PACE

gyros are the greatest food substance known to man. and the greatest off all gyros are found on Santorini island. the owner is a dude named Lucky and he is the shit. he was throwing back tequila shots and hooking us up with free beers, and more tequila shots, as well as a free t-shirt ‘for your beautiful sister’.

santorini is a volcanic island, the actual place is built onto the crater edge of the volcano that sticks up out of the ocean. brilliant views overlooking the volcano. it has black and red sand beaches, the colors come from the volcanic rock.

next was Ios, party island. unfortunatly it was packed with alot of canadians and americans, which is usually not a problem unless they are on the spring break vibe and it appears to be their first time drinking. chants of ‘America! FUCK YA!’ were enough to make me flee the island..

to Naxos. which was amazing. beautiful beaches and town. caught a piano recital from some amazing Russian guy who played on top of the Venetian museum at night overlooking the ships in the port. the building was created by the Venetian Crusaders about 800 years ago and was partially constructed with marble take from the Acropolis. at intermission some greek guy brought out Greek wine, red and white, and a tray full of different greek liquers. I immediatly befriended him to which he replied by letting me know that it would make him happy if i sampled everything on the table…. ‘dont mind if i do..’

also got to ride some horses through the farms and gallop them on the beach..

giddy-up.

I pulled up to Westminster Abbey right as the police escorts were bringing out Prince Charles and the Queen of England.

Michael Foucalt (1926-84) wrote ‘Madness and Civilization’, a history of attitudes to the insane. He postulated that up until the 17th century, the mentally disturbed were kept out in the open and much more accepted as part of society. The move to lock them away in asylums began after the elevation of reason.

 

Ever seen a blind man cross the road,
Trying to make the other side.
Ever seen a young girl growing old,
Trying to make herself a bride.
And what becomes of you my love,
When they have finally stripped you of,
The handbags and the gladrags,
That your Grandad had to sweat so you could buy.

Once I was a young man,
And all I thought I had to do was smile.
So listen all you young girls,
Who have bought everything that’s in style.
‘Cos once you think you’re in you’re out,
For you don’t mean a thing without,
The handbags and the gladrags,
That your Grandad had to sweat so you could buy.

Sing a song of six-pence for your sake,
And take a bottle full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds in a cake,
And bake ‘em all in a pie.
They told me you missed school today,
So I suggest you just throw away,
The handbags and the gladrags,
That your Grandad had to sweat so you could buy.

And what becomes of you my love,
When they have finally stripped you of,
The handbags and the gladrags,
That your Grandad had to sweat so you could buy.
 

Currently in Merry ole England. I’m staying in a quaint English village. Lots of history & character here. The people in the corner store know everyone and there is an ancient church from about 1000 AD here in the village. Ancient Norman paintings on the walls of the church.Really nice country around here, and in the morning sometimes I take a run through the farms – check out the horses and what not.

Theres a 17 year old kid here Max, who is some kind of super prodigy at guitar, just shredding nasty riffs all day long, so I’m trying to learn what I can. Hes one of those people that confound us mere mortals, who have only been playing a short time but sound like Jimmy Hendrix.

Check out the Porche Cayman S. This car is sick.

The city itself was pretty cool. Didnt really seem very busy there at all. Lost of old arhitecture, alot of character overall. The Belgian beer is pretty good, and also the Belgian waffles. Then theres the Belgian chocolate. I guess Belguim is well known for alot of things..

The weather was perfect, got to check out a place called the Instrument Museum. 4 stories of instruments from all over the world and all time periods. When you go in they give you headsets, and you just walk up to the display and the music of the instrument starts playing through your headphones.

A pretty nice art museum, they had the original Dali painting, the one with the skinny guy holding up a cross to those huge elephants with really skinny legs…Ok Dali seems to really like elephants.. its called ‘The Temptation of St. Anthony‘ thank u google.

Theres also a comic strip museum that is pretty cool. Alot of old originals from the 30s onward. Plus the city itself has a comic strip walk, where whole sides of buildings are done up comic style all around the perimiter of the town.

What else.. pretty nice parcs where people are wasting their time playing soccer and am using my time efficiently lying in the grass.

Also, watched a movie of music of this guy Jaques Brel done to ballet. “Ne me quitte pas” is one of his most popular songs if u want to check him out.

There also seems to be some sort of network of bums/drunks/drug addicts who the local people dont seem to mind really. They all look the same and they’re all drinking beers 24/7. At times they are obviously off in some land of drug induced stupor and attempt to ramble some of their crazy talk to you. Being a fan of crazy talk and of bums/drunks/drug addicts who appeat to be in a drug induced stupor I made my best effort to extract a bit of meaning from their garbled French. Unfortunatly I don’t quite understand garbled French, or really well spoken French for that matter, and my companion in Brussels seemed not to understand the fact that upon conversation with these poor souls I could straight-away sort them out, or at least provide them a bit of their own medicine. So, I had to abandon my philanthropic endevours and continue on.

Anyway, there are also these guys about my age who actually kneel in the middle of the street with an overly dramatic pouty look in their face with thier hands cups. Filthy beggars, they are. Perfectly capable of work, yet kneeling in the sidewalk acting sad at like 2:30 on a Tuesday when the shop next door is hiring. One of them came up to me and gave me a bit of paper that said something about his kids being sick, so give him money. Bloody liar, he was. The other side was in another language and it was brought to my attention that the other side was a completly different story from the english version, no doubt some sinister plot to extort money from unsuspecting tourists. Not very well thought out either. Not even a joke, song, or dance, or some form of entertainment or amusement, just some crap story badly written on a scrap of waste paper.

Anyway, not to focus on the negative as these filthy beggars were but a small finger smear on the cold frothy beer mug of Brussels.

I was walking down the street and saw what looked like some kind of rock club, but maybe for hardcore or metal or something, so I ventured inside and said hi to the first people I saw, who happened to be leaving.

The guy was ‘Mat-chew’ who was an MC from some smaller city in Belguim. He was pretty cool, young, about 21, and with some other chick that looked pretty nice. They took us to an underground hip hop / jazz / funk place that turned out to be really sweet.

It was in the basement portion of an apartement building but totally hooked up. A full bar, tables, chairs, red candles, a seperate room with a piano, speakers, sound equiptment, drum set, and a huge stand up bass.

It was an open jam session and anyone could get up and play or sing or do whatever they did. Mat-chew was going to spit some lines, and we got into a conversation on the way over about the fundamentalz of rap. of course i was on point with the old school 36 Chambers and what not, “nahm-sayin”. And his girl was more punk, so I just talked to her about Taking Back Sunday, who she had just seen for the first time the week before.

Anyway, the club was really sweet, met some cool people and found out that people have mad respect for Philly. So big up 2 philly and the Roots for representing globally.

Castles built by the Muslims when the controlled Spain a long time ago. Slits in the lookouts for archers and the whole deal. I , of course, proceeded to re-enact scenes of battle to the best of my knowledge and to the dismay of passersby.

The Rock of Gibraltar. Fortress of colonial Britain. And they’re still holding on. The rock of Gibraltar has huge history over the previous centuries. The Rock is a small piece of the southernmost coast of Spain, you can see North Africa from there. The British took it over back in the day, and stil hold it from the Spanish. They dont trust the Spanish if it were to come down to the wire, the Brits want control. Plus they’ll let us land planes there. Plus under the Rock is an entire garrison, complete with hospitals, cafeterias, kilometers of roads, living quarters, water, feul, etc. Plus the rock is nuke-proof, being buried under a huge mountain containing alot of limestone. (takes care of the fallout). So if there is nuclear meltdown someday, you’ll probaby find the remnant of the race on Gibraltar. Funny accent they have there. Sounds like some kind of mix between right proper Queens English, Italian, and Spanish. Strange indeed.

The Rock itself is beautiful. Huge white birds cirlce the top, which is some kind of military comm. post. There is a casino there (closed when i was there, or I would have to had to go in and comandeer some poor souls loot), also a botanical garden. The towns got alot of character. Narrow streets lines with olde english restaurants and pubs.

The museum was cool, and contained some 14th century baths, put in by the Muslims who has control over the area way back in the day.

Southern Spain feels alot like Southern California. The colors are pretty soft everywhere and the people are very friendly. The weather is just about perfect, with cool sea breezes coming off the ocean. Moving west along the coast, Im in Malaga now, having been through Jerez, San Fernando, Chiclana, and Sevilla. S. Spain is really sweet and is the first place that I thought I could actually live here.

The music, the women, the food. Beuno.

Picking up some Spanish as we go, you’d be suprised how much comes back to you from one pathetic year of h.s. spanish.

Sevilla and Malaga are pretty big cities in Spain, and both have a bull fighting stadium.

The beach here is beautiful. I was there at night to see some guys doing some wind surfing..

Got to try some of the best Spanish wine one night at a friends house. This guy Havier, his father wanted to have us over and give us some of his best wine. Havier was pretty cool, played percussion (about 6 hadn drums, and cymbals) , also guitar, and also was into spear fishing. He was in some spear fishing magazine. What he does is free dive down with this sweet spear fishing gun, dives down about 28 meters, or something ridiculous like that, and spears these massive fish, then pulls them up. The one picture I saw, the fish was half the size of his body, and hes a big dude. He sold that one for about 1000 Euros, which is like 1500$. He also taught me some Flamenco guitar, which was a bonus. I also got to wear my suit that I bought in Thailand – full suit, jacket, pants, tie, shirt – tailor made $100 us.

Entonces, todos dias es muy bueno. La comida es bueno y tambien las personas de Espange. Yo quiro Espange. Dayspues Malage, yo voy a Brussels por mi compleanos. Adios.