Times are tough.  We should be smart enough to realize that the bad economy was long in the making and will be long in the fixing. There are no magic words or silver bullets that will quickly return us to pre-recession, pre-collapse prosperity.

The Republicans spent too much (on tax cuts and 3wars—Iraq, Afghanistan and war on drugs), many banks gambled too much and many people borrowed too much. When it all fell apart, an overextended government had to help overextended banks and overextended borrowers. The money stopped swirling. Jobs that flourished during the boom became scarce. The debt grew and the economy shrank.

Obama underestimated the crisis and underfinanced the stimulus package aimed at fixing it. So things got worse before they slowly began to get better.  Structural economic issues, like the deflation in the housing market, and a poorly trained and outdated workforce remain.  We are caught in a complex mix of poor choices and inadequate responses. Obama tried to help fix a mess that he didn’t make, but the fixing has come slowly. Is that failure? Romney and the Republicans say yes.

If the Republicans  can keep framing it as a failure, they can push for, and maybe even push through, their brutal budgets, which cut programs that help the poor and struggling and benefit the rich—not what’s left of the middle class. While they push their anti- average guy budgets, they also make savage attacks on cultural issues: voting rights, women’s rights, gay rights, immigration, etc.

This is the Republican  trick: Run on fiscal conservatism (forgetting that W wasted a multi trillion surplus when he took over after Clinton); bring 19^th Century cultural values along for the ride. The Trojan horse platform.

Tapas make a meal here.  The heat of the day and siestas over, people return to the streets.  Locals fancy a copa of red and a bit of ham or fig wedge with manchego—– maybe topped with a spoonful of quince or fresh chile jam.  In Barcelona  at La Bodeguilla del Gato, ravenous tourists relax amidst the cool brick walls hung with contemporary paintings, old bullfight posters and concert ads (“El Flaco de Bad Boys”).  My fellow travelers, freed from the confines of traditional menus order saucers of  pulpo, ravioli sardines with mango, potato with egg yolk and basil jelly.

Barcelona will always be Gaudi/Dali to me. Surrealistic flights of fantasy in Parc Guell or Sagrada Familia. Think food and it’s El Bulli, Ferran Adria’s spot.  Never went, but his influence is shot through all of the avant garde spots in this city. Herbal and fruit foams were born here along with micro fusion exotics.  Like the architecture, the food is different than elsewhere in Spain, or anywhere in the world that I have been.

Geography helps explain– Costa Brava  is a stone’s throw away from the heart of the city. The sea  holds an endless supply of swimming protein and rocky cliffs hold the influences of two thousand years of Phoenician, Greek and Roman cooking. Not to mention the contributions from the Arabs —the Moorish occupation brought eggplant, saffron and cumin.  And that infectious gypsy guitar, clicking castenets, the stamping feet of proud women—but that is another post about southern Spain.

Catalon food prepared along the northern coast and in tiny eateries in Barcelona is magic.  But the Catalon heart is tougher to peg—Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are natives, but so are Genivieve Jamis and Sir Anthony Wedgwood. Melting pot claims Barcelona, as the Mediterannean does with with all her ports, which feel international and distinct from the rest of the country in which they happen to be positioned. But even as international  cities go this is a very different place, more Istanbul than Paris.

One late night journal entry from sitting in  a cafe in the medieval section of the old walled city of Barcelona: “Designer bars dominate, customers sipping local reds like Cava, Penedes or Priorato, eating salt and citrus combos on a crust of bread drizzled with EVOO, all of which soar to new heights of inventiveness.”  Now, stay tuned for Andalucia. . .

     Arrived on a hot overcrowded train from Munich. We untangled, dragged the packs from the overhead and heaved them on our backs on our way to the first waterway, asking anyone in an Italian State Railway uniform for directions. “Vaporetti numero dice.” Wrong, it turns out, as so much of the advice given by the impressively confident Italians is.  The country is populated with folks who seem happy to suggest something—anything— no matter whether accurate or totally false. We found #82 after an hour on two boats that took us where we did not want to go. Finally on board the correct bobbing water taxi, overloaded and spewing diesel exhaust and grumbling off at a snail’s pace, we passed Santa Maria della Salute, then across open water to Palladio’s San Georgio Maggiore and our B&B, once part of a 15th century monastery.

She stripped, and joined me already naked on the grand bed. Cool crisp sheets and overhead fan. Heavy and ancient blackout floor to ceiling drapes. A musty maroon tapestry covering a peeling fresco. The room smelled old like stale bread and tobacco.

Our son was conceived in Italy, land of lovers, world capital of style, in the most unusual and unique man-made place on the planet. A Renaissance museum impersonating a city. As in all of Venice, great art was within walking distance of our room, despite its run down budget location. This little narrow curving spit of an island contains fabulous Tintorettos, Bellinis and Carpaccios hanging in churches, coffee houses and one tiny miniature in the hall to the toilet of the neighborhood trattoria. All unprotected—like black and white photos taken by a local photog showing his stuff at Starbucks.

Before I die I would like to climb to the top of the 60 meter SGM Campanile again—this time with my boy, whose life started here and who is now a man; whose life is as precious and sacred to us as all of the art in this holy,  inspiring city built on water, which remains a monument to western art and midieval engineering.

Anna was in Havana last month.  Lost my chance to hook up  because I couldn’t catch a ride out of Mexico City.  Had a second shot a day later but was too hungover to motivate. She’s still in the Caribbean. I’m in Miami  April 1 but there are no direct flights to Cuba from the States. Havana via a Caribbean Island will work, then again if you make it to Jost van Dyke, why leave White Beach to check out a version of South Central? Cuba is raw and not much else on this hemisphere is these days and that is reason enough.  But so is Anna.

Met her in ‘o8 with her dude.  Kept in contact by email.  She called on my Bday last year and invited me to New Zealand. Today she texted me that the guy she was traveling with in ’08 was killed in an accident somewhere in Africa.  She told me details but I forgot. My head doesn’t give much of a shit anymore–an old brain is like a battery that won’t hold a charge.

They had broken up long ago and to tell you the truth the dead guy was unremarkable.  Met him (American, silver spoon) and Anna in the Spice market in Istanbul.  He was nondescript. Coulda been a lawyer, engineer, IT dude. Left brainer and highly competent.  Someone you would gladly hire to help with taxes or a hard drive crash, but might regret inviting to dinner or having a chat over a pint.

Anna was another story. Never can gauge the attraction between men and women, especially where the female is alive and sparkly and the dude seems as if he misses Bob Hope. She and I would belt beers for breakfast in the Sultanhamet, listening to the call to prayer on the steps of our B&B across from the Blue Mosque. We ran the old city together, her cracking wise in a trisuit that was not consistent with Islamic modesty, always the bawdy lines at the ready, grabbing my ass as she passed me easily.  Of course I was smitten, she was just having a go: ”No worries mate, there’s a good lad!”

Tonight I invited her here. Rude to ask I s’pose— when she called to tell me a guy she had loved just died,  but there it is. Before ringing off she said two things I have to think about. “What do you think the point of it is then, Rick, coming to you?” And, “I’ll come, now straightaway. But you can and you must accept suffering.”

Already have Anna. And maybe we can chop away at whatever it is that festers within us by sharing. Being with another is supposed to be half the suffering and twice the fun. No doubt about the latter.  We’ll kill that case of Foster’s before and after our morning runs downtown; the bells of old St. Mary’s on Van Buren, tolling.

There was nothing to do but wait for morning.  The passport was gone, the credit cards too.  The hotels were booked, besides my remaining cash would barely pay for one night. The beach was bed. Don Carlos the cripple lived on the beach.  He shared his camarones and redfish; corn on the cob. When the passport came back with the credit cards 2 nites later I offered him money for his help. He refused. I took Don Carlos’s hand to thank him, or rather laid my own hand on top of his—you cannot take a fingerless hand.

He grunted something that sounded like “dichoso.”  In the darkness the knuckles felt as a rock might—one that has been eroded for years by the weather.

Captain Cook’s second voyage, off the coast of Poipu January 19, 1778. He was 55ish and at that age when things disorderly start to wrankle beyond all sense of proportion.  He was a crisp navy man and did not tolerate the non-squared away.  This quality allowed him to bring back his crew twice, unscathed, after voyages twice around the world lasting over 5 years in climates as diverse as in the Antarctic, Hawaii, New Zealand and Alaska. Discipline, a light human touch and a commitment to the principles of the Enlightenment characterized his temperment the first two circumnavigations.

 Cook  died on his 3d voyage.  he had become a bitter, impatient man, rigid without the need for it.  As a young captain he had been a rarity in a racist Anglocentric universe—respectful of natives, patient with their differences without trying to convert them to Jesus, generous with gifts.  But a few more years of sailing under harsh conditions, deprived of the balance afforded by solid ground and a loving woman,  he became intolerant and short tempered like most old men who refuse to stay green and adaptable. He was a brown dried twig and snapped one morning in Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island.  The printed page above is from the journal of a witness who recounted how he used violence against the locals and paid for it with his life—bludgeoned to death, mutilated and dismembered. Here is part of the original  account:

“On the 14th our large Cutter moored at our Sml Br. Buoy was missing. Boats were manned and armed from both ships with orders from Capt. Cook to lay at the mouth of the Bay and keep the Passage, that nothing should enter or go out while he himself with three of his own Boats manned and armed went to the town on the NW side of the Harbour to secure the Chief of all the Islands at his residence there. Capt. Cook landed with the Marine officer and party of marines and visited the Chiefs house, but was opposed in his Demands upon Tireoboo the Chief and was returning to the shore where the Boats lay surrounded both him and his Guard with a vast crowd who were alarmed at his boldness and perhaps at a loss to account for his return to the Boats – or from whatever motives it was soon perceived that many of them were Armed – tho at the same time others were crowding presents upon him, which with much Anger he threw from him – some insolence was afterwards shown him and he fired some small shot at the Offender without doing any damage, this is perhaps partly nearly the situation of matters when a Skirmish ensued and the fire became general from the Boats and then from the Marines, but without any Orders from any quarter as I can understand, for Capt. Cook turned to the boats enquired the Reason of it and was ordering them to cease firing when a Chief came behind and stabd him between the shoulders with an Iron instrument like a Dirk (a type of knife) of which they had many made by Capt. Cook by their own directions. He fell immediately at the receipt of the Blow with his face in the water but did not expire till he had recd. several other wounds in different parts of his Body – every thing was in confusion now, the Indians were elevated at their success and a Corporal and three Marines shared the Fate of their Commander before the others got on board the Boats, the Lieut. of Marines was stabd in the shoulder and others badly wounded with stones which came like hail from such a multitude…”

A desert road from Vegas to nowhere, some place better than where you’ve been.  A coffee machine that needs some fixing in a little cafe just around the bend. A hot dry wind blows right through me, the baby’s crying and I can’t sleep. But we both know a change is coming coming closer—-sweet release…

Varkala Beach, Kerala…

The setting sun, that funeral fire in the sky, I looked away to follow the last flares of the cerise and magenta streaming  over the sea—safired in evening light.  “Farid the Fixer got you to the airport?”