The General Strike

Today is a Wednesday, the atrociously hard day to spell, signifying the middle "camels hump" of the week. But here in beautiful Spain (Catalunya, really) there was a general strike. A large portion of the cities institutions closed down in hopes for changes in retirement age, wages, and to generally protest the countries 20% unemployment rate and overall terrible economic situation. "The Scene" was unsafe for Jonny and Linda Lue to walk through to get to class, so we got to "party" last night and ditch on indoor fluorescent-light lectures today. After all, this afternoon protesters lit a cop car on fire, smashed through a Levi's storefront window, tagged up a shopping mall, and ran wild in the streets.

after summoning the powers of the cosmos to get out of bed, I was struck with an excellent and chillingly defiant urge; to go to the protest. no, no, no, no, five emails had informed me from my "study abroad program" but I wanted to check it out, from a distance at least.

But it was never enough, venturing out of my cave I meandered down Avinguda diagonal (a diagonal road) to the intersection with Passieg De Gracia, the swank shopping mecca for desperate, disillusioned, broken hearted people all around the city. There I found a wonderful collage of people tall, thin, fat, big, and small peppered with differing flags of the factions, but they were together, hanging out in the middle of the road. My journey continued down the entirety of the "Passeig" to the cities center square where I saw SWAT trucks and cops with riot gear looking angry.

I knew something was up when I saw all of the burned debris casually pushed to the side of the road, little did we know what we were getting ourselves into. "Man this thing is really over-hyped" "yeah wheres all the ACTION man?" be careful what you wish for it might just come true....

We walked up a block and saw a very large younger contingency; with the young age and reckless psyches came several people standing in front of a lot of people, throwing rocks at an advertisement. "what?" i proclaimed and proceed to walk to the opposite corner and then I saw the moment where a person turns off the "I give a fuck" button in their head.

A backpacking hippie, with long hair and Earth-tone clothes, stood in front of a Levis store dropping his two bricks repeatedly on top of one another. He opens up his cell phone, tells his cronies to come hither, and violently hangs up. He then picked up his rock as if God himself had told him to do it. (Both hands over his head holding the rock as a sacrifice and a means to an end for the great destiny he was about to fulfill) and hurled it into a very large plate glass display window of the Levi's jean store.

I thought, "hey, I always thought Levi jeans were cool man"

apparently not.


Shortly after heroically flicking his brick(s) at the window several times, he managed to gather some disciples, in fact a whole horde of youngsters with wild-west style bananas wrapped over there faces. They poked and prodded until you heard the jaw dropping sound of lots of heavy broken glass.

But where are the police?!!! I kept wondering, very soon they should be here with dogs, horses, helicopters, trucks, shields, helmets, gas masks-but wait, I don't want to be the paranoid American.....again.

So I got a little closer, and saw they were looting the place, literally taking the manikins down from the window, ripping there clothes off and dispersing them into the crowd. Taking a break from the pictures I saw a man giggle, literally maniacally chuckle like a child as he stuffed a brand new pair of jeans in his blazer (they must have been the right size).

Then the inevitable happened, some jackass decided to yell, "Policia" and everyone broke into a mad dash, i was headed straight for a large burning dumpster, so I decided to bail through the bushes, across the street, and then look back at the others who stayed behind.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, we were deceived. But, there was a much better view of the ruckus, so like every budding mischievous mind, we just had to go back. As we returned there was more looting, and this time we could actually hear the police coming. So again we ran. Then, like scared little children confronting a haunting shadow, we moseyed back over to the circle where the Police just drove in circles with their sirens ablaze.

My roommate Josh begins to take a video as a Cataluñian Anarchist steps in between us and hurls a rather large sized rock straight for the police Trucks windshield. But never fear, the police truck had a metal grate over the glass to protect it from shattering, from eggs, paint-balls, tomatoes, and now.............rocks. But in the short moment of "wow, did that really just happen" my mind couldn't help but notice the giant blue and black Mercedes Benz police truck heading straight towards us with its engine roaring.

"OOOOOOOOHHHHH SHHHHIIITT" you can hear me scream as we dart off the street onto the sidewalk as the truck passes us by, but now the deed has been done, the police all rush to the "hot zone" where were standing and it is absolute and total chaos.

I put my hand on a bike stand and swing my body over it one fell swoop. Landing, I break into a full sprint, along with 40 or so others. Shielded by giant white, covered vending tents, I could only hear what was going on in the street 30 or so feet to my right. I felt like I was in a war-zone; armed with my camera and fueled by my fear, I pressed on. Periodically (my mind was in super-duper slow-motion-survival mode) there was a break in the large tents and I got a glimpse of the passing Police trucks and SWAT men with their tear gas guns. But the sound of the Tear Gas being fired was enough to keep me on the move, out of harms way.

As we come to the next corner we see that people are walking around us, and the police truck comes screaming behind us chasing a bunch of blacked-out teenagers down a side street. We had gotten out, and we reassured as the 12 or so other SWAT trucks terrifyingly pulled right up to the intersection we were in and promptly turned around,

"Lets Get Out Of Here," and we certainly did.




Jose Santa Anna Maria Luiz

Europendence

many of us Americans are familiar with the common stereotype that European culture is "higher" "more refined" and "better" than that of America's. However, upon my ninth day of my near 180 day stay in the beautiful, hot sticky, and debaucherus city of Barcelona, Spain I came across a rather contrary discovery.
I was perusing through el raval, a seedy seemingly endless maze of narrow streets, boutiques, museums, and passers by when I began to realize all of the "hip" clothing stores selling (to my great dismay) obnoxiously colored Nike dunks. I thought to myself, "what the fuck is this 2007 or something?"
Then I went to a record store, "inter-pop" (international pop music) was their biggest section, and guess what it had?!!! David Bowie, Pink Floyd, (7) Lynard Skynard Albums, Abba, Madonna, and the list goes horribly on. Why was it that the 20 x 3 foot main display was all American music and then a 2 x 2 wooden box hidden behind the cashier contained the native Catalonian music.
It only got worse......I went strolling through three guitar stores, guess what brands they worship? Yup, all American ones. Rather odd. After correcting (which was, after a week and a half of being brutally tortured by Spaniards by my linguistic errors, OH SO ENJOYABLE) the "salesperson" on the pronunciation of humming bird, from whoooooommmmmeng beeeiiird, I promptly said thank you and left. Scratch that, I "peaced the fuck out".

I then had an epiphany and a great one at that, amongst the pain of walking, the sweltering sun, and the pangs of hunger, that maybe, just maybe American culture might be something to be reckoned with.

For starters, American's are known as "ugly" and "fat" because quite honestly we consume the most, and thus need the most natural resources, but the really terrible, grim reality is that we can.


And why is that you may ask?



Oh well, remember the 20th century? Ah yes, the "World Wars". But let us first remind ourselves who started them. America? Cuba? Taliban Terrorist fraternities? no, EUROPEANS. So Europe(ans) started both world Wars, and guess what, us Americans came out on top, cause they needed us good ole' farming boys to whoop the asses of those nasty jerries that seemed to so clandestinely infiltrate and destroy half of the "most civilized" part of the world (western Europe).

So we emerged as a World Power, and now were gangsters of love, oil, money, greed, wealth, modern culture, and fame. But its just a little more complicated than that. Why is it that American movies, music, and celebrities all translate over seas, but yet we rarely ever hear of any Spanish, French, German, or Italian pop-culture on our side of the pond?

I am not sure yet, but I think that its because despite the stereotypes America has a very cohesive media-centric culture, that is easily viewed via the internet, movies, and (everyone knows) illegally obtaining music. So next time one of your rather snooty compatriots mentions they're "French" handbag, or Italian handmade leather space-age technology boots, snicker into the air with the highest of highest brows my friends, I have deemed the teenage years of the new millennium that of



EUROPENDENCE



Its time we start to realize that the intensely egotistical, proud, and pretentious value sets of "high brow" culture (be it European, or Hamptonesque American) are the very same values that perpetuate intolerance, bigotry, and hate throughout the world. As American's we should know that we are the bosses of our territory, but there is a whole big bad world out there, and to many a hicks greatest horror, Budwieser may not be the "greatest beer to ever grace the Earth with its presence"

My fellow compatriots, I ask you to get out there, live your lives, and never be ashamed of where you were born, whether it was the soils of kings of past, or on the back of a greyhound bus headed for Alabama.





Jose Santa Anna Maria Luiz