My New Home in Spain
Well, the lovely Miss Diana has secured a place for us to live in San Sebastián-Donostia, Spain, and thanks to the myriad wonders of satellite technology, I was able to take a bird's-eye gander at the place before I sail off into the wild blue yonder. The apartment is pinpointed by the balloon icon, which is visible in all three shots. As you can see in the first image there are three beaches with a rocky promontory in the middle. The body of water is the Bay of Biscay. The winding river dividing the city in half is called the Urumea, and the riverside neighborhoods are supposedly some of the nicest in all of Spain.
As we zoom in we see the vicinity around the apartment a bit better. This is the old quarter, and it's easy to see the extent of the neighborhood just by noting the terra cotta coloring. Most of the streets here are pedestrianized, and most of the local businesses are bars. In fact
National Geographic says this area has the highest concentration of bars in the world. Impressive for such a small city. In terms of how it impacts my living situation, let's just say it'll be loud, and certainly the potential for drunken obnoxiousness and raging testosterone is high in such a setting. But foreigners are usually afraid of me, and I get along okay with drunks, so we'll see if I have any trouble.
In the final shot you see the neighborhood in detail. Note the large church to the west, and the sprawling plaza to the east. The white objects in the plaza look like umbrellas, but given the scale of the photo may be something larger. I guess I'll find out when I get there. I'll be desperately poor after this move, but on the flipside I'll be in a place where I can feel good about paying taxes, where the money goes to society rather than the rich, and where quality of life and preservation of culture, architecture and nature are primary goals. In Europe I feel confident that I can finally put down roots—if not in Spain then in Portugal. This is assuming I can even survive. Stay tuned on that. In the meantime, friends, now that you know where I'll be, you can start making plans plans to visit. Hope to see you there.
Labels: San Sebastian-Donostia
Buried Treasure 3: Pulp
As my band 40th Day staggered to an ending—this after quite a few years of travel through the lower forty-eight and a brief air kiss of courtship by A&M Records—the guitar player Bryon Bean and I did something amazing: we started a magazine. I didn't think it so grandiose at the time—we simply dreamed the idea up and did it. It only seems amazing now, after finding all the old issues in storage. Scanning them, it hit me what a bold venture it was. We had zero experience in publishing, but we secured an investor, lassoed a third partner to handle graphic design, and started printing.
The magazine was called
Pulp. The first issue looked bad, sort of under-accessorized compared to its peers. But we improved quickly. By issue four, which you see above,
Pulp was looking reasonably professional, ads were flowing in, and readers around Colorado were taking it seriously. That's Poe on the cover, who was white hot at the time and promoting her first CD. I remember she called personally and thanked us for doing such a good job with the interview and photos. Looking at the issue now, I can see why. It's a damned nice cover.
One of the coolest things about the magazine was that, as editor, I got to assuage any starfucker tendencies by meeting a lot of music celebrities. I interviewed Rage Against the Machine, Type O-Negative, Garbage (pictured just below), and many other bands. I received backstage passes to just about any show I wanted. I got VIP entry into parties and clubs, where I answered who/what/why questions from wannabe players then reveled in their looks of surprise at my answers. About ninety percent of the time they responded with, "
You're the editor of
Pulp?" Such moments are priceless.
Pulp was one of the first magazines to really integrate music with extreme sports, as you can see from the cover below. After a while we even started sponsoring extreme sports events. We put on a little something called the World Pro Snowboard Tour, which started in Korea and ended at Mt. Snow, Vermont. Magazine staff did double duty as coordinators, hosts, and stevedores. Our sponsors included Smirnoff and Playboy. We actually brought Playboy centerfolds to the slopes to do signings and host parties. One of my duties was to act as security for them. To keep the hordes at bay, I was given a canister of Sabre chemical spray. Later I would go on to work for Playboy, but that's another story.
Anyway, the World Pro Snowboard Tour went off fine in terms of competitions and publicity, but behind the scenes it was a spectacular disaster. Lexus was another sponsor, and they gave us two beautiful gold-colored SUVs to use during the tour. We kept a lot of gear in those vehicles and because so many of us needed constant access, some of the others took to leaving the keys on the front tires of the vehicles. I warned everyone it was a bad idea. When we were at Squaw Valley, Utah, I think I said something along the lines of, "White people steal too. You'll find that out if you keep leaving those keys out there." They didn't listen to me, of course, and sure enough, someone stole one of the SUVs. We reported the theft to the police and a chase ensued. The thief ran off the road and destroyed the Lexus. The story made the evening news.
Also at Squaw Valley, we had a 10x20 tent that we used on the mountain to host the Playmate signings. Someone (not me) forgot to stake it down one day and and gust of wind picked it up and carried it down the mountain, where it knocked over about a dozen skiers. There were other mishaps just as bad as the Lexus and tent episodes, but the Tour was also grand fun—we were out until two or three in the morning and then up at 5 a.m. to set up for the next day's events. We're talking professional level partying. Sal Masakela was our emcee. He's now on the E! Channel, and does a lot of extreme sports hosting for ESPN.
Below you see a few of my favorite
Pulp covers. These were designed by Bryon, with possible assists from Dave Feroe, who was the third member of our little triumvirate. We tried to mix in local talent with the national acts we covered, and third below you see a cover showing Twice Wilted, who were Denver rock royalty.
Pulp also covered independent film, and as a longtime movie buff I appointed myself film critic and wrote under the name Juan Dos Passos. Actually I had four pseudonyms at
Pulp, and I was so adept at inhabiting them that nobody had a clue they were all me. I realized this when my friend Jim told me one day how much he hated another of my alter egos John Saralan, that he was a giant asshole and his music reviews were always snarky and mean. I laughed about that for weeks.
I don't know if you've ever been to a film premiere, but there are two kinds—the ones for critics only, which are great; and the ones for both critics and fans, which usually happen on the Thursday night before the film's Friday opening. The latter variety are always packed, and seats must be reserved for critics. Sometimes the critics bring guests, or even give their tickets away, which means riff raff often infest the reserved section. These interlopers can get proprietary about the seats. Why, I don't know. They just do. And they're always typical Denver meatheads. No idea why that's the case either. Once, I attended a full screening and sat down in the reserved row and a couple of the aforementioned looked over and told me, in none too friendly fashion, that the seats were reserved.
I could have told them I was a critic, but one, they wouldn't have believed me, and two, I don't answer to meatheads. So I said, "Really? Who are they reserved for?"
One of the jokers said, "Quentin Tarantino." He and his friend snickered. I'm sure they thought they were extraordinarily clever.
I told them, "Okay, when he shows up I'll move."
These two suburbanites then decided to sic security on me. One of them got up and found the guard. I saw the conversation. I saw the confusion on the poor idiot's face. I saw the crestfallen look as the guard explained that I was a film critic, and by the way, sir, who might
you be? That's a fond memory, and it encapsulates what was so cool about
Pulp—it made me a party crasher, got me into places nobody, and I mean
nobody, thought I belonged.
As a film critic I got to do cool things like fly to New York City and see Nelson Mandela host the world premiere of
Cry the Beloved Country, and I got to interview Todd Solondz (who was shy), Maria Conchita Alonso (who was an amazing lady), Judith Godreche (cordial), Michael Rappaport (chill), David Caruso (bit of a tool, I must say), James Earl Jones (dignified), and many other fascinating celebs. I met Danny Glover, Richard Harris, and William Friedkin. I met Renee Zellweger early in her career, when she was at her most ambitious and beautiful, and spent an afternoon with her while a photographer named Jeff Navarro shot the below photos for the magazine. In the second shot she's holding an issue of
Pulp featuring Bjork on the cover. If you read BlackNotBlack regularly, you may remember that I ran into Bjork in Iceland a couple of years ago.
And speaking of encounters with celebs, I couldn't resist posting this shot of me with the luscious Joey Lauren Adams. I was putty, as the photo makes clear. She was unable to build a lasting career for herself, but she did a couple of good movies, including
Chasing Amy. She was super sweet. We talked about her voice, which at the time she said she was unwilling change even though it limited her career prospects (for those who have never heard Joey Lauren Adams' voice, imagine high b-flat with smoke on top).
Pulp also sometimes covered street fashion, and for one issue I was tapped to be a model. So there I am trying to look cool below, and I succeeded so spectacularly that I still look like that today. Did I just hear the sound of gagging out there? No, must have been the wind.
Anyway, even something as cool as
Pulp had to end one day. We had enemies.
Westword Magazine, which is part of the huge chain that includes
L.A. Weekly, tried to steal our advertisers but failed. In fact, one of our advertisers showed us a letter
Westword sent them that specifically suggested
Pulp was not on the up-and-up with regard to readership numbers. It was an infuriating accusation, but it didn't harm us. No, what killed us was our sales manager, who was more interested in being a big shot than doing his job. He ran up a lot of credit debt on the magazine and kept it hidden until it all came to roost at once. He was a pure hustler, truth be told, and would have fit nicely into the Bush administration had he been politically inclined.
I ran into the guy a couple of years later. He pulled over next to me as I was walking along the road and offered me a ride. He was driving a station wagon and the back was filled with boxes. I asked him what was in them and he said meat.
I said, "Did you say meat, or did I misunderstand you?"
He explained that the boxes were filled with Kobe beef and he was importing the stuff now. There was big money in it he claimed, and I was thinking,
People are going to eat meat that sat in the back of your station wagon? Anyway, that's the last I saw of him. These days, despite the damage he did to the magazine, I have fond memories of him. He was part of an amazing time, and, for a while at least, took an incredible leap of faith with us.
All this nostalgia is apropos, because the leap I am taking next is the most difficult thing I've ever done, and remembering what has passed gives me confidence for what is to come. I've always surged forward without looking and somehow survived—in jobs, in relationships, in everything. So starting in November the posts you read at BlackNotBlack will originate from San Sebastián-Donostia, Spain. I moved away before, of course, to Guatemala for two insane years, but that was a country where the dollar trades at 8-to-1 against the local currency. That same dollar is pure shit against the euro, and there is no doubt, I am not in financial shape to be taking this risk. But I'm doing it anyway, because, what can I say? That's who I am.
Labels: Nelson Mandela, Rage Against the Machine, Renee Zellweger Twice Wilted
Buried Treasure 2: More Memories in the Junk
This is the aftermath of the category 5 hurricane that swept through my apartment, as I turned my life wrongside up preparing to move to Spain.
Within the pictured chaos, I found yet more 40th Day memorabilia, including 2,000-plus band photographs spanning nine years. Some of them depicted moments so forgotten, so swallowed up in the dusts of time, that looking at them was exquisitely painful. Other shots were absurd, and a few were plain incomprehensible, like the one of our bass player Jim fellating a footlong dildo.
Below, you see the largest crowd 40th Day ever played for—7,000 people in Dallas, Texas. This was part of probably the most star-crossed tour in musical history, during which we—an alternative rock band that sounded like Siouxsie & the Banshees—opened for oldsters like Molly Hatchet, ELO and Eddie Money. We're pretty sure someone in Molly Hatchet stole one of our guitars. The day we opened for Eddie Money it was 100 degrees and concertgoers were sunbaked into a stupor. Many of the shows were lousy, with listless turnouts, surly clubowners, and generally uncomprehending crowds of yokels who did not get us. In fact, if I posted a shot of the crowd in Gunnison, Colorado, and put a thought bubble above every head, there would not be enough words contained within to form a coherent sentence. But this crowd in Dallas was great, and the club scene in Deep Ellum was excellent.
The next photo is of the sign for Rod's, in Madison, Wisconsin. If I remember correctly, Rod's was the upstairs section of the club we played. It was gay, while the downstairs section was straight. In reality all clubs are mixed, of course, so I never got the gay club/straight club thing, but whatever. There was nothing memorable about our show, but this penis-themed sign was priceless.
The coolest city we ever played was New Orleans, which is why I chose the below photo of a random courtyard somewhere in the French Quarter. Our shows in the Big Easy weren't well-attended, but the city was magical. Things have changed there. Since the hurricane, blackhearted Friedmanite economists and developers have been given lease by the State government to remake the city. Whatever they create will be a weak, pale distillation of the place I remember. I know this because that's what economists and developers do whenever they get their dirty hooks into a place—ruin it. I hope this little courtyard survives.
Choosing the worst restroom ever was a tough decision. The bathroom at CGBG was a reeking cretaceous swamp, complete with mosquitoes, and there was a rest stop in Nebraska so horrible that I shat on the floor rather than approach the toilet. Also, I used to hang out at a place down in Guatemala that had a bullet hole in the urinal, but that doesn't count because it wasn't tour related. So the filth-encrusted cubical you see below wins the repugnancy award by a pubic hair.
The craziest groupie award goes to the girl below and right. I don't remember her name, but I do remember she was a firecracker. She teased our bass player Jim to within an inch of his life without actually putting out. The blonde was interested in me, but I wasn't putting out either, so nobody scored. Girls like this are always loaded with cash. I have no idea why. But they bought the drinks and that's really all I cared about. There was a time in my life when I would have lamented this night as a missed opportunity—now I only lament that it took me so long to meet my fiancée, the lovely slice of German pastry I call Miss Diana.
Last but not least, below I've posted my all-time favorite band photo. It shows our lead singer Shawn Strub, in full ecstasy, at a show we played in Denver, Colorado during the RMMA music festival.
The shot is part of a roll that also produced the
Icon cover I uploaded to an earlier post. I've seen other shots that impart a palpable sense of the band's essence, but none of them can surpass this grainy close-up, snapped by a photographer whose name I do not remember. He deserves major kudos, whoever he was, because his image captures the magic, power, and dreamy mysticism of a band that was weird, wild, and a bit ahead of its time.
We sometimes used The Church as our entry music. This was the scene: The lights would dim, the crowd would hush, and as the charge of anticipation built, the lyrics would float through the club:
"
Oh, what an ending baby,
promise you'll remember me.
I'm not pretending baby,
your sweet and wicked treachery.
Water all my orchids,
save my dynasty.
I'm never, never coming back again.
I said I'm never coming back again."
Labels: 40th Day, Dallas, Denver, Molly Hatchet, The Church
Well, the lovely Miss Diana has secured a place for us to live in San Sebastián-Donostia, Spain, and thanks to the myriad wonders of satellite technology, I was able to take a bird's-eye gander at the place before I sail off into the wild blue yonder. The apartment is pinpointed by the balloon icon, which is visible in all three shots. As you can see in the first image there are three beaches with a rocky promontory in the middle. The body of water is the Bay of Biscay. The winding river dividing the city in half is called the Urumea, and the riverside neighborhoods are supposedly some of the nicest in all of Spain.
In the final shot you see the neighborhood in detail. Note the large church to the west, and the sprawling plaza to the east. The white objects in the plaza look like umbrellas, but given the scale of the photo may be something larger. I guess I'll find out when I get there. I'll be desperately poor after this move, but on the flipside I'll be in a place where I can feel good about paying taxes, where the money goes to society rather than the rich, and where quality of life and preservation of culture, architecture and nature are primary goals. In Europe I feel confident that I can finally put down roots—if not in Spain then in Portugal. This is assuming I can even survive. Stay tuned on that. In the meantime, friends, now that you know where I'll be, you can start making plans plans to visit. Hope to see you there.
