Here’s What I Think…

Okay, I just touched down in LA after a few days in Mexico. Just as I arrived, the swine flu scare exploded, and the streets of the Zona Rosa, my home away from home, were deserted. Although I was able to see friends and still have a good time, the eerily quiet city was a bit disconcerting this go around. And after flying home an earthquake hit the city. Wow. Let’s hope this beautiful, cosmopolitan criminally underrated city gets a break!

Just saw a Mexican sci fi drama called SLEEP DEALER at the Laemmle Sunset 5. Great cast, interesting story, with a futuristic theme that incorporates the global economy, the future of immigration, our need to publish our thoughts on the internet, all wrapped up in a very touching story about redemption. Very cool. Go see it.

2008 post-Writers’ Strike got away from me, and in between traveling to Washington DC for the Democratic National Convention, writing a pilot for Nickelodeon and a graphic novel to be published later this year, and most significantly, the passing of my beloved stepfather, I stopped blogging. Well, now, as spring of 2009 is in bloom, I’m going to try again, and this time keep some consistency. Let’s see how long THAT lasts!

This trip has done nothing to satisfy my need to travel.  It has only made me want to see more, do more, meet more people.  Although on this journey, I have traveled in only one country, Spain, it has been an experience of a lifetime.  This country is like my second home.  I feel so alive here, so comfortable, so immersed.  Maybe I lived a past life here.  Who knows?  And the people I have become friends with along the way have been an utter joy.  There was the Argentinean former flamenco dancer/special education teacher Gabriel in Sevilla with the bright smile and energetic personality, who has already e-mailed me to return.  There was also the art history professor Antonio I met last July in Madrid, who was more than happy to spend the entire day with me after he wrapped up his classes but with one rule—indoors we spoke English, outdoors we spoke only Spanish.  I got nervous every time it was time to leave a café, or restaurant, or museum.  And then there was the Italian ex-patriot from Sardinia, Andreas, who wined and dined me at his favorite pasta joint in Barcelona.  It’s amazing to me how you can go anywhere in the world all by yourself and never feel alone.  You just have to be open to it.

So I’m this late night establishment in Madrid aptly named Rick’s Bar, hobnobbing with a few of the locals as well as a foreign office worker from the US State Department, it’s late, going on 3 AM, my eyelids are a bit droopy, and I was just surprised by a Mexican Mariachi guitar player named Mario who I met at this same watering hole two years ago.  He’s still wearing his outfit, fresh from work, but I remember it being red.  This one is white, so I compliment him on his new suit.  I’m in the middle of commenting on what a small world it is when suddenly I hear this booming voice behind me bellow, “You’re from LA!”  I turn around, and there standing in front of me is a handsome young blonde man, Spanish, with a big smile on his face and his arms outstretched.  I had no idea who it was.  “You go to Palermo all the time!”  Palermo is an Italian restaurant in Los Feliz, just a quick ten minute drive from my house in Beachwood Canyon, and a staple of my diet.  I’m there at least once a week.  Still, I was drawing a blank.  “I’m Dylan!  I used to be a waiter there!  I’d see you all the time!”  “Dylan!  Of course!” I explained as I pumped his hand.  I still had no idea who he was.  To make this small world story even smaller, he went on to tell me he moved back to Spain a few years ago, but does not live in Madrid.  He lives in Barcelona and was just up here on business, and was now out with a few of his colleagues.  At that point he introduced me to them all, and they couldn’t have been nicer.  I immediately sent a text to my pal Rob and an e-mail to my pal Mike, both of whom I dine with at Palermo frequently to see if either one could remember Dylan.  He seemed so pleased to see me, so gracious, I just went along with it.  I’m sure I will remember him eventually.  It will probably just take a little while to jog my memory since the biggest selling point at Palermo is their cheap wine that always makes my head fuzzy.  Could this world be any smaller? I have just arrived in Sevilla, and I’m struck by its beauty, a mix of Middle Eastern and Spanish influence.  I’m going to do a complete walking tour tomorrow, but now I am going to have a little siesta before venturing out to check out this vibrant city’s nightlife.

I’ve only been traveling in Spain for four days and already I’m in panic mode that I’m going to run out of time.  The first two days in Bilbao were a real treat.  The city’s architecture was breathtaking and the Guggenheim Museum, ironically featuring an exhibit entitled “Art in the USA”, was simply stunning.  I can not recommend you visit this city enough.  I was spellbound by its beauty, its people, its pride.  

I did have one uncomfortable incident on my journey south to Madrid.  I didn’t know I had to have my Euro Train Pass validated with a stamp before boarding the train, and to make things worse, I neglected to read my instructional booklet and filled in some information on the pass that I was supposed to keep blank for a reservations clerk.  Oops.  You would think I might have bothered given I had ten hours to kill on the first leg of my flight from LA to Frankfurt.  But I didn’t.  So on the train from Bilbao to Madrid, the conductor was sputtering at me in Spanish and I had no idea what he was saying.  Eventually by using some easy sign language he was able to convey I needed to get the pass stamped and luckily he didn’t kick me off the moving train.  After some more drama at a non-English speaking Customer Service office in Madrid, I got the damn thing stamped.  It was a classic good cop bad cop scenario there, however, with the veteran, seen-it-all, scruffy representative admonishing me in Spanish for my mistake, while two of his colleagues served as my protectors, a young man and woman, both with big smiles on their faces and looks in their eyes that said, “We understand.  No worries.  Welcome to Madrid”. 

This is my fourth visit to this illustrious city, so I have friends here now, and though I’m still struggling with the language, I’m going to try to see some theatre (or teatro) while I am here.  It’s a good way for me to immerse myself.  The cute, perky desk clerk at my very quaint, modern hotel near the world famous Puerta Del Sol, is also a real gem.  She speaks perfect English so I go to her with all my questions.  And she blushed when I told her just how much I love her purple Dior glasses.  They’re so modern and chic.  I adore this girl, and I’m sure she’s worried I’m some kind of crazed stalker. 

I’m also, as most of my friends already know, enjoying the rampant nightlife where the bars don’t even begin to fill up until well after midnight.  I’ve had to adjust my internal clock for this new and exciting lifestyle.  Last night I met a nice gentleman named Alberto who took it upon himself to show me the off the beaten path discos where the locals show up in the wee hours of the morning.  Never mind it’s after two a.m. on a Monday morning.  The places we went were packed.  Needless to say, the Spaniards are a rowdy, fun bunch.  At one point I was walking to the bar to buy a drink and one sturdy Spaniard grabbed me and started dancing with me and then lifted me up over his shoulder and spun me around.  Mind you, we had not been formally introduced.  But I love anyone who can actually lift my forty something body off the ground!  And you wonder why I’m completely smitten with this country!

I just spent three days in the Zona Rosa district of Mexico City, one of my favorite places in the world.  Traveling is my passion in life, and though I love my home in Los Angeles, I always get antsy if I don’t have a trip in the books.  But what made this long weekend so special was a seminal moment I had on Saturday night, in a lively bar full of fun and friendly patrons, where a Mexican man who only spoke Spanish was trying to have a conversation with me.  I never was the best student.  So much television in my childhood did a real number on my attention span.  I studied German in high school and can only remember how to say, “Where is the bathroom?”  But with great fanfare after a trip to Spain two years ago, I studied Spanish at the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute .  I got the basics, but never retained much.  Recently I began to watch movies on DVD with the Spanish subtitles zipping past on the bottom of the screen so I could associate words with their English equivalent.  I didn’t think it was working because I still freeze up when someone speaks to me in rapid fire Spanish.  But while I tried to speak to this man in the bar, words were more recognizable than ever before.  I actually understood what he was saying to me.  I could even respond and not have him give me a dumbfounded look.  I was, in a small way, speaking another language.  Next month I go to Spain and in addition to stopping in my beloved favorite European city Madrid as well as Barcelona where almost everyone speaks English, I’m hitting some smaller cities and towns where most people don’t.  This could be a real test for me in my quest to speak Spanish.  I’m well into my forties now, and regret not learning when I was younger, but hell, it’s never too late.

In response to a post I just received, I’d like to clarify just why I love New England.  Because New Englanders don’t let the media tell them who is going to win an election before they’ve had a chance to vote.  But after seeing all three Democratic candidates debate in Nevada last night, I have to say, they’re all impressive, and I think we’d be lucky to have any one of them as our next President.

So I watched the Paul Thomas Anderson epic There Will Be Blood over the weekend on a DVD screener.  I was impressed with Daniel Day Lewis’ magnetic performance, at least two thirds of the way through the film, before he went way over the top towards the end.  But was anyone else bothered by the music?  It was so intrusive, so relentless and uninspiring and distracting, I almost stopped watching the film half way through.  And without any prompting, two friends who saw the film said the exact same thing.  I haven’t liked a Paul Thomas Anderson movie since Boogie Nights.  Magnolia lost me when it started raining frogs and I skipped Punch Drunk Love altogether because the serious side of Adam Sandler doesn’t really interest me… and well, I was still getting over the frogs in his last film.  But he came close to winning me back (like he’s up at nights worrying about my endorsement) with this epic tale of an oil baron.  The first fifteen minutes of the film are riveting.  And then we hear the first chords of that annoying repetitive score.  I’m out.

I’m a New Englander.  I was born and raised in Bar Harbor, Maine.  My family has been there for generations.  I had a relative in the Boston Tea Party.  I spent half my life trying to get out of Maine and now I’m spending the other half of my life trying to get back.  I feel a closeness to all the other New England states, New Hampshire, Massachussetts, Connecticutt and Rhode Island.  So it is with great pride that I watched New Hampshire teach a good hard lesson to all the pollsters and pundits last night during the Democratic Primary.  Let me be clear.  I love Obama.  I love Hillary.  I think either one would be a brilliant President.  The bar is pretty low at this point given our current administration so even a moderate Republican like John McCain would be a vast improvement.  But I was taken aback by the viciousness of the press after Obama trounced Clinton in the Iowa Caucus.  There was a disturbing gleefulness about her third place showing there.  The expected bounce Obama enjoyed over the next few days translated into double digit leads in most polls coming into New Hampshire.  Many papers and TV news talking heads were already writing her obituary.  And then, something extraordinary happened.  She won.  Not a landslide.  But enough to be able to declare a resounding victory.  I always thought Obama would win Iowa and Clinton would take New Hampshire.  Now the race is on.  I can’t describe the sheer joy I felt watching the folks at MSNBC, Fox News and CNN stare blank-faced at the camera, unable to explain how Hillary pulled it off.  Some say her emotional moment on Monday, when asked how she carries on through this brutal process and she gave a thoughtful teary-eyed response, showed voters a side of her rarely seen.  Some say it was a purely tactical move on her part to “soften her image.”  That’s ridiculous.  Those same people accuse her of being robotic in her speeches and cold in her demeanor.  Yes, I’ll admit it.  She’s not that great of an actress.  She can’t force warmth on the voters.  And she shouldn’t have to.  Her job is to get the country back on track.  But that’s exactly why she could never create such a sincere and unguarded moment.  I’ll tell you what I think happened in New Hampshire.  New Englanders got fed up with the media telling them the election was over before they even got a chance to cast a vote.  And to quote the right leaning Drudge Report headline today, “Now the fun begins.”  I can’t even predict who is going to win the nomination (it’s even more of a mystery on the Republican side), but I will tell you this.  This has been a great week in American History.  For the first time ever, an African American man won the Iowa Caucus.  And for the first time ever, a woman won the New Hampshire Primary.  And come November, one of them could be the President of the United States.