November2006
THE RUSSIAN SPY
Hello,
The guy just killed recently he was living in Muswell Hill. It is scary that even in the shire you can get kill with Polonium 210. I always thought that all of us that live in the shire nothing could happen to us. We are protected like the hobbits by the magic powers of the perfect place in the world.
The only thing that makes me fell relax of the whole incident is that he did not get sick in the Shire but outside in central London where traditionally spies have been doing their war complots and things like that. People used to get kill by the tower of London by passing secrets to the soviets in the cold war. In the city the narrow stress were crowed with spies from all over the world trying to get all the secrets of the western civilization to China or North Vietnam.
And I am sure that during the Second World War and at the beginning lots of German spies were getting information and killing their enemies in all the streets of London. At the time the Shire was not even part of London. So now that this guy has been killed with Polonium 210 the Shire has stopped being the save place that used to be.
Still the police and the secret service are searching London to find the killers and all the clues are pointing to the same direction Putin.
Putin is the new Zar of Russia but with no glamour. He is getting all the blame for the killing of the old spy very rightly so.
Now the important thing is that Spies are back in London and that there are not save places like the Shire anymore. Now in London you are obliged to be careful with all your movements. When you go out of the house for a meeting you have to make sure that nobody follows you. Stop form time to time in the windows of the shops to see if someone is following you. I do know that it is a very silly and old tactic but it always work.
The other very helpful thing to do in when you get invited for lunch never it or drink before the person that you are eating or drinking with. This is because you glass or your food may have gotten poisoned. If the person that is having a drink or a meal with you falls on the ground dead do not eat your meal at all.
And one small piece of advice get very well disguise with fake moustaches, wig and glasses. Also it helps a lot if you can fake a problem with some of your legs or arms that will really help you to pass through you spies' enemies without being notice.
So now if you come to London be careful even at the Shire because there are sushi plates full of Polonium 210 every where and you could be the next one to be mistaken with a very dangerous spy from Russia or one of those really difficult countries.
Have fun.
MORE SURPRISES
Hello;
Well, this time I have done it again. I had to because the budget was very short and the cheapest ticket was with Easyjet so there we go I found myself travelling with the devil airline.
First I took of my jacket and the lady hostess told me that I am not allowed to hung it from the hook on the sit in front of me. She told me that like if I have put my feet on top the counter while I am having a beer in a pub in East London. I should have punched her in the face, cunt¡¡¡.
Well, that was before taking off and then I realised that two member of the Movement for the Liberation of the Basc people were sitting next to me. I was not scare, well, a little bit but I was more curious than scare and I started to observe them. They were going to England to study at the Kings Colleague of Law. I am sure that they were going to learn to defend their friends that kill people to make Basc Country free. Well, there is something so mystifying thing off being illegal. They were talking in the old language of the old country. A little bit too loud so everybody knew that they had been blessed with the knowledge. Then when ever they could not find the words to say what they wanted to say they will use the language of the colonial country, Spain. That really makes me laugh, hypocrisy.
So in that great plane with members of the Basc Liberation Movement flying with a pretty horrible airline and felling secure that I will be safe because the movement of liberation of the basc country have not become suicide bombers yet.
From then on I change my character change, I was a spy, infiltrate, trying to go inside of the evil organisation. I could not get anything from it because I do not know anything about law and I do not know anything in basc.
The evil airline was carrying me to London and I could not wait to get out of the plane. I even thought of jumping from the plane in a parachute while flying over Muswell Hill. But I have never jumped in a parachute and it was not going to be my first time.
Finally I arrived to London and I follow the terrorists to the train station and then I took of my spy jacket and become me arriving to London, grey and miserable London.
Have fun.
THE WEATHER
Hello;
Funny how lately the days are warmer and make the people to be happy. So in the mornings walking to the station and in the tube and in the shops the people of the world fell happy because the sun is shining and it is shining longer than any one of us remember. Sure that for people that live in wormer climates these does not make much of a difference but for the people who suffer the seasons these is a big change.
Now, is this good? Is this something that we contemplate as a good thing for humanity? The weather is getting warmer and it is mainly because all of us are abusing Nature to extremes that may make the whole system to collapse.
The sea in fifty years would be like a big plate of hot soup where nothing could live so there will be no fish. If the sea is warm it means there are not ice in the North Pole and no ice in the South Pole. The water will go up so much that many of the places that we know as marvellous will disappear underneath the water. What I am mentioning here is not one of those fantastic movies about the story of Atlantis. It does sound like that and probably that is what happened to them many years back. We talk about our future.
Our future depends on us and I have to say that I love good weather. While we stayed in Las Vegas I had a problem with the heat in the very beginning just because the normal problems to adapting to the new environment. Once I was reading my book in bed and with the air conditioning full blast I was sweating so much that the bed was wet and the book was getting stacked with the water coming from my bold head. I had to stop reading. A month later I did not sweat anymore. I did because I sweat a lot not because the weather was very hot.
But let me go back to the weather and everything that we do to destroy it. Because that is exactly what we do all the time. We are so many. We have so many kids and we have so many cars and we do not care of how many times we flash the toilet or if we mixed our rubbish or if we drive the car instead of taking the bus or many things like that.
When it comes to take care of Nature and everything else one thing that for me is very important is not take plastic bags from the shops or supermarkets. They are horrible. I saw this add in Australia who said that the biggest depredator of the sea is the plastic bag. One plastic bag kills more animals than a shark in all his life. So there we go, start from not taking any plastic bags in the supermarket. That is a very good beginning. And of course encourage other people to do the same so soon nobody will use plastic bags and everybody will go to the market with their canvas bags. This is not really my idea but I am adopting it.
Have fun.
THE TOWER
Hello,
The tower of Portugalete it is a small medieval tower that over looks the whole town. As you go through the river to Bilbao you see the tower on the right. In the pass, many years ago I am sure was quite intimidating but nowadays is very small tower in between many buildings with flats in between a nice city but a city never the less.
We arrive early and we look at the sea from the balcony on top of the hill by the right side of the tower. We could see on the distance that the waves were very big and that was going to be a very good day for surfing. The sun was shining and the time to go to eat arrived and not every body had arrived at time.
My brother Iñigo and his girlfriend Mireia were not there yet. I have met my brother's girlfriend two days before. They have been together for almost two years and because we were away I had not have the chance to meet her. She is very nice. They seem really happy together and that makes my mum and my dad very happy too so we all are happy going to have lunch together.
The dining room is on the second floor. It is part of an attachment that was not part of the tower in the first place. The doors to the dining room where windows in the pass apart from that small detail everything tries to look as it used to look many years ago.
The options for the menu are three but for my father there are just two. It is his birthday and he has taken all of us for lunch and he is going to pay. Still that detail means that he is going to decide how much does he paid and the a la cart is not on his budget.
So there two options of set menu and the differences between them is mainly in price. I immediately jumped for the most expensive one. The difference between one and the other is just ten euros but I think the quality of the food in the cheap one is not very good and the quality of the food in the expensive one is very good and more imaginative than the cheap one.
The service is not very good thou the girl that was serving us were nice and efficient. The wine was good but the food was very disappointing. We went for the cheap one. We voted and we choose almost for consensus the cheap one. Of course I did not. The cheap one was not fun, especially because we did not have to pay for it. Once again it is the conscience that we have been brought up with.
We ate and we left the restaurant without staying for drinks or anything. Very upsetting because one of the best things of eating in restaurants like this one is that after lunch even if it is not good as it was this one you can look through the window to an amazing view and enjoy a cigar with a glass of liquor and talk and talk and talk.
The tower of Portugalete could be an amazing restaurant but it is not. I could think of things that could be better but I neither do nor fell qualified to do that. Still go there for a drink and check it because you will enjoy.
Have fun.
NO, I DO NOT WANT TO GO
Hello;
That time is coming, it is getting closer and closer and I do not fell like going back again. I do know that this is not new or news to all of you but thou I have been spending here a very long time what is ahead of us it is not very promising or better said it is not very emotionally appealing. Now there are a bunch of you my readers not know what the fuck I am talking about. It is very simple, we have not done a show in four years and now the time to be bad once again has arrived. It is very difficult because nobody likes to be bad and least the people that have been good before like all of us. Then what it does not really help is to have someone that keeps remind you that things this time are not going to be easy as they were in the pass. But the funny thing is that I do not remember one Spymonkey show where things were easy. Whenever we create something new we suffer and we have troubles coming up with staff and we have troubles being together and doing things.
So how on earth I am going to go now? I have been having a very good time here. I work really hard doing a small event for Zorrozua and associates. It was the presentation of their new logo. It was not easy because the main dude was the Basc government and they never know exactly what they want so that means that you have to be ready because they will change their minds at the last minute. Also I worked with Jon and Eguzki and that was really nice. Those two are the kind of people that I would like to work with for the rest of my life because we get on quite well and every time we do things together we do good work and we also have a laugh.
We have collected a fair amount of money towards the show that we want to do next year the three of us, and we have opened a bank account that would give us respectability and a name.
My life is starting to grow in here and I do not want to go. It fells like having a newborn baby and having to leave really fast without seeing how the baby open his eyes for the first time. So, no I do not want to go now, I want to wait a little bit longer until I get the same felling I used to get of being bored of the provincialism of my dear village. It seems as if the older I get the more difficult it is for me to get restless.
Also my lovely girl is here and I do not get enough of her. I have seen her quite a lot lately but it is never enough because whenever I am here we are always trying to live like any other normal couple and that is impossible because we are not a normal couple. There are not normal couples that one life all over the place and the other lives just in one place.
I do not want to go, I do not have too much time left and I am going to have to go because we have lots of things to do and we want to do them and we have to do them. So I will go but I do not want to go.
Have fun.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Hello;
We have just had a great meal and we wanted a very nice movie. We tried to see the Panth´s Labyrinth but there were not one room with them inn. We decided to go and see the Little Miss Sunshine. It was doubted to Spanish and that was really bad to watch a nice movie.
The story goes about a family living in the south of United States. The brother of the wife has to stay with his sister because he has just been relished from a mental institution. He got there after a really hard break up with his boyfriend.
The family is a couple with tow kids, one boy and one girl. The father of the man of the house lives with them. He looks like a rocker that had to stop riding his motorbike when he had to start to use glasses.
The father is fighting against the world to show them that he has created the perfect method to well being. He has to sell it and has taken his whole family with him to make a big success of his formula.
The daughter is a big fan of beauty pageant competitions and has been practising with her father a routine for a long time when she finds out that has been selected. The whole family get hold of their almost broken van and head of to California. The journey will become a changing life experience that will make you love all the characters more and more.
The trip they do during the movie goes through parts of Arizona and Nevada and California. Places that we have visited or go through while working in America for Cirque.
That made me fell really nostalgic about those long drives through the desert in our way to the sea, those incredible sunsets and nights driving managing to keep awake by changing the music that we were listening.
But let me go back to the movie, all the actors are just great. What they do and play in that movie is full of sensitivity and has an amazing script that allows them to do what they are best at, performing with lots of pleasure.
I strongly recommend the movie to everybody because it helps you to dream about beautiful scenarios and possibilities about your life.
We walk home after the movies, no, not really we drove in my mother's in law car. We have had a great time as a family celebrating that we were all together. We had not seen each other's at the same for almost a year.
So now, as I write this a realise that we had a Little Miss Sunshine moment while we were all in the car like the ones they had all together driving to California. This time we were driving to Romo and it was cold and rainy not like in California.
Have fun.
GLOBAL WARMING
Hello;
Hello, hello, hello, hello, and I going to have to write about this too? If that would be the case is that all of you out there who ready this amusing blog are not thinking straight. The glove is getting wormer and wormer and we have to be careful with everything that we do. It is a terrible thing that we cannot travel around the world with Spymonkey in plains that are green friendly. At the moment we are really poor and we even have to trouble to places that on the other side of the Atlantic in low cost airline. Anyway we all very green conscious, we recycle, we take care of the amount of water that we use while we shower or wash…well, really, we do put far too many times the washing machine. We have something like five or six white shirts every show and they have to get wash we have tried to get more shirts so we can put the washing machine once a week with all the shirts. That will really help to not use too much water with the washing.
But apart from our private lives I cannot think of many other things that we can do in order to stop the global warming. We are poor so we use the train a buses all the time while travelling, we build our set with recycled wood and plastic and metal. The paper for the posters and for the leaflets and all theses things that need paper comes from recycled paper.
Also, I remember this just right now; we have our accounts in the Cooperative Bank that apparently uses a small percentage of their profits to fight the Global Warming. That is what they say and I think we all were agreeing in having the account there so we could help the whole warming thing.
Ah¡¡¡ I forgot Petra and Toby ride bikes, I mean bicycles to work and to the places where they go. I used to do something similar in the pass but now I do not do it anymore because I do not have enough money to have a bicycle in every single place where I go in the world. I did buy a skateboard in Sydney to go to work skating but the airline, and this is all part of a big conspiracy to have the world warmer everyday, lost my new machine in the way from Australia to here.
Then probably there are many more thing we could do as Spymonkey to fight the global warming because we like snowboarding very much and if the world keeps getting warmer and warmer We are not going to be able to keep our regular spots for snowboarding full of snow as we like it.
Please take care of the environment so we can have a good carer as a touring theatre company that tour the world snowboarding and surfing and does shows in the places where they can practice the sports we like.
Have fun.
ARZAK (and the three Michelin stars)
Hello;
There are not many in the world. They are not many because they are the best and they are the best because they do their work with excellence and better than the rest. And then one very famous company that makes tyres and rubber they pay a group of people to choose the very few in between many to award them with three stars.
The company is Michelin and they give three of their stars to few restaurants all over Europe and now America I believe for their excellence of their cooking, and their food, and way of presenting the food to their clients.
Yes, I have said it and I think I have express it quite clear here. So the restaurant I mention up there is one of the Spanish ones. It is in the middle of San Sebastian.
For year Juan Maria Arzak has been cooking Basque food with many French influences and has been awarded with the three Michelin stars. The restaurant it is very nice and of course the food and the drinks are very good.
As a very good restaurant it has many mythical stories about it. I am have not been able to corroborate myself because I have never had the pleasure to have dinner or lunch there. They say that there is a table in the kitchen so you can see the big man and his team where they perform their art. I know someone who ate there once and told me that it is one of the most amazing experiences ever.
The other mythical story about the famous restaurant is that the portions are very small. Well, someone told me, and this time the someone I am talking about is my father so I know him quite well, that the portions are really small indeed but there are many different dishes and when the menu has finished you are completely staffed.
So what does that teach us? Do not believe everything people tell you.
My fathers mentioned that it is an amazing experience and worthy. I mention this point because the reputation of the restaurant is of a very expensive place. We are talking here of at least 200 pounds per person. Probably when you are drinking a glorious wine, eating a heavenly bread, smelling wonderful dishes, admiring the layout of the different courses you are about to eat, and savouring delightful sweets and ice creams no money can cover such a great bath for the senses. But you have to be realistic and think that you make that kind of money in a weeks work so you cannot spend it in a day eating in Arzak. Well, I can't. Nevertheless now for sometime I am engaged in quest to make my father pay for a meal of the entire family at this restaurant. I think that it will be a memorably experience and something that we will never forget. If any one of you can think of reasons I could give my father to take us there that will make my quest easier and I will be forever thank full to you.
Have fun.
NEREA
Hello;
Once upon a time there was this girl that live in a small country of the south of Europe. Her name was Nerea. She had a name like one of those, which the Gods of the old Greece and Rome used to have but she was human.
Nerea since very young liked to help people. She used to go to the streets of her village to play with her friends and encounter some one in need and she would leave the game that she was playing to go and assist that person.
Later in her life she had to decide what profession would she practice? Her first choice was be a caretaker because them she could have care and take care of things and people. But well advice by friends she went for the more lucrative and functional profession of lawyer. Well, to be honest she did not try to be a lawyer she went to study law.
She spent five years in the University but she got really bored and horrified of how all the people around her and the subject in itself was more about how to make lots of money or how to help people to make lots of money so I can make lost of money.
By that time our heroine had visited many countries around the world and had fluent French and English.
Once she passed the crisis of every person who tries to get a degree she moved to a small town of the south of her country. She took contact with a law firm that was helping people she thought. At that law firm Nerea worked with immigrants from third world countries that had moved to this country in the south of Europe to try to progress and help their poor families with the little money they could send.
After a little bit of time she realised that the law firm was really honest about helping the people from the third world countries but they were paying a horrible wage to her and using her in a very abusive manner. Tired of being exploited she left and tried to have a new life in a country in the North of Europe and that was England. And like a voice of destiny an offer came from Barcelona, like Manuel from Fawlty Towers saying that you could work for Yamuna in Madagascar?
She got training in the big city by the Mediterranean sea and during that time she did not let herself to be seduced by the virtues of that magical city and finished her training successfully.
The first year at the island it was not easy. As it happens when you give your hand people usually people try to get the whole arm and Nerea was not ready for that. She learnt fast because she is not an idiot and she is my sister. So she stopped living in the place where she worked and she asked for more money and I driver.
The second year she achieved everything she had planned but them for her and for the people who loved her, me, it was time to leave and aim for bigger things, things that will make her happy in a more personal way.
Now she is going to be leaving the island soon and she is excited about herself and what she is going to do with that, her. She is in love and loved so there is a bright future for a nice a bright human being. Well done.
Have fun.JERONIMO RUNS
Hello;
“Chronicles from Zumanity” it does sound like that horrible movie “Chronicles from Naaria”. And in a way Zumanity did become very horrible and probably it was never a very good show. We were there for two years and during all that time the show looked for its real personality. At the very end of our time in Las Vegas the artists were going from one part to the other like if everybody could play everybody or every part. You could see amazing things like Alex doing the Puritans or Sophie doing pom-poms or every worst thing Agnias doing the Wind.
But everybody knew that these kinds of things were desperate measures for difficult times. When things got back to normal the show was as bad as always but it was the show.
Now a very nice friend of mine, it used to be a very good friend of mine but now I am not in Las Vegas anymore so I do not know if the friendship has hold enough during all this time. Well, he told me that the other day the abuse of swapping parts between artist has made it to the most extreme Jeronimo the hunky Mexican that was extremely talented in acrobatics had been playing part in the pom-poms. I am sure that it was part of very extreme measures because he does not really look stupid in any case he looks wooden but that is not for me to say.
I do think it was always a very good idea to change parts as a part of the show. What I mean is that the audience could clearly see that for that show someone was playing the part of somebody else. Even to extreme of me playing the straps. I think it would have made all the audience to piss themselves with laughter. But to make people pretend that everything is fine and that the show they are seeing is the show that they pay to see it is a little bit too much. It is true that Cirque in Las Vegas do not care very much about the quality as much as they care about the amount of money they make with the shows.
And also the people who runt he shows now, the artistic directors are becoming extremely egotistic and take decisions that are more related to their personal appeal than to the appeal that the show needs. But Aitor pleases, wake up to the real world that is exactly how everything works.
Have fun.
FRENCH FRIES
Hello;
Let me tell you about the Queens of any meal that has any value or importance. They go around our meals most of the time take it for granted and I consider that very unfair. The chip, the French fried, the patata frita, the papa, etc it has a different name in every country is the most under rated piece of food that goes well almost with any meal and almost all the time and still we keep bad mouth it.
The fry potato it is like and old friend that where ever you are in the wide world you can have and fell the comfort of a well know place. There are many kinds of fry potato but most of them, specially the modern ones area just related to the new fashion that cuisine is going through, They have invented way of eating the fry potato, with mayonnaise, with aioli sauce, with ketchup, in England seems they always ate them with salt and vinegar, with barbecue sauce, with cheese, with gravy, with blue cheese sauce, with wine sauce etc. And this is one of the beauties about the fry potato that convenes with everything.
I will never try to have coffee and chips. That for me would never work, or with something sweet.
Also I would like to point out that what is known as crisps is not the same as chips. They as far as I concern are not even the youngest brothers of the fry potato. For me the youngest sister of the fry potato is the ones that you buy frozen and you put them in the oven and that ‘s it.
In the modern times the fry potato has develop a lot, the classic French fries are just the more normal and classic ones, they have served as a base for the other ones. The chunky fry, the chips, the curly, the thin and flat, the wedges, the quarter moon, the amount of choices and offers is infinites.
But my favourite are the ones I make in my house for my wife and me. I peel a couple of potato. I wash them in fresh water. I slice them in big round shapes that later on I will cut in the shape of a fry potato. I dry them and then I sprinkle some salt.
Previously, at the same time I have got hold of the potatoes I have fill a fry pan with oil so by the moment I have the fries ready the oil is very hot. Of course you have to put it on top of the fire. You fry them in quite a lot of oil so they get fry on the outside to crunchy and can get well cooked in the inside. There is nothing worst than raw potato.
After approximately twenty minutes perhaps less in the pan you get them out, after checking that they are fried and place them in a big plate. You have put on the place a paper napkin that will absorb all the unnecessary oil and you may want to put a little bit more of salt.
The fries are ready for eating. I like to eat them immediately so they do not go soggy.
Well, vive la French fries and enjoy them with all your meals.
Have fun.
STRESS
Hello;
My levels of stress are getting really high and I do not even make a hundred thousand pounds per year. I imagine that if you make something like that amount of money you have a hundred thousand reasons why to be stress. So lets get down to the situation of why I am felling stress. I get very mixed news from England about the future of Spymonkey and the people that make the show together. But probably nothing is happening but when you are hundreds of miles away and you do not speak very good English and you do not see the faces of the people that are having a conversation and everybody is so personally involve in the whole thing that it is very difficult to have a proper reading of what is going on.
So my stress levels are so high that I am having hart attacks with every meal. I recover after the meal that could be in the morning and then it takes me a little bit of time to recover. So what I have decided is not to eat. I mean I stop having the normal meals that everybody has. That prevents me for having heart attacks due to my stress levels.
Then I suffer from Gastro intestine attacks that make me going to the toilet every time I had something to eat or drink. And it is really embarrass because it can happen to me anywhere. I went to mass the other day and I went to take the ostia and I had to leave the church because I need to go to the toilet. I asked for one inside the church but you have to be one of the priests to be allowing into the church ‘s toilets. So that also adds to the level of my stress. It is not as if you go to the toilet that the stress disappeared down the toilet.
Also I am having problems controlling my temper. I am really unfair and I do not treat people very well. In the pass I have been a real cunt many times but through education and lots of control of myself. But since the level of stress of my body have become so high I can not control my temper and I have end up kissing for no reason my local bakery or what is worst kicking the shit out of a puppy elephant that was flying around my living room. Anyway now I am much better because I am being able to control my temper through the correct use of marihuana.
The only way my level off stress will go down is once the things start to get together and I go back to England and I start to work with my friends. I have been doing the same thing with the same people for so many years that the long times I spend away from that way of life I fell the draw syndrome and if I add to that the stress level s I am suffering at the moment. Live is always complicated and exciting.
Have fun.
EL PICANTE
Hello;
The real meaning of the word is the Spicy, the Hot Spicy staff. Every year now for the last few years and to my knowledge it has been going on for at least the last six years.
This is one of the events of the year in the small community of friends who now surrounded me in Bilbao.
I have heard about this party for many years and I had never had the chance to attend it. But this years was finally different, I was around and I was invited for the first time and I was going to be part of the jury who will choose the winner of the event.
El Picante is first of all a competition and then a party. Everybody that attends the competition party has to bring a dish to compete and participate in a party. The dishes have to be very hot and spicy. All the dishes will get into the competition and everybody will vote to decide which one of all the dishes has been the favourite of the crow that year.
The entries vary with the years but mainly the people are the same and over the years the dishes have become very sophisticated and original. One of the desserts this year for instances was spicy black and white chocolate that some kids did.
The winner was beef curry with spicy yogurt. The cook was the hostess of the party/competition Eguski. She had never won in the pass and this year everybody thought that her dish was the best. I do have to say that the voter are not the person but to the dish. Not everybody knows who has prepared the dish that you think is your favourite.
The party happens in Udaia a small village underneath the big mountain of La Virgen the La bien Aparecida. The town had better times while it has a big Anis factory. The houses of the town are all very beautiful and elegant. The one that belongs to Eguzki is an enormous farmhouse that her and her boyfriend had been repairing for many years and now is very nice and comfortable.
There were twenty people in the party. Most of the guests where the regulars and had the uniform of the party, a black t-shirt with the El Picante logo.
The night went ‘till very late in the evening and I had to drive back home so I had stop drinking the fantastic wines that we have had for the evening. The party got into full blast once the awards have been given and everybody was either too drunk or dancing away to the night. Everybody was in a good mood and once more experience teaches us that spicy meals do not make us angry and bad temper. As soon as the dishes are well and cock and taste nothing can go wrong.
I will be back next year. The venue may change because the house may get sold. Now I am part of the society of El Picante and I am proud.
Have fun.
PANIC
Hello;
Panic is over taking me. I am paralysed. You cannot imagine. It is not a philological thing. I am physically paralysed by panic. I go to bed and my head gets full of fear and I panic. That is it, I have lots of fear and I panic.
I have to explain why I fear and why that fear has become panic. Lately we have been having some problems in Spymonkey. We have been working together for many years and it seems just normal to have problems. Well, until here everything seems fine. Those problems are big and had made that the certain future that we had recently has disappeared. Accepting that has created an incredible felling of fear about what is going to happen that paralysed me every time I think about it.
These words are being writing twenty minutes after the ones immediately up there. While writing all these thing to you I have had another attack of panic and my lovely wife had to take the computer away from me and put in my hands the play station instead so I could move again. With the sound of “need of speed” game the panic has started to go and I have been able to go to the kitchen and have a cup of coffee. After twenty minutes and some talk about shopping groceries I have been able to return to the computer and carrying telling you about my panic.
So the first symptoms starting when I thought that we were not going to be able to do the show, Bless, in winter and I was going to be out of work. A funny red rush appeared in my face. I had the red rush in all the corners with skin in my face, on the edges of my nose, in the ears on the side of my eyebrows.
This rush did not stay very long and it transformed in pain in my bones. At the time I was going to the gym and I had to stop because I was like a statue paralysed by the pain.
Then the pain in my bones went and every time news from London arrived possible disaster scenarios appeared in my brain my body suffered panic attacks of different kind, from sweating like a fountain for not apparent reason, insomnia, crazy laughter, vomits etc.
The worst moment in my panic attack was without a doubt the moment I thought that our participation in the Just for Laughs festival was in danger. All my dreams go through the participation of Spymonkey in the famous North American festival. That may help us to go to work more in America and spend more time in that country where we all have many dear friends.
The whole attack started as soon as I hung the telephone. I fell on the ground like a lock. A minute later I jumped to standing and for twenty-two minutes I move in a very frantic manner. I hit with my frenzy movements some plants and plates hanging from the walls of the house. I tried to pick the pieces up but because I could not stop moving and spread the whole mess even more. I gave up and I tried to concentrate to get rid of the ugly thought s from my head. That was worst, bit spot of yellow liquid started to grow all over my body to the point that I had to lay in the bath so when the spots exploited the liquid inside it went straight to the drain. After that I was so tired that the panic could not do anything to me.
Now I am better and I can go out on the streets with medication. The images are still in my head but now they are dead and I just look at them like in an exhibition.
Have fun.
BORAT
Hello;
I bought so many sweets and popcorn to see the movie that I had to vomit afterwards but the movie is really funny. The movie takes you into a trip to the American society that none likes and that has been taking care of the whole world for the last eight years. It is the America of George Bush.
Borat goes to America to make a documentary program to show the under develop society of his country Kazakhstan how things are done in the greatest country in the world, the USA. The whole documentary tries to have an educational porpoise for the Kazakhstan society. So he travels from New York to Los Angeles in a car crossing to all the south states of USA. During the journey he meets many people that represent some of the American society of our time. This society is not more advance that the one he shows from Kazakhstan but definitely richer.
The movie is funny and painful at time because the people in the movie are real human beings that are not aware of their stupidity. Borat chooses very carefully the subjects of his mockery and the results are spectacular. I was moving in my chair every time I thought I could be that man or that woman.
The movie is very good and for me it is a fantastic work of buffoon. He does not have anything to loose and gets treated by almost everybody in a very patronising way. I think this is very American because they always fell superior to everybody else, especially if you do not speak very good English.
I drunk a big glass of Coca-Cola during the movie and I burped at the end. I burped in the toilet and it was the same kind of sensation as the movie had given me. I enjoyed very much the food/movie but I had to burp to fell completely fine.
There are high lights in the movie that will go down in history. There is a fight between Borat and his side kick both naked in the hotel room that is very silly and it looks as if never is going to end. You laugh from the first moment and ten minutes later I was still laughing. Also one of my favourite moments is when Borat visit a church of Christian fundamentalists in a place close to California. It was great and scary at the same time.
The movie needs to be watching a couple of times or three because it is full of small details. I hope that nobody gets tempted to doubt it in Spain or Germany because what Sasha does with the Kazakhstan accent is very good and his voice is very distinctive.
So I like the movie very much. It is a very good movie and many people are not going to like it because it is too close to the bone. It show us how stupid, racist, and fundamentalist we all are by showing the country that we all follow. So lets stop following the ugly people of that country and follow the nice and beautiful people that live there.
Have fun.
15th November 2006
WORKSHOP
Hello;
This is the last time they are going to listen to us. They have been giving us meetings and weeks to prepare and present ideas that will excite their little assholes.
No¡¡¡ do not take it like that¡¡¡ that is not what I mean¡¡¡ I do not mean ass hole in a disrespectful way¡¡¡ I mean asshole in a very normal and human way. Every time someone tells you good news or creates a surprise or gets you excited about something one of the things that fells the excitement is the asshole. The asshole goes from the end of the intestine almost to your throat so any excitement is very likely to affect that part of anybodies body. Is that fine and clear explanation'
Well, so their asshole have not got excited with the last three or four meetings that we have had and that makes me thing that we are running out of time. So that thought depressed me and make me think of given up. In away you can never miss something that you have never done before so I have never done TV and I do not know what I am missing and I have to say I love doing shows on the stage.
Also, talking about assholes, the idea of doing a TV series for the BBC make my asshole smile. I am sure I will enjoy doing one just because I have never done it before and there will be so many things to have fun with and enjoy.
The last meetings with the big heads of comedy of the BBC did not go very well. I understand that the ideas that we have to provide have to be original and new and also they have to be in a way familiar for the audience so they carry on watching it the first episode. When you are in the meeting it sounds more a business meeting than a creative meeting.
Lately comedy does not seem to be very worried about making people laugh but to amuse people with clever gags, commentaries, jokes or surrealism, which for me has never been, funny. Surrealism is just that surrealism.
So we have come up with a proposal that will take the whole conversation with the big guys to our side. What I mean we have sent a proposal of workshop during a couple of weeks and after that we will be able to deliver a funny idea with some recorded material that hopefully will excite the asshole of the heads of comedy from the BBC. At least if it is not exciting for them it will be fun for us to workshop ideas for us to work on. So it is our last chance and I think we have done the right move. They may say no but they have said not so many times that it will not be a surprise if that is what happen.
Now I am going to drink a glass of red wine, Bodegas Muriel Reserve with no label that I get in a town close buy for three euros a bottle. Wine really excite my asshole thou he does not like it very much because the alien that lives at the end of my asshole.
Have fun.
LOCK CABIN
Hello;
Toby is in a lock cabin in the middle of the woods away from every body and everything so he can create music for the play that he is creating music. He has gone there to have a father and son trip to tight the bounds. I am sure he is having a great time. The place in France where he is staying is the furthest thing away from a log cabin. They got married there and it is fucking amazing.
“You're such a pathetic fucking loser.
Bye.
Guess who.”
And look who is sending e-mail from the German land and look what kind of mails are coming from the German land. I do not know what to say. Well I do a little bit; he is such a big cunt. He kind of get full on every time there is a thing going his way. This time is information and that is his answer so imagine what he has to say when things are related to doing something that is related to work. So the little Nazi, he never reads the blog is abusing everybody he knows through the net. I think he is worming up for the time he is going to be working with Spymonkey. Meanwhile he cannot swim in the Danube because by now is too cold and he has to play the family man in the suburb of ugly people in Vienna, that is why he is so angry and belligerent.
Petra is about to finish her next step to stardom and getting used to be a pathetic middle class wife in her new fantastic London flat. She has a new husband and she gets upset when she is told that she is becoming anal. Excuse me¡¡¡¡
She lives in the middle of London in a would be super posh area where people eats miniature fish and chips, and drink bitter in a champagne glass. Her new flat has one of the most beautiful views of London I have ever seen but never the less the whole thing is anal, so put it up your ass.
Cal is in Newbury doing his annual pantomime show and this time is the one that goes with real singers. He very kindly offered us to be in it and I have to say I was really excited about doing a musical show. I am one of the people that believe it is not very important for me what I do but with who and how we do it, that is for me the key of all the questions.
We will be going to see the show in Newbury, hopefully very soon we will be going to London to rehears and then we will make a trip to see how the whole show has been done.
And me myself I am in the middle of my village trying to behave like a big shot actor producer director entrepreneur like if I will be in London and everybody knows me. The real thing is that I am a sad looser that like to drink wine for lunch and that has so many doubts about what he writes of try to do that the only way of doing it is by doing it with other people so he can have a proper fell of his ideas from the reaction of the people who heard them.
So now the game is who is the biggest looser?
Have fun.
A TRY OUT
Hello;
I am giving a go to write the TV series all by myself. I have decided that I am going to do everything myself and then once I have finished I will presented to all my colleges and they will tell me what do they think about it.
I have this great idea about what will it happen if we see the Backstage of Spymonkey. Everything is the back stage of Spymonkey in a very detail way. So what I have thought is that you will see the actors doing their performance on the studio and then the camera will follow them while they go through a door and then they are in the back of the stage. The series will start like that. They will be actors behind the set and the things that happen while they are playing and doing things in the studio.
I have always thought that it would have been a great thing that you could see the actor's private lives. The characters or the actors characters that appear in the Spymonkey productions are very peculiar thou they do look really normal and it is just when you see them out of being in front of the camera or in front of the audience that they become who they really are.
Also the fact that the series that they are shooting is developing make that in the credits you can see how the story has developed since the first episode. Things like characters that died in the series and still keep coming to the shooting to see how things are going. Or other actors who would like their characters to be kill because they despised the part they are playing. At the end of the day it will not be very different from any other TV comedy series apart from the fact that it is done from the Spymonkey point of view.
The actor's characters will be following to the maximum of the garage of the compound of the studios where they film the series. That will allow us to do many different things that are related to shooting on location because, for example we could stage some scenes in other set of other TV series that are being shot in that big studio. I imagine a Pinewood studios type of place. So they are doing a thriller drama series and wear the costumes and make up of that kind of series they play scenes in a Roman set, or in costume drama set or even in a sci-fi series set.
The actor's character would be the same ones as the ones we have in Spymonkey, especially in Cooped. And you will follow their lives out side the show and a little bit in the show.
At the end when the shooting finish the series will finish and we could see how some of the actors are going to other jobs and most of them have to wait until the series is out before being ask to do something else. The series that have been shooting may be shit.
Now this is my first try. Ready it with optimism and do not get stack in the words and let your imagination fly.
Have fun.
SPAM
Hello;
The thing I copied in the last blog it was a spam. I am sure I receive At least twelve or thirteen of those everyday. I had never felt tempted to ready one until yesterday and I thought as I was reading it; this is such pile of shit.
First of all I do not understand why do they do it. I do not even know what Spam means. I do know that spam is the name that gives in England to that kind of Mortadela meat, pork meat that you buy in a tin. I do not like it very much but the thing is that I have never eaten it before so I am just speculating.
Then there is also a show in England called “Spamelot”. It is a musical based in the very famous movie of Monty Python called “The Holly Grail”. For some time I thought that the reason why it was called Spam elot was because it wanted to be a little bit shitty like the spam you received in your e-mail address.
And then there is the real SPAM. The one you tried to avoid and always managed to get through. The one that blocks your computer if you are not very careful and always manage to creep inside your computer when ever you decided to go for a ride trough the internet.
It does not bother me at all I have to say. In fact to get mail, any mail every day it makes me fell good. Then when I open then I delete them and wait for the next one to arrive. Even to delete them makes me fell good because I know that I am just making space for more next day.
There are many kinds and I have to say that I have my favourites. These are the ones that before you open them say things like “ matt misses you” or things like “hello my dear” or “ I forgot to tell you” etc. The ones I really do not like are the ones that do not carry any surprise and are completely straightforward publicity. This kind I do not want to get them at all. Thou now that I think perhaps if I will not be getting the bad ones I will not enjoy so much the other ones.
I have collected one in the blog just so you experience a little bit of spam in your life. Do not try to eat it because this is not the one made with pork.
Have fun.
SHIT
Hello;
There are always family problems that need to be solved. Week two is when the mother to be's uterine lining is getting thicker and ovulation is occurring.
Consider having chore rituals to increase family cooperation. Family rituals should be used to help family members connect with one another. The possibilities are endless.
It has nothing to do with you or your child.
The site says that they will start posting dates to paddle with the team which I. Family rituals are used to celebrate something. But what about celebrating the first day of Spring, the last day of school, golden birthdays, or report card day?
Being There For Your Child No Matter What. To get you started, I recommend having one solid ritual of connection daily.
Weekly family meetings are an excellent way to address those problems. Family rituals build family bonds. We told him the Paci Fairy was going to come at night to take all his pacifiers and leave him a special toy.
Think about the family rituals you already engage in. People are now able to walk right across the floor of one of the most famous of the Rift Valley lakes.
We all go through change in life, and family rituals can make those times of change exciting and normal. Rituals during the holidays are probably the most popular kind of ritual. Mom or Dad helps her get ready for bed.
" Parents who caused angst to their own parents during these formulative years are now having to deal with teenagers themselves. You've been there before; you thought you knew it all.
Consider having chore rituals to increase family cooperation. People are now able to walk right across the floor of one of the most famous of the Rift Valley lakes. It's too complicated for parents, so we don't even try to learn it. It needs plenty of understanding on a parents part; be there as a guide rather than as an enforcer.
Being There For Your Child No Matter What.
It needs plenty of understanding on a parents part; be there as a guide rather than as an enforcer. I know of families that will go through a silly ritual when their child is having a temper tantrum.
com Paddling GuideSite. Week two is when the mother to be's uterine lining is getting thicker and ovulation is occurring.
But you're too poor go out and buy a new kayak porno mag.
It's pretty sweet looking.
This is my favorite time of year to be paddling. As adults, we are all required to be able to start a conversation with a new person or communicate our concern for the important people in our lives.
Smart von Smart suchen, sind Sie hier richtig.
Remember, the purpose of creating family rituals is to equip your children with the skills and values you want them to learn, great family relationships, and wonderful family memories.
We have two introverted boys who struggle with social skills.
Taking a more diplomatic approach and reinforcing in a calm way what's expected of your child while living under your roof is usually a better way to deal with it. " "Mom, what do you want for Christmas?
Have fun.
THUD
Hello;
What is a thud? I asked every body. The reason is because when Petra, Toby and Glynis had the last meeting with the BBC the man from the BBC said that the last meeting finished with a “thud”. I know it looks like a positive word but it is not. It is a very negative word and I have to look in wikipedia what it means.
There is goes Thud is a board game. Thud! Is a novel by Terry Pratchett. Thud is the nickname for the Republic Aviation Company F- 105 Thunderbird. My felling is that I have done something wrong. I think I have miss spelt the word and now it does not have the same felling. I am going to give it another try because I was sure of it meaning and by looking to the wikipedia I was trying to be clever and it is not working.
I have found something else and this is in a web page called Answers.com it says first “a dull sound, as that of a heavy object striking a solid surface”. And second “A blow or fall causing such a sound”. It says some more things a little bit lower on the page but it does not help at all for the definition.
I am afraid that my effort to be clever in front of all you has not been successful. I have realised that the head of BBC comedy has used a slang to describe what he thought about our last meeting. It was slang. Can you believe it? Well, we have to make an interpretation that it is a not very positive word. It is the sound of something heavy hitting the ground and that is how he felt after meeting us at the headquarters so…there are still many things to do in order to have a not thud meeting with the head of BBC comedy.
I have enjoyed my time looking at the meaning of the world. I really have to do something with my cleverness in English because it is going to be better for my time here in English. Thou I realised that me as a foreigner like many others in my country we do want to learn the proper language while in England English people start to change the way they talk making it more a live or worst. That is always the discussion for all the people who study the language that we talk. Me I want to learn the language of Shakespeare, the language that makes you look as if you are not a foreigner so I can hide myself and surprise the people. Will I ever dedicated all the time necessary to chive that? I do not think so.
Have fun.
JUST GOT IT
Hello;
And it is true what everybody says about the Mediterranean countries. It is impossible that anything get organised, everybody is always late. We have left Naples this morning, at eight o'clock in the morning, the taste of the grappa that we had yesterday was still in my mouth and it was not pleasant. It was pleasant the day before when we had it after the show in a nice square in front of the palazzo Reale. It was late and we should have gone to the hotel by then but the show had gone considerably well so we had to celebrate to get rid of the adrenaline.
We played for almost 400 people in an amazing building that seemed to be open just for the occasion. Everybody should see once in his or her life the marble staircase that led us to the theatre, it was magnificent. The singers and the orchestra were amazing, for me genial. I have not been so happy for a very long time and thanks to the help of all these people I had a great time in my debut in Italy.
But what I was trying to say is that we left Naples really early and we drove to Rome in a small bus. The bus arrived on time and left on time. Then there was lots of traffic and it took us at least double time than what it took us to go there.
For a moment we thought that we were not going to make it. So there we were at the Funicio Airport of Roma still with the posters for the Roma Movies Festival and we trying to find something to eat before getting into the plane.
In our way to Rome the sandwich on the plane was shit. If someone from Alitalia is reading this take notice, that sandwich does not do any justice to the great food that you have in your country.
And once we have had our little bit of pizza and a lovely glass of wine to get rid of the remainders of the alcohol of the previous night we found that the plane was going to leave later than the time expected. So we got another espresso. By the time we got in the plane, one hour later than expected we were all on a high on coffee.
The journey was fine apart from two things; Mohairy and me were going to miss our planes to the next destinations and the fact that they gave us the same horrible sandwich. This time it was not cream cheese salmon it was straight salmon with a bed of cream cheese.
NAPLES
Hello;
I do not know who said “Everything of excellence is difficult as it is rare” and that is a fantastic thing. I do not know if apply to Spymonkey and Cal McCrystal but I want to think it does.
Specially when you are trying to achieve something it is that feverish felling, the obsession the extreme desire to influence the wishes and desires of all the people that surrounded make you fell and see and dream of impossible things and “Excellence” it is a big part of a the dream of an artist.
Naples is a great place in the most wonderful Mediterranean tradition. The entire town in on the sea, well, this is just a in a matter of speaking. It has a big port that in the west part of it there is the famous volcano the Vesuvius. It stays there in a very majestic way make sure that Naples remember that she is still there because he wants.
So the whole town lives at speed. Everything seems to be happening very fast here. The motorbikes and the cars and the people go fast during the day and then at night when leisure time comes everything slows down to go to bed. You see people on the streets walking up and down the promenade like in any other town of the Mediterranean Sea. I stopped to eat a cake and an espresso in a bar and it is great. The sweets here are great. They have the great delicacy of the Arab world and the genial design of the Italian cooks.
I have visited the Real palace and it is absolutely gorgeous. It has an amazing marvel staircase that takes everybody to the room where we will be playing.
The room is very big and decorated with lots of frescos in the ceilings and everything has the flavour of the old times.
I walked to the port and it remained me of the Pierous in Athens. Like in the old times these ports have had so many pirates that for normal people like me it has always been impossible to look around. I walked until the middle and I decided to leave and see the old town. It is fantastically beautiful. There amazing buildings surrounded by very narrow streets that go up from the sea to the main hill of the town. Every street has lots of cafés and bars and places to stop and grab a little bit of pizza and that is exactly what I did. Oh¡¡ it was great. I do not know if it was because I was very hungry or because we were in Italy and that is the place where pizza was created. I ate it while I waked and looked around. I was very happy to be in Italy. It was my first place in this country and I was already dreaming with the next time to be back there.
I was having a great time with my great and very talented new friends. The Scottish girl that I cannot spell her name is a great singer. She does not need to do anything, she is talented and funny and she is great in the show. The there is the English singer, Andrew; his name is easier to spell. He is very good also and it amazes me the amount of voice he has inside that body.
I have not had the chance to talk to the other people of the orchestra but everybody looked really amazing so I can fell that tonight we will have fun together.
Vivian is a great director and very enthusiastic that does more things that she should and that makes possible to be completely relax and excited about the performance.
Have fun.
ROME
Hello;
I am here in Rome. Yes, as you are reading this I am here in Rome in a van driving really fast on the road to Naples.
News coming from London are not encouraging because thou the meeting to resolve the problems that we are having at the moment has finished and the people involve in the problems are still together having dinner the message that I got is that by all means things have not been resolve yet. And it is a pity because that means that we are not able to arrive to an agreement or perhaps what it means is that there are far too many things to arrive to an agreement that it is going to be impossible to achieve it.
I am scare and tired and my mind does not leave that place and form time to time I think that it seems as if there is not other way that take a different direction of what we have decided to do. We will have to go in separate ways.
Sorry, I am not going to give any more details until the whole thing gets shorted out because I want to be fair and I am part of the conflict so…sorry.
The windows of the van where we are travelling to Naples, the most violent city in Europe at the moment, are getting really covered with mist. Is not cold because we are going south and we have been going south for two hours since we left London in a plane of Alitalia. In a way is terrible because the stereotypes are true. I did not want to admit. But the first time I ever go to Italy and the plane leaves almost an hour late. Can you believe it?
We are in the van with two locals, Mary (thou this is not the right spelling. She is an opera singer from Scotland and she has a Scottish name) and Andrew who is the male singer of the opera and Vivian. Vivian is the director of the play and a man called Paul McCree is the musical director.
The rest of the orchestra and the director and everybody arrived yesterday because they had to give a concert today. We are doing the concert tomorrow. I am going to be 48 hours in Italy, no more and this is my first time ever here. I cannot say if I like it but I am very excited about being here. Everything, I have to say looks a little bit familiar if I compared with London.
Oh, the whole fucking thing is coming back to my head again and I cannot stop thinking about it. I wish things will be easier but I suppose we have arrived to the end of our time working together. And you have to understand that, as you want.
Have fun.
MEETING, GPH, ETC
Hello;
My head is going to explode and my arms will follow and then my heart will shank. And all these things will happen because I am loosing my fun and there is nothing I can do.
Well, I have been brought up to make a positive thing of everything that happens. So I can see myself thinking in some years that thanks to this time now I know how to do things much better and I am a much better person and I have learned how the business is and how people behave and how things should not be. That day I will be drinking a nice glass of wine in my house with my amazing wife and I will be very happy that everything has finished and we are ready to take a new step. Or perhaps things have gone in the same direction and as everybody says History repeat herself I will be looking to the situation thinking I have seen this before so I am not bothered.
The only way that thing can be like that is by going through this palaver in the most honest way and living everything to the full.
My heart is going to exploit now. How am I going to go forward? What have we done wrong?
Have fun.
THE DUTCH CHURCH
Hello;
Two things have happened today, well not really today but in the last two days; one is that I have been rehearsing in a church in the middle of the city and the second one is that we are going to do a cooperative gig in Bilbao on the 21 st November. The gig does make me worried because we have to be very good and I do not know what really are the expectations of the people that have hired us (when I say us I mean “Coloniales, Salados y compañia”) who are not very familiar with the work and think that they are getting Cirque du Soleil. If that is what they are thinking it is a big mistake.
The church in the middle of the city is a Dutch church. I could not believe it a church from another country in England. They are very integrated people in England but I think my surprise is that THE DUTCH CHURCH sound like someone worship to be Dutch. So every Sunday people gathers in that church to celebrate that Dutch. So they all come in bikes, even if it is cold and it rains. To go in bikes is a very Dutch thing to do and also once inside they all have brought lots of cheese and they put this Orange shirts and trousers like if they would be working for Easyjet and spreading around the big hall of the church they get out their bib buckets of tulips flowers. All the groups and individual share their tulips in different colours and by doing that the bunch of flowers that everybody carries are changing of colours like a kaleidoscope. Once everybody has a very nice bunch of tulips some one take a very nice windmill and blowing it everybody sings folk Dutch songs for half an hour.
After the celebration they all drink Dutch tee and Dutch biscuits and then they get their normal English boring clothes and the leave cycling until the next celebration.
I am sure it is something like that or if not is just a normal protestant church but in that cases it should not be called the Dutch church because it could create confusions like these.
The church, and this is for all you Dutch people that read the blog, is in the middle of the city and the address is Austin Friars, number 7. It is quite nice. It got completely destroyed during the Second World War but it got rebuild. Until then it was one of the oldest churches in England, build when the Protestants from Holland left because the Spaniards wanted to make of all of them a bunch of Catholics.
Have fun.
WRITING
Hello,
We are a team of people that knows each other very well after many years working together. Probably to people more clever that us would not have taken so long to learn to know each other's but with us everything goes really slow.
When we are together doing things it fells like a big family where everybody plays the rolls they suppose to play and it seems that that place is the right place to be.
Of course all of us rebel from time to time and want to be in another place but most of the time the group is more powerful and everything stays the same.
We are writing, Petra leads the work; she takes out her computer and puts it on the table. She tries to type everything that we said but better so when we try to read after wards what we thought we said is not there anymore.
Toby sitting next to her has also his computer out and balancing on his chair looks in horizon while thinking if the ideas on the table are good enough. His face takes a little bit of patronising grim every time some says an idea that does not sound very good for him.
Then Aitor is sitting on the other side of the table with no computer out. He is writing something completely different to what they are writing in a small book. He is listening he says but he probably is not listening at all. From time to time he intervenes in the writing process with some idea but he has to shut up because most of the time he does not know what is he talking about even if it is coming from his mouth. He is the clown fundamentalist and from time to time he invokes to the Gods of clown to argue ideas that are funny but not clown. That is really exasperated for the more liberal comedians of the table.
Stephan is in Vienna and he is going to be commenting on the writing afterwards. This is time is going to be late because the meeting with John from the BBC is happening this afternoon and it is not going to matter. He could have stayed but he decided to go. He is not part of the company and that gives him freedom.
Cal will be reading the work later on because he has just arrived from Las Vegas and he could not make it to the meeting. He will like everything and then he will always have a way to make it better.
There is nothing like working in a team, they all think all the time, thou each one of them thinks I could do it better and I do not understand why they do not see it.
Have fun.
THE DEPARTED
Hello,
There is something very nice about the new movie of Martin Scorsese and that is that is done for clever people. You can go there to see the movie and you will see how many people gets kill. Then you can think in the reasons why they get kill but also you can listen to the text and find all the details of the Irish in Boston how do they differentiate from all the other nationalities, and how clever the whole thing is set up.
The actors are all very good. I have to say that I liked Leonardo di Caprio much more than Matt Damon. For me Matt Damon takes himself too serious and it is not very much fan to watch. It fells as if every time he opens his mouth he is going to recited Shakespeare or to say an amazing speech of The Seagull. I really did not like him.
Some days ago I was talking to friends about one actor who I really like, Ray Winston. I think he is very good, I have seen him in a play in the Royal Court and I have seen him in many movies by now. They said that they do not really like him very much because he always seems to play Ray Winston. Well, I am afraid their right but I still like him and he is very good in the movie playing Ray Winston.
Also Jack Nicholson does what he always does and he is better at it everyday.
I do have to say that lately the movies of Martin go for too long. You get into the movie, you start to have fun, you are having an amazing time and then when the movie should end it never does. I really do not know why. I do not know much about movies but there is a very clear moment in the lasts movies I have seen of Martin Scorsese where is very clear the movie should end and then the movie carries on for at least half an hour more.
Yes, it is like a wonderful meal where you eat too much but not. The fact that is too long it kills the movie.
And now I am going to be a little bit too peckish and I am going to say that for me it does not leave enough space for the imagination of the audience. He inspires the audience to dream the story until one point and then he tells the audience, now everything it ends like this. For me he tied up the whole story too much.
I had a great time, it is much better than “the aviator” which I did not like at all and I think it is better than “Gangs of New York”
Have fun.
ZUMANIY IS OK
Hello;
Yes, Zumanity is a good show now. Cal went to see it yesterday and he send us an e-mail saying that he really like the show he even thought that the clown numbers are funny. So that made me really happy and paranoiac at the same time. Does that mean that the show is better now that when we were in it? Is that what he is trying to say? Does he really mean the guys doing the show are good?
I saw the show for the first time on the 14 th August 2005, the first time every I did not do the show and I did not like it. The show was bad. I have spoken about this in previous times and I still think the same.
I can imagine that for Cal now to see the show with no pressure to be the creator it makes things more relative. I never really like the show, not even while we were doing it but I have to say that I was proud of our work just because we started from zero and made it work.
Cal is working there with some clowns and they are going to do a great show. I am sure because the clowns are very good so they would do a very good show.
We miss Las Vegas quite a lot because we made very good friends there. We do not miss the show or Cirque but we miss everything else and that is what is making us to think in going back for a visit after our run in Calgary. I am not going to do that because I need to go back to see my wife.
I have to say that I want Zumanity to be Ok for all the people that still are working there and are our friends.
Joey is there and we saw him in the summer in Edinburgh. He is such a wonderful person that does not deserve the horrible people that take care of him in Zumanity. Elliot, the great Elliot, is the best pianist ever. He was in Edinburgh with Joey and it was fantastic to see him there.
Then there is our dear friend Tim that he has a job in that office up there where he can be kept under control by the boring fuckers who run the business and do not give him more power because they are scared of him.
The people who run all the costumes department, make up, wigs, the techies they are all great and they should be much better treated than they already are because they do their jobs fantastically well.
I love the artists of the show. We got to know them very well and the pity of the whole thing is that the director was not enough talented to be able to get the best thing out of them so they are underused in that crappy show.
But I am happy to hear that Zumanity is Ok because that would make lots of people to go there and see it and would make our friends to keep being successful artists in a difficult town if you are not a successful artist.
Have fun.LA SERVA PADRONA
Hello;
The title is Italian and it is not Spanish. I say that because you all, Anglo people need to know or try learn the differences between both. Not everybody that lives in the north Mediterranean Sea speaks Spanish, there are some that speaks Italian, there are some that speaks French, some speaks Greek, some speaks Turkish, and some speaks other languages. But anyway that is not my point; my point is that I am doing an Opera with the Gabrielli Consort in Naples on the 8 th November at the Palazzo Reale. We will play there for one night and then go back to London.
The Gabrielli Consort is a group of music specialised in early music. I know early music does not make much sense for all of us foreigners that speak English but I have found out what it means and it is music that is old, meaning that was written before the nineteen century. Their instruments are different and their music is different, everything is done as I was done in the pass. Well, We have gone through that.
A man called Pergolesi wrote the piece and it was written as spin off a much bigger Opera. The Spin Off got more successful than the opera and we do not have the opera anymore. The story is about two servants that play a trick in their master so the girl servant ends up getting married to her master. In the libretto just the master and the girl servant have text the other one Vespone does not say a word or better does not sing a note thou it is in the script. So for this production the director decided to include an actor playing the part and that would need to be a funny actor. And guess what? They call me. Well, not really. The part was offer to Cal but he was busy and he told them about me and I got it afterwards.
The story it is like a big Comedia dell Arte number and it is very funny and silly. We are not going to have much time to rehears so everything is going to be done as a work in progress and by watching the talent of my colleges, the singers and musicians, I am sure that the only one that may have a problem is me, the funny one.
We had a rehearsal today and it went well. I should have done more homework but I am lazy. Everybody is very nice and then we have gone to see a performance at the Coven Garden of “La Serva Padrona”.
The place is amazing, the Royal Opera House. Sadly it was in the small house and it look a lot like a performing arts space so it is not very welcoming. The production values were amazing but the show was too intellectual and boring. One of those shows where the director has a concept and he thinks is very clever and then when the audience comes do not understand anything. I was bored but happy because the goal for us seemed easier. Now I think we can be funny and charming on the eight.
Have fun.
