Free Concert

Ok, I went to the organ concert last Monday.  First I have to say this: I’m sick of cultural solicitation.  I mean, if your talent is so rare and scarce, charge the fair price and with that get more people motivated to acquire that talent.  But why every time you sit down to hear classical music you need to go through all the cries about lack of funding and the begging for money?  Just charge me, I get it.  I pay for a good play and I would pay more for a good concert.

The organ that was installed in the amphitheater of Balboa Park is superb. The sunset was the perfect time to schedule a concert of this kind. Now, let’s go to the performance.  The selection was excellent: Mars from The Planets of Gustav Holts, a bass interpretation of Old Man River and a declamation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven in the dark. But I have to say that the execution was at the level of a free open concert. There were people in the back cooking tacos and sipping bear in beach chairs. That’s why I insist: let the market take care of quality and cost. I won’t mind for a minute to pay the fair share of a concert professionally executed. Look what Andre Rieu is doing around the world with a repertory as popular as Strauss waltzes. 

The most pitiful point was a comedian they put in the middle. His routine was bad even for lower class burlesque. I’ve seen best performances in third-world night clubs. Every time I find a mediocre artist I remember how distractive a talent can be. I can be an “ok” engineer and get by, but the cruel reality for artists is that you have to be the best just to survive.  Different markets, different dynamics. That’s why I charge for my coding and sing for free in the shower.

But one thing I will say on behalf of free classical music: it’s the first time I see an organ concert where pets were allowed and they were singing along with the C sharp.

Coronado Island

San Diego doesn’t cease to give me good impressions. Today I visited Coronado Island with no other expectation than to find a coffee shop and catch up in my writings. I ended up taking long walks over beautiful avenues with the charm of small but luxury stores.  The mansions you see along the coast make you feel as if you are intruding just by looking at the windows, always open and showing up the interior. It’s is a celebration of well-spent wealth, where the facades show full trust in the city and its inhabitants. Now you have the chance to see the elderly people that accumulated all this buying power, trying to make the most of it in their walkers and convertible Volvos. The youngest dine around with their teen children trying to lecture them about life while they keep their noses pointing to a texting device and rolling their eyes now and then.

It’s a fact of life that the adventure of creating wealth and actually enjoying it is always broken by at least one generation. It’s hard to communicate the richness of experiences that you get from humble origins, given you don't settle for that. Few parents have the virtue of educators. We really need very little to survive, so it must be very tempting for the new generation to lay back, try a couple of projects (just to say you are doing something) and forget ambition altogether.

Forfeit ambition in exchange or peace is a good trade, but not when that peace is mistaken by laziness and lack of realization. The children of rich people are not the only victims. California has a huge population of homeless that are perfectly capable of taking care of their own lives but they choose not to. I have not one ounce of compassion for those who extend their hands, nor for those who speak extensively about how traumatic their childhood was.

Humiliation is a benevolent medicine that saves lives. Never deny it to whom it's due.

Quiet Evening - Wild Night

The main reason you may decide to love San Diego is Balboa Park.  This is not even a real historical landmark since everything has been reconstructed to the point of looking brand new.   But the result is this peaceful and welcoming walk surrounded by Spaniard facades; busy buildings with museums and restaurants where you never find a red tape. There is so much space available for you to run, hike and get lost that you have this constant sensation of been trespassing. I found myself sharing an impressive view of the Cabrillo bridge with a confident rabbit that was sat in the dusty road without any fear.

There is an impressive amphitheater where free concerts are delivered to the public. Next Monday there will be an organ concert with Carol Williams that I wouldn't dare to miss.

I stopped by a fenced zone on the other side of the bridge.  The only purpose of that area is to unleash your dog and let him loose with other comrades, in a generous display of liability acceptance that is very rare in this litigious society. It’s moving how completely happy they are.  They just do what we humans wish to do in our minds: chasing each other for a quick hormonal exchange.

This park gives me the sensation of having so many places to sit down and write without been bothered that I can’t think of a better place to come out with a book. The convenience and the peace are there without the distractions of a major tourist landmark. Maybe this is the core value of San Diego: a perfect weather in a clean ordered city where nothing really ever happened.

After that, I went to the Horton Plaza to challenge a couple of strangers in the giant chessboard that they have on the floor nearby Macy’s. I accomplished a couple of victories but not friendships. Then I realized that I was in the middle of downtown a Friday night and I took a walk to explore. The atmosphere is very young and for sure you will find a place to match your mood, ethnicity and sexual orientation. The weather allows the party to hit the streets with a natural flow that I have not seen surpassed in any city with the exceptions of Paris or La Habana. The presence of police is maintained to a minimum. At least this night people seem to be joyfully under control.  You also have those long lines of beautiful people waiting to have a drink in a certain place as if the alcohol was banned in the rest of the city, but that's one world I never got in and I confess it’s still a mystery to me.

I’m in no hurry.  This city is inexhaustible.

Accidental Discovery

Small, very small wood made cozy houses, with flowers on the porch and small trees in the garden.  Non-crowded cafes with a dream setup for any college student.  You can fell sleep in the soft couches and then go back to a wide table where all your books are waiting under a lamp.  This place is not extremely popular so there is plenty of space where to park without the usual threatening tow signs. 

This was my accidental discovery today.  It’s called University Heights.  I haven’t seen before such a comfortable old neighborhood.  People actually live in these 100 years old houses, with small alleys separating them where no cars can pass through, so there are just gardens and cats lying around.  Calm and lovely.

In the cafes, college students are trying to concentrate in their lectures while a casual goddess gets in line for a “Spiced Chaid Latte” and robs all their concentration.  This one was wearing a green shirt with an opening in the lower back, revealing a discrete sun over her perfectly tan coccyx.  I told her that such a skin made me reconsider the existence of God.  She turned at me with her big green eyes that matched her blouse and smiled like a child in front of an ice cream cone.  How can there be no God when there are so many angels?

I am a fan of little moments.

Yesterday I discovered the Little Italy of San Diego.  It’s not spectacular, it’s just authentic.  A couple of blocks with bistros, bars and restaurants where you can sip a glass of wine, have real pasta, walk to the beach and go back to sit in a comfortable coffee shop and chat a little (online and offline).  Three beautiful girls from Baghdad were talking at the next table and I couldn’t help but engage in the conversation.  If not for their language, they look like regular Spaniard gypsies, with that prominent nose that has always been my personal fetish.   It’s refreshing to be welcome in a conversation with strangers without the regular checkout or caution.  This is not a club venue where people come to throw pick-up lines, so the environment is relaxed and friendly.

I keep walking and I stopped in a corner made of glass and aluminum just before sunset.  It’s a small bar called “Underbelly”.  The design was so open, clear and nice that I sat down and ordered something just to be there.  I already had a couple of glasses of wine and I didn’t want to add more to my bloodstream, so I ordered a “mocha ice cream” from the menu. They brought me three little pieces of ice cream into a fried container, covered with a light guava jelly. No fork; this was for the chopsticks. When I put the first one in my mouth I knew I was at the top of the happiness curve of my life.  Nothing can surpass a little unexpected pleasure.

Timing is so important in happiness that the same experience in a different context is just unworthy.  That’s why we try to time those moments, but by doing so we kill the second element that is even more important: spontaneity. You can go to the same corner at the same hour and not be able to reproduce the experience. With years of knowing yourself, the best you can do is to expose yourself to situations where you have a high probability of experiencing happiness and forget about the actual outcome.

I’m not looking for happiness; I already found it. I’m just playing cat and mouse letting it go and catching it over and over again.

Rent In San Diego

The tourist attractions of a city are like the nice shirt people wear on parties.  The real estate market is like the underwear.  One doesn’t have to match the other.  So I was eager to explore the rented space in San Diego now that I plan to stay here for at least one month.  

I opened craigslist.org which is always a creepy experience and started to browse around.  The offers are overwhelming.  The prices are very good, especially if you just want a studio.  There are a lot of options for the students attending the University of California and a lot of roommate matchmaking.

First I went to a zone with the uninviting name of Cajon (the drawer).  As scary as it may be for some people, it’s still a nice poor neighborhood.  Yes, old cars and humble houses, but you have order and enough cleanliness.  That’s the difference between poverty and decadence.  In my country of origin, poor, nasty and insecure were pretty much the same thing.  Here you can separate the concepts.  I love this country and I find virtue even in its failures.  

What pushed me out of this part of the city was the “culture” factor.  The room for rent was in a neighborhood full of children yelling and running around.  That alone told me that I won’t make the deal, but I inspected the place anyway.  The room had a balcony with a clear reception of the music played by the neighbors in the building behind, and the selection of all of them was this Mexican combination of country and fair-band that they call “banda”.  I think that music is the best reason to leave this planet.  I said “thank you for your time” and ran to my car.

The next candidate was a room in a mansion at the top of a hill.  Things looked pretty good and the owner waited for me in his Audi in a spot nearby.  He asked me to follow him to his house and we entered a spacious front yard with trees.  But then the guy came out of the car.  It was a sixty years old white tall man, drunk as if he were coming from a bachelor party and dirty as if he was taking a nap in a dumpster.  He smelled the same way he looked.  Turning to me he opened his sleepy eyes and invited me to come in.  We passed through the main entrance of a very elegant and furnished home that seemed to be totally out of maintenance for at least six months.  He showed me the way to the kitchen that had a full view of a half full pool.  That place was the epicenter of the mess.  Nobody had cleaned after himself since Katrina, and even when the hurricane didn’t touch California, the untidiness found its way here.   At that point, the tall man turned around and I notice that he had a knife in his right hand.  Then I notice that he had an orange in the left hand and asked me if I'd like some fruit. 

We seated at a glass table with digital prints of everyone who has been there since spring time and he conducted a general interview to see if I was a wordy renter.  At the end of the orange, he showed me the way to the room.  It was a cozy corner with its own bathroom. There was a bra hanging from the shower.  He told me that his twenty years old daughter just moved a couple of days ago.  Then a call interrupted.  Some kind of broker was trying to negotiate a price.  After that, he explained to me that we may have to leave some days to let the real estate seller show the house.

I have no idea what is happening in that life but I don’t want to be part of it.  For a minute I even thought this may be just a homeless man who broked-in and was trying to rent this house out. But why not taking a shower or hold on the drinking that day?  Does he found the keys of the Audi under the carpet?  If I give this man a deposit check and then he disappears I’ll be the only one to blame.  Even if he was the legitimate owner, he doesn’t seem to be in a position of returning checks.  So I walked away.   

I’m now in a comfortable apartment with independence entrance and bathroom just 15 minutes from downtown.  A friendly Mexican couple rented it to me and let me move the very same day.  No traces of “banda” around.  This seems to be a Philippine neighbor, and I love how quiet everything is so far.   I swear it's so silent that there is less noise outside than inside, and the only thing indoors is the fridge.

You place your chips, you roll the dices, and you collect.  The only difference is that in real life you never know the extent of the bet.

Psychological Landscapes

After driving through the Arizona desert, I went through mountains that looked more like a group of rounded rocks that somebody piled up together.  Behind those mountains, the bikers start to finger point the end of the continent.  Now I understand why Spaniards called California this place after a land of fantasy.  Having crossed the horrifying loneliness of the desert, this modest forest must have been seen as a generous jungle.  You can smell the leaves from the window of the car, now open to fresh air.

I arrived in San Diego at sunset.  It was an excellent first impression.  The city is very clean and ordered as compared with the South East. That day I was very sensitive to smells, and I was delighted for the fresh scents of the first grocery store where I stopped for directions.  

The hills and dips in the streets reminded me San Francisco, but without the decadence.  The only bad thing I notice immediately was an established population of homeless people.  The funny thing is that this city has the races inverted: the Mexicans are driving cars and the junkies are white.  How did that happen?

After a night in a decent motel, I started to drive along the coast without any plans.  The first thing that I found was a colossal ship anchored in the bay as a floating museum.  I know I said that I won’t be visiting museums, but this aircraft carrier was so impressive that I had to get in.

Leaving alone the fact that this is a humongous device for destruction, it also represents an incredible capacity for organization and an astonishing tolerance for stress and responsibility.  Reading the numbers on the internet is one thing, but actually feeling those gigantic rings of steel from which the bow anchor hangs, makes you wonder how somebody said: “yes, we can do this”.  Part of the answer is that the opposite statement was not an option.   But maybe is more accurate to state that those big pieces of metal were not conceived in the first attempt but after years of trying similar projects with increasing scope and ambition.

After two hours just getting a very superficial look at the theory behind the distribution of power, the process of landing the planes and arrange them in the platform, the administration of ammunition, the handling of fuel, the operation of day by day facilities, the wiring, the communications, the electric engineering, the mechanic marvels and the human resources, you can’t help but realize that there must be a high degree of intuition and improvisation sorting out the unmanageable number of possible outcomes.  Actually, the ship is quite different than the model presented by the architects (also in the exhibition) due to those last minute “requirements” that we programmers hate.  Last minute modifications to a structure of steel must be incomparably more stressful.  War must be the ultimate school of chaos administration.

And yet, some people think this little project of mine is risky.  We are way behind the courage of the founders of our civilization. Smartphones make us more accurate, but at the same time more arrogant and weak.  The brain is not the only part of the body that engages in a project.  It’s not unprofessional to be emotional with your inventions.  A project without guts is a list of reasons for not getting things done.