over weight, MUM¡¡¡
So I am in the gym, buried in my book, a very beautiful book about the Spanish civil war and I am about to make it to the end of the book so I say to myself I am going to carry on for a little more, until the end of the book. I am sweating like a pig already because I have been cycling for twenty minutes already. The book is in the last two pages and it is making me fell really sentimental and sad. I can fell how my eyes are getting watery. I carry on sweating. I try to disguise my emotion by pedalling faster but I start to sweat more so reduce the speed and I let the tears run down my face while I close the book after reading the last page. It was a really pretty book.
Have fun.WOMEN'S DAY
Hello;
Today, like last year and some more years passed it is the day of the women. Women celebrate all over the world, where they can, that now they are equal to men. I think this needs clarification but mainly that is what it is. I am sure men are women are not the same and as far as I am concern I do not want to be same but I think we should all have the same rights. Yes, that is what it is we all have the same rights thou being different we are the same.
Everything is written so men have more than women. It is not fair. Some time ago things change and now we all are the same and women celebrate and men celebrate that now it is like that.
But my question is, are all the women aware of the fact that today is their day?
Well, I know it is very easy to say this being a man, I know and I also know as I write this that it is a little bit patronising to say something like that but I am trying to think about it.
Of course things are not very well done and have to change but like in any other kind of discrimination the easiest thing would be to behave fairly no matter sex, race, age, nationality, coolness, fatness, etc. And then here it is my other question, how do you do that? Should you avoid the subject? Or should you just give a look to person that you may offend every time you have a mention?
It is very difficult to be normal when the sensibilities of other people can be hurt.
I am not a woman. I like women. I like women for what they are. I do not want women to be treated bad. And this statement it does not want to be exclusivist it is just a fact.
So now I am going to go out and I am going to have a glass of wine with a woman to celebrate the fact that she is different to me but the same.
Have fun.
PALMIRA
Hello;
I am filling the books for pictures with all the pictures that I have collected during the last years. I bought lots of pages in all for one pound and while I should be cleaning and repairing my house I am placing pictures in the album.
We went to Palmyra when we did some gigs in Damascus, Syria in 2001. We have arrived from Mexico on the 17 th September, that year, and in the beginning of October we were in Damascus ready to have an adventure.
Palmyra is a small city four hundred km away from Damascus in direction to Baghdad. With all the big problems in the world while we were driving to Palmyra we had to stop and make a picture of us in front of the sign that says Baghdad.
From Damascus to Palmyra is everything a big desert, not like the deserts of America, this one does not look like a movie set, is really arid and magnificent but hard and unfriendly. We saw people walking in the distance and my mind thought of Lawrence of Arabia and 1001 Arabian Nights and… the road did not look like ever was going to finish.
A big dune in front of us and the road took a bend on the right and then there it was the oasis of Palmyra, in a big flat piece of land with palm trees all over the place and huge roman city in ruins, buried in sand like a baby plant that is fighting to come out and become and big lettuce.
On one of the mountains that surround Palmyra there was a big Ziggurat that our guide told us it used to belong to a Persian princess. I am sure she met Conan the Barbarian. Sorry it is a famous cartoon from my youth.
We left the car and we went into the flowering city in ruins while the sun was starting to set. Petra and Toby in one camel, Stephan in one and me in another one ride through the ruins like the ancient Arabs that fought the Persians until the surrendered them.
The sun was going down real fast and the time to go back was getting closer. We had to drive four hundred km bag to Damascus before the night was there.
We took pictures and went into the car. The trip was long but not long enough to make us go back to the hotel after a long day, as we arrived to Damascus we were ready to go to another nice Arabian night.
Now when I read about that part of the world my head is full of beautiful images of places and people. I loved Palmyra and I will love to go back. Pleases take care of it.
Have fun.
OSCARS
Hello;
Crash has been the winner of the Oscars this year by surprise. Everybody thought that is was going to be Brokeback Mountains that I have not seen yet and suddenly they gave the Oscar to the movie about LA. They are such chauvinists and they give prices to the things that talk about them and make them look or become bigger and greater for the rest of the world. Brokeback Mountain would have made them greater because it deals with issues that are very important for the gay community of the world and they are the strongest country in the world therefore they have an obligation to set an example to the rest of us.
I like Crash; I have not seen the “Brokeback Mountain” so I cannot really tell which one deserves more the award.
I have seen other movies “Capote”, “Walk in the line” and they both are great movies. I did not really like Philippe Seymour Hoffman playing Capote, for me he over played too much. People told me that Capote was like that, a man that was over playing all the time. I do not know what to say perhaps I did not like Capote himself. I love Philippe Seymour Hoffman as an actor and director and whatever he does. I cannot wait to see the MI- III movie because he is playing the bad guy.
Then the one about Johnny Cash, I saw it in the plain and I saw it already started and I had red not very good reviews and I did not like it very much. I knew that Felicity Hoffman was nominated for the Oscar too for a movie about a transsexual going all over America and I like the idea of her wining the award. Once again is all political. I cannot help myself when things have a political edge. Every time I see movies about the lives of people and they are Americans and the movies are made by American people then I do not like the morality that they have and that kind of thing of “ we are how we are and it may not be the best but is always with a good hurt, so there is not need to apologise” Fuck you. There is always space for apologises. We all are together in this world and it does not belong to anybody more than other, it is ours.
I like Rene, she was good and she is good. I have to see the movie again so I hope it is in the plane next time I fly.
Have fun.FIRST DRAFT
Hello;
I had a moment of the pass yesterday and today I am going to our next future. The first draft for the new grant application fro the new show. Or is it the first draft for the new show and the application that we have to send. It is the first draft of the application for the new show. We need to get a grant and we have done an application. Well, Lisa and Toby have done.
It has arrived to m via e-mail and it is fine very fine, they ask us to write a hundred words about the show and I think that I do not know what the new show is going to be. I know the title, is called BLESS and it is going to be about the life of Saints. We want to deal with religion and religious characters and all the imagines that religion provide.
Also we have been working together for almost seven years. In all this time many things have happen between us and with us and once again the question of Do we want to work together? Has come out again.
I am not very sure if we all want to work together again but to ask that question is very important.
So, now we have to come out with a draft, and idea, a dream about what is that we are going to be doing for the next three years or more and we do not know anything about it.
I wander why everything has to be like that? An I will explain myself. Artists and people who create things come up with ideas and projects, these change with time because from the moment you think about them the start to live, grow, develop and the sometimes, many times all the time became different things. So then you have told people, founding bodies, programmers, theatres that you are going to do something and then you show them something completely different. Most of them do not say anything but I do not want to talk about them, it is how that make me fell the fact that someone is asking me to decided what my show is going to have so the amount of surprises that we can have while we work in what we said that we want to work on.
So we have a nice first draft for the new show and it is going to be fun to do it if it happens.
Have fun.ASPEN
Hello;
Memory lane I thought.
Once we went to Aspen to the HBO comedy Festival. The guys from Hollywood like to go skiing to Aspen so they thought of doing something there that can mix business with pleasure. So for a couple of weeks they all leave LA and move to Aspen. And yes we were there, someone saw us in Edinburgh and they thought that it would be a very good idea for us to go there and show our show.
We have never been in festivals before apart from the Edinburgh one and that was the only thing we knew. At the Edinburgh one we thought of ourselves be real experts. So what did we do we took our leaflets and posters and we gave each other one side of the main road in Aspen and there we went to give all the leaflets and to put posters in all the shops.
It was not easy to go into the Tiffany's shop and ask, please could I put my poster? It is one of the shows of the festival. And of course the American lady would look at you very confuse, and declined the offer. That was very unsuccessful but a really good laugh.
We did our show three or four times and it was really estrange because we were playing in a big conference room and with very bad acoustics and fantastic equipment for shows that are ready to go into TV. Ours was a small show with actors.
We had oxygen tanks on the side of the stage to breath during the show because the altitude.
Petra and me we were snowboarding one day. Every body told us that we should not. We were young and we thought we may never be in Aspen again and this is a great opportunity to try these mountains. We had a party after wards with a big wig that Petra had met in the hospitality room. We left the slops before our dear friends Pedro and Nora and we went back to the Hotel and they had gone to meet all these celebrities with out us.
We go all really hungry and we had a big long chat and we had a thermal bath and we got drunk in a party with George Lucas and the Pink Cadillac's.
Very weird place and very beautiful, now we will do things different but then we were young and inexperience.
I remember Petra and me had a fight the second day and we cried, well she did, but I was upset. I do not remember why. We were starting to be company.
Have fun.
SANDING CHAIRS
Hello:
Well, we all have a chair in our house that it is old and need a little bit of updating. Until now you have not taken the clear decision to put yourself in action to reappear her but now you are going to do it because you have a little bit of time off.
So I recently I have been working in the restoration of some of my furniture and I have created a set of rules that I am sure will help you.
The most important thing is to cover the space where you are going to be working. Save some newspapers or plastics and cover all the floors and some of the walls of the room of your house where you will be working.
If you do not work in you house you are a lucky person.
You should have your music ready. Make a good selection that would last for quite a while and never run out of it.
Now, get all you tools and material ready and preferable organise a table or something similar where you can place the piece of furniture that you are going to work on. I know that this rule is a little bit controversial but believe at my age you do not want to be bending very often, you back will suffer and you will not be able to finish you task.
You are going to need, Sand paper, sponge, paint, brushes and rollers and liquid to clean them, and a clean and old cloth.
Place the piece of furniture in the chosen space and clean it thoroughly. Then put some alcohol in the sponge and clean the furniture again. This is because probably it has old paint or that shiny thing that you out in furniture that now I do not remember how is it call in English. After you have gone through the whole piece a couple of times is ready to sand.
Sanding is the probably the most demanding a boring part of the whole process. But you want to do it really right for two reasons, one; because you want the paint or the shiny thing that I do not remember yet how is call in English and all the furniture have it that it does not fell off the piece. And second because the texture of the piece had to be agreeable, it has to fell like when you touch a peach. It has to have the same texture of the velvet and it is up to you.
Once is well sanded then paint away. Do not paint in wild way, be systematic and you will succeed. You will need several coats of paint and probably when you think you are done there is another more coat to give and another sand but when you are there you know that the end is near and that will give you the necessary strength to give that finish push to the work.
Enjoy your furniture and keep it real following these instructions.
Have fun.
KIDS
Hello,
My friends, my relatives, my colleges, my parents have kids. I am the only one that has not kids. When I say I, I mean Miren and me. We have tried but it has not worked.
I go out to the street and I am surrounded my kids. I like kids. Some people said that to have kids is like getting high jacked, kidnapped because after that you do not have life. Your life change dramatically from one day to the other and you can not ever imagine that the change is going to be so radical. People always say many things and I believe everything they say.
I want to have kids because everybody has and I fell I am missing something. It is a little bit like when I was young and all my friends had a bicycle and you did not have one. So I will go to my mum and dad and I will beg them to buy me one. My main reason was that but everybody in the school has one. I need one to fell I am part of the gang.
And now it is almost the same. I go out with my friends, and I am in an age where everybody has kids, so that is the only subject of conversation. Yes, I can try to change it but if you do not have kids there are very little things that you have in common with the rest of the world that surrounds you so …kids. And I try to participate in the conversation but whenever you have an argument with someone because you think different or they have said something that you do not think is right they always come with the classic argument of the people who have kids “ you do not know until you have kids”. This comes always with that half patronising and half condescending tone of voice and with a very slow movement of the eyelids while they look at you and then to the closer person that like them have kids.
So mum and dad I want a kid now, you have to buy me a kid because every body has one and they do not want to play with me anymore.
Have fun.
1st March 2006
Hello,
I have walked for five minutes, I have been in the gym for sixty five minutes, I had a shower for ten minutes, in the gym. I wanted to have a longer one but there is a sign here that say do not over shower, five pushes of the tub are enough for a wash, and nobody showers after the gym. I think is because they are old people. In my gym, at the time I came everyday I am the youngest and the media is sixty years of age. I imagine that at that late age you do not want to be seeing naked by anybody, especially in the gym.
I walked five minutes more. I had a coffee for two minutes. I red the papers for twenty five minutes and nothing seems to be happening that it was not happening yesterday.
I walked five minutes more. I put my working clothes in three minutes. I had a thought for five minutes and then the day started, I grab the old chairs for the dining table of my mother's in law. The ones that were given as a present when my parents in law got married many years ago and we got in the house when we bought it and we started the renovations we did not want to throw away and now I am repairing with the help of my furniture restorer friend.
I had clean the chairs with alcohol, I have sanded them once and I have painted them twice then I had sanded them another time and I had given them the last cover of paint. Now when you touch them they fell nice, nice like the skin of peach.
I have given the last coat of paint to the places that did not look right for one hundred and two minutes.
I have dressed myself out of my working gear in thirty one seconds and I have left my house in no time.
The sun has been shining for four hundred and fifty minutes and it is a very nice day. I walked for four minutes and I had a glass of a really young red Rioja wine for the last ten minutes and now my day is about to finish.
I will dedicate the next five hundred and forty minutes that I have left to spend this day in having my lunch and enjoying that lunch and his consequences.
Have fun.
