Saturday, May 15, 2010
Grotesque Italian Septuagenarians
Brin the Croatian found a job in a hostel on an Adriatic island.
His ex-girlfriend, Nema, currently works with me, and is translating and sharing selected excerpts of his diary. I edit and post these screeds. This young man, whom I have never met, will help you get a sense of the journey that leads to a life of living and working in a hostel.
And Daniel?
Much like Brin, I’m in Croatia, working at a hostel.
“Hey! Isn’t this that old thing where you go to the doctor and say, ‘uh. I’ve got this friend who is having trouble peeing…’”
Well think about it. I mean, have you heard about when a bear breaks into the village convenience store?
I am saturating the brain with esoteric, homebrewed walnut and rosemary liqueurs.
I wear an oxygen mask attached to a shisha, and in this way I feel the lungs flapping like a gleaming trout, gasping in the bilge of the aluminum fishing boat near the black boots of some sadistic off-duty cop named Arlen out fishing with his dad who smokes through a stoma while tremblingly clutching a limp and bait-less rod.
For me, hygiene has been reduced to occasional immersions in the sea.
All grammar has descended into monosyllabic grunts, barely intelligible in written form.
The closest I will be to writing will be seeking the proper place on the keyboard to place my sluggish, trembling fingers. Hopefully my jerky, stroke-victimish trembles will correspond to what Nema is telling me: I can promise nothing more than this.
Well from Brin to Nema to me to you:
In Split we cross the bridge and soon we follow the tracks of the train. And then we walk, next to the sea, on our way to a club.
From Pula to Split, I spent the whole day, stuck in the seat of a bus. The drivers pull over every two hours to smoke out front by the door.
I have met up with an old friend, who lives in the city alone.
editor’s note:
I made a similar trek from Rovinj to Split and soon found myself within the walls of Diocletian’s palace. I stumbled into an alcove, and caught an a cappella group in the act of singing. Grotesque Italian septuagenarians penned the singers in against the rounded back wall. It seemed as if the singers were about to be executed by a senior firing squad. I made a short, covert video in the hopes of documenting this before wandering, disappointed, towards the repellently named, “Booze and Snooze Hostel.
Victor stays with his tiny old mother in a nice apartment in Split. I left my things in his room next to his bed on the floor. We made our way into the night lit by the light of the moon.
editor’s note:
At this point, Nema has insisted I make record of the fact that she has always suspected Brin and Victor to be raging homosexuals, and that at this very moment, they are probably somewhere in Romania, “broke-packing it,” to use her term.
After one beer, I took Victor’s keys, and left for some burek and strudel. Victor and I were hugging goodbye, and I decided to lift him and twirl.
Victor let out a bit of a squeal as I hoisted him up and began a slow spin. It seemed funny, to do at the time, but the bar was a tight-packed space.
Victor’s right side made contact with a couple, also engaged in some hoisting (drinks, not bodies). They let out a cry and they found themselves soaked. The guy in his pivo, the girl in her gemist.
editor’s note:
Pivo means beer. Gemist is water plus wine; it means mixed. Also, I find it relevant to point out that “the drinks, not bodies,” comment was actually in there. I believe that this is the first evidence of wit from this Brin guy.
Nema is being elusive as to what he looks like, but up till now, I picture him as one of those guys on the brink of becoming fat, a little socially awkward and shy: pudgy in everything. In America, he’d probably dress like he was always about to go play basketball. We‘ll see.
As for the couple with the spilled drinks, no doubt this was another one of those massive Dalmatians stuffed into a putrid Ben Sherman shirt, dragging an awkward, long-limbed girlfriend into the stench of the clubs. I’ve seen this quite often, and it is really getting to be a major source of annoyance. Some of these girls look like they were stretched on the rack. I mean, I’ve been known to like an occasional tall chick, but for some of these elongated-Gumby-types, their length does not always translate into beauty.
The woman whose gemist I had spilled, soon began to shout. Her boyfriend realized that he was wet too, so soon he was yelling as well. I said I was sorry to the girl and the guy, but they just would not calm down. I have learned not to make much response when people are yelling like this. Instead, for some reason, I just nod and watch how they move. My passivity makes them angrier at times, but I’ve never quite learned to get mad. Somehow it becomes like weathering a storm. It’s raining and you are no longer dry, but you must keep walking through the rain, and after a while, you accept that you are wet.
editor’s note:
I found this section of particular interest. The guy seems a bit strained in his attempts at stoicism, doesn’t he? I appreciate his outlook on one level, but I know that when I’m yelling at some underling, peon or entry-level-incompetent, it makes me extremely-fucking-angrier if they don’t show some indication that I am wounding them. So I just end up going all out and unleash a litany of grievances and accusations, and fuck burning the bridge I am strafing their villages with everything I have and there are no people left alive to cross that bridge probably anywhere in a massive radius, say 500 miles, and now, fifty years later, the unused bridge has covered itself meekly in mosses, lichens, and grasses to blend with the encroachment of the wild, and the parts that are nearest to the water have realized that no one is near and have stripped away their paint so that in total privacy they may enjoy fully exposing themselves to the water and the sun.
I finally have my burek with meso, and my strudel with cherry inside. I have a table alone in the back, and I feel myself beginning to breathe. I usually am rather reflective on transitional nights like these.
editor‘s note:
On my first night in Spit, trundling with beers in both back pockets and both hands, I make my way to some late-night hole serving pizza. The lighting is frantic and the place is tinged with the odor of feet. Just as I begin daubing at the excess grease on my slice at a corner table, some American enters and begins talking loudly. About eighty-percent of Americans that I meet on the road are fucking obnoxious and just basically serve as jarring reminders of why I left. This American is a giant black man in a camel-colored puffy-jacket with a faux-fur lined hood. He reeks of the cheapest of colognes, old cigarettes and the stale, dried beer smell specific to urinals in heavily trafficked bars. He does not sit squarely at his table, which means he is too close to me. Now he stands up, while talking loudly, and removes his monstrous coat. He is either oblivious or unconcerned or both, with the fact that the worn, black-stained bottoms of this coat brush my arm and leg as he places it on the back of his chair. He does not acknowledge my presence. I need something stronger than inebriation if I must eat here. A quick scan of my pockets reveals nothing stronger. I finish my pizza in the streets by a dead fountain.
His ex-girlfriend, Nema, currently works with me, and is translating and sharing selected excerpts of his diary. I edit and post these screeds. This young man, whom I have never met, will help you get a sense of the journey that leads to a life of living and working in a hostel.
And Daniel?
Much like Brin, I’m in Croatia, working at a hostel.
“Hey! Isn’t this that old thing where you go to the doctor and say, ‘uh. I’ve got this friend who is having trouble peeing…’”
Well think about it. I mean, have you heard about when a bear breaks into the village convenience store?
I am saturating the brain with esoteric, homebrewed walnut and rosemary liqueurs.
I wear an oxygen mask attached to a shisha, and in this way I feel the lungs flapping like a gleaming trout, gasping in the bilge of the aluminum fishing boat near the black boots of some sadistic off-duty cop named Arlen out fishing with his dad who smokes through a stoma while tremblingly clutching a limp and bait-less rod.
For me, hygiene has been reduced to occasional immersions in the sea.
All grammar has descended into monosyllabic grunts, barely intelligible in written form.
The closest I will be to writing will be seeking the proper place on the keyboard to place my sluggish, trembling fingers. Hopefully my jerky, stroke-victimish trembles will correspond to what Nema is telling me: I can promise nothing more than this.
Well from Brin to Nema to me to you:
In Split we cross the bridge and soon we follow the tracks of the train. And then we walk, next to the sea, on our way to a club.
From Pula to Split, I spent the whole day, stuck in the seat of a bus. The drivers pull over every two hours to smoke out front by the door.
I have met up with an old friend, who lives in the city alone.
editor’s note:
I made a similar trek from Rovinj to Split and soon found myself within the walls of Diocletian’s palace. I stumbled into an alcove, and caught an a cappella group in the act of singing. Grotesque Italian septuagenarians penned the singers in against the rounded back wall. It seemed as if the singers were about to be executed by a senior firing squad. I made a short, covert video in the hopes of documenting this before wandering, disappointed, towards the repellently named, “Booze and Snooze Hostel.
Victor stays with his tiny old mother in a nice apartment in Split. I left my things in his room next to his bed on the floor. We made our way into the night lit by the light of the moon.
editor’s note:
At this point, Nema has insisted I make record of the fact that she has always suspected Brin and Victor to be raging homosexuals, and that at this very moment, they are probably somewhere in Romania, “broke-packing it,” to use her term.
After one beer, I took Victor’s keys, and left for some burek and strudel. Victor and I were hugging goodbye, and I decided to lift him and twirl.
Victor let out a bit of a squeal as I hoisted him up and began a slow spin. It seemed funny, to do at the time, but the bar was a tight-packed space.
Victor’s right side made contact with a couple, also engaged in some hoisting (drinks, not bodies). They let out a cry and they found themselves soaked. The guy in his pivo, the girl in her gemist.
editor’s note:
Pivo means beer. Gemist is water plus wine; it means mixed. Also, I find it relevant to point out that “the drinks, not bodies,” comment was actually in there. I believe that this is the first evidence of wit from this Brin guy.
Nema is being elusive as to what he looks like, but up till now, I picture him as one of those guys on the brink of becoming fat, a little socially awkward and shy: pudgy in everything. In America, he’d probably dress like he was always about to go play basketball. We‘ll see.
As for the couple with the spilled drinks, no doubt this was another one of those massive Dalmatians stuffed into a putrid Ben Sherman shirt, dragging an awkward, long-limbed girlfriend into the stench of the clubs. I’ve seen this quite often, and it is really getting to be a major source of annoyance. Some of these girls look like they were stretched on the rack. I mean, I’ve been known to like an occasional tall chick, but for some of these elongated-Gumby-types, their length does not always translate into beauty.
The woman whose gemist I had spilled, soon began to shout. Her boyfriend realized that he was wet too, so soon he was yelling as well. I said I was sorry to the girl and the guy, but they just would not calm down. I have learned not to make much response when people are yelling like this. Instead, for some reason, I just nod and watch how they move. My passivity makes them angrier at times, but I’ve never quite learned to get mad. Somehow it becomes like weathering a storm. It’s raining and you are no longer dry, but you must keep walking through the rain, and after a while, you accept that you are wet.
editor’s note:
I found this section of particular interest. The guy seems a bit strained in his attempts at stoicism, doesn’t he? I appreciate his outlook on one level, but I know that when I’m yelling at some underling, peon or entry-level-incompetent, it makes me extremely-fucking-angrier if they don’t show some indication that I am wounding them. So I just end up going all out and unleash a litany of grievances and accusations, and fuck burning the bridge I am strafing their villages with everything I have and there are no people left alive to cross that bridge probably anywhere in a massive radius, say 500 miles, and now, fifty years later, the unused bridge has covered itself meekly in mosses, lichens, and grasses to blend with the encroachment of the wild, and the parts that are nearest to the water have realized that no one is near and have stripped away their paint so that in total privacy they may enjoy fully exposing themselves to the water and the sun.
I finally have my burek with meso, and my strudel with cherry inside. I have a table alone in the back, and I feel myself beginning to breathe. I usually am rather reflective on transitional nights like these.
editor‘s note:
On my first night in Spit, trundling with beers in both back pockets and both hands, I make my way to some late-night hole serving pizza. The lighting is frantic and the place is tinged with the odor of feet. Just as I begin daubing at the excess grease on my slice at a corner table, some American enters and begins talking loudly. About eighty-percent of Americans that I meet on the road are fucking obnoxious and just basically serve as jarring reminders of why I left. This American is a giant black man in a camel-colored puffy-jacket with a faux-fur lined hood. He reeks of the cheapest of colognes, old cigarettes and the stale, dried beer smell specific to urinals in heavily trafficked bars. He does not sit squarely at his table, which means he is too close to me. Now he stands up, while talking loudly, and removes his monstrous coat. He is either oblivious or unconcerned or both, with the fact that the worn, black-stained bottoms of this coat brush my arm and leg as he places it on the back of his chair. He does not acknowledge my presence. I need something stronger than inebriation if I must eat here. A quick scan of my pockets reveals nothing stronger. I finish my pizza in the streets by a dead fountain.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
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