Journal Entries
"Blackbird" in a Spanish prison, 1970
Posted Aug 7, 2003
"Blackbird" (from the White Album/Beatles).
It is 1970 and I left home and was roaming Spain on my own.No money.
It was the time of the Spanish dictator Franco.
First I went to Barcelona.
Later on a longer stay in the harbour of Valencia
And in the end I tried my luck in Malaga (deep South) although my aim was a visit to Marocco.
Being half drunk, I got it in my mind to collect money in a chique restaurant "for the communists".......
After a while some visitors alarmed the headwaiter.
So he came in a straightride to me, took his arms around the middle of my body, lifted me up and brought me outside while I just continued to preach communism........
Hilarious situation, in my perception now.
Outside it became less "hilarious".
Three tall men in civilian clothes surrounded and arrested me.
As real "body gards" they walked beside me to the policestation, a long way from there.
My only protest was "why Franco doesn't pay a taxi to bring me there" and it drove them núts and finally in the policestation they exploded and I became silent....and as it seemed, forever.
I was transported to a Prison and to imagine how that looks like,
just imagine the Middle Ages or American big prisons.
Half dark rooms of concrete.
One section was just the floor and another section (in the same space)
was a little higher-also concrete- and there you should be able to sleep.
The "open-side" was made from thick iron bars.
Inside there where already about ten prisoners, before I came.
There where a few of those "rooms" next to each other.
Food was no more than water, bread and some soup.
I was perplexed to see passing a waiter with food and cigars and it appeared to be a daily order from a rich German criminal. It appeared to be common rule that if you could afford it, you could deliver any meal you'd like from a restaurant outside.
But I wasn't so interested in food and I hardly spoke with the other roommates.
I came into a bad mood and after a while all I did was only pacing up and down. Up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down.......
After a while during that walking back and forth, there slowly came a melody in my mind and my mouth gave it a gentle tune and slowly lines came up as "blackbird singing in the dead of night...." and "take these broken wings and learn to fly"......................
Walking and singing became my food and drinks and the more lines came up the better I felt;
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these sunken eys and learn to see" and more words than that I didn't know.
But as we know, exact words don't really matter in how we experience a song. It is the association with elements of our subconscious that really matter.
And on and on and on I went, pacing up and down and gently singing fragments of the blackbirds song in its dead of night.
For hours.
For days and days without any break except some sleeping.
Every morning my breakfeast was the melody of that inspiring bird, cause the song and words lived a life of their own.
After some time the head of the guard came to our room and talked through the bars with two Spanjards for several minutes.
In the evening I asked them what that was all about?
"Well" , they said in Spanish, "he was asking if you were in hungerstrike".
I wasn't in hungerstrike;
I had found light despite my "sunken eyes",
and food despite "the dead of night" and freedom despite my "broken wings".
I had flown away, far away ,to a much better world and had forgotten to eat prisonfood......
Thanks to the Beatles I had found another and múch better world.
(The white Album; "Blackbird")
P.S. A few days later I was thrown out of Spain- because of vagrancy- by plain, accompanied by the dutch consul who spoke the stupid words; "You are the son of a lawyer, you should know better".
In 1995 I returned to Spain/France and walked half the Pyrenees.
Réal paradise! F80264?thread=205416
Greatings from Amsterdam, Alfredo (1951)
P.S. The H2G2 link of this Prisonstory is F31870?thread=209976
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Latest reply: Aug 7, 2003
Follow up "Johnson, the Captain"
Posted Aug 7, 2003
(To use all the information I shared with you in "Johnson, the captain", I'll continue with one or more dear memories of those days).
Living on nothing in Valencia in oktober 1970, I searched most of the time a sleeping place at the beach, close to the harbour.
One evening I entered the lonely beach and as I walked on, I suddenly saw the profile of someone sitting at the coastline, staring at the deminished horizon.
As I came closer I saw it was a girl and as a matter of course I sat next to her in the sand.
There was calm in the air and with hands and feet we talked a little, because she was Spanish and couldn't speak English very well.
After a while I took the initiative to even dance with her without ány music at all, asif we were in a disco and it may well have been that I even tried to sing a popsong to give it a boost.
We danced and laughed.
It must have been around one o'clock at night.
When we finally sat down again, she had a request.
She apparently had received a letter from an German vacation lover who had spent his time in Spain,
but,
she was unable to understand his words....
No wonder she was staring at the horizon; having received a precious gift but not being able to unravel it.
If I could do that for her.
She gave her beloved letter to me and I read some lines.
By instinct I rose up asif a spectaculair and dramatic moment was born.
Little by little I translated the words in English.
And more and more I got carried away by a romantic painting I saw in my mind and soon after I hardly saw any words of the letter anymore, but the more clear became this painting of love to me and I painted it to this hungry Spanish girl in the most poëtic words I could find.
She must have felt the meaning of it, because her eyes became blurry and her soul became cherished with hope. I could see it.I could feel it.
Finally I was finished with my creative translation and returned the treasure to her.
We walked, hand in hand, a mile along the coastline without speaking much to each other.
And when we returned we kissed a while like lovers do.
She told me that her father was a doctor and that they lived in Madrid and spent some time now here at Valencia.
I asked her to meet her the day after at eight o'clock at this same place on the beach of Valencia. And she agreed and promised to come.
I was there, the next day.
She wasn't.
Finally I got it.
In her mind she had sailed away over the seas with the wind of my poëtic words ,far away from Valencia and sensed the horizon in the hope to find a glimpse of her dear German lover. Now she was closer to him then ány other time since he had to depart her.
She was almost in heaven now and did nót intend to visit this cruel world ány longer.
Not even for Alfredo, her guide in language and love.
And right she was.
"Bey-Bey!" from Amsterdam, Alfredo. September 2002.
P.S. The H2G2 link is F70478?thread=208641
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Latest reply: Aug 7, 2003
Johnson the Captain
Posted Aug 7, 2003
It is about 1970 and as a loner of twenty years old I already roamed Western Europe for a while and finally I made a passionate plan to go to Israël to serve the army, because of what was told to me about World War two, although I'm not Jewish. In my head it would be the first real destiny of my life.
But hitchhiking isn't that easy if you want to go to the Middle East, not even for me in those days and a free ride on a bote from Spain seemed to me a clever plan of action.
I finally ended up in Valencia en rather fast I'd found the harbour area and at the same afternoon I got to know a vagabond (not wanting to use the word tramp) who spoke rather well English. Day and night he lived in the harbour of Valencia, already for several years. Johnson,was his name.
He had been a captain at several ships and finally stranded here in Valencia where he waited till he had become 65. Here he could live in the mild Mediterranian climate. At the age of 65 he wanted to return to his homeland, Sweden, where he could make a living of his retirement pay.
Soon we became friends and Johnson showed me the whole harbour-area. He told me that because of his captainpapers he was "allowed" to enter ships and that he would take me with him to the ships to arrange some food for us in the kitchens. I remember one of his survivaladvices;"if you get food in one of those kitchens,accept food like chickensoup and not steaks 'cause then you waste your time by only chewing". It sounded like real wisdom and somewhow it was and my confidence was building up for this big seaman.
In the evening of that same day he enthusiasticly came up to me and told me he'd discovered a ship that would departure the next day to Israël and that I could join them. He had arranged all that.
"So let's make a party, Alfredo",he said, "and lets buy some rum. Do buy some for both of us in the store overthere, oké?!".
"Oké,I'll get a big bottle of white Bacardi" I replied and was glad that finally a plan of mine succeeded and I gladly bought white rum of my last peseta's. Yes, this was time for a party and that evening we both sat on the street, leaning against a wall, drinking Bacardi and as the hours passed some of his fellow Spanish outcasts joined us.
Finally all of us fell asleep and the Mediterranian night shielded us.
In the morning I kicked the big body of Johnson awake - whom I found two streets futher away - so that he could introduce me at that ship that would bring me to my promised land.
"I'm sorry, Alfredo, but there is no ship that sails to Israël.None" he confessed.
That was a serious setback and I went to the harbour on my own, but after a few hours we already both continued our combined streetlife and in the weeks to come we became real comrades.
I got to know people that lived in ruins on there own, or with wife and children for whom they cared with great love. Sometimes we made plans to earn some money.
Almost every evening - around seven - we all met close to the ruins, including Johnson and me and everybody put something eatable at a sheet iron that lay on a fire they'd made. And there was always sómeone who had arranged a big bottle of very cheap wine.They were all Spaniards who belonged to the poorest of them all.
Despite that, I was welcome to share their food and wine and after a while I sometimes could bring some of my own.
At a rare occasion I slept ín their ruins on the ground, between their beds, but that wasn't such a succes because of their sexual avances in the dead of night. I'd run away to the beach.
Johnson and I became unseparable those weeks, but just because of that I unconciously must have felt there had to be paid off an old score.
Because one night Johnson invited me to join him in a visit to a real fishermans bar which was related to the fish auction. It was a real nightbar that was open from two at night till about seven o'clock.
It was very full and smoky,I remember. Even for me. Inside Johnson and I went our own way, cause he knew many people.
I ordered one glass of wine after another on my account and I was having a good time, whatever I did. At break of dawn I finally sneaked my way out without paying anything, in search for a sleep at the beach of Valencia.
Now it was mý turn to be kicked awake by someone, who appeared to be Johnson of course,"because as long as you don't pay your bill overthere, I'm not allowed to enter that bar anymore!!", he said with a real angry and desparate face.
But also in thát evening of that same day, we all ate and drank together ,close to the ruins.
After a few weeks I suddenly left Valencia unannounced.
Must have been my way of leaving.
Searched my future in the deep South of Spain.
So now - in this Journal,30 years later - time has come, to speak the unspoken:
"Dear Johnson,
you were like a father to me and I bear this time of us in Valencia as a beloved memory in my heart.
You most probably are dead now for many years, as it is more than 30 years ago, but my memory of you and us will survive.
Cheers, sailor!"
Alfredo, in the harbour of Amsterdam , 2002
P.S. The G2G2 link is F70478?thread=208616
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Latest reply: Aug 7, 2003
A Spanish Brothel
Posted Aug 7, 2003
Spain, the harbour of Valencia, 1970.
It was in the days of the harsh rule of dictator Franco.
I (20 years old) roamed Spain and stayed a while in Valencia with it's big harbour, which made it more easily to survive.
Some evening - for the first time in my life - I entered a brothel, with a girl/prostitute of my age, whom I had met in a bar. As any other brothel those days, it was a state brothel, so the reception was like one of a dull office. The receptionist told me I had to pay him in advance and then we went to her room.
She invited me to come into the bathroom and there she washed my torso with some badly smelling purifying soap to prevent all kinds of genital diseases. After that we went to her bed and it was clearly to me, she knew the fine technical art of making love, which meant, that I was standing next to the same bed already within a few minutes. We both dressed and walked to the door.
Just before I opened it, she looked me straight in the eyes and said in a probing way;
"you drinking too much; you drinking too much" and I nodded a bit shy.
For the first time in my life, I felt I had a real sister.
Ever since I never visited any another brothel, cause it won't ever come close to this beloved memory.
Greatings from Amsterdam, Alfredo . Totday it's sept. 2002
P.S. The H2G2 link is F79007?thread=206451
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Latest reply: Aug 7, 2003
Memories of roaming Spain in 1970
Posted Aug 7, 2003
Time means nothing when it comes to impressions and memories, especially those from your own youth.
I (born in 1951) fled home in 1970 and roamed Spain without any money or luggage;
Barcelona,
Harbour of Valencia,
Prison in Malaga.
In time it were a couple of months, but in my emotional landscape it was a long and impressive experience.
I cherish these memories and this is the first time I have ever written them down.
I feel satisfied, although it was a tough job to express the colours of these memories in English.
First I wrote them in relation to all kinds of Entries and then later on copied them here ,in my Journal.
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Latest reply: Aug 7, 2003
Alfredo
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