European Tour 2006: Un viaje a las tierras ancestrales

On the dawning of this new year, I found myself getting off of a plane in Mexico City. My compañero fiel, James (el filósofo chilango) and his cuate, Memo, took Anthony (my bro for life) and myself to the center of Mexico City, which at 5:30 in the morning on January 1st found itself in a sulfurous state of postapocalyptic doom as if a nuclear bomb had gone off and the survivors were all hiding in foxholes and those remaining above ground were staring at us through the dazed glances of mutated extraterrestrials exploring a new dawn. It was then that I made the most important new year’s resolution: to travel more. Not that I don’t travel enough as it is, but one can never see enough. To live is to see and to live is to listen and feel and explore... Ever pushing forward.

My trip to London and Poland – mis tierras ancestrales – is one of the fruits of this resolution.

Visiting a stellar mate was also definitely in order. Stuart (aka Donnie) and I chugged on the streets and back roads of Ireland trying to sign people up to sponsor children in Uganda (think Sally Struthers’ ads with the kids with flies in their noses) and to support Ireland’s homeless. Thanks to Stuart, I survived my short stint in this wild profession.

It was time to visit him on his home territory: England. Land of the BBC, great British comedy, perfect rock n’ roll,Winston Churchill, football, Imperialism, the Royal Navy and that eternal sense of optimism that has passed on to the American spirit.

I had to visit Poland to see my grandparents’ roots. Poland, prone to tragedy, the land of sorrow and of emigrés who have had to escape from so many atrocities, the culminating blow being the Holocaust.

Now I can reconcile two very disparate pasts to construct myself.

The travel gods

I had a 6 hour layover in Boston and bless the maker for Dave Fischer was able to take some time off of work to show me around. It was great to see him as he picked me up at the airport.

Then later, I discovered that I was upgraded to Business Class… Happy Days!

The travel gods were with me...

Boston

We also had some amazing Brazilian food in Inman Square, Cambridge. This was only eclipsed when we drove by Fenway Park (the stuff of legends) while listening to an early Metallica release, “Am I Evil?”. Yes I am.


Dave's lesson in Korean.
























Boston is an increasingly diverse city. Recently, a large wave of Brazilian immigrants have come. As you can see Dave with his mestre de capoeira.





















Dave Fischer- a grade school chum, a water polo teammate, a Menlo Park legend and a good friend.

England Forever

That’s a spot on mate: shagging off work to engage in an all day drinking session with his mate, the newly arrived Yank.
First pint in London. I got in at 5:30am. Stu picked me up at the airport and had to work at 8:30. Decided not to, and not much later we were knocking on the doors of the pubs.

Viva Brixton

The view from Stu's flat of the Brixton Market.

London calling... I live by the river

Experiments in the psychology of perception

The Dark Streets of London

I liked to walk in the summer breeze
Down Dalling Road by the dead old trees
And drink with my friends In the Hammersmith Broadway D
ear dirty old drunken Delightful old days

Then the winter came down and I loved it so dearly
The pubs and the bookies where you'd spend all your time
And the old men that were singing
When the roses bloom again
And turn once again
To a new summertime

Then the winter comes down
And I can't stand the chill T
hat comes to the streets around Christmas time
And I'm buggered to damnation
And I haven't got a penny
To wander the dark streets of London

Shane MacGowan

Baker Street

London Bridges...

Sketch for the Score of “Mechanical Eccentricity”
The Tower Bridge.
Homage to the line.

The Millenium Bridge.
The Man in Black.

Borough Market

Can you guess how much this hunk of cheese is worth? Over 800 quid.

St. Paul's Cathedral

The Tate Modern

Walking the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern.






















Cool space.






















Madness.























Self-portrait.

The TUBE

Experiments in the psychology of perception.

London Girl

The devil moon took me through the alley
Down by the Kardomah and the Centrale
To the Mews running through the back streets
Where the Blacks sold fire and sleep
The devil moon took me out of Soho Up to Camden where the cold north winds blow
Sucked along by a winter shower T
o stand beside your shining tower
This could be our final dance
This could be our very last chance
Just the sound of your voice
Wherever I may be
Changes everything
And then the world's right with me
You're my London girl
The way that you walk
You're my London girl
The way that you talk
You're my London girl
Just the sound of your voice
And I ain't got no choice

Shane MacGowan

Happy Days

Happy Days!

Stuart, Jay, the Danish Porn King and Kelly, the Book of Kells after an all-day session.

Certified as mildy insane.

Beering

Stuart: You can’t leave a pub when it’s raining. It’s the law in England.

Jay: Yes, that’s why we’re a country of drunks.







Introducing the English national sport: Beering.

Homenaje a Oscar Wilde

We are all in the gutters, but some of us are looking at the stars-

Polska

My 1st encounter with the Poles on this trip didn’t occur in Poland but on the drunken night bus in London at 3 o’clock in the morning journeying from Covent Gardens back to the flat in Brixton. A verbal brawl had ensued between an Englishman and a group of Poles. The latter wishing that the Poles would show more respect for the country that gives them refuge in their expatriation. You see, unemployment is rampant in Poland. Meanwhile, the London economy is booming. Poles, with their EU passports, stream into the city like wetbacks over the Rio Grande-O. But legally. Legal or illegal, it seems that people feel endangered by the different, yet the economy pushes the world’s citizens into a perpetual state of nomadism that ignores borders, both legal and cultural. They are simply looking for the next place where they can struggle to survive. Economic migration is at the heart of the European identity as much as it is in North America and it is changing the way that we think about each other.

Warszawa

Monument to the 1944 Warszawa Uprising
Zamek Królewski
















A Monument to the heroes of the Ghetto.