AOG's Open Salon Blog

America's gay problem

Sun, 13 May 2012 09:05:21 -0400

AOG, Madrid

A few days ago, US President, Barack Obama, said that he had changed his mind about gay marriage. He said that he "supported" it.

"At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married", he said in an interview on television.

At present, it is difficult to know what this conclusion actually means for gay couples wishing to marry. Will he support it enough that he will legalize it at a federal level, equating it to marriage between heterosexual couples?

Will we have to wait until his next Administration for this to happen? Of course, it bears thinking that if he were to loose the election (unlikely but not impossible), his good wishes will remain just that: good wishes. Nothing more.

It is very interesting to note that this new civil rights movement, the movement for equality under the law for gay couples, is called anything but that.

That it is attracting the same sort of hate from religious groups that black people had to face during the civil rights movement in the 60s (and before).

That, whereas it might be hard to identify the death of a black youth who committed suicide because he or she was black (though not impossible), we are increasingly seeing in the media how some young gay people are doing just that, because the society they live in does not give them the right to live in peace.

Because everywhere they look, all they see is hate, insults, abuse. And still in the US we don't classify hate crimes as hate crimes when directed against gay people. Freedom of speech, many say.

Because we see people who look far removed from sanity picketing the funerals of soldiers, claiming that "God hates fags".

Because a woman in Nebraska stood up to publicly declare her graphic homophobic views during Lincoln's Anti-Discrimination Law hearings, saying things like "a huge percent of gay men in school grounds molest boys, partly because they don't have AIDS yet" and "Jesus was kissed by Judas, a homo, who tried to sabotage Jesus' kind ideas. Do you choose Jesus, a celibate, or Judas, a homo? You have to choose!".

I would not say that she has the freedom of speech to proclaim such hateful statements. And I feel very unprotected by American law when people like her are allowed to spew forth such hate and ignorance.

Of course, when I listened to what she was saying, I immediately realized that this lady was either, a) extremely ignorant and uneducated, or b) suffering from some sort of mental illness, which, in spite of everything, makes me feel sorry for her.

However, I know too well that she is not alone. I know that many people in America feel like they can justify their blood-curling hatred of gay people because, according to them, it says so in their Bible. Just like their Bible was used as justification for discrimination of black people not too long ago.

Ironically, all of these "studious" religious leaders, who say things like marriage is a sacrament, and that God dislikes homosexuals, seem to ignore the history of their own faith.

A history that would tell them that the Christian church, among other things, didn't really have an official marriage rite until about the XI century, and that, believe it or not, did marry people of the same sex.

And it did so for a very long time. And married a lot of people. It was not a one-off. It was not a weird thing, or an abomination.

It just was.

So of course, when they say things like that, you can't help but think, 'how dare you?'.

How dare you ignore your own history and pretend that what I'm asking for is something your faith has always deplored, when it clearly is not the case?

How dare you invoke a text written by a primitive people with very little relevance in the XXI century to justify your hate?

How dare you speak of love for everyone, unless they are gay?

Does this make sense to you?

It doesn't make sense to me.

America has a problem with gay people, yes. But it also has a problem with hate. And a problem with religion.

And the America we think (or like to think) the world admires, is just fiction and has been for a long time now.

Why do I say this? I have a friend who is from Africa. He came to Spain a couple of years ago. He speaks English, some Spanish, and his native Bantu language. He is not gay and can read and write a little. And he is fascinated by the US and has been since he was a child he told me when we first met.

I spoke with him last night when I came across him on the street at 2AM. He makes a living by working for a Chinese mafia which runs a pirate CD & DVD operation.

He was amazed by Obama's words and asked me to explain what exactly he meant.

"It means that he favors gay people getting married".

"What do you mean favors? Was the law going to be changed?"

At this point I had not realized yet what he was asking.

"No, the law is not going to change yet. We may have to wait until his second Administration for that to happen".

"But, he is going to change the law? Why? If he favors it, why is he going to forbid it?"

And then I realized that my friend's view of America belonged to another era.

I explained to him that gay marriage in America was illegal. To say he was surprised would be an understatement.

"So Spain has more advanced laws than America?"

"Some laws, yes".

"So how can America be the most advanced country in the world if it forbids that?"

And I didn't know what to say.

Disturbing

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:04:04 -0400

AOG, Madrid

Tonight I left home and headed to my usual coffee place: Diurno. It has been raining all day and Madrid felt cool, wet.

On the way over, I saw a mattress. On the street. With a stain. Propped against the trash containers.

It caught my eye immediately.

A mattress outside its natural habitat is a visual abomination. It challenges your sensibilities.

Why is it there? Well, that question is not really as important as: What is it doing there?

We seek an answer to a strange question because of the horror that an abandoned mattress causes us.

Perhaps it was not abandoned. Perhaps it was discarded. And we can't help but wonder about the cause.

The owner moved home. Or, worse, died.

That red stain near the edge, resembling a wound to the shoulder; or the heart.

Perhaps the owner bought a new one. No, that can't be right. Because when they deliver the new one they take the old one with them. But not this time. This mattress is there because it is no longer needed.

But it isn't something you can give away. Who'd want an old stained mattress? And yet, surely someone, somewhere, would like it. Would take it and use it.

I remember reading long ago that in the past, when someone died, their mattress, or their whole bed, would be thrown out. In most cases, burnt. Thrown into the fire.

Perhaps not those of the poor, only the beds of those with money, and mattresses, to burn.

A sort of cleansing perhaps?

So, to see such a personal item just thrown out is, was, disturbing.

Of elephants and the King of Spain

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:04:57 -0400

AOG, Madrid

It is often difficult to pinpoint the starting point of a man-made catastrophe. Literary tragedies are often built around such events, and they often make for interesting reading.

To the stories surrounding events like the Watergate scandal and what it did to Nixon, the Dreyfus affair in France in the XIX century, or, more recently, the whole Dominique Strauss-Kahn drama, soon there may be another, no less disgusting, event.

One involving King Juan Carlos I of Spain, the state of Spain's economy and the Spanish Government's austerity plans, the African nation of Botswana, and elephants.

You see, up until now, most people in Spain were somewhat content with the idea of living in a Kingdom, having a parliamentary monarchy, enjoying democracy, and having a king who, so the story goes, 'saved' Spain from an anti-democratic coup d'état in 1981 when he ordered a group of rebellious generals to put their weapons down because he was ordering them to do so.

Ever since then, the Spanish Royal family has been more or less tolerated by the people of Spain.

Yes, there have been those who are asking for Spain to be a republic, and those who would love for the 2nd Republic, the one that General Franco destroyed via a coup d'état -and the ensuing civil war which would not end until 1939-, in 1936.

But by and large, most people in Spain would say that their royal family had avoided the scandal which seems to plague other European royal houses (read Monaco, the UK, Sweden, Norway) because of the king's character and their general behavior as normal and simple people.

Normal people who happen to live in a small palace and represent the country when they travel abroad in official trips.

But this has changed, and not for the better.

Not so long ago, people in Spain began to be aware of the fact that, although the Spanish royals were not living in the lap of luxury like their British and European cousins, they were, indeed, living quite well, and all at the taxpayers expense.

So slowly, the Spanish people have begun to ask privately, and publicly, for the Royal Household's accounts to be made public.

Not so long ago, December 2011, it was announced that the King's household received an annual Government stipend of around 8 million euros to cover its expenses (with the King getting a salary of US$382.677 per annum).

Ok, so far so good. Nobody believed they were 'poor', as people would often say in the 80s, but certainly it did not seem like a huge amount of money.

But the small tragedy which is developing in Zarzuela palace, the King's official residence, began to unravel sometime before that.

First of all, there was the matter of the Crown Prince, Felipe, marrying a commoner, and a divorced commoner at that.

You see, when Prince Charles married Lady Diana in the UK, a lot was said in Spain, and other countries, surrounding a royal marriage between a prince and a commoner.

And Spain at the time began to toy with the idea that that sort of thing would not happen in their royal family.

Well, fast forward to 2004: here was the Prince of the Asturias doing much the same thing, but with a somewhat less ideal candidate in the eyes of the king.

It appears that Felipe gave his parents an ultimatum at the time: either you let me marry, or I abdicate my position.

Yes, it was Wallis Simpon all over again, but a bit further South and somewhere just as Royal.

Things have settled since, and most people in Spain are ok with his chosen wife. Previously divorced or not. They now have two daughters.

A few years later there was the matter of the king's eldest daughter, the Infanta Elena, now divorced, official separation from her husband.

No big deal in a protestant country, and certainly no big deal in modern Spain.

But the royal family behaved in a very strange way around this separation. As if that was what was really important in this day and age.

A very odd euphemism was made public at the time to explain what was happening: "temporary cessation of cohabitation". Or just a separation to you and me.

But last year, something much more serious and much more important hit the headlines: an alleged case of corruption perpetrated by the king's son-in-law, the Duke of Palma, Iñaki Urdangarin, married to the Infanta Cristina, the king's second daughter.

A regular fraud scandal carried out by someone who, for all intents and purposes, had it made.

Why would someone like that bother with cashing in on the family name when, basically, you would not want for anything for the rest of your days?

Yes, Fergie would do something like this, and she has, but then she is not really part of the royal family in the UK any longer. And she has bills to pay.

He probably did to. Except these should not include the purchase of a small palace in Barcelona.

As of now, the princess and her husband have been separated from the royal limelight and will conduct no official royal business until the whole matter is cleared up.

And, in theory, they are getting no money to carry out their duties, whatever these may be.

But thus far, the Spanish public were pretty much sort of on the king's side.

Sort of, because a lot of people think that the Duke in question will not serve any jail time whatsoever because of who he is.

The Spanish royal family would probably think that would be a scandal, whereas the people who pay for their upkeep think just the opposite, that the real scandal would be for him, if found guilty, not to go to jail.

During his Christmas message, King Juan Carlos -now 74 years old- said that nobody was above the law, or words to that effect.

Although when probed further, the king said he was not referring to anyone in particular, many saw it as a veiled message.

If Iñaki Urdangarin were indeed found guilty, as it looks at present like he might be, the Crown would not step in to defend him.

And the people were ok, sort of, with their monarch and his apparent distaste of judicial privilege.

And then last November the Conservatives won the general election and have ever since done their best to do away with most worker's rights in Spain, alleging that this will get Spain out of the economic crisis it is going through, to the chagrin of most everyone in the country.

With over 5 million people unemployed, and the highest unemployment rate in the OECD for young people, a couple of weeks ago the king said publicly that youth unemployment would sometimes "keep me up at night".

No he did not need to say that, but then, here's a man who's always said that he wanted to be not the king of Spain, but the king of all the Spanish people.

Meaning he was for bipartisan politics and a fraternal status quo in Spain after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, in power until his death 1975.

During the king's Christmas message, after saying in August that, given the current economic situation, we all had to tighten our belt a little, and referring to no one in particular, but with his son-in-law in mind, he declared that "We need rigor, seriousness and an exemplary behavior in every way. We all, especially those of us with public responsibilities, have a duty to observe a proper behavior, an exemplary behavior".

Then a couple of weeks ago, his majesty went on to say that "You need to pitch in to create jobs, because the situation is very serious".

Then some people began to say a bit more loudly that in Spain, the Royal Household was just getting that little bit more expensive in the current economic climate.

That the Catholic Church in Spain does not pay taxes and gets a lot of handouts of public money, that bankers are getting a bit of a free ride, etc etc etc.

In other words, it appears that a lot of people began question exactly who in Spain is paying for the mistakes of the people responsible for throwing the country into the economic dire straits its in, and who is not.

And then, just yesterday, April 14, anniversary of the 2nd Spanish Republic, the news hit the airways.

The King of Spain, His Majesty Juan Carlos I, had fractured his hip during an elephant hunt in Botswana, a country Spain has no diplomatic relations with.

And the shit hit the fan.

The king is the honorary president of the Spanish branch of the WWF.

The king was down in Africa on a 'personal' trip.

The Government was not informed.

And then, aside from the unfathomable idea of a European monarch, one from a modern and, up until last November anyway, forward thinking country, hunting elephants in a third world African country, there was the cost.

Although the numbers are still being published by the Spanish media, it appears that one must pay around €20,000 per hunt. Plus all the expenses.

Some companies in Spain offer 15 day hunting safaris geared towards the elephant hunt for a price ranging from €37,000 to 45,000 ($50,000 to $60,000 US), depending on where they hunt.

To say there is public outrage is cutting it short.

Was this "exemplary behavior"? Is this the sort of thing the monarch should be doing?

The word on the street is, "Why are we paying for this man's hunting trip?" quickly followed by "Why are we paying for these people?" and then finally "Why don't we get rid of them, become a republic, and have these parasites get a real job?"

That is pretty much the word on the street. As never before, it is very difficult to defend the King today.

I cannot tell you where the king of Spain's downfall began, but, today at least, it pretty much looks like it started in Botswana.

Old things, new things

Sun, 1 Apr 2012 16:04:29 -0400

AOG, Madrid

There are concepts that make it across the planet in seconds, and others which, even after all the technological advancements, still take for ever to arrive.

What for instance? Well, in Europe there is something called teletext, which is a rudimentary form of interacting with your television.

Last time I went to the US, teletext was a bit of a mystery to most people I mentioned it to.

Ditto for Skype, though I hear that Skype is making somewhat of an inroad into American culture. I think it is taking a while to make an impact since telephone calls in the country, unlike the rest of the planet, and in particular Europe, are not exactly expensive things.

So, does America return the favor? Yes, of course, a thousandfold, though to many people, American concepts are just, well, American.

Like the idea of teamwork, trial by jury, and even cable TV. Or garage sales.

Here in Spain, a country well know for being as prone to fad hysteria as any other Western country these days, old things and the lore associated with them are a bit of a an outsider.

This in itself is a very American concept, but in the case of Spain, there is a twist.

It isn't that the Spanish don't like old things. They do. Although not as populated as early as, oh I don't know, Mesopotamia, the Iberian peninsula's ability to support our species is, by all measures, millennial.

People have been living here since almost as soon as they, we, started living anywhere.

The city of Cadiz, for example, a former Phoenician colony, is meant to be Europe's oldest continuously inhabited city, with a history going back over 3000 years.

Yes, but Cadiz, which stems its name from Gadir, existed at a time when Spain, or anything that looked, sounded or smelled like Spain, did not exist.

Nevertheless, the people living in Spain these days, including me, are lucky enough that they are surrounded by a lot of ancient rocks, streets, artifacts, and, of course, ideas.

But I digress.

In Spain, ideas like 'vintage', which they actually refer to as 'vintage', are only just beginning to appear on the cultural horizon.

And this, for someone like me, someone who has a degree in History and who likes to admire objects from other eras and imagine the world as it might have been then, this is exasperating.

When I was growing up, if there was something I loved doing was buying old comics.

Not because they were old, but because by the time I'd come on the scene (read Earth) these things had been here for a while longer, and I hated waiting for a whole month until the next issue came out.

I devoured things like Peanuts, or the Wizard of Id, or, and this was apparent the microsecond I hit 16 and was eligible to drive, automobile magazines.

I began to buy Road & Track and Motor Trend like there was no tomorrow. Except that my love for cars extended unto my artistic experimentation, and it was days before I picked up a set of French curves and stared drawing my own automobiles. And I needed inspiration.

And inspiration was to be found in old issues of Road & Track and Motortrend, among others.

For me, the ideal Saturday morning was going for a drive with my family to the nearest second hand book store and make my way into the 'Automotive' section.

There my treasures were laying. Although hardly any issues went further back than early 70s, it was a real treasure trove for me.

I would get more sophisticated with time, and other magazines and sources of inspiration , such as antique stores, the Salvation Army store and flea markets, would make their way unto my consciousness, but old magazines are still something I find precious as well as intriguing.

When I lived in the UK, I was very fortunate in that the country has a tradition of charity shops.

These are stores which are usually run by volunteers and which sell second-hand items (books, clothes, shoes, bric-a-brac) for a good cause, such as the Royal Institute for the Blind, the Red Cross, Charities for Romanian Orphans, or Oxfam, one of the more sophisticated ones.

In fact, Oxfan was one of my favorites since it often had shops especially geared towards book lovers, such as myself.

Ah yes... in as far as old things are concerned, London in particular, and the UK in general, were paradise for me.

And then I moved to Spain.

Yes, for all its old palaces, castles and Phoenician ruins, Spanish culture is still not very second-hand friendly. It is still tied to social class. Only poor people would be interested in second hand things.

So nobody gives anything away publicly. If they do, it goes straight into the hands of nuns, or other charitable institutions, who do NOT have stores where you can go a peruse.

Oh no; if you are poor, they will give you things, of course, but none of the fund raising aspect, as you would find in the UK, you see.

And as for old things, yes, there are some stores here and there who sell old paraphernalia. But they are difficult to find, and not exactly well stocked.

Old books are never too far from a collector's gaze, so these are plentiful in Spain. As are Objects d'Art, tapestries, and assorted household decorative items.

But things like old clothes, vintage old clothes, shoes or accessories, are not so readily available, something really odd for a fashion powerhouse such as Spain.

Of course, things are changing.

Vintage shops are popping up here and there especially in the trendy districts (unlike in the rest of Western Europe where secondhand shops might be trendy, but are not to be found in a trendy area -London being perhaps the only exception).

And yes, of course, Spain always did have sort of antique markets operating in one way or another, although these days places like the famous open air antique neigborhood of 'El Rastro' in Madrid, or the 'Els Encants' market in Barcelona, are more geared towards cheaply-made Chinese products and, more often than not, stolen goods, than actual valuable antiques.

However, the idea, the simple idea of a second-hand store is still anathema to most people here. How far from Tokyo where, we were told, there is, in fact, an entire department store selling only second hand goods!

So this weekend I was to be met with slight disappointment again.

I read in the paper that there was going to be a toy car collector's meet in one of Madrid's shopping centers.

Images of Hot Wheels, Majorette and Matchbox flooded my mind.

So I went, early Saturday morning, to the appointed place. Yes, there they were, a small army of collectors and passersby taking up a lot of space and not letting me look at anything.

Yes, I know I was impatient. I am a little, especially when anxious.

However, as I began to look out over a sea of not-exactly-miniature toy cars, my heart sunk.

What the hell was this? It was slot cars.

Ok ok, I'm not racist, people who like slot cars also deserve to live and who am I to criticize their hobby? However, the problem was not them, the problem was the stupid journalist who wrote the piece and didn't mention that bit of information.

I have to say, yes, there was one single, solitary stand, which did cater to my favored size. As per usual, the goods on offer had been in battle. Childhood can be very damaging to a toy car. Bent, wheel-free, dented, paint-scrapped miniatures were there, all lumped in a box, ready for a kind hand to pick them up.

And I did, and when I saw the state they were in, and the €6.00 they wanted for them, I put them back in their pit. I saw a couple of early Matchbox Rolls Royce models, from the 1950s I think, complete with their flimsy build and smaller size.

I also saw one of the cars which accompanied my childhood.

A yellow, 2 door Mercedes from the 70s with the usual white interior and the black top which, and I just read this online as I was looking for the image, was removable. Something I never did.

I thought it would break. I was the kind of child who would take care of his toys. But the stand guy wanted €10.00 for it. Sorry, I'm not rich, and I don't have a toy car habit.

So getting back to the original point, some fads and trends whizz around the world in days. And some take a while to arrive.

Like Teletext in the US, Democracy in Arab countries. And second hand stores in Spain.

February 29, 2012

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:02:13 -0500

AOG, Madrid

_{Leap year. That means one extra day. Not that it matters much.}

^{Unless you were born on February 29, which means today is your real birthday since, according to our calendar, today occurs only once every 4 years.}

^{This morning, as I was running towards the bus, I picked up one of the free papers so readily available on Madrid’s streets these days.}

^{On it, there was a headline which somehow brought it all home to me: “I got my driver’s license on my 5th birthday and I retired on my 16th”.}

^{Isn’t that wonderful? That possibility of living and celebrating things within your own universe? Of living on this world but dictating, or at least, living by the odd dictates of a calendar based on reality, as it opposes our natures?}

^{What do I mean by that? Well, it is obvious that the Earth rotates as it pleases, but that we have a measuring system created many millennia ago in the Middle East somewhere.}

^{It was the ancient Sumerians who came up with the sexagesimal system (one based on the number 60) around 2000 BC.}

^{That is 2000 years before Jesus (if you believe in things like that) was born. Nobody knows why they came up with the sexagesimal system, but it is with us today.}

^{How many seconds in a minute? 60. How many minutes in an hour? 60.}

^{However, today it is more or less proven that it was the ancient Egyptians around 1500 BC who thought of dividing the day into smaller portions. Certainly they seem to have created the first sundials.}

^{So we, as a species, long ago chose to make sense of our planet by breaking it down into smaller, more maneagable parts. Even if these have little to do with reality, or, at least, reality as we perceive it.}

^{This alternative real reality (real because it is a fact that this date only happens every 4 years, and it does happen) also tends to permeate our lives, except, perhaps, we don’t give it much credit.}

^{For example, my family, my partner and I all live in different cities. And when we meet, the important calendar dates have gone by, or they are about to.}

^{Hardly ever do we get to be together on the date itself. St Valentine’s, Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries are celebrated by us within our own alternative time frame. For example, last year, we celebrated Christmas with my family on the 30th of December.}

^{This year, my partner and I celebrated St Valentine’s Day on the 18th of February, and then again on the 25th. Twice? Yes, twice.}

^{Both times there were gifts exchanged, vows given and words said.}

^{So, is keeping dates all that important? Probably not. A couple of years ago I got to celebrate my birthday about 2 months later.}

^{The celebration was just as wonderful as it would have been on the day itself. Probably better, because it meant we had all been waiting to celebrate together.}

^{I will admit to a small personal superstition: nothing is ever celebrated ahead of time. Why? I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right to celebrate things before they happen.}

^{Perhaps it has to do with my mother telling my sister as a child never to put a veil on her head or she would never marry. And never to say wishes out loud in case they don’t come true.}

^{I remember reading that in China, people think that the Gods are jealous of children, so they never say things like what a beautiful baby, or what a healthy looking child, in case the Gods get envious and harm the child.}

^{So it is "Bad baby! Bad baby!" all the way.}

^{Are the Gods crazy?}

^{I remember reading a cartoon about the political situation in Spain. In it, there was an image of people rioting, and a couple of bankers, or politicians, (men in suits anyway) looking at the rioters.}

^{One of them asks: “Have they gone crazy?”}

^{The other replies: “No. They have gone sane”.}

^{When you realise that in Spain the unemployment rate is about 20% of the working population, and that there is very little social unrest, the caption makes complete sense.}

^{Just like 29 February.}