Monalia's World

I spent the month of September in Los Angeles visiting my mother, family and old friends. Mark stayed home to hold down the fort with his dog Haka, and I set out to USA with my dog Quixote as carry-on baggage.

I haven’t blogged in awhile and am way behind. This will be a quick blog with a few photos…

Quixote, the world traveler goes to USA…

Quixote is now officially a world traveler.

I arrived in Santa Monica on a Thursday and that night my brother took me and my nephew Buckley to a free concert on the Pier by Dr. John:

1) Reunion with my brother at Santa Monica Pier 2) Me and my nephew Buckley at his home in Malibu.

Here I insert a couple of photos of my mom, who will be 83 in April:

1) My mom certainly does not look 82 – this photo is of her with her best friend Michela, who is *my* age. 2) Quixote decided my mom was a better bed mate than I, and spent every night while in USA curled up with my mom.

While in L.A. I was able to meet up with old friends as well as family, but my Monalia.com blog is meant to focus on travel and (expat) life in Spain, so I won’t write a lengthy narrative about my trip home.

In fact, let me cut to the chase – a highlight was hiking in Malibu plus visiting old haunts, so I will share a few photos and then on to my next “catch-up” blog, which will be about our recent trip to Morocco.

1) My brother with his new love, Kar Kar. They are expecting a baby boy sometime in April. 2) Quixote made best friends with my brother’s dog, Duke, who has the looks, temperament, hair color and size of Haka.

Mark and I used to live in this cabaña in Paradise Cove, back in the early to mid 90’s. It is now a luxury cabaña, bought by the billionaire who owns the house above, up the canyon.

My girlfriend Michelle still lives in Paradise Cove, in the trailer park. Since the days when I lived in Paradise Cove, a handful of stars have bought trailers there, so celebrity sightings are very common in what was formerly an affordable, working class neighborhood mostly inhabited by surfers, waitresses, UPS employees, etc. Michelle and her husband Dwight are among the handful of my old friends still living there. Although I can´t imagine Michelle living anywhere else, she says if “one of those big stars” makes her and Dwight an offer they can’t refuse, they will inevitably move on, though she doesn’t see that happening anytime soon. There is only one big star living on her little lower gulch strip (Jacob Dylan). She rarely sees him, though she does see lots of hoodlum teenagers hanging out there…

Mark and I lived on the beach in Paradise Cove over 15 years ago, in the days when my former dog Pukka was a puppy. As tempting as it is, I will not digress and tell stories of long ago, nor will I share all the wonderful photos I took on my Malibu hikes on this trip, for I have another blog to do after this one, which should almost catch me up to here and now…

Michelle lives near the gully. This is part 1 of the drive from her trailer to Hutt Beach (below Barbara Streisand’s estate)

The drive to Hutt Beach takes us past the home (trailer) of Pamela Anderson. We pass her home on the right, just after the bend, (at 0:13) undergoing some garden work. Evidently Pam changes her plants, trees and shrubs a lot; it is her hobby. Walter Mathau is often seen hanging out on the porch across the street, with his very young mistress. Another star living nearby is Minnie Driver.

a bumpy but scenic drive to the beach.

We finally arrive at Hutt Beach in Malibu, the designated Trailer Park beach, which is below the homes of many famous stars like Barbara Streisand and Woody Harrelson. There’s actually a golf cart parking bluff for trailer park residents with golf carts. Quixote enjoyed the ride too; we had been hiking the canyone of Malibu all morning, so it was nice to hitch a ride to the beach…

I took so may fantastic photos while in California for the month, but I really just want to move this blog forward. My photo albums are all viewable on facebook… But I leave you with a couple parting photos:

1) These surfing guidelines weren’t here in the 90’s when we lived on this beach. 2) Quixote loves California, especially Malibu.

Quixote poses above Santa Monica Pier. 2) Shot of Santa Monica beach taken from the pier.

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¥¥¥ Right here, right now…
it is now mid January, my life here at the beach in Barcelona has been sunny and event filled. I will eventually blog about my new neighborhood and the characters, sounds, images that people it. Since my last blog I bought my own little music studio which is separate from the big, fancy Partners in Rhyme studio. I am now able to live, create, breathe music without leaving home.
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Here I share a couple “catch up” photos; one of my new studio and one of the tennis trophy I won a few months ago but haven’t had time to blog about:

1) My new music studio 2) my tennis trophy.

At the moment I’m just collecting images and sounds as well as writing music.

I returned to Spain with the lasting impression of my mother, the “82 year old swinger.” It was inspiring to spend time with her and someday I may write a book about it.

I have been recording sounds for so many years now that I sometimes forget all about them. I just recently transferred and named sounds dating back almost 2 years, many of which will inevitably be available to purchase through Sound-Effect.com, but many of which I recorded with the sole intention of blogging. They are all from our time living in Gracia. I was trying to freeze in time some of the quaint sounds of the hood.

For example there is an old fashioned relojeria (watch repair) shop down the street from our place in Gracia which has been in business for over 70 years. This is Ramon, who inherited the business from his father. He has fixed several time pieces for me over the years, so I got him to agree to let me take a photo of him and to record his clocks one day:

Ramon el Relojero

Then there’s the nasty knife sharpener. He rides around the neighborhood blowing what sounds like a pan pipe. The sound is delightful, but beware … he’s a grump and is not easy to approach. If you are a foreigner he automatically overcharges. Even the Catalan women have to barter with him.

(grumpy) knife sharpener on wheels

Delightful pan pipe from the knife sharpener as he trawls the streets for customers. The actual sound of the knives being sharpened is not so interesting so I don’t record that.

Then there’s the butanero (butane man) man who rolls by every day to deliver butane to those who need it. The butanero is nice enough, but his percussive banging of the butane cans to attract business can be annoying. However many older homes in Barcelona are heated by butane, so I don’t expect he’ll be going out of business anytime soon.

El butanero turns the corner, heads down my street banging his wares.

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Our first 2 years living in Gracia, because we lived in a bajo, or ground floor apartment and on a street with both inhabitants and retail stores, we would have constant problems with people parking in front of our doorway and either blocking us in or out. It was a never ending source of anger and aggravation. So we filled out a form requesting the city put poles in front of our place, citing our concerns that if there were a fire and someone was parked there, we would be trapped and could perish. In very polite, correct Spanish (we got help from a friend who excels at bureaucratic letters) we asked who would be responsible in the event of a fire. We submitted the request to please put poles outside our door, making it impossible for anyone to park there. After submitting the petition, we waited for a response but none came. After about a year and a half we just presumed that our request was denied, so when one day almost two years later 2 guys showed up to install 4 poles; two in front of our home and 2 in front of our Partners In Rhyme studio next door. We were elated. It took forever, but our voice was heard, put through the system and finally answered. How amazing is that?
Of course, I took photos and recorded the sound of this momentous happening:

1) What a surprise when this man showed up to put poles in front of our Gracia home. However the generator (which I recorded) in this shot is useless. They ended up using our electricity. 2) Breaking the pavement to place poles in 3) The poles laid out, still in boxes 4) Installation of final (4th) pole in front of our Partners in Rhyme headquarters.

The beautiful (to us) sound of holes being made to put our new poles in.

Life is bliss to be back in my spot. Although we’ve been living here in Barceloneta since mid June, its taken me all this time to land, to get my beach mojo momentum, to ride my bike through the back roads and alleys of my new neighborhood with Quixote, as well as to further beaches and parklands along the coast. I will write more about the beach lifestyle once I’ve spent a few seasons here. Summer is great, I can say that so far…

Although I take Quixote on all my bike rides, about once a week I’ll take Haka as well, in which case I always pose them…

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I am sitting in my writing spot with my little slice of beach view. I observe sail boats, swimmers, paddle boats, helicopters, planes, sunbathers, civil guardias and policemen roaming in twos, sometimes on horseback, on bike or ATV, meandering around to make their presence felt and hopefully make any nearby pick pockets think twice before practicing their trade … all these images pass through my little slice of heaven from where I serenely observe, sometimes taking a closer look with my monocle. My spot is up high, with seagulls, pigeons, swallows, doves. I hear the deep sound of a ship foghorn setting out from the harbor. tooooot

Sound of ship horn

Summer is in full swing; speed boats, yachts, cruise liners spilling over with people. Jet skiers try to avoid the fishing boats, swimmers try to avoid the jet skiers. The Mediterranean is like a big swimming pool, warm and teeming with life.

For the next few minutes I will try to jot down all the images I can see from my spot:

A little kid with an orange ball, throws it in the air and catches it himself, another kid splash/plunges into the water, dousing a fat older woman wearing a bikini, innocently walking by. Cute young girls wearing topless bikinis laugh in unison and dart along the shoreline as a man somersaults backwards into the water.

From my vantage point transient beach vendors are having little success today selling scarves, beers, henna tattoos, donuts even; I always silently wonder why they don’t try selling beach balls, umbrellas, catalan flag towels, popsicles – the type of item a vacationer would probably buy as a memento or a whim. But these vendors seem set on selling cheap one size fits all dresses, yummy but too hot to eat in summer home made empanadas; the ONLY guy that has ever gotten my clientele is the guy who goes around selling fresh pieces of coconut. Now that is a fun impulse, to exchange one euro for a big, juicy piece of coconut while basking on the beach…

Today no one is buying though, at least in my slice of view. Eventually a masseuse gets lucky and gives a blonde lady a 5 euro back massage. For many tourists getting a cheap massage on the beach is a heavenly indulgence, so especially late afternoon, after people have spent the day sight seeing they end up at my beach, and the prospect of a 5 euro massage on the beach is too good to pass up. I believe the masseuses do well, relatively speaking. The more successful ones, after the 5 euro back and neck treatment, convince their clients to go for the full body massage, which ups their profit to 20 euros.

A black man kicks a white ball. a young guy leaps for a frisbee which lands in the water. An attractive long haired blonde comes out of the water and flashes her hair back, whipping it from down to up like a rastaman would. A middle aged man walks by wearing speedo bikini shorts and a backpack. There is also a naked man splashing around in knee deep surf. Two teenage boys in the water toss a plastic football back and forth, sometimes having to actually dive in the water as they catch the ball.

Lots of snorklers, swimmers, and silly rafts accent the clear blue waters.

Our piso is one short block wide, meaning that while I get the early morning sun which rises out of the Mediterranean, Mark gets the afternoon sun coming from the harbor. The street below Mark’s sun bathing spot faces the backside of some of the most famous paella and fresh seafood restaurants in the city, whereas my view looks onto a quiet, narrow, residential street. Sometimes I like to sit on his terrace just to take in the aromas of paella and exotic spices wafting up.

Instead of traffic horns and street traffic, our soundscape here is mostly (territorial) seagulls and the occasional passing ship horn.