Michael Jackson

Like many others over 30’s and knowing of US culture, I grew up with Michael Jackson's songs, I got Off the Wall on LP and played it over and over, Don’t stop till you get enough, Working day and night and Rock with you and the touching She’s out of my life, “And I don't know whether to laugh or cry, I don't know whether to live or die, And it cuts like a knife”, even tho I didn’t understand the lyrics very well because I was still very young back then but I did feel that it was something really quite sad and his voice is filled with emotions and it moved me but not until Thriller, he gave us human nature and wanna be starting something, a crossover between contemporary adults music and rock, it didn’t just change the landscape of pop music but also changed the way what music sounds like. Before Thriller rock guitarists just didn’t work with R’n’B or Soul, but he gave us Beat it and then I saw the amazing Moonwalk on TV. How can anyone dance like that? Before the pre-moonwalk time there was no such thing,  there wasn’t anything even close and the video Beat it, Thriller, Black and white and Smooth criminal was mind blowing, and that was 30 years ago and today we can still see his dance and listen to his music but he is gone.

Michael Jackson was a very different individual, his life was unique, we might never understand his behaviour using the standard we have. Tabloids and media called him “wacko” or worse name they can call anyone.  During his trials, the media presumed he is guilty and no one believed he was innocent,  they said he was a monster. They pointed their fingers toward his skin colour and said he is bleaching his skin trying to be white and ignored the fact that he could be a victim of Vitiligo and Lupus; they said his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley was a publicity stunt, and not approved that Michael too can be in love; his 2001 album Invincible sold 13 million copies and was the fastest selling album of the year yet can still be called a “failure”;  his relationship with his children? are they his real children or not? why the mask? maybe he is gay? 

No one has been judged by others as Michael been judged. Time and time again he tried to tell us that he is only human, he has feelings and he feels hurt and he also has his fair share of faults and mistakes as we all have.  If you watch his interviews or listen to his music, you will actually find that Michael had a loving and pure soul, he was a strong person and trying to do his best sharing his kindness and love, giving millions of dollars to charities and visiting many poor countries and opening his home Never Land ranch to children who are least fortunate. You might not approve his music, his image or even his behavior, but comparing to many he was an extraordinary human being and an amazing entertainer with great talent who gave us Billie Jeans, Moonwalk and “hehe" shamone" girl.

“In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe". ― Michael Jackson

Christmas in Barcelona

Everyone is talking about tomorrow’s “the end of the world”, what are we going to do if it’s really a last day and all that but since I think the 12.21.12 is just another day, maybe we should prepare for Christmas, after all it sounds more positive and fun.

Many countries have its tradition for Christmas and I think the most different one by far is the Caganer – a pooper .., a Catalan Christmas tradition, the first time I saw it in Barcelona, I was shocked. Because this traditionally dressed little figurine of a man or woman with the pants down - pooping.  This little guy is usually placed in the Christmas nativity set and you find the “caganer” hidden in the back amongst the donkey in the barn while Jesus is being born, or be hidden behind the bush,  this is the part of the fun of the great Christmas humour, kind of like Where's Wally?  They are not trying to mock, just  that “someone got to go, even in this special day, every body poops"… this someone could be anyone from Messi, Michael Jackson to  prince William and his wife, even the pope.  Some people say that the Caganer is “fertilizing” the ground which brings more crops and good luck. Other said who buys a Caganer, will have lots of good luck for the upcoming year. No matter reason it is, poop never has so much fun.

Beside Caganer the Catalans also have a log of wood standing on either two of four legs painted happy face on one end called Caga Tio - a pooping Christmas log. On the December 8^th Catalan families will buy a Caga Tio like a little pet and the children will leave the Caga Tio food to eat while they sleep and  eventually this Caga Tio will grow from eating the food the children leave out – the parents change it from the small one to big one (behind the scene of course), some parents just buy the big one in the first place to save money. Traditionally on Christmas eve, the family puts a part of the log into the fire place and on the other side the children beat the tío with sticks and sing songs to entice the Caga Tío to “poop” gifts like sweets, fruit and small toys. In modern days Barcelona, considering that fire and children don’t go well together, they cover the Caga tío with a blanket and  the children will sing and hit the Caga Tio:

Caga tió  -  shit Log

Caga torró  -  shit nougats (turrón),

Avellanes i mató  -  hazelnuts and cottage cheese,

Si no cagues bé  -  if you don't shit well,

Et daré un cop de bastó  -  I'll hit you with a stick,

Caga tió   -  shit log

After hitting it softly with a stick during the song, it is hit harder on the words Caga tió! Then the parents secretly hide the toys under the blanket when the children are not looking and still hit the Caga tío with the stick so that the Cago Tio can poop out the gifts.

Anyway , that’s about it about the pooping Christmas. There are quite a few traditional celebrations in Spain like the Three Kings and Dia de los Santos Inocentes – Day of the Holy Innocents, its kind of like the April Fool’s day. Spain is a fun country and one of the things I like the most is that local people like to enjoy life and to have fun. People in Barcelona have dinner after nine and go out drinking after mid night and back to work as usual the next day, I like it about them. But one thing that “shitting“ me is that they are sometimes too slow and everything is manana (tomorrow), especially when it comes to telephone company, it really makes me want to be one of the Caganer, and I can hide myself in one of their shops and do it. I just hope that no one gonna find me.

Now you are reading this blog meaning the world doesn’t end, so I hope you will have a Merry Christmas, to care and love each other and cherish everyday.  

Charles Schulz - Charlie Brown

“All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed.
For after all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog.” 

- Charles Schulz on Charlie Brown 

Oh Good Grief – I am listening to the sound track of The Boy Named Charlie Brown by Vince Guaraldi  when I am writing this blog.  The music heard here probably introduced millions of kids to jazz and I was one of them, the swinging tune, the piano, the bass and the drums,  Linus and Lucy, Baseball Theme, blue Charlie brown and of course fly me to the moon, the tune which led me to Frank Sinatra when I was seven.

Charlie Brown, Shermy, Patty, and Snoopy was created by Charles Schulz in 1950, which was named Peanuts by the company and appearing on seven newspapers.

We all see little of ourselves in Peanut - 

Charlie Brown, things always seemed to go wrong for him, and he was often puzzled by the problems in life, dominated by insecurities, he always reminds me of the song “everything happens to me “, someone helpless but full of love.

Lucy van Belt, a crabby and cynical eight-year-old girl, the main bully and the older sister of Linus and Rerun.

Linus, the best friend of Charlie Brown, unusually smart, and he acts as the strip's philosopher and theologian, often quoting the Gospels, believes in the Great Pumpkin and never without the blanket over his shoulder while sucking his thumb.

Schroeder, Charlie Brown's closest friend after Linus and Snoopy, the catcher on Charlie Brown's baseball team, down to earth often escapes reality in front of his favourite toy piano, an avid fan of all things Beethoven.

Sally, the complete pragmatist and devoted to Linus, Charlie brown’s sister.

Marcie, the smart one, horrible at sports, but terrific at friendship.

Peppermint Patty the Tom boy, forthright, loyal, hopelessly in love with Charlie Brown.

Snoopy, a  wildly imaginative, supremely confident Beagle  also a canine master of disguise as ”Joe Cool” or “the World War I Flying Ace”. While pondering life from the top of his doghouse, he writes the great American novel, travels to the moon, and plots revenge on the cat next door, never forgets when it’s time to eat and often celebrates the occasion with a happy dance.

Woodstock, a fluttering, sometimes sputtering, little yellow bird, Snoopy’s second-in-command, helicopter pilot, Chirping in a language only Snoopy understands, never far from Snoopy.

As the strips became more popular, new characters were added, including Rerun, Lucy's brother, Franklin, José Peterson, Pigpen, Snoopy's brother Spike.

One an unseen character in the peanut comic strips is  the little red-haired girl serves as the object of Charlie Brown's desire, was inspirited by  Schulz ‘s former co-worker, Donna Mae Johnson . Donna and Schulz eventually became romantically involved and dated for three years, when Schulz proposed to her, she turned him down, saying she was already engaged to fireman Allan Wold. She married Allan and  Schulz was devastated. Said Schulz of the relationship, "I can think of no more emotionally damaging loss than to be turned down by someone whom you love very much. A person who not only turns you down, but almost immediately will marry the victor. What a bitter blow that is. 

Tracey Claudius, Claimed that she had an affair with Schulz back in 1970, but Schulz was forced to leave her, he was purposed to her twice but she rejected him because she didn’t want to ruin his reputation. The same year Joyce, his then wife divorced him,  recently Claudius’s daughter  are trying to auction the love letters from Schulz , you can see that Schulz written and drawn on the letter “Yesterday I stood in a book store for two hours and no one give me a hug. Tracey . ..Tracey… Tracey…”, even thought Schulz’s family were refused to acknowledge the auction and the affair. 

Having spoken and corresponded with hundreds of Schulz's relatives, friends, neighbors, buddies from his childhood in Minnesota and during his stint as a "foot soldier" in World War II.  “He was a complicated artist who had an inner life and embedded that inner life on the page,”  The writer Mr. Michaelis said in an interview in Charles Schulz’s biography Schulz and Peanuts -“ His anxieties and fears brought him Lucy and the characters in Peanuts. A normal person couldn’t have done it,” he said. “I have this awful feeling of impending doom,” Charles Schulz , said on “60 Minutes” in 1999. “I wake up to a funeral-like atmosphere.”  In Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz, similarly describes him as depressed and plagued by panic attacks, despite a large family and mammoth financial and critical success.

"I have deep feelings of depression “. “What can I do about it?" said Charlie Brown

"Snap out if it," advised Lucy.

Perhaps  Charlie Brown's frustration and Linus and Lucy were Schulz ‘s melancholy  personalities, perhaps, Schulz was unhappy and never recovered from his mother's tragic death, and the rejection of his first love, he used shyness as an excuse to avoid taking risks, Schulz had dysfunctional relationships with women, or being a poor barber’s son, Schulz never refused to admit that he was Charlie Brown.  he grabs Schroeder's shirt with both hands and screams, "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!!".  
There’s always something missing in Schulz’s life no matter how successful he was and how many children he got, the feeling of worthlessness followed him everywhere.  But the same time this is exactly why we are all related to “Peanuts" it was a proof that we were not alone when we failed , when we are in the dark, when we're worry the world had gone crazy, someone understands and speaks for us “ loser”,  Schulz has brought us laughter and taught us something about life thru his comic strips and philosophy  and after all, He was just human.

“I think I'm afraid of being happy because whenever I get too happy something bad always happens.”

― Charlie Brown

Absinthe - Bar Marsella

I'm always fascinated by the era of The Belle Époque, it was a period in French history between 1871 to 1914. The peace and prosperity in Paris allowed new technology and scientific discoveries and the arts to flourish.

Many masterpieces of music literature, theater and visual arts gained recognition. It is considered as a "golden age" and Absinthe was a popular aperitif  belonging to that time. A trendy herbal spirit referred to as “the green fairy” due to an opaque green color. But let’s not get into the history, how about we talk about its effect? I myself didn’t get the hallucination from the drink, maybe I did but I wasn’t sure? But there are many free-spirited Bohemian drinkers did made a strong impression, I guess we all know that painting by Degas which hanging in the Musée d'Orsay -A woman drinking absinthe with her eye glazed.  And the one by Manet? The lonely man sitting by an Absinthe as a date perharps? Oscar Wilde was saying "What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?", Ernest Hemmingway called Absinthe "Brain-warming, idea-changing liquid alchemy", how about Picasso, Van Gogh, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin...

Opened in 1820 in El Raval, Bar Marsella, probably the first bar of Barcelona ​​visited by the likes of Picasso, Gaudi and Dali, Hemmingway for an aperitif... The bar is located in a side street of La Rambla and is therefore easy to reach but don't go there expecting some lavish bar. Marsella is a run down looking, yet when you walk through the door you can see the tiled floors, tired cabinets lined with cobwebs liquor bottles, ancient mirrors and  dusty chandeliers. This bar has an antiquated, deliciously old picture mood. You feel as though you have walked back in time, transported into century Paris spectacular. The feel of chaos, as prostitutes and thieves cavort just outside the street around the corner with the mix of local bohemians, you feel as the part of the history and part of the Barcelona nightlife. 

If this licorice flavour Absinthe was the tipple of choice of talented people for inspiration, I too have to drink a few to salute them. I placed a cube of sugar on a small cocktail fork on the top of a glass of absinthe. Then slowly poured chilled water over the sugar until the green liquid dowse with water so it turns a dreamy cloudy hue. I drink it slowly and imagine that I am seducing Winona Ryder like Dracula ”Absinthe is the aphrodisiac of the self. The green fairy who lives in the absinthe wants your soul. But you are safe with me”.  

When I walked out of the Bar Marsella after a few French poisons, I think to myself, I know I can never write like Hemingway and Wilde or slice my ear off but when I looked at the sky I definitely saw starry night as Van Gogh did and I am fascinated by the Belle Époque.

Address: Carrer Sant Pau 65, El Raval, Barcelona


Ernest Hemingway's champagne cocktail -Death in the Afternoon 

Pour 1 part of absinthe into a champagne glass. 
Add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. 

Something about Sushi

Traditionally it will take seven to ten years to train a Japanese sushi chef. The Japanese have a high standard for sushi requirements, an apprentice chef will spend the first couple of years just to housekeeping around the kitchen, then a few more years learning how to prepare rice and no student could advance the next step until they can do the rice perfectly.

There are many so called sushi chef outside Japan never really trained and they are always missing a few things and it is easy to spot. First, they don’t clean their chopping board and the knife after they cut the fish; second, they should have different knifes to cut different fishes; and they will never smoke when break time, because the smell of the cigarette on the hands may affect the taste of the fish.
How do you know a good sushi restaurant? Beside check out  the chef - see how he is handling the fish and rice, also check out the toilet - good chef cares about the hygiene and will never allow a dirty toilet in the restaurant, because they also use the same toliet when they need to go. If the toilet is not clean then imagine what they are serving you with their hands, so if you happen to be in one of those, do not eat there.

I have read it somewhere about some Japanese sushi master, when they go in to the restaurant  kitchen, the very first thing they will do is to taste and smell the tap water, because if the water has bad taste or smell, then it will be waste of time to make the sushi because it will affect the fresh ingredients. Surely in some cities, such as  New York, Barcelona, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Moscow, etc the tap water is filled with high level of chlorine and with rusty pipes, so the water there is the major issue as it has strong odor. A good sushi restaurant must be equipped with water purifier.

Some people don’t know the different between sushi and sashimi. Sushi are the ones with rice and those ones with a slice of raw fish on top of the rice called Nigiri.  How do you spot a good sushi? The balance between the rice and the fish is important (it can not be too much or too less rice), but the taste of the rice is the soul of sushi, if the rice tastes bad then it will ruin it, even the best fish can’t make it better. A good sushi chef will insist to use Japanese rice because its texture and taste are very different than others, the good sushi should not be sticky and wet, can not be hard and dry. Good sushi rice has the fregrance of the mixture of the rice and vinegar, something between sweet and a touch of sour.

Sashimi  is raw fish slice. A good old traditional Japanese restaurant in Japan almost never serve salmon because they consider it as a cheap fish, but modern sushi places don’t care because its profitable and easy to get the supply, but also many people these days just don't know any better.  I think there are much more fishes that taste better than salmon, such as yellow tail, Tuna's belly and white trevalley etc, You have to start with the best to train yourself to have a good taste, I suggest you go to the best sushi restaurant in your city, order the tuna fish belly then use it as the standard, then you will learn the difference between good and bad taste and texture. Yes, it will be pricy, but that's part of the game. To experience good food in the good restaurant will leave you a memory of a life time, so it will be well worth it.


Here is the list of the usual suspect of Sashimi or Nigiri:

akami maguro (red tuna), ohtoro maguro (expensive tuna with fat – toro means the belly meat of a tuna fish), aji (horse mackerel, often topped with chopped scallions and grated ginger), hamachi (yellow tail), ikura (salmon roe), isaki (similar taste to yellow tail), ika (squid), tako (octopus), anago (salt water eel), unagi (barbecued eel),  shima-aji  (white trevally), ama ebi (shrimp), kurodai (snapper), hotategai (scallop) and uni (sea urchin).

In Japan they sell  Fugu (Puffer Fish) in super markets, the liver of this fish has poison and it can kill very fast if you eat it wrong way, so cutting this fish has to be extremely experienced, the chef has to cut the fish really quickly before it puffed and know exactly where to cut, if he accidentally cuts the liver, then the poison will be spread to the whole fish. Since I am not sure if the person who cuts the Fugu is well trained, so better to go to some famous shop to have it, even tho they say, its poison is so deadly, will kill so fast, you will die with a smile because the fish is so tasty.