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“Valid for One Blow Job…”

I used to do this bit in my comedy show where I give coupons to the audience members, guaranteeing “One blow-job by a well-experienced person in heaven.” In spite of how it may sound, it was actually an intelligent piece of social commentary, but I’m not going to get into it right now.

I don’t do that bit anymore, but I still have a million of these coupons laying around my house. Today I needed to transfer money to someone. I needed to write down their account info, so I grabbed the first scrap of paper I could find… which was one of these coupons.

You see, I hate wasting a whole sheet of clean white paper for just a few numbers. It’s part of my perfectionist, anal-retentive personality. So I wrote the information on the blank side of the coupon.

Then I went to the bank. Bank account numbers are very long, so instead of reading it to the teller, I just handed him the paper and let him go about his grey, boring job punching out the name and numbers into the computer… Ho, hum… la dee dee da da… I look out the window, making a list of the errands I need to get done… should I go to my yoga class today? Will I take a bike or walk? Is it gonna rain again? I should really eat more fruit…

“Is there anything else you need?” The bank teller’s voice, strangely tight-sounding, wakes me out of my daydreams. I look at him and see he’s trying to choke back laughter. I’ve never seen a bank teller’s eyes sparkle like that. Ever. They certainly weren’t doing that when I walked into the bank.

“No thanks. ‘Bye now.” I let him keep the coupon. Why not, if it makes him happy? Besides, you can bet your sweet ass I’ll never show my face there again.

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Madrid: Heaven & Hell

 

There’s never a dull moment in Madrid. Walk through the Puerta del Sol — the central hub of downtown Madrid — and it’s like you’ve slipped into a Hieronymous Bosch painting.

I’m serious. The Puerta del Sol is goddamned Armageddon.

Women with deformed flipper arms sitting on blankets, begging. A guy with no arms running up to unsuspecting tourists and flinging his head back and forth, rattling the cup full of change that he holds in his teeth with a deafening fury, scaring his victims shitless. Destitute Africans at the entrance of the posh department store, El Corte Inglés, trying to sell you a charity newspaper about… destitute Africans. Gypsy mafias -- entire families, complete with grandma and children -- trying to separate you from your dinero.

Down-and-out men from every country imaginable turned into human billboards, yoked with neon-yellow signs that say in black block letters, “COMPRO ORO”. Hunched-over old ladies with terrible speech impediments, yelling repeatedly that they’re selling the very last lottery tickets. Transsexual hookers that look like they could snap your neck with one flick of their nail tips, ornamenting every few meters of Montera Street, which remains -- ironically -- the famous location of Madrid’s most prestigious bridal gown stores.

Yes, on Montera Street, you definitely get both sides of the virgin/whore coin, all rolled into one. Which do you prefer: Bridal gown? Or terrifying prostitute tricked out with a penis and Double-D knockers? Which came first: the wedding or the selling?

You walk through all that. All that human waste and misery… and then you turn a corner, and you see this:

Amidst the shit, these moments are there. It’s our choice if we want to stop and appreciate them, and let them fill us with something good.

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Rancid, Romantic Madrid

Once a month I travel to Madrid on business. I love saying that: “On business.” Makes what I do for a career — basically, slapping on a ton of makeup and running around onstage in platform boots and latex dresses, screaming — sound so dignified.

Anyway, I love Madrid because I think it’s one of the most romantic cities I’ve seen. Granted, I haven’t seen that many cities, especially in Europe. And I know that my view of Madrid is distorted because I don’t live there.

But something about Madrid’s old-fashionedness gives it that lost-in-time, rancio quality. The buildings are old, the same as they were in the 19th century. Everything smells like over-laquered wood and dust and cured ham. Everyone’s drinking. Everyone’s smoking. Everyone looks good. No one seems overly concerned about getting work done. It’s a different kind of existence.

I don’t think I’d appreciate it as much if I lived there, but it’s a lovely place to visit… and often.

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The Llantiol Theater

God, I love this theater. There’s nothing like it — not in Barcelona, not in Madrid, not in New York. Soon it’ll be six years that I’ve been performing there. This was the first place I worked when I got to Barcelona. Immediately when I arrived, some friends took me there to meet the owner, Lluis. He let me have Mondays. The rest is history.

I love the Llantiol because as disastrous and chaotic as it can be, it’s the only one of its kind: a gorgeous labor of love by Lluis, who designed and restored it. An independent cabaret theater with romantic lamp-topped tables, a magical atmosphere, a wonderful Italian waitress named Fabiana, and an eccentric Russian manager named Yuri.

It’s important to have places like the Llantiol. Because it’s beholden to no one, with no agenda and no political pressures, someone like me — an immigrant who didn’t speak the language — was able to start from zero and learn how to perform in a new language. It’s a place for students to attempt their first work, fall flat on their faces, and try again. It’s a place for seasoned professionals to return to, for the sheer pleasure of performing in an intimate, familiar atmosphere.

The Llantiol was my first home in my new country. No matter what changes and upheavals go on in the volatile Raval neighborhood, the Llantiol still stands. And I hope it always does.

Photo at piano by Marco Quiroga Marazzato.

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Comedy Show Tonight!

Disfrutad el video… o no. Como queráis.

Reservas y más info: http://www.rachelarieff.com/comoserfeliz.html

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Gypsy Man Salvaging Old Pipes

It’s amazing how some people will let you stand in front of them with an invasive device and record their movements for posterity. I didn’t expect him to let me, but I thought I’d ask anyway. You know me.

Not only did he let me photograph him, but he went about his business with complete naturalness.

He had a pure silver tooth that gleamed in the sunlight when he talked. From a distance, I’d mistaken these rusted old pipes for a Gaudiesque sculpture. It was a beautiful morning.

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Surprise Bouquet

In last night’s Anti-Karaoke, a guy named Ciclista Florista (“Cyclist Florist”) briefly interrupted the show to present this beautiful and highly original flower-bike wheel arrangement as a tribute to the show. Now that’s what I call “rocking with available materials”!

I love it. And my cat, Mr. Tacos, absolutely adores it. Thanks, Ciclista Florista, for the beautiful gift!

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Show de Comedia Este Jueves

Un trocito de mi show de comedia, “Cómo ser feliz todo el tiempo”.

Este jueves a las 23 h. en el Café Teatre Llantiol, Barcelona. C/ Riereta 7, paralelo a la Rambla de Raval.

Recomiendo hacer una reserva. Reservas y más info aquí.

Photo: Marco Quiroga Marazzato

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Spy Shop Stories

So there’s this store in Barcelona, “La tienda del espía” (“The Spy Store” in English). I have a real problem with these kinds of stores. I’ve always disliked their crass exploitation of human fear and paranoia, not to mention the invasion of privacy that most of their products represent.

However, I needed to get a goddamn tape recording device for phone conversations. I interview people from time to time over the telephone and am tired of my crude speakerphone system. So I bit the bullet and went in.

The first thing that I noticed — as it’s impossible not to — is the Sherlock Holmes-type fella in the doorway. Just in case you didn’t feel enough mal rollo at the thought of buying spying devices, here’s a creepy life-size statue to help you get into the suspicious vibe.

I walked in, and there were two female employees there. I was the only customer, as they’d just opened for the afternoon. I explained what I needed to one of the salesladies, who happened to look an awful lot like Dorothy Michaels from Tootsie, except more feminine (naturally). But she had that same kind of nervous, eager-to-please energy.

When she tried to demonstrate a phone recorder for me, I quickly realized why she was nervous: she was new and didn’t know quite what she was doing. She seemed like a wife and mother who hadn’t worked at a 9-5 job in a long time and was a little uncomfortable with it all. Even though I was polite and tried to put her at ease, she was jumpy and apologetic. Luckily, her coworker came to the rescue. She was younger, with a head of gorgeous, thick black curly hair (I’m sorry, but I’m obsessed with women with healthy hair, ’cause mine isn’t) and a warm, friendly manner.

As I watched them fumble with the recorder, I realized that these two were the most unlikely personality types I could ever imagine working in a place called “La Tienda del Espía”. Where were the James Bond types? Or the tall, gorgeous blonde ice queens who were cast as James Bond’s foil/villain/love interest? I expected to be assisted by cold, calculating sociopaths. These two women — and I mean it as a compliment — were more fit to be selling fruit at the boquería than high-tech devices for moneyed paranoiacs.

The recorder was taking time to figure out, so I made some small talk. It had turned dark, and the shadow of the life-sized Sherlock Holmes loomed menacingly in my peripheral vision. I couldn’t get used to it. Out of the corner of my eye, I kept seeing what looked like a burglar or hitman coming in through the doorway. “What’s it like to work in a place with a huge male statue in the doorway, ladies? Doesn’t it creep you out?”

“Oh, no. We like him! He makes us feel safe.” They then told me about the statue’s relationship with the neighbors: that he was a main attraction for the local children, whose parents sometimes took them by just to visit him. However, there was one mother who wasn’t so fond of the statue. “She told us that we should take him down because he was too big and scary and was traumatizing her kid.”

“What a ñoña,” I said. “Doesn’t she realize the kind of world she’s living in? Hasn’t she realized that she lives next to a place called La tienda del espía? If she can’t handle it, she should move.”

I looked at the walls, which were covered with some of the most lurid, vulgar advertisements I’d seen in ages. They were truly entertaining. Nearly every one of them was geared towards women who suspected their husbands were cheating on them. The one that made me laugh the most was a poster of three sets of feet in one bed. Do you suspect there’s one too many people in your marriage? read the caption.

Now I was starting to understand who comprised the bulk of this store’s clientele: not men with nefarious political leanings, not criminals, but plain, simple unhappy housewives. And husbands. One of the products for sale, for 100 euros and change, was an “infidelity detector“, that, according to the sales pitch, could “detect traces of semen in intimate apparel”.

All I could think was, “Wow.” Seriously, if your marriage has come to that, wouldn’t it be better just to call it quits? I mean, when you get to the point that you have so little trust that you’re actually jizz-testing your partner’s panties, I’d say the marriage is over. Save yourself a hundred bucks and amiably go your separate ways.

Whatever sense of exotic adventure the world of espionage had for me beforehand evaporated as my awareness of the products increased.

“So who comes in here, then?” I asked. “Is it all just people who think their partners are cheating on them?”

“Many, yes, but not all,” said the curly-haired, more veteran saleswoman. “Lately in Barcelona we have a lot of people wanting to buy listening devices to spy on their neighbors.”

“Really? Spy on their neighbors? How?”

“They want super-sensitive voice recorders to pick up on conversations that their neighbors are having on the other side of the wall, or even on the floor below,” she said.

“But, why?” I asked.

“Gossip. They want to know their neighbors’ dirty laundry,” she said. “The problem is that, as they’re walking above their neighbor’s head, their neighbor hears their footsteps creaking on the ceiling. Now the neighbor knows she’s being spied on. So she comes in here to buy a device to spy on the neighbor who’s spying.”

“What’s the matter with people? Don’t they have anything better to do with their time?”

The saleswoman shrugged and rolled her eyes. “People are getting weirder every day.”

I thought about that. I guess I could understand how, in a complicated world, people could crave some sense of control that expensive surveillance devices might seem to provide.

“The strangest requests I get are from old people,” she continued. “Some old lady comes in here and says, I want security cameras in my house. I live alone, and someone keeps coming into my house at night. They climb up through the balcony, turn on the T.V., and leave the door to the balcony wide open. I ask her why someone would break into her house just to turn on the T.V. I don’t know, she says, but that’s what they do. Every night, they do it. And I want to catch them in the act.

“So what do you say?”

“I say, Señora, I’m afraid the only person you’ll catch on that camera is yourself. Your money would be better spent on a live-in caretaker.

“That’s tough.”

“Yes, it’s sad.”

I paid for my recorder and left La tienda del espía with many thoughts running through my mind. Not about surveillance devices, but about human nature — and the predicament of those who want to believe that these seductive machines are the solution to their problems.

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Why Mika Satisfies

Awful. Just awful. Take a long break from writing a blog, and when you come back, all you have to offer is… Mika de cojones?

Take it or leave it. I had to get re-started somehow.

It all started when I innocently entered a small clothing store. By the way, I firmly believe that clothing stores — from giants such as H&M and Esprit to small boutiques — perpetrate mediocrity through their mindless, casual and constant diffusion of empty pop, faux R&B and brain-freezing trance gob to their browsing clientele. If clothing stores and hair salons aren’t outlawed quickly, on a global scale, civilization will be brought down completely. Think of it as my own Inconvenient Truth.

That goddamn “Rain” song was playing. Goddamn I find Mika’s singing irritating. The way he pushes those falsettoes out through his nose, sounds like some spoiled brat taunting you on the playground. “Nyah, nyah, nyah-NYAH-nyah!” If I were his babysitter I’d slap that mouth of his shut. So annoying.

And now I can’t get the goddamned song out of my head. ‘Cause even though he irritates me, I like the song.

His silly little candy pop songs satisfy. Those harmonics and arpeggios, the use of dynamics, the way it builds… perfect for the gym! Perfect for catching an airplane or putting out a fire! Gets you excited! Really!

Makes me want to jump up and down, trashing the clothing store, throwing racks of sweaters and blouses to the floor, then smashing the plate-glass window with one blunt KICK and jumping out onto the street, killing passersby with long, jagged shards of broken glass. “Nyah, nyah, nyah-NYAH-nyah!”

I fucking love it. I really do.

Oops, the corporate giants don’t allow insertion of the video. You’ll have to click on this link. Come on, do it. Take that one extra step and prove you’re a total sucker.

Besides: you gotta give props to someone who puts a discotheque in the middle of a forest.

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