Eivissa, S’Illa Blanca (Parte 1)

I went in search
Of Paradise
They said it
Would be good
For my head

So, I went in search
Of Paradise
But she took me
By the head
Instead

Paris
London
Glamour
And despair

Ruins
We were
Ruining
Over there

Ruins
We were
Ruining
Over there

And when you
Think that you’re in
Paradise
But then, you find
Your arms are tied

Captive
In the name of
Paradise
The chains are
All her lies

Paris
London
Glamour
And despair

Ruins
We were
Ruining
Over there

Ruins
We were
Ruining
Over there

The picture
On the screen
Is moving still
It’s moving
All the time

If only you freeze
Frame a moment there
You could have
Paradise
All the time

Paris
London
Glamour
And despair

Ruins
We were
Ruining
Over there

Ruins
We were
Ruining
Over there

I don’t think
Anyone’s
Ever found
Paradise
Cos Paradise
Is based on lies

I don’t think
Anyone’s
Ever found
Paradise
Cos Paradise
Is based on lies

I don’t think
Anyone’s
Ever found
Paradise
Cos Paradise
Is based on lies

I don’t think
Anyone’s
Ever found
Paradise
Cos Paradise
Is based on lies


The Stranglers Paradise Feline (1982)

‘Aquarius (January 20 – February 18) The Virgo sun arrives on the 22nd and lights a fire under you to get moving with exercise and your career. Heed its call. The new moon in Leo on the 20th falls into your solar seventh house of partnerships and the public. You could be inspired by a potential new relationship partner today or feel the need to take a more public role now. Your best social days this month are July 31 and the 1st, the highly social Gemini moon of the 15th and 16th and the Libra moon weekend of the 22nd and the 23rd. Exciting new beginnings get their start between 6 a. m. and 10 a. m. today.’ [GMT? Cos I’ll be in Ibiza from the 12th to the 24th, ¡yupi!]

¡Hola! ¡Bon vespre! ¡Salutos, els meus amics i amigues! ¿Qué ondas? ¿Qué húbole? ¡Aún estoy vivo! (I’m still alive!)

Anyone who’s read my previous blog entries knows I quote Stranglers’ lyrics to try to lighten whatever topic I’m writing about at the time. I do that because, while I was living the events I recount here, the Stranglers’ songs were both a consolation and a touchstone by which I gauged the gravity of my problems (some very grave indeed). In other words, theirs was the music I mostly heard in my head when I was stressed. That just may be due to the tendency of the drug-addled to impute more meaning to songs they hear whilst under the influence than exists in reality, or to some other aspect of my particular consciousness, which is also shaped by several, vexing, psychiatric ‘diagnoses,’ varying from ADHD, ADD and Dyslexia to OCD and Bipolar Disorder.

If you’ve been following along, you also know I just spent two weeks in Spain with my very hip ‘Tia’ Jane (my father’s younger sister). My father also has an older sister whom I haven’t mentioned yet because she’s married with children and lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and I was going to speak about her in the context of my cousins, but never got around to them when I was ‘introducing you to the family.’ Maybe later. As they say in España, ‘
¡las tías sois la pera (the aunts are the limit)!’

Although (like her only brother, my father) my Aunt Jane is an attorney (who works for a big law firm in New York), she’s also the ‘baby black sheep’ of her family, in much the same way I am in mine. In her youth (she’s 43 now), growing up in the eighties and nineties (before she went to law school), she was a free spirit who had ‘una pata de pera’ (untranslatable Spanish idiom), and who knocked around the world, spending time in Japan, India, Nepal and elsewhere, trying to find herself.

One of the places she perched for a long time was Ibiza, which in those halcyon days was apparently some latter-day hippie paradise, where people (‘stoned out of their gourds,’ as one of her friends told me), built bonfires on the beach, and held all-night, naked drumming parties. I’d never been here before, but after meeting some of her friends, and hearing some of their stories, and seeing the place as it is today, I think I can safely say, ‘Times have changed,’ and not necessarily for the best.

Nowadays, while the music is still rhythmically primitive (in the repetitive, synthesised manner of ‘electronica’) and continues all night long, it’s confined to the interiors of some very large, very expensive clubs (and it’s no longer permissible, as it once was, for women to dance topless on the tables of the terraces). Still, it’s a beautiful island that retains a lot of its traditional charm and, according to those who know, is not nearly as blighted a tourist trap as either Valencia or the Costa Brava on the mainland (even though those places, too, cater to the same Brits, French, Dutch, Germans, Italians and Scandinavians).

The colourful old quarter of Ibiza Town, the ‘D’Alt Vila,’ is a walled fortress, dating back to Roman times before the Balearic Islands became spoils in the Second Punic War (when the Visigoths overwhelmed the Romans), but it was actually the Carthaginians who originally founded Ibiza Town in 654 B.C.E. The current walls only date to the 16th century when Felipe II had them built to repel invasion by French and Turkish forces (after 300 years of Muslim domination finally ended in the 13th century). Archaeologists believe, however, the first human settlement of the islands dates back to around 5,000 B.C.E. when they were regular ports of call for Phoenician traders.

Formentera, a half hour boat trip away, is smaller, flatter, bleaker, but also quieter, less populated, more rural and more laid-back. We stayed at the eastern end of the south shore (a series of white-sand and pebble beaches, backed by dunes and pine trees, collectively called the Platja de Migjorn) in a rustic ‘casa de campo’ in an area known as ‘Es Arenals,’ near a beach (bathing suits optional) called ‘Playa Ca Marí,’ at the end of (ironically for me, a native of Baltimore) ‘Carrer Mar y land’). The place had two, old Raleigh three-speeds, and that’s how we got around. I rode from one end of the island to the other, even up to its highest point, ‘Sa Talaia,’ by bicycle.

What sets Ibiza apart from the rest of the world, of course, is its focus on what innocent I formerly would have referred to as ‘rave culture;’ i.e., centering on ‘techno’ and ‘ambient’ music (if not also ‘ecstasy’ and other psychedelic drugs). Since I’ve been there, however, I’ve learned ‘techno’ currently is made up of twenty thousand different, musical sub-genres, including, but not limited to, ‘
House,’ ‘Garage (what happened to ‘Garden?’),’ ‘Techno,’ ‘Trance,’ ‘Progressive House,’ ‘Electro House,’ ‘Tech House,’ ‘Minimal,’ ‘Deep House,’ ‘Downtempo & Eclectic,’ and something called ‘Psytrance,’ which (I guess, but I really don’t know) stands for ‘psychic trance’ (or maybe ‘psychotic trance’).

Those are some of the musical categories in Ibiza’s ‘DJ Awards 2009’ lineup, which also includes one for ‘Dance Nation of the Year.’ So far, Russia is the only nominee in that category. (Way to go, ??????!) All the same, I can relate, I’ve been in a deep trance at times myself (‘psychotic’ if not ‘psychic’). For all I know, I might still be in one. God knows, the music is mind numbingly hypnotic enough to induce catatonia.

Time’s up, or space’s up, again! Let’s all give thanks, germans i germanas, and turn our hymnals to the old German chorale, ‘Bringen Sie den Jungfrauen her,’ as Hugh (or Baz), J-J, Dave and Jet set the stage for my next blog entry: more sex talk and club notes from Eivissa (Ibiza in Catalán). Cheers! ¡Adéu! ¡A reveure! ¡Que vagi bé! ¡Fins més tard! ¡Ánimo! ¡Hasta la próxima! ¡Que les vaya bien!


I want to love you like your dad
And be your superman
I’ll show you things you’ve never had
And hold your little hand

Bring on the Nubiles
Bring on the Nubiles

I’ll kiss your zones erogenous
There’s plenty to explore
I’ve got to lick your little puss
And nail you to the floor

Bring on the Nubiles
Bring on the Nubiles

I go crazy for ya
Crazy for ya
Crazy for ya
Crazy for ya

Lemme, lemme, fuck ya, fuck ya
Lemme, lemme, fuck ya, fuck ya
Lemme, lemme, lick your Lucky Smiles

Bring on the Nubiles
Bring on the Nubiles

I go crazy for ya
Crazy for ya
Crazy for ya
Crazy for ya

Lemme, lemme, fuck ya, fuck ya
Lemme, lemme, fuck ya, fuck ya
Lemme, lemme, lick your Lucky Smiles

Bring on the Nubiles
Bring on the Nubiles
Bring ‘em on!

There’s lots of games that we can play
You can turn my tap, I’ll drip
And when the fever reaches you
I’m hard beneath my zip

Bring on the Nubiles
Bring on the Nubiles

I go crazy for ya
Crazy for ya
Crazy for ya
Crazy for ya

The Stranglers Bring on the Nubiles No More Heroes (1977)

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