Barcelona May 26th.
It’s May ,it’s 34 degrees celsius, I’m in Barcelona. Once more I realise I’m not a person that functions well when the heat reaches this level. I don’t see the attracton of having to split the day into two sleep patterns and two ‘doing the shit you need to do’ -patterns.
I was booked to do some Comedy at a conference in Barcelona, and decided to stay an extra two days after the event and visit a friend- Tom, who lives in the town of Rubi nearby.
I’ve stayed with Tom and his family before, nice people, great kids, I was here last year in June ,so I should have remembered how oppressive this heat can be. Staying with Tom I get to see Spain as seen by people that actually live and work there, another advantage is that I don’t fall into the tourist traps and -the real reason I’m here- me and Tom like to solve the worlds problems in one of the small bars in the town square, any bar actually as long as it’s in the shadow. Tom has lived here 25 years but-like me- hates the heat, so we only walk in the shadows, and drink in the shadows, which is a great metaphor for how we live our lives. In the shadows, yearning for the sun, but not being able to handle it.
We talk like no other people I know, we spend hours talking about all the problems of modern day life and our solutions for everything that irritates us in this ‘brave new world’ of populist politics, byte size political slogans and mass media manipulation of ‘the masses’.
The truth is, we are dinosaurs, men of a different age, we differ ten years, yet neither of us could have imagined (when we were young) how the world would have changed by the time we reached middle age (Tom) and late middle age(Me).
Our conversations go on for hours, never an argument, although we don’t always agree, we would never push a point so far as to endanger the friendship, we need each other, we need to ‘feed’ off each other, we need to use each others attention to unload. We talk until we can talk no more and have to take a few hours break to regroup our thoughts and start all over.
Sometimes we try small talk, about non important issues but pretty soon the conversation will drift from how good the wine is to world capitalism and how we are all slaves to market forces and mass indoctrination- for others that occasionally share our company we are tiring. It’s a friendship built to last, because we know the other ‘is there’, we couldn’t see each other every day, that would be exhausting, but we know that come what may the other is ‘there’ if needed.
Tom writes, he blogs he writes columns ,he is a man of words. I’m a comedian, I have an ego that needs to be fed on stage, I look at the world and stick my tongue out.
Our manic discussions might be tiring but they can also inspire, we challenge each other on subjects and realize we have thoughts on the matters this in turn makes us put pen to paper. Our discussions remind me that ‘just talking’ about how I need to write,and learn the art of writing needs to be followed up by me actually writing. Every story starts with one word, that word has to be written, and to write a person needs to write, not just talk about writing or complain that one or other situation hinders a persons ability to write.
Distraction is aplenty in this brave new world, we each own devices that give us a free pass into the world of everything,just searching for one definition on line can end up with hours of web surfing and us forgetting why we were on line in the first place. The two days I spend with Tom will probably give me a weeks ‘boost’, I’ll write, blog, make my podcast. I’ll be inspired, but for how long? how long can the defence we build at the town squares bars protect us from the onslaught of mind numbing mega data that gets unleashed on our senses daily? I'll keep you updated, if I find the time to write.
