Un invierno hace muchos aňos, hice un viaje el día de nochevieja, a las montaňas de la zona oeste de Republica Checa. La zona se llamaba Jeseníky. Este cuento no ex exactamente sobre mí, es sobre mi compaňero de viaje. Ěl se llamaba Christopher.

Hicimos el viaje por una de mis amigas checas. Ella tenía una cabaňa en los montaňas y me invitó allí. Me dijo que mi amigo podía venir conmigo, ya que me estaba visitando. Fuimos en tren desde Praga al pueblo cerca de la cabaňa. Tuvimos que esperar dos horas en un restaurante hasta que un coche vino a recogernos.

Como he dicho, nuestro viaje fue durante el fin de aňo y a las montaňas. Bueno, puedes creérte que las temperatura estaba bajo cero y había nieve en todos los lugares. La mayoría de la gente en la cabaňa estaba allí para esquiar. Sin embargo, Christopher y yo no esquiábamos, pero teníamos que entretenernos. Jugábamos a las cartas y fumábamos cigarillos mientras hablábamos.

Bueno, el cuento va así:

Una tarde, los esquiadores regresaron temprano por una tormenta. Todos nos sentamos juntos para jugar algo (yo no me acuerdo el tipo de juego). Al final, el juego cambió las cartas por pintas y chupitos. Algo que también aňadió alegría fue que Christopher no hablaba Checo y en ese tiempo, yo no lo hablaba muy bien. Además, solo algunos de los checos hablaban inglés.

Después de unas horas, empezé a estar cansado y me fuí a la cama de la planta de arriba, pero Christopher se quedó. Pasoron algunas horas y finalmente mi amigo regresó a nuestra habitación. Pero algo no iba bien. Todos las partes de su cuerpo tiritaban y no podía estar de pie. Al principio, pensé que él estaba borracho, pero estaba equivocado.

Escucha esto, después del juego, los checos y Christopher decidieron ir a nadar al río. Recuerda querido, que estábamos en pleno invierno. La experiencia fue demaciada intensa para él, y después de unos minutos, corrió a la cabaňa a través de la nieve sin sus zapatos. Todavía hoy, no puede tocar algunas partes de sus pies. Me sentí afortunado por irme a la cama a tiempo.

Ok, I am wating for this woman who seemes to care for me. I don’t know what to do but write, a bit.

I’d like to listen to music right now. She doesn’t at all. She called. She was missed. Of course, that is a lie, but I’ll remember it.

I’m listenening to “Time” right now… As I tread the halls of sanity. Fuck! I am with Teresa again. Stupid girl. She should have been with me.

I think she was driving. We listened to this song. Fucking Fort Stockton. She was a good girl, though possibly possessed with an absurdity by believing that West Texas was the only place in the universe. Heh. Sort of like my parents.

I called her from El Paso, months later, and she smited me. She told me she was married. I guess I was depressed at the moment, and also from her words. I died a bit at that moment. I remember. I sat down and wrote music. I’m not sure if the music was good or bad, but that was the only thing I could do. She inspired so many things.

FUCK TERESA!

That’s the way life’s meant to be.

The final dream I had this morning after a moderately restless night was about my parents. They stood in front of me, side by side. I was the one that did most of the talking / shouting.

I’ve had similar dreams in the past and they are never pleasant. I usually wake up feeling very disturbed. The sensation takes a few minutes to fade. The story is usually similar. I am ranting at them about my psychological state and how it was spawned wholly from my upbringing. Oh, and from the pit of dispair called Fort Stockton, Texas where I was forced to grow up.

Sure, it is impossible for a child to choose the place where he / she / it is raised, but the parents can give it some thought. When they have choices, this is especially the case. My parents had many choices for work before and immediately after I was adopted. They chose a shithole called Fort Stockton, Texas. See, they had both been raised in small towns in West Texas, as had their parents, grandparents, and on into infinity. So, naturally, unable to see past their own upbringing and incite a change in the firing patters of their synapses, my brother and I were stuck in another small, West Texas cage called Fort Stockton, Texas.

As I said, I was ranting at them in the dream. I blamed my inability to interact with other people socially in a normal manner on them. I blamed my paranoia that I have to keep at bay every day on them. And lastly, I blamed the constant feeling of reservation and guilt at pretty much anything I do on them. I’m not indicating actions that a well adjusted person would feel guilty for, but the residual feeling of guilt at anything I do, no matter its implication. They mostly answered with what I have heard my whole life: We raised you the best we knew how, Son.

That’s not good enough.

I have written before about all of this, but it is still not out of my system. I was kept in a virtual cage whilst I was growing up - even up to my last years in high school. My first real feeling of freedom was when I went to university in Austin.

Oh! What a feeling!

She won’t let you fly but she might let you sing. I could relate to Roger Waters’ lyrics immensely when I was in high school. I was not allowed to go out after school hours. I was huddled with a book in my bed, instead. My only social interactions were AT school. Most weekends, I was forced to go to Seminole to my grandparents’ with my mom and dad and of course I knew no-one there. I was huddled with a book in the bed there, too.

The end result was a social misfit.

They were trying to protect me from the herd. They said as much in the dream and possibly in past dreams, too. I don’t think they used those exact words in real life, however. Afraid of Fort Stockton, Texas’s culture of drugs, sex and alcohol, my parents conceptually locked me in a jail. I was given a daily vacation (during the weekdays) to go to school. Did they not expect to me to try to express myself somehow during these free times? There is no wonder I attempted to make my own way amidst the seething masses in that institution, most of whom thought I was a freak (since I never attended social events).

I don’t necessarily condone a culture of constant drugs, sex and alcohol, but I understand why it existed in putrescent Fort Stockton, Texas. What else were the children and adolescents going to do? Read a book? Heh. Most were uninterested in literature, to be honest. When there is no other stimulation, and you are not a Buddhist Monk, most like to party.

Again, lastly, the guilt. Every small misdemeanor it school landed me with, prior to high school, a beating with a belt. During high school, they landed me with severe psychological lashings. I was berated. I was made to feel like shit. I was always guilty until proven innocent.

There, there. Years have passed. I’m healing, but very slowly.

As I have stated numerous times in my handwritten journals, and under these same circumstances, I have certainly neglected this poor journal. I’d say that it won’t happen again, but that would be a blatant blight against future reality. Of course it will happen again. I am negligent. I lapse. I am just a small, cute pine marten, so what in the name of the deity mustelid’s holy tracks along the bank of the Ebro do you expect?

I begin this entry whilst waiting for 17.00 to roll around - for siesta to end on this chatter-filled Friday. I need to buy an adapter at the local electronics market that converts HDMI to a normal RGB plug. You see, Marisa has left her projector with me. It happens to be a very ancient piece of equipment that doesn’t recognize these new-fangled cables. And much to her dismay yesterday evening, we could not connect the confounded device to my ultra-modern laptop. She ended up calling her son to bring her laptop to us so we could watch the film she insisted was one of the Spanish greats. This Spanish great turned out to be a romantic comedy that was somewhat funny. My favourite genre of films is not romantic comedy, however, as most readers might assume. Hopefully I can expand her horizons movie-wise in the future.

Now I am off to get that adapter. IF they have it. If not - fuck um.

The wheels are turning beneath me again - this time towards Michal:

A hunched being sits opposite me, reminding me of a hunchbacked Viking. His hair is crookedly parted in the middle, almost falling in almost curls to his shoulders. He’s wearing a suit, and is possibly bound for a funeral in Tabor or České Budějovice (the latter being our destination).

Beside him, with a mostly erect spine, is a young Czech Chick writing message after message on her mobile phone. I’d guess she’s studying in Praha and going home to commingle with family during this fat and festering Velikonoce. Her eyes were closed in either deep contemplation or profound vacuousness and I snapped a photo. She has smiled at mine and Christián’s antics so far. Taking her to the toilet for a swift swab could be a swell(ing) idea.

The remaining occupants (besides Christián and myself) are haggard hags, and hardly merit mentioning.

Being in Praha once again is a transition for me. My time in Logroňo taught me how to be solitary - not that I needed a lesson, as I am a mustelid and all mustelids are solitary creatures (excepting those Mother Of Jesus’s Slime-Spawn otters). Praha is teaching me once again that I do need the company of others to flourish in life. I too often, when left to simply my own devices for lengths of time, begin to, as a wise man once said, drown in a pool of emotions I’ve melted down. The amusing fact is that the emotions creating the pool are unknown to me initally. They simply don’t exist. They come into being, as if from the vacuum or the quantum soup.

When I return to La Rioja on Wednesday, I’ll be a different person. I’ll pursue my days in a different manner. I’ll fill them up with more creativity. I’ll not flitter about aimless in my flat or on the streets or in cafés with two or more empty cups of café con leche in front of me.

I know I shall not achieve it, but I shall try to create something / anything every day. It is an endevour.

Fuck um. Sloní maso?

We appeared, at this height, like a spreading lichen, a ravaging bloom of algae, a mould enveloping a soft fruit - we were such a wild success. Up there with the spores!

I’m reading Solar by Ian McEwan and this quote comes from that tome. I laughingly use the term tome as the data that is the book resides on my telephone in a special format created by rodents that spend their non-waking hours clinging to the inner linings of the nostrils of yuppies.

In juxtaposition, I am passing a field of solar panels on the train as I type this. They also are spread like lichen on the field of a stone. Their point, though they take up space just as humans continue to, is to provide more life for our aching planet, as oppose to consume it greedily. It’s still quite an ideal to harvest the energy from the sun in an efficient manner, but I wear a semi-smile / semi-smirk that it is happening to any extent at all.

Now I am thinking of the contrast between the human spread in European cities, which is dense and creeping slowly, to the human spread in, for example, Texas, where natured space is transformed to human habitation in huge snatches. The progress of civilization takes enormous bites. Europeans seem to me they have more of a grip on the serenity of untouched spaces. Or, these thoughts may be spawned from my deeply rooted belief that Texans are all cunts.

I awakened with a moderate headache that waned so quickly that minutes later, I figured it was just the remnants of a forgotten dream. A dream about Mustelids? Perhaps of Job Frustration? Or of Hynek’s cat Gnawing On My Patella During A Particularly Heavy Slumber? I’m going to go with the latter since I saw the feline quickly leaving the scene as my eyelids fluttered. Luckily, after Hynek and Nina left for their respective tasks (to transport his semi-paralised father and to take the infant to the doctor for vaccinations, respectively), I roasted the monstrosity of a chewing beast after basting it in a rosemary / dill sauce. The result was yummy, though the cleanup took out a good amount of my morning.

I began my walk at Hynek and Nina’s place. I’d spent the night with them, obviously. They were most gracious and I count them both as close friends. My European friends far outnumber my North American ones. Ain’t that special? I ended up at Restaurant Baterka, where I await Christián who had to scrub blood, fecal and urine stains from his clothing before being presentable for the world. I hope he has not been caught or I’ll have to bust him out of prison again. Last time nearly got both of us tossed into a collosal meat grinder and made into sausage to be shipped out to the poor in Southeast Asia, Mongolia and Northern Louisiana.

(at Hynek and...)
(Restaurant Baterka)
(Christián)

Hynek and Nina live just around the corner to this sign. In the deep, dark past, Hynek (but not Nina, since she did not exist yet) took me to the Computer Crypt, which was located on this street, though I forget exactly where. It was (I use the past tense because I am unsure if it still exists) a place where a group of geeks got together and played computer games, hacked various networks around the Czech Republic and most likely Slovakia, and drank until they were prone or supine on the cigarette littered floor. There was a full bar, you see. Honza Stanek was one of the creators of the establishment. He worked with Hynek and I at my first job in Prague, EIN. EIN is a meandering other story that I will not attempt at the moment - only that its blessing for me is that it introduced me to Hynek and Honza. The Computer Crypt was very impressive indeed.

The Computer Crypt also hosted parties occasionally. One such party was sometime during early December of 1999, shortly before Magdalena and I went for a sojourn to the states (also a story for another time, though I am sure it is pretty well documented in one of my handwritten journals and will find its way into this blog eventually). Magdalena bowed out of the party early and went home, leaving me there to enjoy the rest of the evening without a beartrap clinging to my left ankle. That night, I met Dana Procházková and eventually left Magdalena for her.

A side note.

Procházková is based on the word procházka. It signifies stroll or walk. I also was with a girl with the last name Rychlíková, a name that is based on rychlý, signifying quick or fast. A stroll is usually something done without the thought of hurrying. Miss Procházkova was a very gentle and reserved young woman. She had a hard time hurrying into a relationship, despite my urgings. In contrast, Miss Rychlíchová pretty much wanted to swab on our first meeting. I practically had to hold her back. She was running.

I continued my stroll towards the sculpted park of Stramovka, but before I descended into its treed, squirreled and skimpily-dressed-femaled depths, I made a short nostalgic detour.

The Commercial Agency of the Russian Federation is just behind this street sign. Had I my wonder tool with me, I’d have stolen it. I’d have mounted it, along with the remaining bones of the roasted cat, on a plaque and placed it above Hynek’s computer. He’d appreciate the gesture, I am sure.

(wonder tool)

I am not certain what goes on at the Commercial Agency of the Russian Federation, but I can guess that it involves a great amount of борщ, водка and проститутки. I AM pretty certain that they would not notice their street sign missing until centuries later.

Christián has arrived, but now he is having one of his seven to eleven times daily bowel voidings. He and I used to visit the small train stations scattered about Praha (much like this one) from time to time, sometimes during a journey and sometimes just for the swab of it. Usually attached to these small stations is a herna - no, that is not exactly correct. Usually attached to these small stations is a hospůdka - a small pub where old men and infants alike sit waiting for their train, sucking down half litre of beer after half litre of beer. We did the same.

We were one with them.

I sauntered down the slightly sloping path towards the portion of Stramovka north of the railroad tracks, then along Malá Říčka. The area was sparsely populated. I expected joggers, women performing yoga on the grass and swooping albatrosses, but I was más o menos solitary. I didn’t mind. It is the path to Troja, the Zoo and the Botanical Gardens. If you peruse the map, you can see a path perpendicular to Za Elektrárnou that leads to Cisařský Ostrov. It is a place of horses and humans who tend them.

(Stramovka)

The date on this entry is a misnomer (a word that Hynek informed me yesterday that does not exist in Czech). It’s now Friday, the 18th. Oh well. Fuck um. I was interrupted by Christián and his incessant babbling, carousing and narcissism.

Yesterday, during my walk, I did not pass over the bridge onto Cisařský Ostrov much less make my way to the Zoo. I’d like to before my time is over here, however.

After passing through a short tunnel beneath the train tracks, I encountered this oddly mangled fence. Beyond was the double track of vehicle ruts that ended abruptly in some ten metres. I proceeded to stroll through the more populous parts of the park. Spandex clad women jogged whilst white cables attached their ears to some unknown device. They trod to the beat. I am happy I did not hear that beat. Seeing it replicated in such a manner made me slightly nauseous.

I’ve often conversed about the plodding 4/4 of drum&bass, techno, house and most contemporary pop music, all of which feature the throbbing beat as the consistent frontal element (excepting possibly the last, as banal melodies sung by badly yodeling kurvy are also frontal). I have no problem with repitition and mesmerization in music, but I feel there is a point, where there is nothing more important than a frontal 4/4 beat, when mesmerization becomes hypnosis and then brainwashing. There are diminishing returns! Feeding the brain alcohol is a more pleasurable way to destroy precious mental processes, baby.

Ecstatic canines, tethered to rollerblading youths, eagerly nipped at passers-by but were always, at the last moment, tugged out of range. I passed the planetarium to which I have never been. I lingered for a moment within range of the outdoor pub where I saw Psí Vojací an infinite number of years ago. I cannot remember who I was with, but I suspect it may have been the other Renata - the one of Skanzen fame. Filip Topol is a dead mustelid. And he died very young - I believe at forty-seven. I’d look it up but I’m a lazy mustelid.

(Psí Vojací)
(Skanzen)

I peered into the front gates of Vystaviště at the concert hall where Jeníček and I saw Akvarium. That was in the summer of 2000, during which thousands of bizarre events occurred. Ah, Sweet Entropy - come again for me soon.

(Vystaviště)
(Akvarium)

Photo before last, I was standing at the tram stop that usually takes one to Ortenovo Náměstí, Maniny and beyond. The cunts were, however, in the middle of what I might have termed in my youth as road destruction, though in reality here it is track destruction, as in tram tracks. So, I awaited a bus that sadly substituted for tram twelve. Since I am a lazy mustelid and could have walked, I disembarked at the following stop. The above photo is of the actual train station in the distance. My fleshy form stood atop the metro station as I awaited yet another bus to take me to the aformentioned Maniny. However, since I am a lazy mustelid, I disembarked once again at the following stop, the aforementioned Ortenovo Náměstí. Feeling nostalgic again, I cruised over to the area in which I once lived with Habosh. Christián and I were originally going to meet at Hamburg, but it was full of yuppie scum, so I decided for the place that inspired the subject line of this entry, another restaurant full of yuppie scum. Bastards.

(Ortenovo Náměstí)
(Maniny)
(Hamburg)

Today, which I mentioned is the following day from the date of this entry, we are sitting in another café / pub full of YUPPIE SCUM and fucking foreigners. It’s called, as you may have guessed from context, The Globe. In fact, when I first arrived to Praha in 1998, The Globe was a place of refuge. It was located in another place, however, one of which I shall not at this time disclose. I went there every night and had exactly four glasses of red wine whilst writing in my leatherbound journal (the one sitting on my bookshelf in Logroňo this very second). Additionally, I lusted after the waitress. My shyness kept any progress with her beyond courtesy at bay. Now I cannot picture her face. Well, it was approximately 57 years ago, so what do I expect?

(The Globe)

The cubbyhole we’ve found in The Globe is rather condusive to writing, as I carry on my tradition of doing so in this place. We are also swilling pivo, but that is to be expected, unlike me remembering my ex-waitress’s face. We are outcasts in a café for the special expat in crowd. The others mill about, socialise, laugh and insert small rodents in their nostrils as we sit alone, ensconsed in our cubbyhole - shrouded in private worlds. Fuck um.

The first night I spent at Hynek and Nina’s - two nights ago - I had a long conversation with Hynek about the situation, or more - the enviornment, of the job he had just quit. Well, to be truthful, I mostly listened, nodded, grunted and inserted small rodents into my nostrils whilst Hynek soliloquised.

His situation at said job mirrored closely the situation I found myself in last year at Stonecrop in Boston. A human he dubbed David gave him and others vague instructions as to what to develop and simply stated that it must be done by a certain date. Hynek described it as a sort of UI for deploying cloud servers and found the idea rather useless in general since the deployment (how I despise that word and all of its derivatives) could be done manually by a competent system administrator ONCE and not have to be redone for … well … ages, really. We didn’t get into the details of the application, but only his opinion of its general pointlessness.

The application had to be ready for its clients by the end of this month. He claimed the point in development had been static for months. By no means possible would they complete it in fifteen or so days. He was laughing as he said this. I was, too. Even Nina was laughing. Well, a bit.

He was tasked to create a schedule with precise dates as a sort of ladder of completion (my words). I imagine such a task could be very stressful since it is completely absurd.

The conversation drifted to the space between management and development (or tech people in general). David never had time to clarify or provide specifics on any facet of the application he demanded from the lower echelons of the firm. There was a disparity in knowledge. David seemed to be regarded as the idea man and the conduit to cash (my words). I suppose the tech people were just grunts. Sheep, if you will. Replaceable. I’ve seen this attitude beginning with 1 2 Snap in Munich and continuing through many employments. The fact is, what is brought to the table (Jesus, mother of the wildest of mustelids, I despise that phrase) by the grunts is not akin at all to what is brought to the table by, say, a human atomaton on an assembly line. Programmers, system administrators, rodents residing in the nostrils of yuppies and the like have an innate creativity and ability to contribute to a project if they are allowed.

But, mock the management: FUCK UM.

Nina suggested that a middle man could be employed as a go-between - an intermediary. He / She would be technical enough to interpret the management / buiness assholes’ wishes more concisely to the grunts. He’d be half business asshole and half grunt. A hybrid! Imagine it!

I countered that he / she would eventually gravitate to one side or the other (most likely not to the grunts) and have to be replaced. The replacement would have to be replaced, ad infinitum. And, as an intermediary between the big guys and the grunts, he’d be the narrow waist of an hourglass. Jeremy, Ryan and I talked at length about this concept, even presenting it to the intermediary (who actually knew just about shit about tech matters) at Stonecrop. It did no good, of course.

Hynek followed up that the business assholes would be doing business things most of the time and maybe reach out to the intermediary during 1% of the rest of their time. The grunts may reach out a higher percentage of the time, say even 50%, but possibly never enough. Hynek was cynical. I can relate, though.

Fuck um.

As Christián once again attends to his seven to eleven times daily fecal ritual, I begin my first entry whilst in the magnificent city of Praha. I am at U Zavěšenýho Kafe.

(U Zavěšenýho Kafe)

As Christián returns from one of his seven to eleven times daily fecal ritual, I continue my first entry whilst in the magnificent city of Praha. I’ve been here before - in this café, that is. However, it was very long ago and I do not recall the details or even with whom I was. I suspect that it was Renata. It may also have been Hela, but I doubt it. We’ll go with Renata, since she lived near Hradčanská and insisted on always hanging out in her own barrio.

Had I convinced the very lazy and recently gluteally violated Christián to ascend further onto Uvoz and then to Pohořelec, I would have encountered many more half-nostalgic cafés attended by Renata and myself in the distant past. I could even find the one where she berated me for drinking too much. I’d like that. I miss that woman.

(Pohořelec)

It is very possible that we shall still ascend after our time at this mysterious but familiar café.

Soon, however, I will be forced to take the teaspoon on the silver platter pictured beside my svařeně vino and pry one of the eyeballs from Christián’s eyesocket. The reason for this is that he keeps talking about grids. When I was a child, I was forced to live in a grid with other children, and therefore to interact with them relentlessly. Obviously, this alarmed and angered my profound sense of introversion and sociopathy. The grid made these fundamental parts of my personality swell and consume most every other facet of the entity that was I. The swelling, much like a cyst on the scrotum of an infant, has never ceased, even to this day. I reach for the teaspoon.

It’s thrilling to be at home with the smell of freshly washed laundry wafting on the chilly breeze from the open window cross the drying rack to my flaring nostrils. Herr Wolfgang Riechmann’s synthesizers howl in my ears, playfully. In brief, I am happy I am here in this moment. It may be the beer, however.

The río Tíron is one of the last refuges of the European Mink in Spain. We think there are approximately sixty left. Well, Madis thinks there are about sixty left. I think there are less. Most important are females within breeding age. They are harder and harder to find. They are smaller than the males and fall victim more often to the highly territorial and invasive American Mink. Bastards. Well, actually it’s not really their fault, but the fault of the fucking humans who brought them to Europe in the sixties. Bastards.

That being ranted about, this stretch of the river is very calm. I can sit for hours with a pen and journal (a sandwich also helps, plus a bottle of highly potent liquid) and be lost in the current, so to speak.

And right beside where I took the previous photo is:

Ok. I slept. I have no idea where we are now in the dialogue. I was thinking of Melanie. Poor soul. Stupid expression, I know. Damnit… mind … don’t let things escape me.

When we were in New York, in Washngton Heights (I’d mapify that for you right now, but I don’t have the patience), it broke when i whipped her too badly.

We bought the whip in Arkansas, at a trailer shop that shouldn’t have been. It was to be for Corliss and Jayson. Well, that was what Melanie said. It was a fucking joke, like everything about her was. She was pretending. Cunt. Well, we proceeded to the north and fucked constantly on the way. She was that type. Once we reached NYC, and after Boston and another story with John, we found a very comfortable place in Washington Heights. I think Loyal could attest to it.

She wanted me to beat her with this thing we bought for Corliss and Jayson. So I did. Again and again. Of course, since I am an extreme person, it became too much after a time, and the bruises on her back were telling. The cycle went down from there. However, I’d never be here were that not to happen.

I’m not sure why I am thinking about things that were so long ago right now. Bastards… I’ll kill them… They destroyed my life! I think that insecurity breeds a new form of armageddon. Striking out at your friends is never a healthy option.

Oh! The hypocricy! Yeah, I’ve done bad, as well, but, even if I was the bad guy, in peoples’ eyes. In my friends’ eyes, I still see nothing I did that was wrong. Why? Why was I crucified?

Fuck um. We’ll get back to the subject of La Rioja at some point.

But really… why were all of you such assholes? (Christián not included)

I’ve been knocking about La Rioja (he estado rondando por La Rioja) for nearly two months now, and, as any fool can see, none of that knocking about has included updating this blog. Qué pena.

I’m sitting in the Logroňo Public Library not because I do not have a sufficent internet connection in my small and filthy flat, but because it refreshes my shrivelled brain to change my location when doing anything other than watching films, cooking, sleeping or molesting a small rodent.

(Logroňo Public Library)

The expansive room I am in is nearly vacant of human presence. In my experience, it will begin filling up in approximately one hour. Why one hour? you ask? Students pour from the university and various secondary schools and apparently have no where else to go and nothing else to do but come to the library and continue studying! What an intellectual environment!!!

Turtles Have Short Legs.

I take long walks almost every day. Soon, I’ll cover the majority of the main town. I laughingly call it a town. Logroňo feels like a town and not a city. The are outlying barrios that will eventually be swallowed, but the center and its immediate surroundings seem to me tiny and, if I ignore the milling throngs (especially on Friday and Saturday nights), sparse of life. I like that. The contrast to Boston almost rips the ova from every woman within a 3 kilometre radius.

On a walk a few days ago, I encountered this abandoned building. It is sandwiched between two upkept and inhabited residential edifices.

Pardon me while I put on a new album.

It is also very close to the science museum - a place I need to soon visit as it appears fascinating, especially to that little brat within my heart that loves to sharpen his claws on my aorta.

I am a fan of abandoned buildings. I imagine one day that I’ll find myself squatting in one. Perhaps that adds to the attraction. They are a presentiment. I’ll tell ya, Shambal, my friend, you’ll be joining me, and we won’t mind at all. I’ll bring the pack of cards.

The café that you cannot see surrounding myself and this sumptious lunch is a place I find myself often and not only because they have excellent connectivity to the internet. As I probably have not mentioned since I haven’t written here for nearly two months, I’ve begun taking Spanish lessons because although I can communicate, my level is nowhere near what I’d like it to be. Café Bretón provides a pleasant***** and usually calm study environment between the hours of 13.00 and 17.30 or so. The food is standard northern Spanish fare, exceedingly cheap, and tasty. What you see in that image plus un café con leche was about 6 euros.

(Café Bretón)

* A few days ago, however, a congregation of geezers came upstairs where I was hanging, reading, studying, browsing, molesting rodents, and sipping coffee. They were remindful of a gaggle of adolescents at a rave. LOUD!! They were playing cards and dice, whooping, slapping each other around with withered, veined paws, and generally causing a ruckus. Hey… good for them. My noise cancelling headphones came in handy that day, baby.

On another walk, I encountered these two items suspended from branches of a tree (as you can see). The left could be from some sort of kite, but the right had to be put there deliberately. Is there some symbolism here? The river is just some metres away. Is suspending a bottle clearly still full of water so near a living stream of free liquid an indication of a soul isolated from the rest of the rushing world. Locked in a blue cage, as it were? Or perhaps the entity in the bottle is proud to be held so high above the masses. The masses, after all, if represented by the swirling river, are merging and parting again and again. Determining one individual from another is nigh impossible. And they are foaming at their collective mouths. The water in the blue bottle is calm and serene.

Here we are now on the opposite side of the Ebro. I am closer to home, as the suspended bottle lives kingly and whatnot near the opposite bank. I was informed a few days ago that this mountain contains much clay. Well, yes it does, obviously.

The caves were obviously made by humans with some arcane intent. My take on it is this:

Shambal, when he was a young, strapping lad and not the decrepit old cunt that he is these days, remembered his ancestors carving them as his future tomb. He knew the mind of the mountain for his bent and twisted people from Tanzania once practised rituals that made mounds of inert earth into living beings. These living things, let’s call them capullos, hold a risidual portion of their maker’s anima. They are placed and swell accordingly over passing years. The last of the maker’s line returns to the capullo.

Shambal will return to this capullo.

The caves, or shall we say windows, are meant for his bones, distributed equally among them, and especially the cranium, which must be split into equal pieces between them. Shambal will eventually choose the poor, destitute (and she must be destitute) maid to strip his corpse of flesh with her fingernails and teeth. She’ll then separate his bones appropriately and carry each pile individually, wearing only a white ribbon around her throat, to each cavern.

Once she has completed her task, she’ll seal herself in the window that contains Shambal’s complete pelvis.

Years will pass, possibly even centuries.

At last, the anima in the capullo will absorb Shambal entirely and the whole mound will become sentient. Its windows will peer over its domain and the adjacent domains. It will be bent on dominance. The ancient tribes will war once again.

Fudruckers in IAH is a brilliant place! I recommend it to everyone. That includes Christiàn Neumann. I really don’t understand why he includes his middle initial in the name of the domain. Why not just make up something? Be, creative, cunt! Oh, I was talking (writing) about Fudruckers. Well, they supplied me a beer. Beer is important. It deletes most of the apathy in life. Well, if its amount doesn’t wane, but that is another story.

(Christiàn Neumann)

Speaking of beer, I am reminded of a pub in Praha near Vyton. Yeah – Vyton. The name is Pod Vysehradem and last time I checked, it was still there. So I expect to see you consuming their ultimately healthy smazeny syr very soon. I’d say, two weeks? Ok. Deal. Fuck um.

Eva disappeared soon after we met in that pub. She made numerous comments about an old man sitting near us. He had a beer. He did not move. He never moved except to sip his beer. Eva was apparently angered. Ok, maybe not angered, but disturbed. The vole did nothing. He did nothing! He was completely still. He did sip his beer, though. I’m not sure what I told Eva after she made her observation. I certainly did not tell her that I could relate. I’m sitting here at the moment sipping a beer myself, and I’d hardly move had I not unentrenched my shittypie from the bowels of my bag.

He was most probably deep in thought. Actually, I’d like to know what he was thinking.

Ingrid reminds me of the situation. We went out paltry often in Tallinn and she had to move from place to place often. Her body had to move. Fuck um. She is a physical entity. The man at the table was not. Perhaps he still is not. All of them need to be destroyed. Yes – fuck um.

I’m sitting at the aeroport bar in Midland, Texas. I’ve been here before. Two summers ago, I was sitting at the other end of the bar listening to REM Fables of the Reconstruction and drinking beer. I don’t recall if I, like now, also accompanied the beverage with a shot. The bulk of my communication with the outside world was with Karolina in Fulnek. I have no internet connection that I am aware with or I’d include a link to Google Maps so that you cartographically inclined could imagine yourselves strutting around the forested hills surrounding the village.

A Black Box by Peter Hammill sings in my ears. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to this album in its entirety. It is one of the few by him that I’ve never owned on a physical medium. I still don’t. I downloaded this version last night. Two of the songs, however, were on a compilation I bought soon after my first arrival to Praha. That was October of 1998, for you who are chronologically inclined. I’ll find and post the initial song of the album (also included on said compilation) to YouTube at this moment to share with the largely faceless world outside.

Pretty much everything is outside when I speak from within my writing.

Unfortunately, Golden Promises is not available to play in the good ’ol USA, so I’ll refrain from posting anything to YouTube, though if I ever arrive in Houston and make it to my hotel, I’ll attempt to enlighten the faceless public (for the intermingled cells within that mass who are musically inclined) with the entire album, as I am now enjoying it immensely.

Back to the timeline –

I purchased a compilation of Peter Hammill’s solo works after arriving in the Czech Republic because I had not travelled with my wallet of Cds. That wallet was unwieldy and heavy. Bastard thing. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ on his Mighty Throne on the Craggy Peaks of Tartarus for digital encoding of audio media. This compilation (along with Hologram of Baal by The Church, Radiation by Marillion, Billy Breathes by Phish and a few other things) was the soundtrack of my first few months in the country. I assumed listening to these songs (Golden Promises and The Spirit) would whisk me back to that time and I was partially correct.

I have a vague memory of listening to The Shell in the kitchen of our flat at Pankrac with Magdalena hovering around, perhaps doodling with a meal. I was writing. I could perhaps find the exact entry in the journal from those times in standing vertically in my backpack at this instant. I’ll spare the reader, however, as the entry will surely find its way into the coagulation that is this blog at some point.

(( Damn me – everything refers to time and it disturbs me. DEATH TO TIME!!! Thanks, Mr. Moorcock. ))

Nostalgia, by definition, is time-bound.

Fuck um.

Back to that kitchen episode. Well, there is not much more to tell, actually. I probably shagged Magdalena at some temporal point within an hour’s radius of the moment I mentioned. Oh – another flash appears in my mind! I had been working with James and Andrew for some time at that point. After my bizarre episode with Hela, I created at that job a CD-R for Magdalena that included several songs by the Art Bears.

The timeline doesn’t seem correct, however. It makes little sense. We moved from Pankrac to Nusle sometime in June, methinks. Eh?. But the memory is clearly in Pankrac. Fuck um. My job – place – locale – sometimes – living – place – solace was on Vinohradskà ulice. Sorry for the incorrect diacritics, but the current terminal is set for the dry -- skin -- beneath -- the -- navel *UK Dvorak* keyboard and not the smooth -- left -- cheek -- in -- the -- sad -- western -- weather *CZ Dvorak* I usually use in most situations. I stretch my skeletal memory claw back and do not pick out the specific one letting me re – experience actually creating the DV – R. Fuck um. However, I assume I was on Vinohradskà when I created it for Miss Magdalena. She is standing in the living space, adjacent to the doorway leading to the kitchen, and adjacent to the table immediately in the kitchen where I sat writing (at the same time? No, but all time is blurring, as it always does with memory. All is timebound. It is a paste now. I wrote of the faceless public earlier, so just abstract each moment to a personality within such a mass. You’ll get it) in the journal standing vertical in my backpack.

(Sorry for the...)

She complained that Dagmar Krause couldn’t sing. So, we were listening to the CD – R I’d made her instead of the compilation of Peter Hammill. Blur. Smear. Fuck um. I think I did not point out that Dagmar was actually singing the notes she was supposed to sing. The song was written that way. If it is true (there is no universal true in memory) that I did not mention this, it is certainly true that I considered it, in my most probably sober mind. I can even hear her (in my present imagination of a past voice) speaking it: I [just] don’t think she can sing [well].

Quién sabe?

He say nothing is quite what it seems. / He say nothing is quite what it seems. / I say nothing is nothing. (Mr. Pete)

I am brought back to the present by a WhatsApp message from… whom? Let’s see! Hela, of course. I say of course laughably, of course. I say of course laughably laughably, of course. I say of course laughably, of course, laughably, of course. Etc…

Damnit. The album ended.