Barcelona Twelve-Bar Blues: A sorta travelogue

Strange it was to feel the blues kick in, along with jet lag, while I was soaping myself silly at the Hilton Barcelona last November. I was in Barcelona, Spain on assignment (the MTV Europe Awards), arriving there two days before the much-hyped event so I set my schedule around museums, theme parks, flea markets, peepshows and absinthe bars (of, course, I wasn’t able to visit them all — plans have a murky way of remaining as plans).

When I got to the hotel after what seemed like an endless plane flight from Manila to Amsterdam to Barcelona that screwed up time and biorhythm, I went straight to the bathroom and meditated on trips, travelogues, time and Pico Iyer.

Iyer once wrote in Video Night in Kathmandu that when he leaves America, he ends up finding "America" (a little altered; a tad different; stranger; through the eyes of non-Americans). Thus gaining a new perspective on the country he calls home. In a screwy way, in a bathroom with a carbolic-acid sheen, I was feeling a little bluesy that I was so far away from "home."

Home? The place I call home? Home also to politicians and their jones for money and power. Home to waiting for rides in the wee hours of the morning on Avenida corner Recto with its sinister Odeon Theater, thirty-peso prostitutes, boys with solvent eyes, teenage muggers, vomit, spit, piss, rats, mosquitoes on steroids, nightmares on two legs and other sewery etceteras. Home to the unbearable light railway transit and being packed in shiny metal boxes. Home to taxi drivers with their evil meters. Home to pyramid salesmen selling phony tickets out of poverty. Home to slot machine women you just can’t trust. Home to the lost and the homeless.

But as I was showering half a world away, I looked differently at home with co-workers, friends and relatives. I missed ‘em — each one of those freaky yet loving persons. I missed home — no matter how each day home resembled a set from a Carlo J. Caparas massacre flick (the only thing missing would be a hysterical starlet running around with a butcher knife and wearing the obligatory kamison).

Strangely, I missed Manila and its alarming streets.

I also saw home through the eyes of outsiders and OFWs. A Spanish receptionist at Hilton Barcelona was quite thrilled to meet a person from the Philippines, a country he called — believe it or not — "a piece of paradise." My Finnish seatmate on the KLM plane told me how he loved our sad republic — the heat, the apocalyptic traffic, the telenovela of it all. The overseas Pinoy workers I met at Schiphol Airport raved about basketball, girlie bars, gin bulag and sisig.

Maybe that’s what traveling is all about — going away on a trip abroad is the best way to rediscover one’s country. You either miss those lovely things that define your country or you find similar hassles and downers in other territories and timezones. Come to think of it, traveling — in a screwy, paradoxical sense — is a sort of homecoming.

Spanish Hassle/Magic

Before I left for Spain, I was forewarned about pickpockets, but not about panhandlers. I went to a place called Las Ramblas, and there they were: gypsies from neighboring countries doing all sorts of tricks to earn a fat euro. A guy juggled ten pins. Another ate and spewed fire. One fellow in a natty suit showed his paintings — landscapes, portraits, still lifes, kindergarten stuff. Some asked for cash blatantly.

Panhandler: Do you have some spare euros?

Me: (Plagiarizing Ted Danson’s Becker character) Do I have money that I have no use for? No.

So went the conversation in my head. The best recourse, I found out, was to ignore them even if they’re wondering aloud why Asians are such nervous cats.

There are lots of places to visit in Barcelona, especially for geeks like me. There is the Musical Emporium, home to acoustic guitars, cellos, dobros, harps and other stringed creations. This is also the place where one could find sheet music from Mozart or Rodrigo to Yngwie Malmsteen or Buckethead. It’s like a dream library to everyone who dares to pick up the guitar and learn songs — everything from A Horse With No Name to Cliffs of Dover.

Man, going to the Picasso Museum on Carrer de Montcada was like a pilgrimage of sorts for me. No cameras allowed inside, though, so one had to let memory record all those strange and beautiful Picasso artworks. I fell in love with the "Els Quatre Gats" menu, paintings from the Blue Period because of the narcotic effect of blue monochromes such as "The Fool" and "The Destitute", the neo-classical and cubist masterpieces, Picasso’s interpretations of Velasquez’s "Las Meninas," as well as the prints and the ceramics.

Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s unfinished architectural symphony, has the same effect on visitors. I like one writer’s description of it: Sagrada Familia is "Cologne Cathedral-meets-Dracula’s Castle." Yes, Gaudi proved there is the divine in the disturbing. You just got to dig Gaudi’s stone sculptures that mesh forms inspired by skin, light, bones and vegetation. But climbing up the circular stairs with a billion steps into the cathedral’s towers is not at all "digable" for someone like me who hasn’t exercised in 10 years.

On one of the winding sidestreets of Barcelona, I stumbled on a record shop that sells rare vinyl releases from Dogs D’Amour, Ritchie Havens, Marc Almond, etc. I bought a couple of Charles Mingus, John Lee Hooker and Jimi Hendrix bootlegs. (The Hendrix album even features Jim Morrison’s drunken slurs on top of machine gun Stratocaster riffs in a track called Bleeding Heart. A great find, indeed.)

One place I really wanted to visit was La Condoneria near the Barri Gotic, a shop where they sell condoms that come in the strangest of shapes. They have rubber with horns and wings, for crying out loud. How does one use an angel or devil prophylactic, anyway?

I went barhopping with a writer from another broadsheet, and dropped by a sprawling place called Mari Magnum near the marina. We all know how chic and cosmopolitan Bacelona is, but the bars we visited (Tropicana, Fiesta and Music) screamed "kitsch!"

The palm decors, the purplish strobe lights, and the dancers on the gilded stage — all communicated sleaze to the max. Plus, the records spun by the DJs were several trends late. Spaniards at the bars were salivating over La Vida Loca, Britney’s Crazy and a Grease medley. Two guys engaged in a sort of mating dance to impress two hot chicks beside the bar. They flexed their muscles and gyrated — with feelings, mind you — while singing along with Gerri Halliwell: "It’s raining men, hallelujah!" Not at all aware of how absurd their whole enterprise was.

Quirky also lives in Spain, so I was no longer homesick.

Random Musings On The Grammy Awards

I thought the day I would agree with the Grammy picks is the day pigs have 747 insignias on their hides and Satan wears a nice warm mink coat.

Norah Jones won five Grammys and, yes, she deserves every one of them. I like Norah. She has great taste and pipes. She’s a far cry from flashes-in-the-pan like Avril Lavigne or Vanessa Carlton. You don’t hear paradigms shifting when you listen to Jones’ music — nothing but torch songs in new and beautiful packaging or new clothes for the old ceremony, so to speak. But at least, she comes across as sincere — a cross between Diana Krall and Rickie Lee Jones. And she sings so languidly and true. It’s a good thing the Academy noticed that, too.

But hey, why were Beck and Wilco snubbed? They came out with great albums last year. Isn’t the Grammys all about artistic merit?

Hey, I lost my belief in the Grammy Awards since the Academy gave its Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Performance award to Jethro Tull (a prog rock band, not metal) instead of Metallica (Metal-lica, hello!). Other caveats:

The Rolling Stones has never won a Best Album Award. The Beatles’ "Magical Mystery Tour" and "Abbey Road" lost to opuses by Blood, Sweat and Tears and Glen Campbell. I think it was Campbell’s brilliant "By The Time I Get To Phoenix." (Pardon the sarcasm.) Bob Dylan won a Grammy for "Time Out of Mind" in ’97, and not for past glories like "Blonde on Blonde" or "Highway 61 Revisited." Same with Steely Dan, which was given the nod by the Academy for "Two Against Nature," a lame and beggarly album compared to "Aja" or "The Royal Scam." Nostalgia obviously voted in those cases.

And does anybody still remember Milli Vanilli, those lip-synching poseurs, winning Best New Artist? The duo pooped on everything that the Grammy Awards supposedly stand for. Girl you know it’s true, ooh hooh ooh.

But you just got to give the 45th Annual Grammy Awards some props. For one, it was entertaining. This was a Grammy show wherein I had no desire to switch off the TV set and read War and Peace. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Lifetime Achievement honorees, opened the show, book-ending their brilliant career with their first hit, The Sounds of Silence. And it was only fitting that Dustin Hoffman introduce the duo. (Remember The Graduate?) Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello and Dave Grohl gave a rousing tribute to the late Joe Strummer of The Clash with their performance of London Calling. Norah Jones’ set was understatedly brilliant (although she looked a little rattled). There was no host to get irritated at, since the people of New York City were the "emcees," and not some cornball comedian. The BeeGees received the Legend Award. It was a touching moment when Barry and Robin Gibb gave the award away to the son of their late brother Maurice.

(By the way, ‘N Sync’s performance was irritating as hell.)

Sadly, John Meyer and Coldplay proved in their sets that you get accolades by ripping off other musicians’ style. Dave Matthews and Radiohead have been robbed! Ain’t that obvious? Questions. Who let in the mallrats during Avril Lavigne’s performance? Who was the black dude who came onstage with the Foo Fighters and raved about B. B. King? Why did Sheryl Crow sport a J. Lo hairstyle? What was Kid Rock doing in the Grammys, which is supposed to be a celebration of artistic merit? Why did the audience give ‘N Sync a standing ovation? What dead animal was Paul Shaffer wearing?

I just hope Norah Jones doesn’t get jinxed. There is such a thing as the Grammy jinx, you know; just look at what happened to Jody Watley, Paula Cole and Hootie & the Blowfish, all Best New Artist winners. Robin Williams (Best Spoken Comedy Album awardee) quipped that when you put your ear to the gramophone trophy, you can actually hear careers ending.

In a perfect world, Norah Jones will keep on making great music. But we’ll never know…the universe may have other plans. There are artists who released one bang of a debut album but eventually whimpered their way into obscurity, making beautiful but irrelevant records in the process.

I got two words for you: Tracy Chapman.

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For comments, suggestions, curses and invocations e-mail iganja@hotmail.com.