All Bad Things Must Come to an End

I started this post after seeing Mötley back in October of 2014, but never finished it. I've seen them twice more since then, so this post is going to change a bit, but it feels important to write it as their tour draws to a close with the end of the year.

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The title of this post is the tag line for "THE FINAL TOUR," Mötley Crüe's (for now at least) farewell trip around America. I'm pretty sure everybody who is friends with me on Facebook, if they didn't know before, certainly knew on Tuesday that I was going to see them. And not just anywhere, Madison Square Garden. An arena they haven't played in years, and a big part of why I had, until this point, never seen them perform in a state I live in. (St. Louis, Missouri, Birmingham, England, and Hartford, Connecticut.) I bought my ticket the day they went on sale back in early March. This day was over seven months coming.

They're touring with "special guest" Alice Cooper, and I had incredibly high expectations for an unprecedentedly theatrical night. I had heard nothing but good things about Alice Cooper's stage shows, and Mötley has always beeny favorite live performance.

After spending fifteen minutes finding the actual entrance to The Garden (I've only been there one before, six years ago, for the NYU president's welcome), I took a detour to the chase lounge. Apparently because I bank with chase that entitled me to free food and avoiding the general crowd entering the venue. No complaints.

I spent an awkward fifteen minutes in the lounge, not used to swanky surroundings and looking thoroughly out of place as the only person there by myself and the only person under thirty (though that's not too bad, compared to other shows).

So around 7:40 I headed to my seat on the main floor. I paid more for this ticket than I have ever paid for any ticket, almost more than seeing HEDWIG four times (though three of those add up to less than $80 together). Still, The Garden is big, and I was in the back half of the floor, near an aisle. The good thing was a lot of people (foolishly) seemed to not care about Alice Cooper so much, so I could see his set pretty well as several of the rows in front of me stayed nearly empty. 

It should be noted that though we had seats, people appropriately did not sit in them, because this was a rock concert and there is no sitting in rock concerts. Unless you're the drummer. So good job audience, for being involved, unlike the dumbasses at the Crüe/Kiss show two years ago. However, that meant that as the audience filled up, I couldn't see so well over the tall people standing in front of me, but at least I didn't have to sit and be well-behaved either. Being one seat off the aisle, I was able to carefully fade out into the aisle a little bit so I could see, since the person in the aisle seat remained absent for a long time.

The last of the pre-show music was The Sound of Music's "So Long, Farewell," and as the audience realized what was playing, everyone began to lose their shit, because we knew - this was it.

The show rocked, of course. Everybody screamed, everybody was there to have a good time because of the music instead of the drinks (again, unlike the stupid VIPs I was seated near durint The Tour 2012). Eventually, unfortunately, the owner of the aisle seat arrived, incredibly drunk, after trying to get past the ushers towards the front half of the floor. After the showed him his seat, he tried to hand me his beer to hold for him, because I had picked up his ticket when he dropped it. I refused his beer, so he set it on the floor and proceeded to climb onto his chair. I should mention this man was well over six feet tall and not exactly thin. It took several ushers and a couple security guards to get him back down.

At this point, the people in front of me asked if I wanted to join them, as there was an empty seat in their row. I was reluctant, as that empty seat meant it was a little easier for me to see, and if I moved up I'd be standing directly behind a very tall man, but the drunk guy next to me continued to have trouble standing in his spot so I soon changed my mind and was hauled over the chairs into the row in front of me like a drowning person being pulled onto the deck of a ship.

The rest of the concert proceeded without incident. I couldn't see as well, as expected, but I was no longer stressed about being stepped on or knocked over or hit on by an old drunk guy. Ultimately the better choice for enjoying the show. The last song was "Kickstart my Heart," as it has been for some time, and then the band left the stage. The audience went into an uproar. Mötley had not playedt their signature "Home Sweet Home," the ballad we all light up our lighters (or, more accurately at this point, our smartphone flashes) for - how dare they deprive us of that powerful moment?

But then we all started to realize. At the other end of Tommy's drum coaster, which warped along the ceiling to the middle of the floor of the arena, was a smaller stage. And that stage had a piano. The disco piano that Tommy plays at the start of "Home Sweet Home." So the audience begins to scream and shout, and I realize the band is going to come right by me, and I freak out, and then then, in the dark, led by flashlights, they do appear, heavily guarded, and take the smaller stage for one last encore. I have a video of that performance; it was incredible. An arena full of the starlight of thousands of camera phones. The song was accompanied on the big screens by a slideshow of the band's early days, a lot of black and white photos from before they had tattoos, and then vivid mid-80s shots of booze-soaked concerts and big hair. And when the song ended and they finally left the stage, they did walk right down my aisle, which the drunk man had vacated (or, more accurately, I think, been drug out of by security), so I was able to stand right by them in hopes of a high five. Tommy and Nikki were doing their best to make contact with the crowd but their security was unfortunately not really having it.

It was a night I will never forget, just like each of the other times I saw them.

Which happened to be twice more, after that "last time."

I saw them this past August, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn (where the Nets play) - I bought a ticket for $50 a few hours before the show, knowing it wouldn't be a good seat but just wanted to be in the arean and hear them live one more time. I had vague plans to go to London and see them there, but I didn't want to pin all my hopes on such an outlandish strategy.

My seat at Barclays was pretty high up and way off to the side, but I was plenty early so I moved over to the other end of my row and figured I'd move over if I had to. I never did have to, and ended up with a high, but decent side-view for the whole night. This time I was prepared for Alice, and sang along with more of his songs, and recorded his incredible "School's Out"/"Another Brick in the Wall" mashup, which I regretted not catching the last time.

The show hadn't changed much in a year, but I didn't need it to. Tommy still played his drum solo on his drum coaster (the "cruecifly") and at the end they went off and then played "Home Sweet Home" on the smaller stage. I screamed myself hoarse and stamped my feet and was sore for two days afterward, as it should be. (I was one of the only people standing in my section, but I have no regrets.)

And then, I got to see them one, actual, last time.

Wembley Arena in London. I was third row from the stage on the side, having bought my tickets to the sold-out show fairly last minute on stubhub. The great thing about seeing them in England though is that the average age of the crowd is so much younger and the enthusiasim is that much greater so that even on the side, everybody was up and having a good time. For the first time (not counting when I was made a free drink in Doc McGhee's tour bus in 2012) I had a drink at the show, because they're actually cheaper in England. 

Between Alice's set and Mötley's, I bonded with the guy sitting next to me - his lockscreen on his phone show a picture of him and a girl, and I said "Your girlfriend didn't come with you?" which started a whole conversation about how we're both the only people in our friend groups who like Mötley. This was his first time seeing them and I was all the more excited for him. I'm lucky to have seen them six times in four years.

"So  Long, Farewell" began, and the audience started going crazy. "They know!" I shouted, and my new friend (whose name I never learned) replied "Yeah they do." "It's time!" was the great chorus from the crowd, and out came the most notorious rock band on earth, playing London one last time. They started with "Girls, Girls, Girls," which has never been their first song when I've seen them. It's always been "Wild Side" or "Saints of Los Angeles" though I wasn't sure they'd play "Saints" at all in England since they always throw in their covers of "Primal Scream" and "Anarchy in the UK" for European audiences, which they did that night as well. The typical playlist remained, with Tommy's drum solo and Mick's guitar solo. Nikki didn't do a bass solo on this iteration of the tour, but that's not a big deal, really. He still came out and talked to the audience, had us "light this place up" with our phones, again creating that magical starlight effect. And again they played "Home Sweet Home" one more time. 

In the pause between the "end" of the show and the encore I was talking to the two guys on the other side of the aisle, as the audience started to figure out what was going to happen again, and the three of us sang along with "Home Sweet Home," arms around each other's shoulders, drinks in hand, as if we'd been going to the pub together for years. It was a nice way to end my time with Mötley, since, with the exception of my very first time with them, I've always gone by myself. So some community was a nice change in the end.

And that's my Mötley story: once in Missouri, once in Connecticut, twice in England, and twice in New York, in the span of four years at the end of their career as a band, finishing thirty-four (almost exactly thirty-five, actually) years after they started as a little club rock group in LA. They end on a sold-out tour around the world, that will finish on December 31st in LA, where Alice Cooper will "execute" them in style. I can't afford to be there for that one, but I can't wait to see the videos. I'm sure it will be a show like no one has ever seen before. 

Speaking Of...

In conjunction with last night's post, these are my activities for the day:

1. Watch last night's Daily Show and Colbert Report while drinking coffee. (unrelated)
2. Read about the new Rolling Stones single being released tomorrow.
3. Read a list of the Top 10 KISS songs of the 1970s (slow news day, apparently).
4. Discover there was a movie made in 1999 called Detroit Rock City about a KISS cover band: find movie online, prepare to watch said movie.
5. But first, apply to work at Harry Potter: the Exhibition when it returns to NYC November 1st. I may never have been so qualified for a job in my life. And by that I mean I hope my Harry Potter knowledge and enthusiasm makes up for my severe lack of retail experience.
6. Watch Detroit Rock City.
7. Read The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling, because I'm way behind since I won't take it out of the house. I don't want anything to happen to it.
8. Go to work at Fuerza.
9. Buy groceries at Trader Joe's
10. Come home, read some more, go to bed.

AWESOME DAY. This is what my days should always be like.

Nostalgia?

This post probably isn't going where you think it's going.

I was chatting with a friend of mine today and he called the rock shows that I go to "nostalgia concerts." (It should be mentioned he was born in 1976.) So I thought about that label, because clearly for me, going to an 80s rock concert is not motivated by nostalgia, since I was never alive in the 80s, unless you're using the conservative definition of "life." Which I'm not. But I get the idea that for people who are somewhere between 15 and 25 years older than me, that may be exactly what such an event is. There are definitely guys in their late 30s, early 40s (or older) at these shows who want to relive their teens and 20s, and they bring their kids who are now like eight or twelve, and the whole family paints their faces with KISS make-up. Or they bring their girlfriends and get really drunk but pay very little attention to the music, and occasionally stare at me, because my presence is inexplicable to them. This is understandable since the demographic at these shows is usually 35-50 (and 5-12), and also heavily male-leaning, but there was a guy a row in front of me in Hartford who turned around every half hour or so not in a lecherous way, but with a look of confusion and/or amusement on his face. Out of the tens of thousands of people at the concert, I saw less than a dozen who were within ten years of my age by the look of it.

So maybe for those people it is about wanting to relive "the good old days" (although I've heard they weren't so good). But for me, this is about going to hear the music I like and see the bands I like now. I'm trying to think of bands/artists formed in the last 10-15 years I'd pay money to see live (which is a much more specific thing than "contemporary artists I vaguely like).

I've been thinking for a couple minutes now and the only thing that came to mind was maybe Maroon 5, maybe, and I guess technically I did sort of see them live at Ravinia last summer, but we couldn't actually see them. And that was before "Moves Like Jagger" came out, so really it doesn't count.

Maybe Pink, since she's still around, I imagine it'd be interesting, although I don't really know her music anymore.

Anyway you get where I'm going with this. I'd rather see Elton John, Led Zeppelin (please get back together (they won't)), Bruce Springsteen (I know, I know, I missed it), the Rolling Stones (God I hope they do that show they have rumored to be planning in Brooklyn), et cetera.

The point, really, I think, is that I don't believe the bands are doing this out of nostalgia for earlier decades. I can't imagine Mötley wants to go back to the 80's. They probably couldn't survive them a second time. This is still about making new music. KISS's new album, Monster, came out last week. While the review I read said the songs probably won't make it past the tour supporting the album, I think the single is as good as any of their stuff from the 70s, and they've got to keep making new music.

I keep thinking about what it must be like to still be constantly performing songs written thirty or more years ago. In some interview I read, Nikki Sixx mentioned that when they brought Vince Neil in to sing for the first time, he sang "Live Wire," and they knew that he was it. And he said they've played that song at every single gig ever since. That's 31 years of playing that song (give or take some years in the 90s when they were all fighting or in rehab). I've tried really hard, but it's rather difficult at age 22 to imagine what it's like to keep performing something for a longer time than I've been alive. But maybe I've in some ways talked myself out of my own point because they're playing those songs from thirty years ago because that's what the fans want to hear. KISS was extremely prolific for a decade so their catalogue is extensive and I don't know it as well, but I know Mötley has nine studio albums, and I know they only play material at their shows off of the (five) releases from the 80s and their most recent album from 2008. There are three albums (1994's Mötley Crüe, 1997's Generation Swine, and 2000's New Tattoo) that are completely ignored. Their eponymous album was never that popular because it's the one that doesn't feature Vince Neil on vocals, and Generation Swine is just not very good, but the only explanation for New Tattoo being overlooked is that it lands in the middle ground between the classics and their newest material. I think Saints of Los Angeles (2008) is as good as 1989's Dr. Feelgood, but it will be interesting to see when their new album comes out in 2013 if they will continue to tour with material from Saints.

This analysis is a much longer breakdown of a pretty brief topic of conversation, but that evolved into a discussion of Harry Potter and the generational need for something that teaches us that it won't be easy but if we fight for what we believe in, things will be okay. For my friend, as representative of gen X, that was Star Wars. Clearly for 90s babies (I abhor the label "millennials") it was Harry Potter. And now I wonder if I will be the equivalent of those middle-aged guys at Crüe concerts, reliving my childhood at conventions or comic con (I probably won't go to comic con). And I wonder if there will be those two or three random kids who are 20 years younger than me, and if I'll be totally baffled by their presence.

As I've said before (though maybe not on this blog), Harry Potter will never be for another generation what it was for mine, because they won't have to wait. I was ten when Goblet of Fire came out, but thirteen by the time Order of the Phoenix was released (since JK Rowling went off and got married and had a baby, like that was more important, in those three years). Yeah try telling a ten-year-old now that they have to wait three years to read the next book in a series. No way. Not now that it exists. There will be no waiting, no speculation, no midnight release parties, no early-days-of-the-internet community bonding. The anticipation, the theorizing, the community built up around those things, cannot be recreated, and that makes me feel awfully lucky to have been a part of it. There's a really wonderful book called Harry, A History I read a few summers ago that catalogues this experience and I guess for kids to read that will kind of be what they get to understand, the way I read band autobiographies to vicariously live through the pages into the 80s.

I can watch youtube videos of concerts, and read books by Nikki Sixx and Gene Simmons and get some idea of the 80s, but I can't live it. So it's not nostalgia. Audiences now aren't like they were in the 80s, tickets are expensive and the people with the most money (or the fanciest friends!) sit in the front instead of the people who care the most fighting to the front like in the days of general admission. (At the Rock and Roll hall of fame I saw a ticket for a KISS show in 1975 that cost $6 for general admission at the door.) So what this "scene" was in the 80s and was for that audience in the 80s isn't what it is for me in the 21st century. Just like Harry Potter won't be for kids now (because it's been fifteen years almost already) what it was for me in 1998. But that doesn't mean that either thing is any less amazing, or won't continue to serve a purpose.

Maybe this is a weird parallel to draw. It's probably one no one else would put together, but it makes perfect sense to me. Cultural phenomenons evolve. Their place in society changes. And that's kind of weird, and realizing I'm getting to the point where things that are quintessential to my childhood are becoming something people would call "nostalgic" is kind of freaky, but it's okay. I said my childhood ended when the last movie came out ("It all ends 7.15.11") and I was only sort of but not really joking. So I guess now I like Harry Potter as an adult?

We end with Harry Potter, so maybe this did go where you were thinking. Whatever I'm gonna live with Anna and if we get an apartment like the ones I've been looking at it will have a fireplace that probably doesn't work that we will turn into a Harry Potter puppet castle. And I will play the metal version of the theme song all the time. So, just, you know, know what to expect when you come over.

Hartford, Rock City (Again, I Know)

I have to talk about glam rock again. Because I saw Mötley Crüe. Again.

Most of you probably know - or maybe you don't, it was very last minute - that I went to see the final stop of THE TOUR in Hartford last Sunday (the 23rd, not the 30th). I didn't talk about it a ton because I wasn't sure I was going until I bought my bus tickets at 9:30 that morning.

Here's what happened, and I promise this is all leading somewhere philosophical, not just to another concert play-by-play, although there will be some of that, too. This one was special. Anyway. I don't think I ever mentioned this on the blog in the context of the last Crüe show I was at, but this guy, Tom Zutaut, went to my high school. Yes, my little high school back in Park Forest, some 35 or so years before I did. I discovered this while reading Mötley's 2001 autobiography The Dirt in the summer of 2011 because Tom Zutaut was the A&R (I have never known what that means) man for Elektra records in the 80s and signed the band to their first record deal in 1982 when he was about my age. Being the thorough fan that I am, I looked him up, found him on facebook, and just asked if he really indeed went to my high school. (He hadn't said the name, just the town and state, but there's only ever been one high school in my town.) He responded, friend requested me, and we got to chatting over the next several months.

Fast forward to this summer. I intended to see The Tour while I was home, on September 7th. However tickets were crazy expensive (just a lawn seat - meaning a space on the grass - cost about $45). I just couldn't afford it. My plan was to win tickets. I entered every contest. I analyzed the tweets and habits of Tommy Lee, the drummer, because he was hiding tickets in every city they stopped in, which usually included VIP passes meaning a trip backstage to meet the band. I didn't win any contests, so on September 7th, my mom and I went on a stakeout of the venue, waiting for Tommy Lee to tweet his first "Crüe Clüe" to find the passes. But none came, nor was there an explanation of why he suddenly didn't hide them (although I later deduced it was because of the weather, which was his excuse at a later stop on the tour).

So no tickets for me, no Crüe/KISS extravaganza. I was more than a little disappointed, although kudos to my mom for sticking out for hours with me to help me try to go to the show. I figured I could always try again at one of the later stops in the NYC area - they weren't playing in the city at all but had shows near Newark, on Long Island, and in Hartford, Connecticut. You see where this is going. Or do you?

Re-enter Tom Zutaut. I texted him as we were driving away from the venue, saying how disappointed I was about not going to the show. He said he could call and get me tickets, my mom could come too if she wanted. I said thanks, but we were almost home, and the show had already started, so it felt too late. Then he mentioned he would probably be at the shows in Boston and Hartford and I could go to one of those if I wanted, since I had said I'd be back in New York soon.

I said I could get to Hartford (2 1/2 hours by bus). He said he'd get back to me after he'd made his travel plans. Two weeks went by. He ended up being stuck in Kansas City for work. But he said he'd call in a ticket for me if I was going to go. I got very skeptical (I always had been a little bit; I've still never actually met this guy), having that feeling that I think every girl my age in my generation has, being wary of nice men we meet on the internet. But something told me to say yes. So I did. That was Saturday night.

Sunday morning, I bought the bus tickets. I went to church, taught Sunday school, met up with a friend who printed the bus tickets at NYU for me, and then went to Port Authority to head to Hartford. I got there, made my way to the theatre, and went to will call. My ticket wasn't at a regular window. I was redirected to the VIP Guest Services Guest List window. I had a free ticket and a wristband for a photo with KISS. My roundtrip bus cost me the price of a lawn seat, and now I was in row N of the lower pavilion with a ticket to meet KISS and, soon, an all access backstage pass that is now my prized possession. (This is all also thanks to Doc McGhee, the former manager of Mötley, Tom's friend, and now manager for KISS. Imagine that guy's life. And he also went to high school near me.)

What I originally wanted to talk about though was glam rock itself. The music, the stage show, the aesthetic, the attitude. KISS was a pioneer in their form. No one has done quite what they've done, become a franchise and a brand the way they have. Gene Simmons I believe is a businessman before he is a musician or an artist. He might even say that himself. I read his autobiography (also written in 2001), Kiss and Make-Up this summer while I was home, and he's certainly proud of his head for business and refers to KISS as a business. He wants to be rich, he wants to be successful, he wants KISS to be influential not just in a musical sense but in a cultural sense. And as early as the mid- to late-seventies KISS was creating stage shows like no one had ever seen before. The pyro, Gene's fire breathing during "Firehouse," Paul Stanley flying out over the audience, raising platforms, pyrotechnics, moving lights, moving trusses full of lights, projections, etc. That technology has continued to develop into the current century - next year will be KISS' 40th anniversary as a band, if you ignore the fact that two of the original members, though still alive, were kicked out of the band long ago. (You'd never know it though if you didn't do your research; Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer adopted the make-up and personas of Peter Criss and Ace Frehley respectively.)

Similarly, hugely influenced by KISS themselves, Mötley Crüe has pushed the boundaries of the live rock show in artistic ways. (That was the most academic sounding transition sentence I have written in a long time. Wow.) I still think, having now seen The New York Dolls, Poison, Steel Panther, Def Leppard, and KISS, that Mötley puts on the best live show out there. This time things were a little different from the last two times I saw them (the second being kind of a European leg of the summer tour, I think, at least concept-wise). The stage show was new, the set list was a bit different. There was a countdown clock projected on the screen, with a deafening ticking noise that built palpable anticipation (all the more impressive when you then saw how unenthusiastic so much of the crowd was). They opened with a huge processional of hooded figures that came through the audience with banners. The show itself had tons of pyro, fire, power washers spraying the audience with water, Nikki Sixx's guitar shooting fire, Tommy Lee's 360 drum coaster of course, lasers (which were, admittedly, kinda lame), and constant, relentless, media, which, though perhaps the newest technology in many ways, is kind of the least interesting part of their design.

My point (and I do have one) is this. Nothing gets my heart pounding, gives me a rush, gets me so fully involved and passionate about what is happening on stage as these rock concerts. And yes, I like the music, and yes I've read all their books and know weird things about them I have no reason to know, and I follow these people on twitter even though I still think twitter is stupid and I only got an account in the first place because Nikki Sixx tweeted during their show when I first saw them in St. Louis in June of 2011. But the shows, the full-on design of these theatrical events, of the lighting and the costumes and the sets to combine with the music, is unlike anything I've seen anywhere. I get a little bit of that feeling from American Idiot on Broadway. But that was a rock musical and the lights were designed by Kevin Adams who does a lot of rock musicals and lights them like mini-rock shows.

There is this feeling when all the senses line up as part of the same experience. It's loud, and bright, and hot, and fast (is tempo a feeling? I think so...), and gritty, and powerful. I think I have said before that I love glam rock for being 100% what it is. For not apologizing for the make-up, the big hair even now, the sexuality, the desire for more than the mundane. And in so many ways this is all over-analyzing, because as many of the artists of the 80s will say outright, glam rock wasn't about some deeper message, or the expression of rage or oppression. It was in a sense a rebellion to be sure, but mostly it was just a bunch of guys singing about what they liked - sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.

I just wonder why more theatre - or really any theatre - doesn't give me that same feeling. Is there more of a narrative and therefore more of an emotional journey in a play or a musical? Arguably, yes, of course. That's theoretically the point. And sure, I go see plays and have a lot of feelings, and sometimes they're very good, and provoke a lot of thoughts, too. But I just... I just want that rock show feeling more. It's never mattered to me that a domestic beer costs $11 at a concert, because I don't need it. I go to these shows by myself and have more fun than practically anywhere or anytime else, even when I'm with people.

How do you make that happen for theatre? It's a communal experience. But so is a rock concert, actually. In Hartford I was in this section with a bunch of other people who had KISS VIP wristbands and during Mötley's set they were all just standing around. I am obviously a bigger fan of the Crüe than KISS, so I was having a great time, baffling all the middle-aged men around me, who never understand what a 20something girl is doing at an 80s rock concert, especially, I think, without a middle-aged man as my escort. Anyway there were these two other women, probably in their late thirties, a couple rows in front of me, who were the only other people in the vicinity who also seemed to actually be having a good time during the set. They caught my eye occasionally when turning to the side or something and we would acknowledge each other, part of an unspoken clan, the Crüe crew, the people who were actually engaging with the monstrous stage action while everyone else stood around and drank. There was also the community walking to the theatre, as people who had parked far away walked too, and various people complimented each other on their band t-shirts, cars blasted KISS out their windows, it was very communal. Kind of a massive tailgating parade, as it were, on the way to the arena. So the communal aspect isn't it.

Is it subtlety? Maybe it's subtlety. There is absolutely nothing subtle about a rock show. Both bands played their one new single from their upcoming albums on this tour along with the classics from decades ago - KISS' is entitled "Hell or Halleluja," Mötley's, simply, "Sex." Like I said. Not subtle. The chorus includes the line "It's all about the sex," which was the not-really-unspoken moral of most of their other songs, but now they've really literally just said it.

I don't know. It's something I seriously think about a lot. It matters to me, that feeling, rock music, theatre, how to blend them when I don't actually know a damn thing about writing music or music theory. But figuring it out is becoming my conscious self-education now that I'm out of school.

I still think I was born 25 years too late.

BEST. THING. EVER.

Mötley has my artistic heart.

There's me, and there's everybody else.

Thank you for this, KISS.

Democalypse 2012

Was politics ever about proving oneself right rather than proving someone else wrong? I have to imagine it was... I don't want to vote for someone just because s/he proved the other guy is an idiot. But what has our political system become? A lot of very expensive mudslinging.

As a reluctant member of the "millennial" generation, I can't help but think about the fundamental flaws in our economy. Never mind the Depression-era unemployment rates, the housing market collapse (have you seen the documentary Inside Job? It's infuriating.), the skyrocketing costs of education. We've all talked these things to death. My NYU education cost approximately a quarter of a million dollars. I don't know how much more I can talk about it. So now, my friends and I all have these degrees that cost about as much as a presidential campaign, but are guaranteed jobs? No. The jobs we would normally get right out of school are taken by the laid-off, who have more experience than the recently-graduated. We're expected to take unpaid internships to gain real world chops before we can hope to get a decent job. But how does one take a full-time unpaid internship and still, you know, make money?

This article has been spreading across my facebook network like wildfire, the worries and desperations of the millennial generation that seems to be guaranteed nothing but hard work, and even the hard work is only if you can find it. The jobs aren't out there, and neither is the money.

Yet there's money coming from somewhere - what about the millions of dollars spent on political campaigns? Remember the 2008 election? Remember how the race to the White House started mid-2007 with about ten candidates on each side? Well nine of those on each side raised tons of money to run a race they wouldn't even finish, let alone win. This year, Rick Santorum (don't get me started) kept running looong after it was clear he would never get the Republican nomination. It seemed to be a matter of pride - sticking it out because he said he would, continuing to accept campaign donations and run pointless ads and pay for air time to say utterly ridiculous things. And he's not the only one. All the politicians do it.

Look, I recognize that part of the democratic process is allowing anyone who meets the legal requirements for candidacy to run. Choice is good, we like to believe. And I like getting to vote. I do. Maybe this is a quintessential #firstworldproblems rant, but I think it's a huge problem: running for political office is expensive. And people with more money do have better chances. But why do we have to spend all this money on political campaigns?

Want to get elected president? Instead of having people donate money to your campaign or your super PAC, why not have people donate that same money to a fund to provide scholarships for kids to go to college? I know a lot of people who'd vote for that guy.

I know I'm oversimplifying things, but it's something that's bothered me for years. During each presidential election, a dozen or so people spend millions of dollars - each - on not getting elected. And that's true for other elections too. These politicians spend all this money not even to make themselves look good but often to make their opponents look bad, and they run these ads on television even though no one watches commercials anymore. And the secret is they could do all their mudslinging campaigns on facebook for a lot less money and people might actually see them rather than just fast forwarding the commercials on their DVR.

Okay make a jump with me. Enjoy a little music - I've been listening to this song a lot lately and it's what prompted this particular post now, of all times.

There are so many problems in our country (not to mention everywhere else) that it just seems ridiculous to me to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an argument. Oh, and don't we have unheard of amounts of debt? Good, let's just keep maxing out our political credit cards instead of fixing New Orleans or sending people to college or restoring the American auto industry.

Oh my God, this is insane.
How'd it get like this or has it always been this way?
Oh my God, I'm so ashamed.
And we try to close our eyes and make this go away.

All in the Name of... (Rock)

The title is a Mötley Crüe song but I figured people wouldn't know how it goes and I decided not to leave it ambiguous. Anyway now that I'm trying to write a research paper the blogs are coming fast and furious... This one though I actually wrote this summer just as a reflection for myself, and I thought I would post it on the tailwind of the concert on Tuesday, which I can now accompany with pictures from the show. So first my musings then some eye candy.

Evening of June 4, 2011 (still before I saw Mötley the first time)
I just realized today that I have probably always thought never mind was one word because of Nirvana. I'm currently listening to their 1991 release, Nevermind, which I have never actually listened to in its entirety. The only Nirvana album I'm actually quite familiar with isNirvana, a compilation of their greatest hits or best known songs or something, four of which come from Nevermind. I think I listened to it in junior high when I vaguely cared about music (and then in high school I got distracted by theatre or something).

A thunderstorm is currently raging outside my bedroom, rain banging on the windows and sliding down blurry glass. Thunder is rumbling aggressively across the empty fields of Illinois, and I saw a few cracks of lightning earlier. It's a good afternoon for reading, and I just finished a second read of Chuck Klosterman's Fargo Rock City, a book I last read in the summer of 2009 (which, I think, is when I read everything he'd ever written with the exception of his one novel that I read last summer). This time through, I thought more and more about my affinity for 80s rock music - or, more specifically, metal. This genre is slangily and less-than-lovingly referred to as cock rock. The point, which I can't really argue with, is that all the music, and more importantly, the persona, the aesthetic of metal was about getting girls. Lots and lots of girls. Motley Crue in fact released an album entitled Girls, Girls, Girls. (The title song is still played on classic rock stations - at least the ones that lean more towards Van Halen and less towards Bruce Springsteen.)

Anyone who's met me knows I'm a feminist. I don't even really actively try to be, I just am. In the meeting I had with faculty after my first directing project, one of my teachers said it was definitely a "feminist take" on the play. I didn't do that on purpose, it just happened. So logic would dictate that I wouldn't be so into a genre that is almost exclusively about the masculine power to attract sexy playmates (and doing drugs).

But it's my favorite kind of music.

Klosterman argues that metal wasn't really about the song lyrics but the attitude. And while that may still have been about masculine power and attracting fuck buddies, it was also about being loud and fast and 100% whatever you were. Glam metal was the height of the constructed artistic image, but whatever a band was, if they were successful, it was because they were completely and utterly their aesthetic. And in the 80s, fans tended to hate it when their favorite bands strayed from whatever the expected image was. All this tangent is to say is I like loud, I like fast, and I'm all about being 100% whatever you are. That may seem a little off coming from someone who calls herself an actor/designer/director (not always in that order) but I'm 100% invested in doing anything that fulfills me artistically and allows me to create a gift for the audience, as big and bold as possible. I haven't figured out how to totally succeed yet, but I try as best I can.

I don't know much about music. I haven't taken any classes or studied music theory. All I really know about music I've learned from reading Klosterman's books and talking to my musically-oriented friends. Not much of it ever seems to stick, but I know what I like, even if I can't very articulately explain why. Recently I've done a lot of driving by myself in our 1996 used car which got renovated with a pretty decent sound system before we bought it. All week I've been listening to rock music really loudly. Louder than I ever can in my house or my dorm room or when I have headphones actually in my ears, because I sort of need my hearing. Car listening is awesome though, because you can feel the music while cruising down the highway. I don't think you're supposed to amp up the bass when listening to hard rock, but I do, because I went to a high school that only listened to R&B and rap, and I need bass in my system. Music sounds completely different when it's really loud. And I don't just mean it sounds louder. It sounds fiercer, stronger, meaner, more serious.

For the last several years, I've much preferred listening to music from before I was born to anything from the last decade. The first nine most-played songs on my iTunes are all 80s gems, starting with "Cum on Feel the Noize," "Any Way You Want It," and "Talk Dirty to Me." I'm unsure how "Don't Stop Believing" is only at number six. In any case, my musical tastes create the interesting game any time we're on a road trip of trying to find a good rock station as we drive across the country and in and out of range of major cities. Once you get out of range of Chicago, it's hard to find a good station anywhere in Indiana, eastern Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Georgia, or northern Florida. There's actually a good rock station that broadcasts out of somewhere near my grandma's house in southern Florida. Stations out of Cleveland and Akron, OH are not bad. The entirety of PA is a disaster because of mountains; we have to find a new station every twenty minutes, inevitably as soon as a Bon Jovi song comes on (which is almost always "Living on a Prayer" or "Wanted Dead or Alive"). Around home we've got the Drive, which is alright, but on the lighter side of "classic rock," and the Loop, which is my station of choice now that Jack FM is gone. Jack played almost exclusively songs I know and love, so of course it became an oldies station sometime between January and March. The Loop plays a fair amount of early 70s stuff I don't know, but also a lot of Pink Floyd, Van Halen, and Poison, so I don't complain.

At some point this all might have been leading to some philosophical point, given that Nirvana isn't even a metal band, but I got distracted by the rain for a while and forgot where I was going. In fact I think I might have even intended to talk about my brother's graduation (another post, I suppose), but maybe I just really wanted to talk about rock music. Probably. My love of major league baseball, specifically the White Sox, and my affinity for glam rock are the only things even slightly out of line with the rest of my personality. And I'll grant that the glam part makes sense. I blame Hedwig, but what else is new?

Back to December:
All of my top 25 most played songs are now 80s songs, only 9 of which are Mötley Crüe. There are songs on my iPod that have somehow been played almost 2000 times since June. I'm starting to think that my love of glam rock is totally in line with my personality and may in fact be becoming my personality. And now that I've been to the show (twice), I'm becoming obsessed with the theatricality of the constructed image. I could write a paper about that... Too bad that has nothing to do with Spanish Renaissance art. Anyway. Pictures with nerdy commentary below:

During Wild Side. One of my favorite things about glam rock lighting is that they're not afraid of pink.

A magazine should pay me for this photo. Or Vince Neil could; that would be even better. Over 30 years he has perfected the well known "wide-legged lead singer rock stance," seen here accompanied by "aggressive arm."

Probably saying one of his favorite phrases, "make some ******* noise tonight." (Bleeped for my grandparents, in case they're reading. Hi, grandparents.)

Also, backlight! Shiny things! Silver pants?

Mick is short and old and wearing platform shoes so his wide-legged stance is less wide but he makes up for it in creepy makeup and epic hat. 

(Nikki is taller than everyone and his hair still makes him taller.)

Every once in a while they let Vince play guitar. But look at the pretty row of orange lights!

This picture is not zoomed in. If I were taller, my eye level would have been around their knees instead of their feet. But still. Rock stars in my face. (Featuring Vince's guitar, which is featuring the Too Fast For Love album cover from 1981.)

Mick Mars looking epic and dark as usual. Lighting contrast!

Nikki Sixx has perfected the well-known "epic guitar playing face" though he plays bass. Because he talks the most out of anyone in the band he comes up front a lot. Please note the magical smoky darkness and publish this photo.

Contrast! Angles! Nikki Sixx playing bass! And looking at me! Depth! Colors! Editorial.

Tommy Lee plays drums so he's far away. Then he plays a disco ball piano for a second and he's closer but that was as close as he got. Still he's awful pretty for almost 50.

I think learning how to be a lighting designer is a lot like going to photography school. Hello, Mick Mars.

Sixx salute, playing bass one-handed, as he does.

Vince making an impressive singing face. (And lots of backlight at lots of angles!)

Tommy Lee upside down. Backlight and media and all that jazz.

Case in point why Mötley puts on a better live show than everybody else and should always headline, because things like this make Def Leppard look lame, even though their music is great.

This is mostly just because I love Nikki Sixx too much. (He got a haircut before this show and Vince kept trying to tousle it, which is kind of funny since the whole point is that it's spiky and messy.)

Hi we are a hard rock band.  I am a lead singer with impressive center stage power. These are my America pants. Yes I want you to look there. Love, Vince Neil.

Nikki Sixx directly in front of me and directly in front of bright lights.

Again with the lights and the angles and the glowing and Mick Mars being epic and hiding his eyes even when he's five feet from my face.

Boys. Mick close enough that I can see how old his arms look, since he's actually 60 and you know, did some drugs or something. (And was born in Indiana and is a Taurus like me!)

This is the end of the show. And it's still epic and they're not even playing music, they're just standing there. Yeah, I could work for them. Rock show lights! Weee!

I Wanna ROCK

And I did. I know I have lots of catching up to do on Rome, Tanger, London, and everyday life but I want to post about the rock concert last night while I'm still dying from it.

So yesterday I traveled via train from London (where I stayed with my friend Kerry) to Birmingham, UK, where I was picked up by Bess, who I had met in Paris. Bess got me to her place where I dumped my travel stuff and freshened up before heading back to the train to go to the show. At the main trainstation where I had to change, I saw a guy dressed like Nikki Sixx with a woman in a catsuit, and so (naturally) I started talking to them since they were obviously going the same place I was and while I didn't mind going on my own, it was nice to have someone to talk to. They were a very sweet engaged British couple from Sutton (no idea where that is) who were very impressed that I was going to the show by myself. Maybe I'm not so much brave as naïve, but we'll go with brave. In any case we had a nice chat all the way to the station, when they then nipped off to the bar for a drink and I headed to the arena.

I got a standing area ticket so I could be close to the stage and therefore went in right away at about 5:40 for the 6:30 show. There was already a decent crowd formed, but I figured I could work my way forward later as I didn't care too much about Steel Panther, the opening band.

As it turns out I rather hate Steel Panther. Their lyrics are incredibly vulgar and lack the thinly veiled metaphors of Mötley's songs that make me laugh. Anyway they were loud and did what an opening band should do - make you really want to see the main acts. I thought Mötley would be last but I could tell by the way changeover was executed that they were going to be next. I guess since Def Lep is the only Brit band on the tour they put them last. Regardless at some point during Steel Panther I got shoved forward a bit by some enthusiastic people who were jumping around, so that by the time their set was over and a few people went out to get a drink in the interval, I was able to get right up to the front. The whole night I could feel the music through my body, through my sternum into my throat. It was incredible.

The billing may have made Def Leppard the headliner but people were definitely most excited about Mötley. At least they were the rowdiest and I had the least space to move during Mötley. They started the same as their tour this summer, interrupting the recorded music with the loudest "Wild Side" ever, and they continued to kick ass for an hour. Their set was shorter than this summer, as they weren't last, and they played three songs they didn't play this summer including two I'm less familiar with because they're from a non-studio album, but it was amazing. I was so close I made eye contact with Nikki Sixx (bassist and my favorite) and Vince Neil, the lead singer. It was even more intense than this summer since I knew all the words to all the songs and it was so loud and in my face and everything a rock show should be.

Mötley ended too soon, of course, but then I got to watch a fascinating deconstruction of their set followed by setup for Def Lep. I have such respect for roadies. (Plus on bad days when I don't want to do theatre, my backup desire is lighting designing Mötley shows.) So that kept me pretty entertained, and then Def Lep played. They sound amazing considering they've been around since the mid-70s, and actually don't look that much older than Mötley even though they've got probably 10 years on them - they probably didn't do quite as many drugs in the 80s. And 90s. I learned last night that I actually only know about 3 Def Lep songs really well and am vaguely familiar with about 5 more. Haha. It was a good time though, and everyone was being all British and whatnot. I could see the sequins on Joe Elliot's shoes. Vivian Campbell smiled at me.

It was interesting to see the differences in style between Def Lep and Mötley. This summer when I saw the Crüe with Poison, Poison was just a slightly tamer version of Mötley - their pyro wasn't quite as impressive and they weren't quite as loud. Def Lep was completely different, no pyro at all and simpler lighting. But none of you probably care very much about the nuances of 80s rock shows in the 21st century, so I'll leave it at that.

I ran into the couple from the train as I was leaving and so we took the train back together. And then I went back to Bess's place, then took a cab to the bus station, a bus to the airport, and a plane to Madrid! Here I am an in the last 12 hours I've been in a plane, a bus, a cab, a train, and three cities. But so worth it.

ROCK. AND. ROLL. timeforclass.

To Barça by Bus

This past weekend I went to Barcelona. It was rather last minute, as I was holding out hopes that my mom would make it. Unfortunately due to various circumstances she isn't here, so I went to Barcelona by myself. Because it was so last minute (like always, here, apparently?) I decided to take the bus instead of flying, because it cost about half as much. And I'm sick of hauling myself to the airport before the sun rises. So instead I went to the bus station before the sun rose. And I took an almost 8 hour bus ride on Friday to Barcelona. It wasn't too bad; I slept some, read The Glass Menagerie for my Lorca class (don't ask), slept some more. Watched the empty Spanish countryside. It's very desert-esque actually. Really dry with shrubs and wimpy trees. And mountains.

Eventually I arrived in Barcelona and figured out where the entrance to the metro was, after being thwarted by some unforeseen construction. Without really any more trouble I made it to the train station of my hostel. So I go out, and start following convenient signs for my hostel. Well, good thing those signs were there because my hostel, it turned out, was in the mountains. On google maps it looked like a short walk up the street to the hostel. Turns out that short walk up the street was actually a ten to fifteen minute steep uphill walk through the woods (but lit, at least). It was actually really pretty and smelled very fresh and, well, woodsy. After all the work to get to the hostel I decided to stay there for the night, do a little Barcelona research to get oriented, and go to bed early and get going early the next morning.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day. It was sunny and in the 70s - t-shirt weather for the first time in a month! The hostel included breakfast, so I ate there and then took the train back into the city center to go on a guided tour of Gaudí's architecture. Gaudí did some reforms to the main altar and some other parts of the cathedral in Mallorca with which I am so in love, and he did a lot of things in Barcelona, where he lived most of his life. It was really cool for me to get to see so many of the places I talked about in my Spanish presentation a month ago. We saw his only public commission, some lampposts in Plaça Reial (back to Catalan land, guys), followed by Palau (Palace) Güell, Casa Batlló, Casa Mila also known as La Pedrera (the stone quarry), and, finally, La Sagrada Familia.

La Sagrada Familia is a huge cathedral 120 years in the making and it's still not finished. Gaudí spent 43 years of his life working on it, and for the last 20 or so it was his only project. My two and a half hour walking tour probably spent at least 45 minutes walking around the very ornate outside of Sagrada Familia, as it has three facades (two of which are done) that depict the life of Jesus. The nativity facade and the passion facades are finished, the glory facade really has yet to be started and in stark contrast with the other two looks a lot like an ugly gray wall. The tour ended there and I got in line to go inside, bought a ticket and an audioguide, and then spent the next three hours walking around the entire building. I don't know what else is on my bucket list, but seeing Sagrada Familia again when it's finished is now officially on it. It's awfully beautiful for a building that's only maybe 2/3 done. Of course, some of the stained glass has been installed and that's all I really need. There's so much to say about La Sagrada Familia but pictures are really necessary. (I'm going to try reaaaallllyyy hard to get caught up on pictures today and tomorrow, somehow while I'm writing two papers.)

When I finally made myself leave - a benefit and curse of traveling alone is no one ever makes you leave things you like - I walked what was probably at least two miles (I had no sense of scale on the map I got at the hostel) to Parc Güell, also designed by Gaudí. It was nice to see some of Barcelona as I made my way to the park, which is at the top of a hill and provides a nice view of the city where I watched the sun set and wrote some postcards. Then since it was getting rather dark I decided to head back to the hostel, where I got some homework done and made some plans for Sunday.

Sunday I tried to go to mass at the parish church of La Sagrada Familia (church isn't held regularly in the basilica) but got tossed back and forth by signs pointing in opposite directions and I never found an entrance or anyone to help me. So instead I went and sat on the docks by the sea and did some writing. Then I went back to Plaça Reial for a walking tour of the old city. My tour guide's name was Gorki and he was from Bilbao, in northern Spain. He was really cheerful and funny We saw one of the oldest Gothic churches in Europe, the Jewish quarter, and a lot of tiny streets and such. Half an hour into the tour, though, it started to rain. And it didn't stop. Sometimes it let up, and if we walked close to the walls under balconies, we stayed pretty dry. (My water proof not-quite-Leather jacket helped.) We made it through about 2/3 of the tour before our guide gave up after we tried to wait out the storm inside a building for 20 minutes.

On my own I went to see Santa Maria del Mar, a famous church that was really pretty, and then I went in search of lunch. I found the café that Alejandro had recommended to me, Bosque de los Hades, Forest of the Fairies (which is kind of like Rainforest Cafe but less aggressive and prettier) but they didn't really have much real food so I kept looking and ended up eating at a little place close to where the walking tours started, which was organic or something but cheap. I got a crepe with apples, cinnamon, and almond, and a cappuccino to warm up. (I spent the day walking around in wet shoes. No fun.)

After lunch I headed to the Picasso Museum, which is free after 3 on Sundays. I waited in a line probably as long as a New York avenue block, but it moved pretty fast and I had time to enjoy the museum before my night plans. It was really interesting to see the evolution of Picasso's style, although I saw a lot of it out of order because the floor plan of the museum is really confusing. I wish I had had more time there, but I had a little subway trouble getting there and I wanted to leave myself plenty of time after because I had exciting plans for the evening.

Sunday night I went to see a musical called Cop de Rock which is Catalan for "Time of Rock." It's a musical of 80s Catalan classic rock, I think basically their equivalent of Rock of Ages. I had an AMAZING time. I only understood like every tenth word of the dialogue, because Catalan is more like a combination of Portuguese and French than it is related to Spanish, but I followed the whole story. And the music was great, and everyone in the audience was really into it. The choreography was probably the most enjoyable part, as it was a bizarre mix of West Side Story meets Elvis meets contemporary hip hop plus a little bit of stereotypical 80s rock star posing. I bought the cheapest seats (and got a discount for being under 25) but was able to move a lot closer once the show started, so I had a pretty good seat, and had a blast. I've now seen theatre in three languages I don't understand.

After the show I headed to the bus station a little early just to make sure I knew how to get there and had time to eat something and whatnot before heading back to Madrid. Our bus left at 11pm and I had the misfortune of sitting in front of the only unhappy baby on the bus. It didn't help that my iPod battery was almost dead because I had been counting on an outlet to plug it into on the bus, since I'd had one on the way there, and there weren't any on this otherwise-identical bus. I did get some sleep off and on, and eventually made it back to Madrid around 7 am, before sunrise. I took the metro home and slept happily in my bed for a few hours before getting up to go to class.

And that was Barcelona! A really fun couple of days. So glad I decided to go, but I still really wish my mom could have been there. She would have loved how colorful it is.

This weekend I'm going to Roma! So excited for lots of gelato, pizza, and pasta, the Coliseum, hopefully some Opera, so much art...

Tomorrow if I have time I'm going to write more about my Spanish family, with whom I am totally in love. I also realized I never talked about Columbus Day, and last week I took a day trip to Toledo, so there's still much to report!

UU Rave!

Guys guys guys, Brian's here! After crazy travel delays and nearly 48 hours that sound like an episode or two of the Amazing Race, he has arrived, in the flesh. I picked him up last night from the airport after a little adventure of my own...

So before the program started, NYU sent us numerous packets of information including which airlines fly into which terminals at Madrid-Barajas airport. Brian's flight confirmation that he sent me didn't list a terminal, so I looked it up on my info from August, because I'm OCD and keep that stuff, even though I'm here now and don't need to be told how to arrive. It said that Aeroflot (which I can't say without giggling a little) flew into terminal 4. So, off I go on my merry way of three metro trains, including riding the 8 from one end to the other, to terminal 4 of the airport (which is two metro stops past T1-T2-T3).

At this point it is 10:30 and Brian's plane should have landed 5 minutes ago. However. I consult the arrivals boards and see no Aeroflot (giggle) flights listed anywhere. After 20 minutes of searching, I find an information desk upstairs at departures and ask (in horrific Spanish, as it's now almost 11pm and I'm really confused) where Aeroflot is. Terminal 1! Wooo!

So I get on a free shuttle bus and one almost-15-minute bus ride later arrive somewhere in departures of terminal 1. 5 minutes later I figure out how to get down to arrivals to see that Brian's flight is arriving at 11:30, an hour later than scheduled, but now all of 15 minutes away.

Of course by the time Brian and I actually reunite (after he calls me via the Spanish cell phone of someone he met on the plane), it is 11:51, and the 11:50 airport express bus has just left, and the next one doesn't leave until something like 3 am. So we walk through half the airport back to the metro and take our three trains home. We had a nice time catching up though and actually ended up talking for another couple hours until past 3 am at home.

Today we had quite the Spanish day - I had class in the afternoon (Brian got up a little after 11, just before I left), during which time Brian explored Retiro park. Upon my return we went to lunch just down the street at a great place called Los Rotos where we tried two different dishes and then had muerte por chocolate - death by chocolate - cake for dessert. So delicious.

We then hauled ourselves back up my stairs and spent the afternoon planning the rest of our week and watching a ridiculous show on telemundo called Aurora. From what I gathered everyone was related and also in love with someone who loved someone else.

Tonight we went to live jazz at Cafe Central just up the street, where I had been once before. We heard "el cantante de jazz de España," the jazz singer of Spain, but he sang 95% of his songs in English and I deduced by about halfway through the night that they all spoke perfect English and sounded American. All their songs also started with 1,2,3,4 not uno, dos, tres, cuatro. He was really charismatic and a great showman though, and Brian and I both thoroughly enjoyed the evening. My favorite part was when he for some reason sang "I Am What I Am," which, as far as I know, is only a song from La Cage Aux Folles, which, for those of you who don't know, is based on the same play as the movie The Birdcage (starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, and Hank Azaria). So here I am sitting in a cafe in Madrid and a pseudo-Spaniard is singing a Broadway song normally sung by a man in drag about being okay with being a drag queen and everyone else should be okay with it too. I had a great time.

After the jazz show we went to San Gines for the most famous chocolate con churros in Madrid and happened to meet two people from... Chicago. Seriously. Park Ridge and Forest Park. (Between Brian being from Oak Park/River Forest and me being from Park Forest... I think we got all the major words of Chicago suburb names covered.) We had a nice chat with them, found out about a great place to get mojitos (which happens to be... under my building), and recommended a few places to them for the rest of their visit, which is through Thursday. What a crazy coincidence. TINY world. Travel safe, Augie and Diane!

So, it's now almost 1:30 and I have to leave for class in about 7 hours so I should sleep. Updates on the rest of this week (and my enjoyable weekend) soon, but we have some packed days coming up! ¡Arrrrrriba! (That's really just an irrelevant Spanish exclamation.)

Extremadura y Portugal Part I

I return, triumphant and exhausted, from Extremadura and Portugal! Many pictures are soon to come, but as uploading and editing over 100 photos will take a lot of time (and I am, as I said, exhausted and, in addition, have homework to do) so I'm going to summarize via narrative for now.

Friday, 23.9.11
Got up around 6:45, finished up the last bits of packing one must always do the morning of the trip and not before. Made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to eat on the bus for whenever my stomach eventually woke up. Left with Nidhi around 7:15 for the bus stop that's just down the street from us to take us to school. Ran into three other kids from the program on the same bus. Arrived at school just before 8, sat in a cloudy haze in our patio until we got on the bus. We were supposed to leave at 8:15, but of course we left somewhere around 8:30, lacking three of the thirty people that were supposed to be coming.

After about two hours of driving through surprisingly dull countryside (well, I mostly slept so I guess I don't really know) we stopped at some random truck stop-type place and some people had coffee and croissants or something. I ate my sandwich, much to the envy of many around me because peanut butter here is hard to find and expensive. (I'm lucky because Nidhi brought a huge jar from home, though we've gone through probably 2/3 of it already.) 20-30 minutes later we got back on the bus, I went back to sleep, and two hours later we arrived in Mérida.

Mérida, Spain, is an old town with Roman ruins. I either forgot or never really knew that Rome's empire used to include the Iberian peninsula, so there are parts of Spain that look like what I suppose a lot of Italy looks like. We saw an aqueduct, an amphitheatre (for gladiator fights), and best of all and possibly the highlight of the trip for me (on Friday early afternoon), a Roman theatre from the second century. It was a pretty spiritual moment for me to be in such a place, to know that nearly 2000 years ago in the place where I stood people were performing, and it was theatre in its original intent - both entertainment and an offering to the gods. A connection of humanity and higher powers. I wished we could have spent more time there, or that I could have sat there for even a few moments alone. But we had to move on.

Lunch in Mérida was unfortunately probably the most disappointing meal I've ever eaten. I got the menu del día, which is a fixed price (in this case 10 euros, but there was really nothing cheaper) three course meal that is generally a good deal because of how much food you get. We had local wine, which was mediocre, and each of us tried a different appetizer, most of which were different kinds of vegetables that seemed to have been dumped out of a can onto our plates and mixed with ham. (Because 99.9% of food in Spain is mixed with ham.) I had mushrooms with garlic and ham. It tasted okay, but the mushrooms definitely were not from a local market or anything. My main course was pork (I think grilled?) with a little salad. The meat actually didn't taste that bad but it wasn't warm. Most of us ordered ice cream for desert, which turned out to be the best part of the meal, and it was only little yogurt-sized prepackaged Nestle ice cream. Haha. Oh well. Win some, lose some, I guess.

After lunch, those three stray people who had missed the bus showed up (they took a different bus and met us there, finally), and we got back on the bus and headed to Cáseres, where we stayed for the weekend. Our hotel was so nice. Possibly the nicest place I've stayed, though it's not really comparable to some of the suites I've been in with my family. And breakfast at the hotel Saturday and Sunday morning was great. I roomed with a girl named Vella and we got along fine and had a few nice chats and lunch together Saturday. I also watched a little Spanish TV, which was fun.

After a brief break at the hotel to get situated and rest just a little, we went on a walking tour of the old quarter of Cáceres, which is a walled city that looks like it's still in the 15th century because they've kept it that way. We saw an old church and lots of towers and of course narrow streets and there were many stairs. All of Spain is hilly, and when that is combined with tall towers and castles and things, it's quite a workout. I'm from Illinois, part of the great plains, and as far as I was concerned, we were in mountain territory. But I asked Carlos, our guide, and he said hills. So. Technical term.

Post-tour was small dinner time, because it was only about 7:30, which is too early for real Spanish dinner, and we weren't terribly hungry yet. I ate with some friends and we all had bocadillos, which are sandwiches on baguettes. I actually thought I was just getting tortilla española (the potato/onion/egg dish), but I got that on bread. Which was alright. Definitely filled me up, and I didn't eat anything else that night. Actually, I got a terrible headache and instead of going out Friday night I went to bed really early.

Saturday 24.9.11
Got up at 8 feeling great and took the best shower ever. Got a funny wakeup call from the front desk at 8:30. Went down to the amazing breakfast buffet at 9. I ate a lot of mini croissants, some cereal, yogurt, fresh melon, fresh orange juice, and COFFEE. I've had so little coffee here because a cafe con leche is pretty small and doesn't really affect me at all. At this point I just want coffee because I like it, not because I need it. (I broke my caffeine addiction this summer! YAY! We'll see how long that lasts once I'm back in NYC. I give it a week.)

Around 9:30 we started the slow process of getting everyone assembled to get on the bus to go to Portugal. We were supposed to leave at 9:45 and I think left at more like 10:15. On the way we watched Gladiator, which I had never seen and actually really enjoyed, minus the extremely gory parts. Something like two hours later we arrived in Castelo de Vide which does indeed have a big castle. We were let free for half an hour to have coffee and pastries (which I guess Portugal is known for. Apparently) and I succeeded in making up for Friday's awful lunch. I tried something called Bola de Bachegas (I think) that was a coffee-cake-mousse-chocolate-tiramisu-esque slice of deliciousness. We sat out on a little terrace and had an amazing view of a valley and some hills/mountains.

Post-coffee we toured the Jewish quarter, saw a church, and visited a castle. Everywhere we turned in the town there were amazing views. More on all that with the pictures. Lunch was paid for by NYU (for once) at a place called Do Parque, where we had traditional Portuguese food. There was a plate of (very strongly flavored) traditional Portuguese cheese, bread, chorizo (which I skipped - there are some things my almost-10-years-vegetarian self still can't handle, and bright red fatty looking slices of sausage are one of them), and olives. We had local wine, a vegetable soup that was delicious, and then a cod/onion/egg hash that mostly tasted like eggs with a salad. For desert we had a custard with caramelized sugar on top which was also really good.

We departed Castelo de Vide and headed a short distance away up a hill (mountain) to Marvâo (new fancy symbol!) and saw ANOTHER castle. More stairs. More climbing. I made up for 20 years of flat-land living in one weekend, I swear. More about that castle when I have the pictures. Eventually we left Marvâo and headed back to Cáceres for the evening.

I went to a medieval(esque) market/festival with some people (after getting severely lost and eventually successfully asking for and understanding directions), which was interesting; I didn't buy anything and we mostly wandered a lot. When I got back I went out for a small dinner and a drink with Nidhi and our friend Emily. We had the slowest service I've ever experienced (which, in Spain, is saying something, because it's always slow), but we had a nice time chatting and the food was cheap, filling, and flavorful.

After dinner we met up with a bunch of people and found a bar where we had a few shots together. (Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read about me drinking. Haha.) I tried absinthe for the first time. It was really gross; tasted like black licorice or jelly beans. Must somehow involve anise. Fortunately I had a (pretty weak) tequila shot after. And I actually didn't get even tipsy off of my unspecified number of shots (which were all the same liquor except for the absinthe, because I'm responsible! Yay!). They were probably all kind of watered down because they were really cheap.

We left the bar (I wasn't drunk, in case you skipped the last paragraph) and went to a discotequa (club) that the cute guy at the hotel reception desk recommended to us. It was about 1:30 when we got there (and got in for free thanks to saying Raúl sent us). Guys. NO ONE was there. We were the only people until about 2:30. Literally. But it was really fun, we took up the whole dance floor and probably looked like fools. The DJ played a lot of American dance music that even I knew some of. Any of that music that I know though is because my brother listens to it, so it made me miss him. (The only American music I hear here is top 40 stuff which I always only know because Sam likes it.) ¡Te amo, hermanito! We danced at the club until about 3:30 and then we all walked home. Just enough time for a few hours sleep before one more day of fun.

Sunday 25.9.11
Repeat of Saturday morning, then we loaded everything on the bus and started heading back towards Madrid. A short bus ride later we stopped in basically the middle of nowhere and went to a random art museum in what used to be a wool factory. More on that with the pictures too.

We got back on the bus and drove two hours to Oropesa (while watching Spanglish) and after some miraculous turns and squeezing through tiny streets in our giant bus, we stopped to quickly view yet another castle and then to eat lunch. I do have to note that I seriously felt like I was on the Knight Bus for a few minutes when we made it through one of the tiniest streets I have ever seen - there were maybe five inches between my window and the wall outside. Nothing too notable about lunch (another menu del dia - with very salty food) other than that there were a couple of really cute but probably stray kittens wandering around, one of whom spent a good 20 minutes circling our table under our chairs.

I slept on the bus back to Madrid, two more hours. They were nice and made a stop at the southern side of the center of the city in addition to the final stop at school, so I was lucky enough to get off the bus just ten or so minutes from my apartment. Which was about three and a half hours ago now... This is what I get for being detail-oriented (and also talking to a couple friends as I write this). Plus trying to talk to my friend in Spanish while also writing in English... my brain is getting a lot better at flipping between the two languages, but sometimes random words will come out in the wrong one. I guess that's a good sign, actually! Anyway, I'm exhausted, and it's about time for some dinner, or some kind of food that hopefully requires no effort.

Buenas noches, amigos. I hope you are all well and that I will hear from you soon! I miss you mucho and send love from España!