I'm traveling. I've traveled before; over the past ten years or so I've been fortunate enough to have spent time in Spain, France, Germany, the UK, Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Some places were "safer" than others, sure, but I've always felt OK about my circumstances. Obviously, it helps that I'm a male (and not necessarily a typical-looking American one at that), have now accrued enough traveling experience to, hopefully, be aware enough of where I am and how I present myself to parts and people unknown, have mostly lived with locals everywhere I've been, and, at least in Spanish-speaking countries, speak the language. All that said, this editorial/fright piece in the May, 30th, edition of the New York Times entitled "Cume Laude in Evading Bandits" (nice title, dickhead) by Nicolas D. Kristof has me incensed! Read it for yourself. It's short and not sweet and will surely scare young people (and their parents) away from traveling, as it offers such sagacious advice to would-be travelers as the following discriminating nugget: "14. If terrorists finger you, break out singing “O Canada”!" Again, I realize that not all parts of the world are safe, that traveling abroad, especially alone, can be dangerous, and that traveling as a cultural and personal practice is unfortunately, not for everyone (I'm not always so sure I'm made for it myself...), but Americans of all ages need to see the world in order to avoid the personal and cultural solipsisms and solar myths that plague our country and add to the general culture of fear that runs rampant o'er the ramparts.
For a different take on travel, I recommend this interview with Rick Steves from salon.com from a few months back. Who knew this dude was so hip?
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I spun 45s with a friend named Javi Bayo this past Friday night here in Madrid at a place called Sala Juglar. It was cool to be able to DJ in Europe, and not have to travel all the way to Scandinavia to do it (more on that below), and even cooler that most all of my friends here in Madrid made it out to see me in DJ action. At times, in fact, the dance floor was too crowded for people to really dance. Pictures should be forthcoming! I'm not sure that I was the best selector that night, however, since I was going one-for-one/back and forth with Javi and our tastes don't exactly align, but mostly because I found myself saving all the hott schitt tracks till the end; but the end, it never came. Once we stopped spinning around 3:30am, I went for a nightcap with a friend named Álvaro to a "rockers" bar. I'm not so sure we fit in, especially since Álvaro was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and Japanese-looking pants, but it was fun to see that kind of social milieu in Madrid all the same.
The next morning, another local DJ friend, DJ JADD, whose real name is José Ángel Díaz Duran (an only slightly Spanish name, especially when compared to the full name of the Spanish poet and dramatist, Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca), talked me into going with him to a DJ gig in San Sebastián in the Basque Country, in the the Northwest corner of Spain. Carpe diem, I guess. On the way there, we traveled en clase preferente.
José Ángel is an absolute character - at one point he explained to me how he loves train stations and airports because he knows he's always guaranteed to see pretty women in a hurry - so the six-hour train ride was fun enough. My energy was quite low, however, and, as the night progressed I was never really able to fully commit myself to the night. José Ángel was one of four DJs spinning and was by far the best. The others played too much "mehhh" modern soul and "quiet storm" type adult soul for my taste. Always a critic!
The little I saw of the city itself was quite impressive.
The air was fresh and I felt healthy just breathing it in, not like here in Madrid.
***
(What follows goes back about one month in time, and will be fragmentary. If you've made it this far in the post, though, you can only keep reading.)
After Sweden, I went to DJ in Helsinki, Finland as part of the "tour" that took me from Sweden to Finland to Russia.
A surprisingly unadorned city, at least in terms of its "functional" architecture, and one that is currently losing its greenness to thousands of rabbits originally let loose by a crazed pet rabbit owner, I had a fine time in Helsinki with my host, Soul Sami, aka Soul Salmon.
Dude loves his salmon soup. And his rare records. Together with Markus-Setä and Heikki H., Soul Salmon and I spun at Soul Sides on Saturday, April 25. Heikki H. was an interesting type to me, in a good way, and he actually moved to the UK for a couple years because he's that into northern soul. Anyways, I was half-deaf all night, however, due to wax buildup exacerbated by air pressure from the flight from Göteborg to Helsinky a few days before. I have a body; but sometimes it has me. The party was great fun, nevertheless, and we all seemed to get a good reaction from the crowd.
Here I am, dancing mostly with my hand, as I am wont to do.
Before the long night was over, I fell in love with a Serbian named Svetlana. Apparently a common name in the Balkans, Svetlana was not a common name to me. Her jacket was turquoise, her personality was golden. You should've seen her singing along to Pink Floyd at the after-party. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." However long that song is, she sang the whole damn thing. I was there. The whole time, I was there. She was not to answer my call.
Seeing as how I couldn't hear much of anything, I eventually went to the doctor in Helsinki a few days later to have the earwax removed. A bit of a wasted day in a foreign land, I suppose, but I had to hear.
I will tell you this, though, Finnish reggae is for real! So many dreadlocks. So much love.
From Helsinki, I took an early morning bus to St. Petersburg, Russia. I had heard from former travelers that I would need to keep some money handy in order to bribe the Russian customs police. "They prefer dollars," I was told, but I had no dollars with me. "They will get on the bus and point their automatic weapon at you and demand that you give them money." Huh? I don't know whether I just didn't believe these anecdotes or simply thought I was tougher than the 60 year-old lady that told them to me, but they turned out to be patently false anyway. (As it was, on the bus ride back from St. Petersburg to Finland, I was greeted at the entrance to the Finnish customs office by a lovely little rasta rug.)
Russia was a blur. I DJ'd three nights in a row at three different venues - the final night in Ekaterinburg. Look it up. On a map or a globe, if you have one handy. It's in the interior. The party in Ekaterinburg looked to be the coolest party I've ever been a part of (no pics, unfortunately), but when it came time for me to start my DJ set I cleared the dance floor maybe 20 minutes in. :/ How did that happen, exactly? Well, I could start off by saying that the lights were too bright - even though this didn't seem to affect the partygoers when the other DJs were spinning - but I think it had more to do with the facts that 1) I played more soul than funk* and 2) the crowd expected someone with actual DJ skills, i.e. the ability to mix and scratch, or, in other words, a DJ that did not let the songs go all the way to the end.
I wish I didn't have to say that the pictures will have to suffice to tell the Russian tale, but, for now, they will. The whistle has been blown on this one.
*Perhaps the words of a Russian I met who went by the unfortunate nickname of "Igor" because of his general unattractiveness really do ring true, then: "Funk is one of the American utopias." That is, he did not say the same about "soul."
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