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Monday, February 10, 2003 Seen on a Simpsons episode: The legend on the arch over the entrance to the local cemetery: "Springfield Cemetery -- Come For The Funeral, Stay For The Pie" Copy used in an what appeared to be a genuine trailer for The Incredible Hulk, seen tonight on Spanish TV: "He turns into a green monster when he becomes angry. No, it's not Bush. It's the Hulk." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Something that has surprised me over and over here in Madrid is the quantity of American and British music I hear on the radio and elsewhere. It's logical, I know, considering the volume of product that gets pumped out by the American/British industries and its dominance in western culture, but it surprises me nevertheless. I avoid it, to the extent that I can, preferring Spanish fare -- flamenco, rock and roll, other latin stylings ("stylings"!! the pretentious word of the day -- yee-ha!!) -- but now and then I hear something from back in the States that feels just right. I've had the radio on for the last hour or two, listening to different stuff. A short time ago I switched to a college station that lurks all the way down at the bottom of the dial -- the only college station I'm aware of here, a major deficiency in local radio -- and found myself listening to bluegrass, then further southern fare, more down and dirty. And then they played someone I've never heard before (and who remains unidentified), doing a fairly hard, countrified version of the Beatles tune "I'm Looking Through You," followed by a surprisingly nasty version of "In The Jailhouse." After which they started up Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road," a tune I haven't heard in years, and I found myself turning the volume up, stopping all over activity. Man, that hit the spot. Same kind of thing happened several days back. One of the Spanish national stations, Radio 3, plays adventurous, unpredictable music, stuff from all over the map. I turned it on one afternoon, found myself listening to "Continental Kind of Girl" by Elliot Murphy, a tune I hadn't heard in years ‘n' years ‘n' years. (And I swear as I wrote that I had the urge to call it "a jumping little number" instead of a tune -- do I need psychological help? Or a beating? Or maybe I'm spending too much time alone. Or maybe I'm just a pretentious twit and we're all just now seeing it clearly.) Last Thursday night I went out with two people from my evening language class -- a Dutch woman and a Japanese guy, Sandra and Takeshi, both smart, interesting, enjoyable folks -- along with Patricia, the woman who had been our instructor up until a week and a half ago. Patricia ferried us through many lovely narrow, winding streets in a couple of Madrid's older neighborhoods, taking us first to a great little bar for a caña or two and some food. We walk in, they've got something playing on the sound system that sounded like some of the cleaner, more countrified of the Grateful Dead's material. Only in Spanish. Good stuff. Real good. I ask the barkeep who we were listening to, he tells me it's Jorge Drexler. A name I've heard before, someone I'm going to have to check out. So we're sitting there talking, eating, etc., there's artwork arrayed around the place, collages of ads/clippings/images having to do with films from the 30s and 40s. Then something off in a rear corner of the joint catches my eye, something I haven't seen since I was embarrassingly young: a poster of Frank Zappa, preserved under plastic, in close to perfect condition. But not just any Zappa poster -- one that was genuinely notorious in its day: a shot of him on the toilet, staring at the camera, in all his grubby, insolent late-60s splendor. Bless his skanky ass -- just thinking about that gets me smiling. I've had a serious music addiction since I was about four years old, a habit that led me to accumulate far, far too many records, tapes, CDS. Here in Madrid, life has been much more austere -- less than 20 CDs made the trip over with me, all in a compact nylon pouch. I've picked up a few CDs, but not too many. I've received various tapes from sources back in the States, different stuff. And that's it. An absurdly modest pile of music, which has worked just fine. I find here that most of the time I tend to stay away from stuff in English. If I put on some music, it's mostly in Spanish, or it's the radio. Or it's not music, it's the TV. Lately, I've been watching loads of movies, dubbed and otherwise, ‘cause I'm finding that my comprehension has taken a leap forward and I'm understanding most of what I hear, an experience I get a serious charge out of. Something I've discovered here is how nice it is to have minimal possessions -- a realization that comes as near-heresy when considered against the way I was brought up. But there it is. There's a lightness to it that feels just fine. But I blabber. So I'll stop. rws 12:47 PM [+]
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