This essay appeared originally at COLDNOON, an online literary journal about international travel, in March 2017. COLDNOON is no longer with us. Please enjoy here!
I
was only going to stay in Mallorca a week. Swim in the ocean, lay in
the sand, look at beautiful european women in bikinis. I'm not really
a beach person though, so expected to get bored pretty quick and just
want to get back to Barcelona, or somewhere else Spain. Nor am I a
Spring Breaker, so my first two days kind of horrified me: Mallorca
is the equivalent of Fort Lauderdale, where hordes of young
Europeans, mostly Germans, descend for a week or two of binge
drinking on the 10K stretch of beach and hotels called the 'Platja,'
east of Palma. Mostly young men, or else they're just the most
visible, roving around in groups, carrying kegs and boomboxes (which
I didn't even know existed anymore) cranking Ramstein and appearing
scarily like Hitler Youth in their matching t-shirts and shaved
heads. I'm not exaggerating: on my first morning run I happened to
pass a group of them yelling at an older (ha, ok, my age) mixed-race
couple, and I learned enough German in high school to know they were
asking/accusing the (white) guy what he was doing with a black
girlfriend. Either he was very stoic and patient, and/or didn't
understand German, since he didn't react. I myself wanted to punch
them in their Aryan faces. Anyways, the stormtroopers-in-training
tended to congregate down at the east end of the Platja, so I could
mostly avoid them.
I
also don't like rich people, and the island of Mallorca and its
capitol, Palma, are main vacation points for the superrich, about a
seven hour ferry ride south of Barcelona, part of the Balneares
Islands, collectively one of Spain's 'states'. Palma has a
crescent-shaped bay facing south, creating an ideal harbor, hosting
dozens, if not hundreds of yachts bigger than my whole apartment
building back in Michigan, with many high-end hotels nearby, along
with casinos and chi-chi bars and nightclubs. Fortunately, I couldn't
afford any of that, so avoided los
ricos as well.
Notably, there were no other Americans on Mallorca, or I never met
any. Which was nice.
This
was midway through a two month vacation to supposedly just Barcelona,
a treat to myself for my first year teaching full-time, which had had
its ups and downs. My students were great, but the administration and
my fellow faculty weren't exactly on great terms, and neither was my
department the model of sanity. I felt I'd been plopped down in the
middle of a three-way Hatfields and McCoys feud, and in the meantime,
as a contract employee, I was having to writing the equivalent of a
master's degree for my 'teaching portfolio,' every year, for three
years, and being on three different committees, and two different
departments, and suddenly having to teach five classes a semester
(!), in composition, requiring the reading of a lot of student
essays. All that plus trying to run and host a monthly poetry open
mic in town, and find time for my own writing. So I'd been feeling a
little slammed.
Barcelona,
while starting out awesome, had turned not so. My plan had
been to just hang out in the city and do a lot of running, and
writing in cool European cafes, and reading all the cool Spanish
writers like Enrique Vila-Matas in the original Spanish, and seeing
actually good (because European) movies, and I'd even lucked out in
my first week in arriving right during the Barcelona Poetry Festival,
with multiple free poetry readings in spanish and english (Gary
Snyder!) happening every day. I found the place I'd hoped to stay the
whole time through airbnb.com:
a widower renting out rooms in her apartment to travelers. I was not
the only one, there were three rooms, and she seemed to just make her
living at it. At first, she seemed nice, even helping me track down
lost luggage, and the first couple of weeks were ok, but things got
weird: I came back for a siesta one day, which I did often, so she
knew I'd be back. And, I found her walking around cleaning the
apartment in just her underwear. I tried to be polite as I could, but
after, I guess, I'd rejected her, nothing I did seemed to make her
happy, to the point where she was accusing me of stealing her food.
By then, tourist season in Barcelona was in full swing, and finding
another long-term place to stay was just impossible. Suddenly, I was
looking at spending a lot of time just jumping from loud hostel to
loud hostel, and spending way more money than I'd planned. So, I
decided to Escape From Barcelona and take the ferry to Mallorca.
Taking the plane is actually cheaper, and faster, but I liked the
idea of being out on the water. And pulling out of the Barcelona
harbor at midnight in a rainstorm ended up being the most memorable
moments of my trip—of my life—just me out on deck, wind blowing
me sideways, mountains in clouds and city lit up fuzzy, the ship
groaning and vibrating, feeling relief, defeat, sadness, exultation,
fear of the unknown, exhaustion, and the cold seeping into my bones.
I shivered there until the lights faded on the horizon.
I
thought with the festive Spring Breakish atmosphere that the
nightlife might at least include some cool live música
at any of the many bars along along the beach, like flamenco, or
Spanish rock, or anything, really. Barcelona had been filled with
various and sundry clubs hidden in back alleys featuring eclectic
music. I almost gave up though. At night, the youth vanished (maybe
into Palma?) and the really older folks just strolled around or hung
out in the bigger corporate hotel bars, with guys playing Casio
keyboards singing horrible versions of horrible Julio Iglesias songs.
And yet, people actually danced
to it! Surely there must be something better.
And,
on my second night, walking west along the 'Rambla,' the boardwalk
paralleling the beach, I stumbled on two guitarists playing and
singing in a small place called the Tattoo Bar, which, like many of
the shops there, and because of the warm weather, opened to the
sidewalk. One of the musicians reminded me of myself, strangely, with
long hair in a ponytail, and more than a little grey showing. He sang
in Spanish, so I couldn't understand everything, but had a great
voice. I sat down and listened, along with a small group of other
tourists, and a few locals. After a couple of songs, he looked at me
and held out his guitarra.
“You look like a musician. Quieres
tocar? Do you want
to play?”
Wow.
But hell yeah. I've been a musician all my life, from playing
electric bass in metal bands back in my twenties, to playing and
singing at open mics, even begun busking the streets of Ann Arbor in
the last few years, so not unfamiliar with just getting up and
playing for a crowd. And no musician ever says no to an invitation to
play!
The
set up was minimal: Just one small amplifier with two inputs, one for
an acoustic/electric guitar, and one for the microphone. I sang songs
I thought Europeans might have actually heard of: a couple Beatles
tunes, plus “Angie” by the Rolling Stones. Which everyone likes—I
think because, in addition to having an actual real musician and
singer, there was the added bonus of me being an exotic English
speaker.
Turns
out that the two guys singing were the owner, Lucas, and his son. The
bar was fairly new, and that was the first night Lucas was trying out
having live music as a way to attract customers. He got behind the
bar to serve drinks, and after every song kept saying, “Otra
John! Otra!”
feeding me glasses of wine. I ended up playing all night, all the
songs I knew, shredding my fingers. When I finally said basta,
enough, at around midnight, Lucas told me I can play there every
night for as long as I was staying.
So
wow. I'd kinda found my ideal situation: Run, swim, write, read, eat,
then play music and sing all night, in a place I can mostly walk
around barefoot all the time. And did I mention the women in bikinis?
I changed my return ferry ticket and make arrangements with the hotel
to stay for the rest of my time in Spain.
In
the afternoons I took the bus into Palma and explore, finding the
awesome and air-conditioned Literanta
bookstore, with its own little café. The movie theatre CineCiutat
showed independent and foreign films. Plus I just liked wandering,
getting lost, and people-watching, which Palma is perfect for. The
downtown is like a lot of older European cities, a sort of maze-like
centro
of streets that would qualify as alleys in America, which are
actually practical, because shady on hot days, though as the city
spreads out the streets widen and the architecture just becomes bland
apartments buildings where, one assumes, all the people who serve the
superrich and the drunk tourists live. The buildings downtown tend to
have the 'Mediterranean look,' white stucco walls and red clay tile
roofs, looking more like Marseilles than Barcelona. And, like all
European cities, people actually walk everywhere. Tourists, locals,
everyone out and about.
Things
got even better: Lucas hired Jerry, this South African guitar player
to come in on weekends. A big guy with dark skin and long dreadlocks,
he made a living as a musician with his own band and, he said,
backing up bigger acts when they tour Europe. He looked a little
doubtful when Lucas introduced us and suggested we play together, but
as soon as he saw I could play and sing, we hit it off. He had a good
ear, so could play along with songs I knew, though mostly we played
and sang his repertoire of classic rock songs, many of which I knew,
my favorite being Dire Straits' “Sultans of Swing,” the solo for
which he played note for note. I never did figure out how he ended up
in Mallorca, but how does anybody end up anywhere? He was a great
singer, and could change his voice for the song. People loved his
gravelly Fats Domino version of “Blueberry Hill.”
Although
most of the young tourists seemed to be German, a sizeable group of
older tourists came from other countries, especially Norway and
Sweden. They too frolicked on the beach, but were more likely to be
out taking evening strolls, and to stop in the beach bars for drinks.
Seeing what 'classic' rock/pop songs they knew was interesting: The
big British bands were familiar, like those already mentioned, plus
The Kinks and Pink Floyd (at least “Wish You Were Here”). They
knew older American stuff like Elvis and Motown, and some Bob Dylan
(my specialty). Surprisingly, they knew The Eagles, especially “Hotel
California” and “Desperado,” though not “Take It Easy.” Who
knows why? Bruce Springsteen not so much either, though two Swedish
women recognized, like just barely, “I'm On Fire” when I sang it.
But singer-songwriters like Townes Van Zant and Jerry Jeff Walker?
Not at all, nor even seemingly Johnny Cash, and Jerry actually
thought of me as a country music singer (!) because I played that
stuff. I should've bought a cowboy hat.
My
second week there, this guy Christian, from Russia,
appeared randomly, like I had, just happening to be staying at a
nearby hotel and walking by one evening. He could barely hold a
conversation in English but knew dozens,
if not hundreds, of old American gospel blues songs, and if you
weren't looking at him when he sang, you would swear you were
listening to an old black man. In fact, he said he made his living
back in Moscow in a blues band (!) and had lived in Chicago for three
years while working for a Russian company, taking lessons from old
blues guys the whole time. He was only there a couple nights but,
like me, playing music became the highlight of his vacation. He
didn't know any popular songs, so I mainly just followed along with
what he did, though he also played a mean harp, and sometimes soloed
on the bluesier stuff I knew, including, most magically one night, my
version of Johnny Cash's version of Tom Waits' “Down There By The
Train.”
There
was also Omar, from Nigeria (I think) who always dressed in a
traditional long colorful robe and a matching cap. I'm pretty sure he
was living there illegally, undocumented, and claimed he'd traveled
the world busking, which I'd seen him doing in Palma my first day.
When he heard that Lucas was looking for musicians, he came down and
Lucas agreed to him playing on a Thursday. Omar played guitar and
this weird African instrument that I never learned the name of, about
the size of a mandolin, but with seven strings and a unique tuning
arrangement. He didn't use the mic or amplifier, just sang original,
political, songs, like one which is kind of a litany of sentences in
different languages saying something like, 'What do we want? Freedom!
Qué queremos?
Libertad! Que voulons-nous? Liberté!'
The
customers, what few there are, seemed to like him, but Lucas was not
amused. After not even a half set, he signaled Omar to stop, and they
had a 'discussion' that got a wee bit heated. Omar left, angry, and
Lucas asked me to sing for the rest of the night. Which I was glad to
do, though felt a little guilty. Days later I ran into Omar on the
bus into Palma. He remembered me and smiled. “Hola chico! Cómo
estàs?!” I asked him what happened and he said Lucas promised him
money and refused to pay. Because he traveled all the way out to la
Platja, he'd lost money that night, when he could have been busking
in town. Which sounded unfair to me. I mean, what did Lucas expect
Omar to play? But who knows? Omar speaks Spanish about as well as he
speaks English, so I think it might have been a kind of a
miscommunication?
Jerry
arranged for his hot French girlfriend to play a couple weekends
while he and his band played gigs over in Andratx, where, apparently,
all the English summer-breakers go (the British, according to Lucas,
are supposedly worse than the Germans, if that can be believed,
“raping and stabbing each other”). She also played guitar and
sang but just wasn't as good as Jerry, though did have a great bass
player, Jimi. She had great voice, and seemed to be trying to learn
Jerry's repertoire, but didn't speak, or pronounce, English very
well. I guess she felt that to be popular (like, 'make it') she had
to sing in English, but she never sounded exactly right. I asked her
to sing something in French one time, and she did, and it sounded
awesome. I like dher, and would've liked jamming casually with her,
and in fact she did invite me to join in on some songs, like the
seemingly ubiquitous “Hotel California,” though I felt weird just
standing there singing along, like she was using my English-speaking
ability to cover for her. I think Lucas wasn't too excited about her
either, and disappointed that Jerry has bailed on him. The crowd
seemed less excited about her too, though Jerry had such a
likeability factor about him that I don't think many people,
including me, could compare.
Lucas
and his employees, all of them South Americans, loved me, and Lucas
kind of took me under his wing, at least at first, even inviting me
out for a run one morning, showing me a locals' swimming spot. I
never did understand if he and the rest were actual residents of
Spain or not, or how that worked, though he and his family went back
to Argentina every winter, during the off-season. They'd been in
Mallorca years though—the bar used to be a tourist trinket shop (of
which there were plenty). He shared a little bit of the history of
the area, like that when the bigger corporate hotels moved in, the
fact that they offered 'everything included' packages (meaning meals
in their own restaurants, and their own bars) sucked a lot of
business away from the smaller local businesses. So, in fact,
starting a bar seems actually kind of risky to me, but also something
Lucas had always wanted to do, and he'd decorated it with trinkets
and memorabilia from the small beach town where he grew up in
Argentina.
People
could also actually get tattoos at The Tattoo Bar, from an uruguayan
artist named Nelson, after Nelson Mandela. He had his own tattoo shop
farther down the beach, where he worked during the day. The Tattoo
Bar had a better location at night, where he enticed passing drunk
people to memorialize their vacation, and gave Lucas a cut. I asked
Nelson if he had any time to enjoy life on Mallorca, but no, doing
tattoos all the time was how he makes his living and, like seemingly
everyone, he went back to South America in the off-season (though did
tattoos there too). He offered to give me a tattoo at a discount,
like forty euros (fifty to sixty dollars), a good deal, so I had him
do a black cat on my right bicep. I got it with a week still left in
my vacation, just in case he had to touch it up or something, which
unfortunately meant I couldn't go swimming for the rest of my stay.
Something about salt water not being good for the new ink.
Todo
bien, but towards
the end, I was ready to go: Lucas also had a falling out with Jerry
over money. I'm not sure of the details, but it again seemed that
Lucas was backing out of an agreement to pay, and I again felt a
little culpable, because he seemed to be depending on me as a
fallback, to whom he only had to give free drinks. Which I'd been
happy to do, but he even started being stingy about that, which makes
me feel like, really? You were paying
Jerry and now you're trying to make me feel guilty about a couple gin
and tonics? But, I didn't make a fuss, though neither did I feel as
obligated to play, and spent some of my last nights in Palma,
including an amazing open mic at the Palma Jazz Club, playing bass.
It was actually the opposite of most open mics in the US, in that 1.
I was the oldest person there, 2. bass solos were encouraged, and 3.
young non-musicians, including women, actually came to listen. Also,
they didn't play blues, but rather a kind of 70s funk, though when
they found out I could sing (in English! Mejor!)
we did some Jimi Hendrix.
I
did play at the Tattoo Bar on my last night though. It was a Tuesday,
not a lot of people, but I played and sang the best I could, working
up a sweat, though I stopped early. We took photos, and Lucas and
Nelson and everyone shook my hand and hugged me. I was sad. Part of
me thinking, Why couldn't I just do
this? Just sing in a beach bar, instead of going back to Michigan?
But, it wouldn't be enough to live on and, well, the job back in
Michigan did fund the trip. Who knows though, if I'd met some cool
Spanish woman, and I'm sure they exist, maybe that would've been
enough to stay. Sigh. The whole experience, though, surely made me
think about the idea of doing what you can
do as a job versus doing what you love.
I
got back on the ferry the next day at noon, and leaned on the rail as
the ship pulled away and paralleled the coast for a while, meditating
on the hills and forest I never even got around to exploring, plus
small quiet coastal villages, until heading, finally, out to open
water, Mallorca getting smaller and smaller.
