Nonsense, Drivel, and Balderdash

Over the years I have realized that one almost needs to separate Christmas-Advent from x-mas, the winter holiday. I like almost everything about the religious festival, but have issues about the public holiday. But once you are able to separate the two and not feel like Santa has hijacked Christ, then it is easier to enjoy the whole thing. It is still a time that brings people together and encourages people to be nicer to each other. I still has lights twinkling and cold biting and hot beverages... But then there is Christmas music. I'm sorry, but I hate most christmas music. Why? For the same reasons that I dislike most Pop music. It is made up of cheap, repetitive tunes that are meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Even the songs that were once decent have been played to death on the radio by top 40 artists. Not only do musicians use this season to do their usual amount of artistic rape, but they even do it to beloved carols that are meant to promote religious themes...

I walked into one of the local quick-e marts on Paseo de la Florida the other day. In Spain, they are referred to as "Chinos." Which literally means "chinese." These chinos are relatively new additions to the urban landscape here, only appearing after I left for college and immigration skyrocketed. But now they are a part of life; the little corner store that sells basic goods, exchanging price for convenience. But anyway, I was on my way to Jessica's house to make supper when I realized I had forgotten an ingredient. I popped into the store and quickly grabbed what I needed. As I was about to leave, a middle aged, latin american, transvestite approached me. He, dressed and make-up'ed as a she, was quite polite as he asked me if I would be so kind as to help him read something. He held out a small notebook containing a different number and name scrawled on each page. "What does this name say?" he asked me, pointing to a page. I squinted at the han...

I know. I've been gone. But so have most of you. The blogging world seems to have come to a halt, or at least until this week, when a few people decided to update their long forgotten pieces of web real estate. I swear something a bit more interesting is coming up, but for now I will comment on my Last.fm page. For those of you who don't use it, it is a great little web application that keeps track of what you listen to, allows you to compare and show others, as well as look for music that is similar to your own tastes. Anyway, according to the application. Here are a few interesting facts about my music habits: The top listened artists: 1 The Beatles 2 The Smashing Pumpkins 3 Over the Rhine 4 Ryan Adams 5 Ray LaMontagne 6 Simon & Garfunkel 7 Regina Spektor 8 Bob Dylan 9 Oasis 10 Radiohead 11 Ben Harper 12 Tegan and Sara 13 Jeff Buckley 14 Ryan Adams & The Cardinals 15 Pedro the Lion Of course this list doesnt take several factors into account, such as ...

And people laughed at me when I said that moths were my nemesis, my greatest fear, my ultimate revulsion, my... well, you get the picture. Check THIS out: MOTHS EVOLVING INTO VAMPIRE DEATH CREATURES!!! Now, I may not agree with all those nutty Creationists out there (if you are nutty, no offense, by the way). But this may get me me start classifying evolution as "evil" alright. Just imagine. Moths starting to suck blood. I mean, it is bad enough when they are eating my clothes, stealing my money, and assaulting my women. But sucking out my life force?! I wont let them! You may think I am overreacting. You may be thinking, "c'mon ryan" mosquitoes, horse flies, and the IRS has been sucking the life out of you for years"! Yes, but those things wouldn't do this to your daughters!

Life has moved forward quite quickly during these past few months. Time, however, has not. It some ways, it seems like the August-October period has been much longer than a mere couple of months. This is due to several factors. On one hand, I think that when one's life is filled with a lot of change, time seems like it expands and stretches to accomodate the magnitude of the transitions. I have had a lot of changes. Physically, my environment has shifted radically from being a large apartment shared between 5 roommates, to a quiet 3 man set up. This has been a huge change. Living in a clean, quiet, private home has had a huge psychological impact on an introvert like me. I mean, in the last house our house was packed with visitors every week. Even if each person only invited people over one weekend a month, that still meant that it was going to be full every time. The fact that my house was downtown and large didn't help it become less of a place for everyone to use as a hostel...

My mind wanders at night. My mind wanders during the day as well, but at night it really takes off. I have done a fair bit of night walking during the past couple of weeks. I have spent a lot of time down Madrid's empty streets, flooded in that orange city lamp light that I have come to love so much. This town was made to be savored after dark. During the day it is like any other European city, but at night... it is something else altogether. Especially late at night. A few days ago, as I was walking home around 3 AM, I passed a girl who was walking in the opposite direction. She did that thing that girls do when they are trying to act like they are not nervous, puffing herself up, chin in the air, though avoiding eye contact and picking up her pace as we met. I felt sorry for the human race then. What would it be to live in a world without fear? A world of perfect intentions? Imagine being able to walk down dark city streets without an inkling of temerity. How many times have I th...

It was pouring down rain the other night when I headed for home. It was one of those downpours that we rarely see in Madrid: thunder, lightning, giant drops, water pouring over low sidewalk curbs as it finds its way to the gutter. From under my umbrella, and with my pants rolled up slightly, I was enjoying the whole thing. I walked down the sidewalk breathing in the wet smells, skipping over puddles. No one else was around, of course. Even the neighborhood winos had found another place to drink, leaving their bench to drip alone. A few cars drove by slowly, not used to driving on wet pavement. I tend to sing when I find myself walking alone. Finally I reached the metro station. Had I tarried any more I would have missed the last train that night and been forced to take a bus. But fortunately when I arrived at the station, a sign flashed "9 minutes" until the next train would come by. A group of German boys were standing near me. They seemed too young to be college students, b...

This has been a stressful month already. House and job hunting. The latter is only just beginning. The former is pretty much settled. Finding a new apartment in Madrid has been a difficult task. I ended up visiting 9 different places around the city, and calling many more numbers. Many places got snatched up right as we went to see them. Others were downright terrible houses. Fortunately, the search ended up paying off. Or so it seems at this point. We move into a new place tomorrow night. Pictures and details will come soon. In celebration, I have this picture. I found these hot dogs in my local supermarket. I believe that Jonah may have found them before me, but it was a joyful rediscovery for me. Those of you native english speakers should find the name brand ironically hilarious:

August has been a flashback. You could say it has been old-skool because I haven't had a summer like this since I was a teenager. August has been spent lounging, walking, reading, talking. Long hours by the swimming pool accompanied by a book or by friends. Countless pool jumping competitions and late night swimming expeditions. I have lost track of how many barbecues I have hosted. I haven't had enough money to travel this summer, so I have been stuck here, mostly at my mom's house dogsitting. This has been both a blessing and a curse, as it has limited my mobility but also given me a large house all to myself. I think being out at my mother's house has contributed significantly to my sense of summertime nostalgia. Lounging around the place were I spent my youth has brought back that blissful feeling of irresponsibility which we all look for during vacationtimes but rarely find once we hit "the real world". I have also spent quite a bit of time with a couple ...

This just blew my mind. Aaron Eckhart, of Batman, Thank you for Smoking, and Paycheck fame: and Sean Bean, of Lord of the Rings, Troy, and The Island fame: In my mind, they were the same actor.

The plaza mayor was packed with people last night. The city was putting on a free classical music concert directed by Daniel Barenboim. Dan, Fran, Eva and I arrived over an hour early, but even that was too late and the seats were all taken. So we sat uncomfortably on the ground, squashed amidst the throngs of music lovers and tourists who had come to the Plaza in hopes of catching a glimmer of genius. Once the music began, the hypnotic effect of musicians in the ecstasy of performance held us in its sway. I was automatically in love with every woman on stage and feeling bonds of kinship with every man. And somehow, the warm cobblestone under my sore backside was easily ignored as waves of music rolled into the audience. It is amazing how long the ground remains warm after a day of the sun's hot abuse; long after the evening goes dark. As I sat there on the warm stone, I was reminded of last summer, one night at camp in which I lay on the basketball court. Using its retained heat t...

Tea is now being served at my spiritual blog . I began it years ago, when struggling with issues of faith and belief. I tried to restart it about a year ago to discuss the petty quibbles I have with modern christianity. But the quibbling was too petty, and I lost interest in it. Now, years after what I consider to be my "crisis of faith", I have come to realize that any real quest for the essence of truth is going to be an endless series of crises and questions. Every dogma, every assertion, every statement of faith, every aspect will bring up questions and frustrations. Since writing sometimes seems to exorcise my sleepless nights, the spiritual issues blog is reopened for business.

Camp finished last week. I suppose I should have been updating more often; letting you all in on the inner workings of the summer camp lifestyle, but I didn't. Honestly, I could have cared less about this camp than any of the previous ones I have worked at. In previous years I found myself stressing out and making an effort to be liked by the children and to teach them english properly. This year, camp was just a means to an end, and that end was the paycheck. About half-way through the camp I realized 2 things: 1) I really didn't like this batch of kids. 2) Yelling all day was starting to take a toll on my voice. I admit that I freaked out a bit about my voice. After a year of not being able to sing, my vocal therapist had finally told me that I was doing well enough to start again. A month later, because of some stupid kids, I was running into a sore throat. If the children had had any interest in learning English then perhaps it would have been a different story, but they di...

13-15 year old boys should be confined to prison cells made of cold shower stalls. I would tell you all to lock up your daughters, except that the girls are equally inappropriate, though in a different way. It's odd. guys will tell you comments about themselves that you wish they would keep secret (I have heard the word "masturbation" more times here than the rest of my life combined, and lets remember that most of my friends are celibate 20-somethings...). The girls don't comment on themselves as much as they do about others (half-joking with guys about the aesthetics of their posteriors or that they want to bear their children). So maybe we just need to lock everyone up in individual cold shower stalls... miles and miles from each other. Having a large group of pretty female camp counselors doesn't help things. This is mostly because they equate small stature and beardlessness to innocence. But then at night I can hear the boys rating the counselors'... var...

Summer is here again. The air is heavy with the kind of heat that distorts distant roads. Those hot roads that slowly seep through the rubber soles of your shoes and roast your feet. Then you walk around barefoot on cold tiles or shady grass, or plunge them over the side of the pool. The landscape, once made of growing grass is now a snare cockleburs and sticker-patches, waiting to hitch a ride on the unsuspecting passerby. And as the season implacably moves into July, I have entered my own sticker-patch. I have entered a world of pubescent passions and anxieties, of linguistic impossibilities, of being overworked and underpaid... I am at summer camp , once again. Last year I was in Burgos, land of blood sausage, cathedrals and unseasonable cold. This year, as I was two years ago, I am in Ciudad Real; in the middle of La Mancha, and I am beginning to see why it's most famous resident, Don Quijote, was doomed to go mad. All is dry and hot. Your sweat dries on your skin before it f...

the setup It has been an exciting couple of weeks. The Eurocup has been in full swing once again. For my foreign readers who live under rocks and have no concept of european sports, the Eurocup is essentially the same thing as the World Cup except that, well, you got it, it is only among European nations. Recently, some mexicans friends of the family were here, and they said that they actually favored the Eurocup more than the World Cup and certainly more than the American Cup because they said that the overall quality of the teams was better. It makes sense, in the Eurocup you don't have to limit the number of European teams to make room for crappy teams like Saudi Arabia or Trinidad and Tobago. Now, in these kinds of competitions, Spain is always one of the favorites numerically, but not in reality. Spain always ranks among FIFA's top 5 teams in the world. And yet, it is notorious for getting booted out of any competition at the quarter finals stage (if that!). Despite being ...

I am a sucker for zombie movies . I don't know why. I can't explain what compels me to love those brain-eating hordes of the undead, but I do. 28 Days Later, Night/Dawn/Day/Land/Diary of the Living Dead, Sean of the Dead, Resident Evil, Evil Dead... I gotta love the undead. It all started in the summer of 2005, when I worked on the Gordon College grounds crew with a guy named Dustin Davies. That guy loves his undead even more than I do. Several times a week, he would get me to sit down in his darkened dorm room and watch whatever piece of cheesy cinematographical gore-fest that was on the menu for the day. And just like that I was hooked. We watched movies in every horror sub-genre known to man... slasher films, old school horror, supernatural, and monster movies. The latter was the one that I really got into. Give me any creature from a werewolf to The Thing, and I am a happy man. But for some reason the Zombies were the ones I really took a liking to. Perhaps I like zombies b...

I have been missing american friends lately. Not specific ones, mind you; but the whole clan. When I visited Alex in London, he asked me if it was difficult not being able to speak english with my friends in spain. The question caught me off guard, because I had never thought of it. But yes, I realized that I did miss being able to speak english. Alex is a perceptive guy, and though I am bilingual, he knows that I am bilingual in different ways. Yes, I am a native english and spanish speaker, but I have learned and used the languages in different contexts. Spanish was the language I grew up speaking with friends, watching television in, hearing on the street. English was the language of my family life and my studies. What Alex was aiming at was the fact that most of my deep friendships in life have taken place in English. This is also true of my intellectual pursuits. I have always done most of my reading in English as well as my main studies. Because of this, English has become the la...

I’m sitting in Starbucks right now. I come here when I have to work. I get easily distracted at home. There are too many things to keep me from my work: food, the guitar, the Wii, and most of all, the Internet. I am dreading the day that the whole world is connected to the web. It will spell doom for us internet-aholics. By now you are probably wondering why I am writing a blog entry when I should be working, especially if there isn’t any Internet for me to post it with. I am in the middle of a bit of a writer’s block right now. I am sitting by the window and the sunlight is coming through the tree leaves outside and painting my table with dappled sunlight. It is one of those brilliant early summer days that make the world simply exquisite. For once, the music in starbucks is just right, filling the shop with the sounds of Simon and Garfunkel. How am I expected to work in these conditions? They say that the best way to beat a writer’s block is to write, even if it has nothing to do wit...

Once again, 2008 doesn't disappoint, and more bad news comes my way. It isn't something I feel like talking about here, nor should I, so it will remain unspoken of further. Nevertheless, this past week has been a difficult one, bringing a lot conflicting emotions to the surface. My heart has felt sluggish and hyperactive. And any resolutions that have come out of this have done so sluggishly, like bubbles in a tar pit, tensing, stretching and finally popping in resignation. But as always, life isn't all bad. And I fight myself over which feelings to indulge; sometimes craning my neck towards the skies in search of silver linings, while other times I blow on those melancholic embers which seem to permanantly to burn somewhere inside me. But often this struggle between the negative and the positive, and the paradox of life's duality, simply exhausts me, and I am forced to disconnect. I have done a fair bit of that this week: going to the park with some poems, working myse...

6 stages. 100s of bands. 3 days of music. Guessed it yet? Primavera Sound , my favorite music festival has come and gone once again. The summer is a blast of fresh musical air pumped out of a church organ. Spain tends to have a terrible music scene dominated by all varieties of MTV top 40 pop. We rarely hear anything that involves original thought, authenticity or creativity. Spain has gotten stuck in the musical philosophies of the early 60s and mid 80s: make music to sell, whether it be cheesy love ballads or sellout rock. Personally I blame it all on Franco (we have a tendency to either blame everything on him or say everything was better with him), who squelched the development of Rock & Roll in the late 60's and early 70s. While this was bad enough, it pushed back musical evolution in this country so that we missed the advent of the 70's punk scene. I think that was really the saddest thing for spanish music, never fully arriving at a proper philosophy for rock and its...

Time and space have been swirling around me all month. May seems to have come and gone almost without warning. And I have come and gone and gone and come back again. First to the coast, then an island where I never saw the sea. My week in England was nothing short of glorious. It was split between London, where I stayed with my college friend Alex Oldfield, and Oxford, where I met up with my old a cappella pals. Being back in England brought back a lot of memories that are still prancing through my brain even today. Not only did it bring back a fair bit of nostalgia, but it also reminded me of all the little idiosyncrasies that britain has. One odd example would include the fact that people there do not know how to use a sidewalk. I swear, I find myself dodging more people in england than any country on earth. But generally I was taken back to places in my memory that reminded me of good times, a very good year spent in Oxford. Oddly enough, the time in Oxford wasn't the avalanche ...

(SEMI-SPOILER ALERT: the following review gives hints about some of the elements found in the film though it doesn't give away the story as such. Either way, even if it did, the plot is so predictable that you wouldn't be missing much) Indiana Jones 4 (IJ4) was a let-down; albeit, an expected one. When directors decide to resurrect an old characters, themes and stories nearly 30 years after their inception... doom comes out, worse than the kind of doom found in the Temple of Doom. And please understand that 50% of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was terrible even back in the 80s (the first half with the whole dinner scene and insect tunnel gets props). IJ4 follows in the footsteps of the original trilogy's black sheep by being too over the top and having awkward pacing, but with the added crap that comes from a terrible plot premise and the lack of a cohesive storyline. The thing that made the original Indiana Jones films great (even the Temple of Doom, though to a les...

It has almost been 2 years since I left Oxford in june of 2006, and almost as long since I was last in the UK later that summer. It's odd, the British Isles are just a hop away from Spain, but I haven't been able to make it back there since I studied there two years ago. This is especially odd considering how much I enjoyed my time there and that I have friends living in various parts of England. But, finally, after a long wait lacking in fine Ale and Tea, I am finally heading back to good ole England. I leave on thursday and will stay in London that night, courtesy of my friend Alex Oldfield, whom I have known since my first day of college. The next day I am meeting another Alex, though this time of Oxford Gargoyles fame, with whom I will indulge in tea before we both catch the train to Oxford. We are going there because this weekend is the Gargoyles 10th anniversary reunion concert. I was a member of the aforementioned a cappella group during my year studying in England. It w...

May is here. I have been waiting for it since this wretched year started a 4 months ago. Just as bad things seem to come all at once, the good ones also seem to come in clumps. And this month is called the month of May, and it is a very good clump. Trips to the beach, england, music festivals, visits from friends... it is all very nice. I started this month off with a trip to the coast. I went there with Kenny and his wife Marta, two of my best friends (side note, saying that I went somewhere with " my friend so and so and their wife" makes me feel old). We drove several hours to a town in the north of Castellón, between Valencia and Barcelona. We spent three blissfully leisurely days there, staying in a friend's house right across the beach. We would wake up late, and eat breakfast on the balcony/porch overlooking the water. Then we would go downstairs, cross the street, and settle our towels on the sand with a good book. Later a bite to eat. Then a stroll. Then dinner....

Most people have received an electronic greeting/birthday/christmas card at some point. Usually they are dull, cheesy or just downright stupid. But recently I have come across a site that does for e-cards what Despair.com did for motivational posters. Say hello to Someecards.com . It has cards for every occasion: Apologies: Birthdays: Confessions: Friendship: Get Well Soon: Or even current affairs: Some are what some people would call "in bad taste" I suppose, but I find them hilarious.

Some random things that all have music in common: - The other day I realized that I have 36 GB of music. That is 21 days of constant music. And yet I seem to listen to the same stuff over and over. Usually I get something new and devour it over and over until I get something else and then I rarely go back to the old. Sure there are some staples like Simon and Garfunkel, Ray Lamontagne, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, and many more, but on average I keep rehashing a small amount of my tunes. So I am in the process of listening to everything I have once through. There is quite a bit of stuff that I hadn't listened to in a long time, stuff that I don't particularly cherish anymore, but that is part of the activity. Everything must go! - I have been going to vocal therapy for the past month and a half. It is basically like going to a physical therapist, but for your voice. You do exercises to stimulate different muscles in your singing apparatus: diaphragm, lower vocal cords, upper vocal...

You know those people who jump at the possibility of doing good? I am not one of those people. A good example can be seen underground. If you have ever been on a subway then you know what I am talking about. An elderly person comes into the subway car and all the seats are taken so someone gets up and offers them theirs. A lot of times these generous donors seem to leap out of their seats at the slightest chance of doing well. Superman couldn't have done it faster, in fact, he would still be in the phonebooth struggling to pull his underwear over his tights by the time these others have the old guy sitting down. Sure, we are just judging on outward actions, but if we stop to think a moment we can all come up with several acquaintances that are truly benevolent inside as well as out. I often find it funny when people say something positive about my character. I can begrudgingly accept people telling me that I've acted well, or praising some talent like singing or something... bu...

Sorry I've been absent for the past week. My hard drive died. Gotta hate that. I'll get back to you.

It's late and I can't sleep. I have spent a while lying in bed, staring into the dark at objects that are no longer concrete. All around me the gloom is thick with the lack of sound; that nighttime feeling where the very silence becomes more real and concrete than actual noise, like the darkness has become a presence, not merely the absence of light. And I have been lyin in my bed, my breathing roaring in my ears, and the sound of my body against the sheets wearing my patience down like waves against a seashore. It's just going to be one of those nights. My mind wanders from thought to thought, from truth to lie, trying to make sense of life. But in the dark nothing is clear, and I find myself going back to the same desire for sleep to come and rid me of the burden of consciousness. There is nothing as frustrating as being tired and unable to sleep. My bed is currently propped up on one side, to elevate my upper body in order to help my throat heal. I propped it up a few we...

Up until Friday, my experience with Dance had been limited to what you see in clubs or certain churches (two very different things let me tell you...). A few weeks back, my friend Paz suggested that we go see the new performances that the Compañia Nacional de Danza was putting on. This particular dance troupe is possibly the most prestigious in the country. It performs what is usually referred to as Modern Dance, which is what ballet and other classical forms evolved into during the 20th century. It tends to be conceptual, though the levels of abstraction and symmetry vary. I didn't know what to expect from it all. I consider myself to be fairly appreciative of most of the arts. I am undoubtedly a film nerd. I enjoy art museums, and delude myself into thinking that I understand some of the paintings. Architecture certainly fills me with awe and admiration. I love to read, and actually enjoy poetry. And music, ah... music, is where I see God. Even so... I wasn't sure how I woul...

Well, it has been a while since I have written anything real on here. It has also been a while since I have reviewed a movie on ye ole bloge. This used to be a more common occurrence. And seeing as how I don't have much to tell you, I think we are about due another review. finally saw the movie Once. It was initially recommended to me by Afshaan, who so far hasn't let me down with her recommendations of both movies and music (props!). But actually, I was intrigued by the film before she pushed me towards it. I had seen the posters and read some good reviews, but alas, I don't have cash to see every movie that interests me. But after my friend's recommendation, I just decided to buy the DVD. Risky, perhaps, to buy a movie you have never seen. But this is actually quite a common occurrence for me. But that is a discussion for another day. So onto the film itself. First I will say, it isn't for everyone. We'll make a film personality profile for you right now. Was...