Horsing around

Last week in Jerez, Spain, we came perilously close to the end of western civilization as we know it.   

While touring the magnificently intoxicating bodegas of Jerez de la Frontera, the capital of fortified sherry wine, this saling pusa columnist actually had the gall to ask his host, a textbook example of an Old World gentleman, if he could serve as his gentleman-in-training/whipping boy. But despite my pleadings, despite my prostrations and despite my offer of chest hair, he refused any offer to accept me under his tutelage.

“It would be against my better nature to allow for it to happen, Señor Ledesma,” the good Don (whose name can no longer be mentioned in this column for legal reasons) said. “In fact, it would be against the laws of nature to allow it to happen.”

So as nature would have it, my bid for gentemanlihood was shot down quicker than an impeachment complaint. Although I was whipped a couple of hundred times for good measure. 

“Thank you for joining us for the brandy tour of Jerez,” the Don said with a slight bow. “There are two more attractions that you should not miss while you are in our fair city — our dancing horses and our flamenco. I suggest you take a quick jaunt to visit these other attractions before we start deportation proceedings.”

“Muchos grathias very much, Don—“

“Hep, Hep!” He shoved his index finger between my lips. “Please stop mentioning my name. Not only are you spraying me with saliva, but my name has been sullied enough by your lips.”

“But please, my dear Don,” I begged. “Will I ever make a good gentleman someday?”

“Someday is too soon, Señor Ledesma,” the Don sighed. “But,” he added, lifting his eyebrows, “you will make a great D.O.M. someday.”

I smiled from ear to ear. 

“As a parting gift from us,” the Don offered, “allow us to give you the five-second scenic view of Jerez.” 

And with that, I was courteously stuffed headfirst into an authentic Spanish civil war cannon and shot out of the bodega.

Neigh it isn’t so

After making sure that I had not lost any vital organs from the cannon ride, I joined a tour group for the horse dancing and flamenco show. As the tour bus wound down the cobblestone streets of twilight Jerez on the way to the horse show, I thought of how much this place reminded me of Intramuros without the takatak boys. The tour guide pointed out several statues of wrought-iron horses that shaped the public face of the city. “I’m sure that since the Philippines was a Spanish colony that you also have similar kinds of public monuments,” she remarked.

“Oh yes, we do,” I proudly noted. “We have pink urinals that line our national highway and, depending on who is willing to pay a horrendous amount of money for a particular month, we have the picture of John Lloyd Cruz and Bea Alonzo on possibly the world’s largest billboard built in the backyard of a seminary.”

“Que?”

“What I mean to say is, uh, tell us more about the horse dancing.”

“We will be watching Carthusian horses.”

“Ahh,” I ahhed, while arching an eyebrow. “Named after the famous mathematician, I see.”

“Do not be so pretentious Señor, or else your nose might bleed.” She rolled her eyes. “Not Cartesian horses. Carthusian horses.   Carthusian horses are one of Spain’s most prestigious lines of Spanish horses. The horses, which are trained in the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art, are named after the Carthusian monks who have zealously guarded their bloodlines over several centuries.”

“I stand arrested.”

“Yes, Señor. The arrests will come soon enough.” 

I wasn’t too sure what type of performance was in store for me, but apparently true gentlemen know how to appreciate horse dancing.  But what were these horses going to dance? The cha-cha? The rumba? The tango? A little hip-hop? Maybe this is the reason why sherry wine is the top tourist attraction in Jerez followed by the horses. You would probably have to be a bit smashed first to appreciate dancing horses.  

But it was later explained to me that the horse show would entail watching these Andalusian thoroughbreds perform high-precision “ballet” dances set to music. Now, this ballet performance could possibly be the biggest obstacle for attention-deficit disorder sufferers like myself who would like to become gentlemen in an undisclosed future. Even back in Manila, the idea of watching men in tights performing high-precision ballet moves didn’t really appeal to me. But now I was going to have to watch horses in tights performing high-precision ballet moves. And maybe a little hip-hop.  I needed to find a way to quickly increase my appreciation for the horse ballet.  Luckily enough, they served aperitifs with every hors d’oeuvre. So I made sure to increase my appreciation for brandy on the rocks to above five glasses in under five minutes.  

After the first glass, the horse could have danced the papaya but it wouldn’t have impressed me at all. But after that fifth drink, when I could no longer feel my extremities, let me tell you, those horses jingle-bell rocked!

As I was escorted out at the end of the show by tutu-wearing security guards, the tour operator was holding back the immigration police. 

“I am afraid to even ask,” the tour operator sighed, “but how was the performance of the Carthusian horses, Señor?” 

“Muy excellento, Senorita!” I belched. “Those horses were dancing ballet like someone had taped hot coals to their hooves! I think one of them even did a pirouette or maybe it could have just been my head spinning. And one of those horses started to look quite fetching, especially the one in the short skirt. Were those all male horses?”

“Does it matter, Señor?” she sneered. “And after all the liquor you consumed, your face is also starting to resemble a part of the horse’s anatomy that gentlemen do not mention in good company.”

“Is it part of the horse’s anatomy that sculptors never include in their horse statues?”

“Guardia Sibil, please take him into custody.”

Madness in the air

Later that evening, after securing a temporary “get out of jail” pass, my inebriated behind was dragged to Barrio de Santiago, the hotbed of Flamenco. Normally, when you mention the word “hotbed” and “dancing women,” very little motivation is needed for men to stir themselves out of a drunken stupor.  However, different vintages of brandy were pleasantly fermenting in my system and the only thing that I wanted to get intimate with was my hotel bed (or jail cell).  

It didn’t help that when we entered the flamenco hall, there was only a smattering of tourists. This is a hotbed? I thought. But apparently, Jerez was the birthplace of flamenco, born from the nomadic tribes of gypsies that passed through Southern Spain. I looked up at the stage and there was a painted mural of a vineyard strewn with plastic grapes. I shook my head. Could this performance possibly trump my experience with the dancing horses? Then the flamenco singer and his guitarist trudged up onstage. 

The flamenco singer resembled an emaciated version of Jesus Christ Superstar, with the same type of ‘70s hairstyle and fashion. At first, he seemed reluctant to perform. I would be reluctant, too, if I shared his hairstyle and his fashion sense. He sat down gingerly on his seat, fumbled with his fingers, and then started tapping his open palms against the bottom of the wooden straws that intertwined as his cushion. He paused, closed his eyes and started to bob his head as if listening to some inescapable inner rhythm.  Then suddenly his voice rang out in an excruciating wail, and then just as suddenly his voice sputtered away. He wailed excruciatingly several times. I thought, if somebody kneed me in the groin at regular intervals, I would sound like him as well. When the singer was done wailing in several different tones, the guitarist uttered some mystical gypsy incantation and his guitar transformed into a living, beating thing that he tapped and strummed and fondled. For an instant, I saw the singer’s eyes lock with the guitarist’s and there was madness in their eyes.

 Four flamenco dancers ambled onto the stage like some perverse carnival. Their clothes suggested a wild gypsy spirit, with their tousled hair, their gaudy attire with its blaring colors, the jingle-jangle of their bracelets and their stiletto heels that were used to slaughter livestock. The dancers took their seats onstage, and seemed too fidgety to perform, as if waiting for something to hit them. They whispered among themselves and were all served a glass of sherry to liquefy their tension. And then it him them. No, it didn’t just hit them: it barreled over them with the force of the Atlantic winds.

“Olé! Olé!” the dancers yodeled like cats in heat. It was a deep lingering cry that sounded hauntingly like a Moorish call to player.   One of the dancers stood up with such gusto that her chair stumbled to the floor. Her eyes shut with lust and she slithered and whirled on the floor like she was making mad love to an invisible lover. While she writhed onstage, her fellow dancers beat their breasts and moaned songs of constant painful longings. And as her vixen dance drew to a close, she launched into a crescendo of furious orgasmic stomping until the wood chips flew recklessly from the stage. Then she abruptly pulled herself back to her seat, as if to tame a wild impermeable spirit that would not leave her alone if she couldn’t control herself. One after the other, the dancers exploded onto the floor like some mad jazz improv. It was like each one was channeling a lunatic, dancing God trapped in the ether.   

The dance flambéed away whatever brandy was left circulating in my innards. I found myself seduced by the sprit of smoky taverns and wood-chipped stage floors and plastic grapes and gypsy fire. I was seduced by flamenco.

Yes, this was much better than the dancing Andalusian horses.  Except for the horse with the short skirt.   

 I came out of the flamenco hall wailing and moaning as well, after being kneed in the groin over regular intervals by the flamenco dancers, singer, guitarist,  waiters and the occasional patron. The owner of the flamenco hall stood by the foot of the entrance, his arms folded while incessantly tapping his shoe on the floor.   

“Señor, you have succumbed to the spirit of Flamenco.” He shook his head. “You may be the target of flamenco’s seduction, but you should never allow yourself to give into it.” Then he closed his eyes.  “Now please, for the love of God, take off that flamenco outfit.” I shook off my costume and let it drop carelessly to my ankles. 

I was very sad leaving Jerez, but its memories will always reside in a part of my brain that I can no longer access because of alcohol overdose. I departed the hotel with a heavy heart and everything else that was not bolted down to my hotel room. Like every good Pinoy who has a chance to travel abroad, I took the shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, toothbrush, bath towel, hand towel, bathrobe, paper slippers, magazine, room service menu, stationary pad, pencil, ballpoint pen, blow dryer, remote control, carpet, bed sheets, reading lamp, chairs and the refrigerator. After all, I had to bring home pasalubong for my three female readers. And for my yaya.  

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For comments, suggestions or flamenco lessons, please text PM POGI <text message> to 2948 for Globe, Smart and Sun subscribers.  Or email ledesma.rj@gmail.com.