mr phil's paris posts
MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2000/BARCELONA -- This morning I´m posting from the Net-Movil Internet shop on Las Ramblas. Yesterday Marti & I flew from Paris to Barcelona -- a British Telecom mission for her & a music biz junket for me. We were pleasantly surprised to discover, sitting behind us on the aircraft, Elliott Murphy, our singer-songwriter friend from Paris, & his guitarist Olivier Durand. Elliott would be kicking off a 6-date tour of Spain later that night, so I got the details on the gig & he offered to put me & my Barcelona amigos on the guestlist.
BT had arranged van transfers for the attendees, so upon arrival we were whisked to the swanky Hotel Arts Ritz-Carlton overlooking the marina at the Olympic Village.
Here´s a tour of our hotel.
Our 25th-floor room has fabulous views of the Mediterranean,
as well as the city sprawl with mountains in the distance.
Marti was scheduled for a couple of business events Sunday evening, so I phoned Sergio, one of the Barcelona Boys whom I had first met at the Doctor Music Festival in 1997. Then Marti & I went for a stroll along the boardwalk, stopping for a late lunch of tapas at an outdoor terrace by the marina. It was sunny & cold but we joined the hardy, bundled-up Barcelonans who were enjoying a laid-back Sunday by the sea. We ordered mussels, squid, slightly hot fried green pimientos, & baby octopi Mediterranean-style. Washed down with cerveza Ambar. As always, mucho garlic (ajo).
Dining al fresco by the marina.
Sergio & Francisco arrived at the hotel around 5 p.m. It was great to see them again. I had Widespread Panic´s 1998 New Year´s Eve show spinning on the room´s Bang & Olufsen CD system. Francisco had come to the last Panic Chesterfield Cafe show in March 1998, where he got to hang out with & chatter en español with the band´s Domingo S. Ortiz. All the Barcelona Boys are serious music junkies, with the emphasis on American jambands. Make that yambands.
With help from the concierge, Sergio, Francisco & I obtained directions to Hostalets, the little Catalan town outside Barcelona where Elliott & Olivier were playing. There are three towns with "Hostalets" in their names, but we had an idea about the distance from Elliott, so we rolled the dice, chose a Hostalet & hit the road. "Rock and roll!" Sergio cried. It turned out be a 53-kilometer drive into the mountains, but as soon as we pulled into a town he described as "Catalunya autentico," Francisco went into a bar & the owner pointed us toward the venue: a carpa climatizado (heated tent)!
The place was packed, perhaps 250-300 people. We found a table up front & the show began. It was vintage Elliott Murphy. He & Olivier play hard acoustic folk & stripped-down rock´n´roll. Elliott opened with a song about how "thirty was a long time ago," appropriate for a guy who has been doin´ it since the early ´70s. He announced happily that this was his "first concert of the new century," then took us on a trip through 30 years´ worth of great songs. Elliott mixed old faves like "Last Of The Rock Stars" & "Drive All Night" with newer material: "O Wyoming," "Diamonds By The Yard." Interspersed were covers of classics like "Walk On The Wild Side" by fellow New Yawker Lou Reed, "Hey Joe">"Gloria" & "Jumpin´Jack Flash."
The crowd of Elliottfreaks & townies loved the hour-and-forty-five-minute rock-out, clapping & singing along, jumpin´ to their feet for standing ovations. When it comes to loving kick-ass rock´n´roll, we are -- as the Deadheads always say -- everywhere.
After the show Elliott came out to the lip of the stage, pulled over a chair, posed for photographs & signed autographs for another half-hour or so. In addition to whatever CDs are being sold at the venue, fans all over Europe bring him their aging vinyl treasures to sign. It´s always fun to see the happysmilingfaces on the Elliottniks as they finally encounter their hero. I introduced Sergio & Francisco to Elliott, we talked for a few minutes, then the guys & I headed back to the city for a late dinner. We were joined at a great little restaurant (with the unlikely name of El Glop) by a third Barcelona Boy who couldn´t make the concert, Dani. He´s another cool dude, possibly the hardest of the music junkies.
These men are stone carnivores: no namby-pamby chicken-fish-pasta routines for them! We dove into big appetizers, then steaks, mixed grills & nasty-looking butifarras negras, black blood sausages. All of it was garlickly & delicious. We won´t be bothered by vampires on this trip, I can assure you.
Sometime after midnight we made dates to get together again later in the week, hopefully with Marti along, then the boys dropped me off at the hotel.
This sojourn is off to a rockin´start.
Our friend Elliott Murphy was touring Spain
behind his most recent live CD.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2000/BARCELONA - Marti & I have been busy here, too
busy for me to post to this page until this afternoon.
This morning we went up to the hilltop Parc Guell, designed by Barcelona's famed Modernist architect, Antonio Gaudi. We toured Gaudi's home, which is located in the park & contains furniture he designed for it, as well as for other building projects in Barcelona. It was cold but sunny & we enjoyed seeing all the imaginative structures in the park & checking out the spectacular views of the city.
Parc Guell.
We had lunch at a little restaurant near the park, then cabbed downtown to drop me off at the Internet shop from which I've been posting. Marti continued back to the hotel for afternoon meetings.
Here's a rundown on what else has been happening since I last posted: On Monday afternoon I went to lunch at El Convent, near the Boqueria food
market. This place, in a former abbey, is cheap & the food is good.
Afterwards I strolled along Las Ramblas for a while, then returned to the
hotel. When I got back to the room my bride was typing away madly on her
laptop. In a new kind of work for her, Marti has been assigned to cover
various events in the BT conference for immediate posting to the company's
website. Another periodista in the family. "Ah, deadline journalism," I
kidded her, "it's all blood and guts and no glory!"
Mont Tibidabo.
That evening we cabbed to the top of Mont Tibidabo, to have a drink at the
Mirablau bar overlooking the twinkling lights of the city. This is a very
romantic place to take your lover; the place is always full of couples out on the town. On
this cold Monday night, however, the Mirablau was not crowded at all, so we
sat at the panoramic window & located landmarks in the night skyline: our
hotel, Montjuic & the airport just south of the city. We cabbed back down
the mountain to dine at our favorite Barcelona restaurant, Cal Pep. I had
written previously about both Mirablau & Cal Pep in a travel piece for RELIX.
At Cal Pep you sit at a counter while cooks grill tasty seafood tapas
before you. Everything is cooked to order & it is spectacularly fresh &
tasty. We had tiny clams, cockles, baby squid, deep-fried artichokes,
razor clams, jumbo shrimp, Spanish omelet with chorizo, spinach with
garbanzos & finally, monkfish. Garlic city! Cold, bracing white wine from
the Penedes region. Little liqueur-laced whipped cream desserts. After
gorging ourselves, Marti & I stumbled back out into the cold night. We
walked around the corner to La Rosa de Foc, a bar I know from earlier
visits. There will be live acoustic music here on Thursday night, when
Marti has a BT banquet, so I'll be going with our pals, the Barcelona Boys.
On the ride back to the hotel, the cabdriver explained that the cold spell
that has settled on this city "no es normal por Barcelona." This was borne out the next
morning - there was snow falling, mixed with rain as I crossed town for my
meeting at Doctor Music. Hopefully, my advance work will result in gigs
here for Merl Saunders, Big Brother & The Holding Company, as well as my
friend Janice deRosa. I went grocery shopping afterwards at El Corte
Inglés, a department store which has a large alimentacion section. As is my
custom when visiting Spain, I'm bringing home lots of canned seafood
specialties, saffron threads, chorizo & other favorite goodies. We'll be
cooking Spanish for the next several months.
Marti finished up work by mid-afternoon & we had a date to go out
with several of the Barcelona Boys in the early evening. Francisco, Dani &
Perra led us on a CD shop crawl through Calle Tallers, where I added a few
choice items to my collection. I found cutout/used versions of old faves
like Stephen Stills, Crazy Horse (their rare 1971 solo album) & Blue Oyster
Cult. I also picked up Beth Orton's EP with Terry Callier, a 1996 Morcheeba
release & the Vic Chestnutt tribute CD. Not a bad haul. We were joined
part way by a fourth Barcelona Boy, whose name escapes me at the moment.
After a bar hang with these guys, Marti & I went off by ourselves to find
dinner.
We walked into the side streets off Las Ramblas, ending up at El Pi Antic,
a beautiful café in a 16th-Century mansion near the Cathedral. On this cold, cold night Marti
had oxtail soup with sherry, followed by grilled garlicky rabbit; I ordered
minestrone & bacalao (salt cod) with aioli, garlic mayonnaise. All that garlic must be the reason no one in this town has the flu.
Dinner Tuesday night was in the old quarter,
near the Cathedral.
"Barcelona, a haven of courtesy, a harbor for foreigners,
a hospital for the
poor, a nation for the brave,
a place of vengeance for victims
and a place
to establish satisfying mutual friendship,
and in terms of beauty and
location, unique."
-- Miguel de Cervantes
"I used to sit on the roof marvelling at the folly of it all.
From the
little windows in the observatory you could see for miles around
-- vista
after vista of tall slender buildings, glass domes, and fantastic curly
roofs
with brilliant green and copper tiles; over to eastward the glittering
pale blue sea --
the first glimpse of the sea that I had had since coming to
Spain."
-- George Orwell
"[The women selling flowers in Las Ramblas] with their easy smiles and hands
wringing wet,
where the tiny ruby red droplet of blood drawn by the thorn
can sometimes be seen quivering."
-- Federico Garcia Lorca
"Barcelona is the Paris of Spain."
-- Hans Christian Andersen
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2000/BARCELONA - I just read in the newspaper here
that tourism in Barcelona was up significantly again last year. That is a
testament to a city that has made a concerted effort to restore its beauty &
transform itself for the future. A cabdriver told me that the barrio where
Marti & I are currently staying was in a derelict state only 15 years ago.
At that time Barceloneta was a shanty town of decaying buildings that once
housed fishermen & their families. "A very dark area," the cabbie
explained. "Nobody went there."
An infusion of investment resulted in a new man-made beach, the 1992
Olympics brought additional waterfront development & the marina --
Barceloneta came alive again. Last night Marti & I had dinner at Cal Pinxo,
a wonderful seafood restaurant right on the Barceloneta boardwalk. Foamy,
churning waves crashed onto shore on this rainy evening, a fabulous sight
from our second-floor table by the window.
Wherever we go in this cosmopolitan city, Marti & I are fascinated by the
vividness of the art & architecture, the rich array of cultural
opportunities & the energetic love of life seen in the people lucky enough
to live here. Yesterday at the hotel we received a package from our friend
Maria Gabriel i Torres, whom we had hoped to see during this visit. In her
note she apologized for having been called away on business this week. We
unwrapped the gift she had sent: a bottle of Cream Ger Crema Catalana de
Girona with four small earthenware cups. Next time I cook a Catalan dinner
back home in Paris, we'll end the meal by toasting our beautiful amiga Maria
as we enjoy her thoughtful present of cream liqueur.
Today Marti is covering workshops at the BT conference & I have a few
errands to run as I wander about the city, including a visit to the huge food market, La Boqueria. Tonight Marti will attend a gala
banquet to close out the BT week, while I join the Barcelona Boys for live
music, followed by dinner at their favorite restaurant. They were already
talking Tuesday about what they would order for dinner tonight. Something
about roasted red peppers and suckling pig . . .
FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2000/BARCELONA -- Last night Marti put on her sparkly little black dress by Sonia Rykiel & went to the gala dinner that served as a finale to the BT conference. As always, she looked mahvelous! I hadn't been invited to this soirée, but that was okay: I almost always have to be dragged to business functions. Besides, I had a rendezvous with the Barcelona Boys at a bar called La Rosa de Foc, where I had thought there would be a concert including Luis Lorite, a Barcelona singer-songwriter I'd seen perform there a couple of years ago. Apparently, I had read the poster incorrectly; the show was being held at another venue. No matter. I was with my friends & I was able to buy a CD by Lorite at the bar. In addition, the Boys had brought me a couple of CDRs that Perra, who was M.I.A. this evening, had spun for me: a double by akoostik Hookah & Bob Dylan in Barcelona, 4/22/99. Muchas gracias, Perra.
Sergio, his brother Tony, Francisco, Dani & I had drinks, then drove across town to a fabulous restaurant called El Asador de Aranda, where I let the guys order for me. The first course was plate of chorizo & morcilla sausages, roasted red peppers & a couple of other tasty items. As good as it was, however, the best was yet to come. Our main event was an entire roast suckling pig! Tony ordered a steak, but the rest of us dug into the scrumptious little pink critter, which had been sliced into pieces for us after a dramatic presentation by the waiter. Francisco went for the head (who among us doesn't like a little head on a Thursday night?), Sergio grabbed the opposite end, including the tiny curly tail. Dani explained that, besides music, the Barcelona Boys' other serious hobby is food. Yeah, baby! We drained two bottles of dark, dark red wine during this feast. I described the wine as having cohones grandes, which elicited a laugh from my dining companions. (They love it whenever I drag out my pathetic college Spanish.) For dessert most of had cream-filled flaky pastries. Deliciosas!
I gotta say it's magnifico to go out to dinner with such generous, fun-loving dudes as these. Manly men. Guys who really dig food, who aren't counting calories, who would never dream of not eating meat & who aren't afraid to fire up a cigarette after a fine meal. The day I met these characters at the rock festival in the Pyrenées was a lucky one for me.
It was midnight by the time we finished our cortados, but we had one more destination: the Badlands rock'n'roll bar. The guy behind the counter, a friend of the Barcelona Boys, put on a Grateful Dead CD as soon as we entered. We ordered drinks & then gang-played a trivia video game for the next hour. In the category of Films & Music, my buddies are the longtime champions on this machine. Even though the questions were in Spanish, I held my own in the contest, answering most of the classical music questions. It was close to 2 a.m. by the time the Boys dropped me off at the hotel. I told them how thrilled I was that we had been able to spend these few fun-packed evenings together during my visit to their wonderful city.
La Pedrera.
This morning Marti & I packed (I had brought an extra suitcase to accommodate all my grocery purchases), checked out of the hotel & cabbed to La Pedrera. Gaudi's incredible 1911 apartment building has been beautifully restored by the Caixa Catalunya financial institution & now serves as a cultural center. The tour included visits to the following: the Espai Gaudi, a comprehensive, high-tech exhibition about the architect & his work; El Pis de La Pedrera, an apartment which recreates the look & feel of a typical bourgeois Barcelona home of the period; and, the rooftop, where you walk among the whimsical skylights & chimneys, obtaining a spectacular view of the city. I was amused by the ironic images we saw from the roof: women on balconies hanging laundry to dry in the sun the old-fashioned way, at the same time that Space-Age satellite dishes attached to their buildings were scanning the skies for the Spanish edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!
Once, when I wrote about Barcelona in RELIX, I described Gaudi's Sagrada Familia as having a "psychedelic" vibe. Well, it was RELIX. A Barcelona newspaper journalist picked up on it, quoted me & closed his article with a wry warning that tourists should be careful about what they ingest before going to visit the masterpiece by Gaudi. Certainly I had been hyperbolic in my description of Gaudi's architecture, but I challenge you to look at the photos below of La Pedrera & not agree that the building is pretty far-out.
It was a gorgeous day today, so on the recommendation of the Barcelona Boys, Marti & I spent our last few hours in Barcelona strolling through the lovely Barrio Gracia.
Barrio Gracia.
It's an old residential neighborhood, slightly bohemian, with lots of interesting architecture, shops & restaurants. We did a bit of last-minute shopping, found a little café for lunch, then cabbed back to the Olympic Marina. We had time for a quick walk on the beach, then the van took us & a few other conference attendees to the airport for the trip home.
Marti & I had a marvelous week here in Barcelona. Rest assured, we'll be back!
take me home to
Email: phildemetrion@yahoo.com
