21st Century Groundlings
Category: Life

All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances...

-William Shakespeare, As You Like It

I'm alone on the train, headed to a remote beach an hour outside Barcelona. It's a beautiful summer day, and I'm doing my best to spoil it by reading "King Lear" from a thick paperback book of Shakespeare's compete works. Why the hell would I do that? I guess it's got something to do with living in a different culture and speaking a different language. Forced to communicate in a language I haven't mastered, I've become much more curious and appreciative of my original language.

I haven't read Shakespeare since college. I don't remember any of it. What I do remember is something about Shakespeare himself: that he was not always the elitist symbol that modern civilization has turned him into. Shakespeare wrote brilliant works, but his productions weren't the highfalutin' affairs that they are today. A great part of his audience were the poor, uneducated and unruly masses who went without chairs and sat on the ground.

I remember learning that this poorest section of the public, the ground-sitters, was called the "groundlings". They behaved accordingly: eating and drinking, yelling, and sometimes fighting during productions. They must have been very distracting for everyone: there was the show you'd paid to see, and then there was the show in the audience, competing for your attention.

I'm much older and more wrinkly than I was when I first read Shakespeare, so surely I'll be able to understand these plays now... if I could only decipher the weird language. Also, if only the type weren't so goddamned small and impossible to read without squinting. The type is miniscule because, as I've said, it's the complete works of the bard and they've got to fit it into one highly portable book. I've got a window seat offering a panoramic view of the sun illuminating the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean, but I resist the view like you'd resist the come-ons of a Calle Montera streetwalker. I'm pleased with myself for making an effort, but that doesn't stop me from feeling like an idiot. If I had any brains, I would have brought a magnifying glass.

Suddenly I'm engulfed in commotion. A family of eight gypsies boards the train and sits down on the floor all around me.

The group consists of two young couples and their babies, an older woman (probably a grandma) and an extremely sunburned, drunk, loud and toothless man. This man could be fifty, or he could be a very poorly preserved 35. It's difficult to distinguish these details through the layers of grime covering his face and clothes. The rest of the family is also quite sunburned and grimy -- save for the babies, which appear miraculously clean, unburned, and far less drunk.

In a way, gypsies are to Spain what White Trash is to America. Both exist as sort of a national embarrassment. They each have their own subculture and their own way of doing things. The gypsies are famous for crime, impressive musical ability, and the complete lack of interest in integrating into modern, clock-punching society.

The first thing that makes it impossible to get back into the book is the spectacular noise that the gypsy family generates. They yell at each other not in anger, but as if they're deaf. Or as if they're listening to Iron Maiden through headphones at volume 11. Their voices are broken and gravelly, reflecting years of vocal abuse.

"WHERE ARE WE GOING, MAMÁ?"
"I DON'T KNOW. ASK PACO."
"PACO WHERE ARE WE GOING?"
"WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO? IT'S NOT LIKE WE PAID TO GET ON THIS TRAIN OR ANYTHING -- HAAA!"

The train is loaded with prim, well-behaved middle-class Catalans. These Catalans react in their classically prim, well-behaved way: they stoically gaze straight ahead and act like none of this business on the floor is happening.

The second thing I notice is the stench. It's as if the entire train has been dunked in a foul cologne: Homeless No. 5. It's that lethal combination of stale sweat, acrid old urine, cheeselike elements from inside the pants, and finally, binding it all together like a sauce, the vapors of alcohol seeping through the pores of the skin.

It fills my nostrils. I feel like I'm drowning.

The smell is so strong that, a full two hours after I disembark from the train, I'm still smelling it on the beach. No matter how strong the sea breeze blows, that rank homeless smell will not leave my nostrils. Where the hell is it coming from?

Oh my God, it's in my hair -- clinging to it like cigarette smoke after a night of clubbing.

The smell on the train is overwhelming. Why don't I just move? Because I've got a suitcase with me, the train is loaded and there is no where to go. Not only are there no empty seats, but the floor space is completely covered by gypsies. I could not move without stepping on several of them, and I certainly don't want to start some shit with these people.

I'll just have to bear it out. I'll have to pretend like I'm back in Brooklyn on the F train at 8 in the morning, trying to ignore the beggar with the rotting foot on the way to my grey Manhattan office job.

Since there's no way to escape the smell, I decide to entertain myself trying to figure out who exactly it comes from. Is it just the drunk sunburned toothless guy or is it all of them? One of the boyfriends/husbands has taken the only available seat , which happens to be the one next to mine. He glances at my Shakespeare, then bends over and removes from an overstuffed sack an ancient transistor radio. He turns it on -- volume at 11, naturally. Flamenco music wails throughout the train.

The smell is definitely coming from him. Though he could be downwind from the sunburned toothless guy, sprawled out on the floor and drinking from a can of Estrella a few feet away.

To my horror, the toothless guy gets up and lurches toward me, singing in scratchy voice destroyed by alcohol and bad living, yet strangely beautiful at the same time:

"YAA-III, YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."

He's standing up, but he's almost the exact same height as he was when he was sitting on the floor.

Good Christ, he's a dwarf.

Where the hell is the circus? These people desperately need the work. God knows they've got what it takes. Is there no justice in this world?

I don't want to draw the drunken dwarf's attention by staring, so I pretend to keep reading this by now utterly unreadable book.

Thou, Nature, art my goddess...

"YAA-III, YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."

...to thy law
My services are bound...

"HUU-YUU-YUU-YAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUIYYAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit--

"TE VOY A ROMPER LA CARA -- HA, HA, HA, HA, HAAA!"

He's not talking to me, he's talking to his friend sitting next to me. However, he's just told his friend that he is going to break his face. I hope his aim after an entire morning of drinking is impeccable, because if it's not, the one with the broken face will be me.

Grandma comes to the rescue, God bless her. "VEN AQUÍ. QUÉDATE CON NOSOTROS." she yells at the jolly, threatening midget. Obedient as a lamb, he weaves over to grandma's side and continues his flamenco melismas while playing with the baby on her lap. Gulping from the can of Estrella, he swings the baby's arm with his free hand. "YAAIIII, YAIIII-YAAAAAA!" He finishes the song with a loud belch.

Everyone on the train is traumatized. But the baby is absolutely tranquil amidst all this stink, alcohol, yelling and chaos. Not one whimper, not one cry. Just 100% wide-eyed appreciation of the over-the-top performance in front of him.

"AHH. AHH. QUÉ DICES? QUÉ DICES? HUH? QUÉ DI-CES? AHH, AHH!" grandma shouts into the baby's ear. The baby just blinks. I'm certain it's because he's deaf.

An hour passes, but unfortunately the smell does not. The gypsy family is having the time of their life -- eating, drinking, smoking, singing, yelling, clapping, making politically incorrect statements about Catalunya versus Spain -- as if they were the only ones on the train. The Catalans continue their stony silence, but their arctic chill can't cool this crowd. The party's in full swing and no uptight Catalans are gonna kill their buzz.

I finally relax and go back to my book.

All of a sudden I hear an argument. Security personnel have discovered the gypsy family. Two well-groomed young men in fluorescent yellow vests and black pants are interrogating them.

"Where are your tickets?"
"WE HAVE TICKETS, DON'T WORRY."
"Show me your tickets, please."
"I DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE. BUT WE BOUGHT THEM."
"It's against the law to board a train without paying. You people know that."
"WE DID PAY. WHY DO YOU BOTHER US? WE DIDN'T DO NOTHING."
"You will have to get off the train at the next stop."

At the next stop, he throws the gypsy family off the train. It takes them a several minutes to unload everything -- their garbage bags filled with food, clothes and electronic equipment; the baby buggies; the beer. Most of the smell goes with him.

The train pulls out and I see the family arguing on the platform, arms flailing, placing blame. I feel a strange stab of envy. Why couldn't my family have been as fun? Suddenly I feel sad.

I decide to avoid these feelings by searching the faces of the Catalans for some conspiratorial sign of humor, some shared sense of relief amongst the survivors of the ordeal. But they remain poker-faced. It is incorrect to laugh at the misfortunes of others. There is nothing funny about this at all. We have already forgotten. We don't know what the hell you are talking about. Deeply disappointed in these people, I try to get back into my book.

But how can I, after witnessing such a spectacle?

05:39 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Feeling Generous
Category: Life

I'll admit: I Google my ex-boyfriends. Especially the ones I had the worst relationships with. There weren't many bad ones, just one in particular. He was a woman-beater. He had a volatile temper and used violence -- and the threat thereof -- to try to gain control during our many fights. Months after our breakup, when I'd clean the apartment, I'd still find shards of broken plates that he'd shattered against the wall. Dinnerware flying against the walls was the least of it; once, it was one of our cats.

I've been Googling him for years, certain that he's bound to show up somewhere on some newspaper's online Crime Blotter for domestic violence. Or perhaps as a headline: "MAN BOOKED FOR TRIPLE MURDER, ANIMAL ABUSE." And then the subhead: Family tabby to serve as chief witness for the prosecution.

I've never found anything. The guy had just vanished from existence.

The other day, I repeated my semi-annual Google ritual. The first search result was his first and last name, dot-com. This was a new development. I clicked on it, knowing it couldn't be him. It was going to be one of the thousands of other guys with the same name who were lawyers, city councilmen, firefighters or investment bankers. Achievers, in other words. Just what he could never be.

The website was for an artist, a painter of beautiful still life studies. I knew this couldn't be him. I clicked on the "About" tab to confirm it.

It was him.

He lives in a large city 3,000 miles away from where we'd lived, on the other side of the country. He's married now, to a "loving wife" and has "two beautiful children".

His paintings are gorgeous. Truly spectacular.

He didn't paint when I knew him. Although there was some sign of his talent, once. It was when he shoved me from behind in a parking lot, catching me completely by surprise and knocking the wind out of me before I landed flat on my face.

He'd pushed me so hard that it left a bruise in the shape of his hand, every finger amazingly detailed in the black-and-blue of my skin -- like those little Thanksgiving turkeys that kindergartners make in art class.

You can choose how to remember moments like this.

I choose to be generous. I choose to think that, in a way, I gave him his start.

04:33 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The Power of a Single Person
Category: Life

The words of a single person -- a person I don't even know -- destroyed my writer's block and enabled me to start writing in my blog again.

This person sent an email to my MySpace page, with a simple message: "I miss reading your blogs."

The fact that someone I don't know would take the time to write me that mail encouraged me to get me going again. I'd had my whole page wiped out without warning, including all my blogs. They were gone, as if they'd never existed in the first place. It was discouraging. It was hard to begin all over again because it felt like I had no history. It's hard to explain, but seeing my blog totally blank created a blank within my mind.

But this person's mail changed everything. It made me feel less alone. It made me feel that what I do matters. It even matters to someone other than myself -- someone I don't know! This individual reminded me that the world is infinitely bigger than just me and my own mind.

The experience was also a classic lesson in giving and receiving. Here's what I mean: this person used to enjoy reading my blogs. The blogs disappeared: no more blogs. So this person gave me their attention. They gave me their encouragement. And now -- they receive the blogs again. All because they took the time to write me a simple email.

We as individuals have a lot more power over other people's lives than we may think -- for good or for bad. I appreciate the positive influence that this one person effected in my life this week.

01:57 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The Murdoch Giveth, and He Taketh Away.
Category: Life

So you may have noticed that I went from a year of blogs to zero, and also practically friendless. That's because one day I logged in to MySpace to find... that I had no page anymore.

The Powers That Be had wiped me off the map. No explanation given. Why should they give an explanation? They rule the world, in case you haven't noticed. I mean, when Presidential candidates have MySpace pages, then it's official: we are all pawns of the great media-plunderer-made-king Murdoch.

That's the downside of giving up your lonely independence to join up with the army of billions who might read your stuff. You're just a drop in the bucket, and that great series of Zeros and Ones in the cyber-sky can wipe you up like snot from a sneeze.

But that's life, ain't it?

The attachment to things, the illusion of permanence, is one of the greatest sources of suffering. That's what the Buddhists say, and I say they're right. You think your MySpace page will live forever -- ha!

Let's go right to the heart of the matter: you think you will live forever, don't you? Oh, you know you'll have to die some day, but that day's far off in the distant future. So far off that it's not yet real. So for now, you're as good as temporarily immortal. You don't even think it; you just know it. Or rather, you just can't conceive of it any other way.

Then one day, thousands of years from now, when you're very old and very prepared, you'll die. No problem.

Oh, if only.

One day, you log in to your MySpace page and the system whines, "YOU MUST BE LOGGED-IN TO DO THAT!" You repeat various times and get the same yapping, annoying toy poodle answer.

You officially don't exist. All your "friends" and their comments, all your pictures and movies, all your writings -- in short, a micro-version of your identity, you -- erased.

Were you able to prepare for it? Did you receive any kind of warning? Can you appeal the decision and get your blog back? No, no, and no.

Quoth the Murdoch: "Nevermore."

But with MySpace you can start over from scratch. A pain in the ass and unfair, yes -- but it sure is a nice option to have.

Not like life at all.

02:59 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment