Non stop

It's been non stop since the week of sept. 8th. Lots of drinking, lots of late nights, lots of playing.
Sept. 8th had a show at the Daluxe here in Zaragoza, and on the 9th flew to Bergamo to meet up with Tony and spend a week hanging out there. We had a great time, played a few times including an excellent show organized by our friend Giorgio at Keller. Went to Lake Isio with Antonio, our longtime friend from Cabarete, who is originally from Bergamo. Hung out with Tess, the international frenchman. Got lots of pics of all this up on my flickr site flickr.com/photos/leoelfeo
Then Tony and I made our way back to Zaragoza on sept. 16, and the craziness began. Dominican party was insane at the Prior. Friends from Madrid and Barcelona made there way to ZGZ to hang out for a night.
Tony came to spend four days and wound up staying for two weeks. We did a few more gigs together, some interviews for TV and press. Hung out with our friends, the BAA ( Brigada Anti Alcohol - Javi, Toño, Pablo, Alberto, Edu, etc) and had a great last show at the Z on sept 29 before he left for DR on the 30th and I flew back to Bergamo with Dr. Sed and Tza for Giorgio's birthday. We had 3 great nights there. Saw Los Pirates play at Keller's and jammed with Giorgio and some friends afterwards.
Italy was great. We ate, we drank we had fun with ALe, Giorgio, Criss and their family and friends. Very genereous, very warm people.
We got back to ZGZ on tuesday. Enrique and I got together with Maria, a girl I met on the bus to Madrid when Tony, Pablo and I went there on monday the 25th for our show with Equilibrio Perfecto at Sala Juglar. Enrique is the guitar player from ZGZ who played with us at the Z on the 29th, and will be playing with me from now on. He's an excellent guitarist, and plays great spanish guitar in many styles. We met up with Maria at the Conservatory to talk about music and guitar in general. She comes from Madrid every monday and wednesday to take classes here in ZGZ cause she says it's better.
Thursday afternoon Enrique and I got together at Javilandia (Javi and Edu's house, where I'm currently staying) and jammed for about 9 hours, non stop. Friends came over, beers, music, it was a good night.
Pablo, Nina and I then went to El Zorro, where we basically closed it. ( as we did on wednesday night also. Zaragoza is a city of many bars, and now this week start the Fiestas del Pilar, which I'm told is some insane shit that last for 2 weeks.
Yesterday Paula came over in the afternoon to have a brewski with us. Enrique got here at around 4:30, we played some songs, and then went to a jam session with a friend of his named "Coyote", a local drummer who has this very nice studio built inside one of the rooms of his apartment in San Pablo.
Came back to the house at around 10:45pm. People started coming over. Pablo, Blanca, Julia, Javi, Alberto, Nacho... we watched some TV and drank warm AMBAR ( YUCK). Even saw some old JLS footage, jjejej.
Then it was on to El Coyote, the bar where Paula works. We stayed there til it closed and then made our way, drunk and kinda stupid, to Daluxe.
When we left that place, we were all walking Paula home, this was almost 7am. This procession was walking towards El Pilar, so I broke off from the group and went into the church and sat there for a while, around 20 mins, to hear the mass and see the people. It's an odd spectacle, specially in this church, which is huge and has impressive frescos, various altars and important works from spanish artists like Goya and Velazquez. Oddly, what I remember from those 20 mins, is the smell of the seniors who were there, that cream, or talc or whatever it is that these ladies use. The mean age was around 60 I'd say.
All along I thought about my mom, who is ultra catholic and has spent a lifetime either at Good Shepherd or Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in NY.
Kept thinking about what mass means to these people. Church is just another show, another distraction... maybe. We go out at night to drink, get wasted, act stupid, and these people get up early to come pray and listen to a bored priest tell them how to live the life he's never led. Still, I respect that. We all make choices. None of them are necessarily the "right" one.
I choose to abuse my cells... abuse the self. Some choose to save their souls!