Camino Journal Day 10

Fresh shave in Castro Urdiales

April 11

Pictures of You came out while I was sleeping. It’s my moodiest song, and one of the ones I really think has a chance. Andrew Carmen came over to the house in Granbury in 2020 and we wrote the song together. I checked the streams while lying in my hotel bed. I had the whole day here and so wouldn’t have to pack up my things. I could leave everything strewn about the room. No streams yet. I shared the song on Facebook and listened to it a couple times. It’s a well-produced song. Vocals are strong, lyrics are safe. I had submitted the song to over 30 curators on Submithub.com, and only one accepted to share it on SoundCloud, which to me seem useless as his SoundCloud only had a few hundred followers. I was glad, however, that I got at least one person to accept the song and be willing to share it. Those 30 submissions cost me around $100. In order for the curators to get paid, they must listen to a minimum of 1 minute of the song and provide a minimum number of characters in feedback about why they’ve rejected the submission.

I read them all before taking off to Spain. As good as I thought the song was, it wasn’t surprising, moving or inspiring to anyone I’d shown it to. “Fuck!” I thought and closed the phone. “The song is so fucking good! It’s my best work.” I paced around the room a little, showering and getting dressed. I put on all three songs I’d released while walking these first two weeks. I liked them all. Honkytonk Guarantee felt a little niched, and I Can Be What I Want a little fancy and uppity, but all three of them were good songs.

The rejections all varied in what they didn’t like, but they all pointed out the recording was professional and of the highest quality. I was at least proud of that. I figured at the very least, I could create a business in Spain and Europe much like the one I had going back home. I play six nights a week for places that have a crowd and want professional live music for a few hours. They pay well (around $50-$100/hr) and I have a great time doing it. The compromise for me is that I play covers 75% of the time, but that’s still fun as hell. I love to sing. It took me 9 years to get to where I’m playing regularly 6 nights a week and most times twice on Saturday and Sundays totaling an average of 7 gigs a week. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but if I could string together a few contacts during my walk, maybe in 5 years I could be working in Europe for 3 months at a time and going back and forth from my Texas gigs. I could miss the miserable Texas summers and enjoy the spectacular fall and spring months in DFW.

It didn’t matter if no one ever heard my music or if I never made a single fan. I could carry on playing for people who enjoy unobtrusive background music while they dine. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the best damn job I’ve ever had. And I make enough money to spend on the costly production of albums, which fulfill my personal desires at creative pursuits. I’ve always looked at things like a baseball player. To earn a multi-million-dollar contract in the big leagues as a hitter, you must hit the ball merely 3.5 times out of every 10. Figuring in walks and errors, you might see the best player all year with an On Base Percentage of around .400, and the all-time highest ever in the history of the sport is Ted Williams, getting on base nearly 5 times out of every 10 plate appearances.

That is incredible, but Ted Williams is a legend. The sport cannot run on legends alone. It takes hundreds of players to make a Ted Williams great, and all of them must be paid as well. An average player who takes home a million dollars a year could easily have a batting average of under .300. out of those 3 hits, how many are home runs? Very few. In Barry Bonds steroid studded season of 2001, out of 476 at bats, he homered 73 times. That’s only 1.5 times out of every 10 did he hit his mark. The very best in the game and on the best drugs of the ages, the best body, the best muscles, the best bat, training, club houses, the best of the best, and he can’t even accomplish his goal 2 times out of every ten attempts.

Listen

I hadn’t even written 476 songs yet. I grab my notebook and a pen and head out to the streets of Castro Urdiales for some coffee and a chocolate croissant. The sea-side promenade is beautiful with sections of checkered flooring and exquisitely manicured garden plots. The harbor was full of boats, the sunshine poured from the sky, and it was easily 75 degrees. A perfect day for wandering aimlessly. After my breakfast, I went to the print shop and turned in the graphic of the butterfly that went with the song I Can Be What I Want. It would be 65 euros for 100 stickers. That was great. I’d come back in a few hours and pick them up. I’d have more to give out. People love stickers. Most people. I had already seen a few of my raccoon stickers pegged on signs on the trail. Pilgrims I’d given them to, kept them until they were out of my range and then, not wanting to cruelly throw them away, added them to the collection of other stickers along the route. I’d hope they would peg them to their bikes, or water bottles, or somewhere back home. Another seed to spread and grow. I thought it a bit tactless to post your marketing along the trail on the signs and street lamps.

While waiting for my stickers I ate a menu del dia of paella and a ternera, much like a carne asada, with French fries. I drank a Coca-Cola and smoke cigarettes watching the people pass in front of me. The food was just good enough and very typical. With dessert and drink it was 12 euros. The service was also surprisingly good, and I left feeling content. I wondered around a bit longer. The sunshine air, the people everywhere. The masks were still in full effect, but the half-hearted effort in most places had the same air of DFW back in June 2020 when things opened up again for the first time after the shutdown. There are some places who scream and yell at you when you enter the cafe or store to immediately put your mask on, and in other places, the people scoff and laugh and chit-chat maskless amongst themselves while looking at you, and you know they are calling you a dumbass for believing that masks will work.

“Wow, it’s the same here,” I thought.

“Excuse me sir. Sir, excuse me,” a woman in her 60s approached me carrying a notebook with a portfolio of some donation service and asked me if I could spare a moment of my time. I agreed and she went into her sales pitch, “I am here to collect money for the poor and unfortunate people of the world who need medical care. Have you heard of Doctors Without Borders?” I nodded that I had, “Well, if you could spare something today as a donation that would be spectacular.”

I dug in my pocket for a 2-euro coin, “Oh no, no, my child. We cannot accept cash. Do you live here in Spain?” I replied I was walking the Camino and from the United States, “Oh. Well, we have affiliates over there as well. When you return, you can visit and make a contribution and we’d all be very grateful to you.”

Something came over me. Her absurd politeness was condescending. “Well, I’d love to give you some money right now to help those people you were talking about.”

“Oh it doesn’t’ work like that,” she shot back as if to turn away.

“Wait, wait, but how does it work? You’ve really got me thinking now. Everyone is always saying there are people in this world who live on a dollar a day. I’d love to help. I bet with a few thousand dollars you could provide medical services to some of these “dollar-a-day” places, right?” I didn’t let her answer, “So anyway, where are these places? Who are these people? Seems I should be able to find them on social media and send them a few dollars. I mean, I could give you $7 right now and save someone a week’s labor, right? So where do I give?”

She no longer wanted to talk to me. “Sir, I’m just working for DWB and I can’t help you. I must carry on and approach some other people today. If only you lived here, I could accept your donation via automated transfer from your Spanish bank account.”

“Ok, I understand,” I let her go. What business did I have getting worked up over some non-profit organization? It was another one of my monsters akin to the grand inquisitor. The ultimate controller. The investigator, like a dark Inspector gadget with jedi persuasion. I wondered what her salary was. The CEO of Doctors Without Borders makes around $118,000 a year or a little over $323.25 a day. For some comparison, the CEO of Goodwill makes around 1.5 million dollars a year or $4,109 a day. The international poverty line is $1.90/day. Laughing my fucking ass off, I thought I was poor.

“This shit is bonkers,” I think, trying to let it all go and not over think it. After all, what did I know about non-profits, poor people and global economics? Nothing, actually. Just my mind looking for purpose. I was bored, I guess, but I was happy I had amassed the strength enough not to enter the eye sore of a Burger King right at the edge of the main sea-side plaza. I’m just a pawn in the big game, I guess.

Rolling a spliff and sitting down to watch the Senegal Africans selling fake designer goods, I think maybe I can approach one of them about some marijuana. In all my years past, if you’re really desperate and don’t mind being ripped off, you can get something. After I was sure he’d seen me rolling my spliff and then smoking it, I approached him.

“Ey mon. Which bag you like? Or sunglasses. You need them in this bright sunny day. Very good price. Cheap. I give you best price. A bag for your woman?”

“I was looking for some chocolate.”

“No. We don’t sell chocolate. What are you trying to do? Get us arrested?”

A few of the other sellers came over to support this guy. Their three sets of staring eyes seemed to say, “We don’t care what you’ve heard or experienced in the past, we are not here selling chocolate. Get the fuck away from us.”

I walked on. My belly was full. I was stoned. My rest day was doing me some good and I had a few more hours before I could pick up my stickers. I decided to get a shave. I don’t normally get a razor shave, but fuck it, I didn’t have anything else to do, and at only the cost of around 15 days labor for some poor unfortunate soul living in a faraway impoverished land, I guess you could say, I’d been blessed to afford to.

The barber went straight away to trimming the mustache I’d been using to cover my upper lip and then some, thus shielding the viewer from any unpleasantness they might suffer while looking at my teeth. “Hey, hey! Don’t touch the mustache, eh?”

”Well, sir, it’s already done. I might as well line it up.”

He finished the shave. My face burned but felt fresh in the cool air while walking to pick up my stickers. I didn’t want to start drinking loads of alcohol to get my rocks off, and since I saw no other remedy, I called an old friend who lived about an hour drive away from where I’d be in a couple more days and convinced him to bring me 35 grams of hash.

Now that I was sorted out for the rest of the Camino, I could go on in peace. No sense wondering around asking everyone for weed like I did in 2019. What was the difference anyway? I mean no one ever asks you, “what does coffee do to you?” or, “Why do you drink it every day?” No one seems to bat an eye that you can purchase and consume coffee at almost any place in the world. Could you imagine if suddenly one day there was a coffee prohibition. The evils of caffeine exposed to the world. Headlines would read our youth are in great peril with inevitably terrible consequences if our society allows such a substance available in mass and on every corner. It’s no use comparing weed to alcohol, because they are nothing alike. I’d venture to say that someone who can’t find their weed would be more docile and accepting of their situation than one who couldn’t get their coffee. Regardless, neither would end up as penniless and desolate as an alcoholic. It’s unfortunate for a daily smoker like me to not have proper access to the commodities I desire. It was all settled though. I’d meet my contact in Ajo, a town a couple days up the way or about 50km.

After walking back and forth along the promenade, looking at all the pretty girls and wondering how in the world I used to approach them all back when I was a little younger. “What did I used to say? How did it all work out?” I pondered and noticed little odds and ends I like about each one I saw.

But a more mature feeling would come over me and I’d ask myself things like what were they like? What did they talk about? What were their desires and heart felt longings of this life? These are things I didn’t think about when I was younger. Maybe that’s why it was easier back then. They were all human beings, not just some object that I could window shop. Again, I used baseball averages to help aid in my defeat as a younger man. I’d talk to ten woman a night if necessary. Every now and then I'd hit a homerun.

As an almost 40-year-old man, I don’t really mind not hitting home runs anymore. Maybe, I even prefer the single. A homerun is so full of fleeting explosive intensity and the consequent come down and lull between each time is hard to recover from. I can’t even remember any pickup lines, but I definitely see why they were so important. As a younger person, things just flow easier, the cuteness of youth opens many doors, and the curiosity of an inexperienced mind leaves them open. That’s where you really notice the greatness of people like Barry Bonds. Despite all the sacrifices and rejections, he did whatever it took to become the best homerun hitter of all time. However, in the same season he had 73 homers, he also struck out 93 times and was walked a total of 177 times. Here’s the greatest hitter of all time and one of the highest paid personnel in the organization who changed is physiology and a way of life to do one thing; hit. Now 37% of the time he’s at the plate, he doesn’t even get a fair shot at swinging the bat. It’s simply easier to go around him and work on another player. Yet Bonds doesn’t quit. He takes what he can get and stays consistent. If you take out all the times he was walked and factor only the times when he was actually allowed to take a swing, Bonds hit home runs nearly 25% of the time. But even still, after every homerun, there are the countless strikeouts and endless at bats with not even a glimmer of a double or triple.

Even if one of the girls liked me back, even if my only idea of an approach was successful, that being to ask if they wanted to smoke a spliff with me on the pier, then what? What would we talk about? American Baseball from the 80s and 90s? And if we had something to talk about, how long would we be interested? And if interest were maintained, then what? Would she move to Texas to be with me, or would I come back to Castro Urdiales, or maybe she was from some other town and just on vacation. Would her family accept me, would they be supportive of her moving to Texas? What would her friends think? Does she have any money? Will she break my heart? If she’s too young, will she only love me long enough to make it hurt when she grows up and leaves?

I thought of Andy. I understood him. I finally understood the commitment that loving someone is. Allen Jackson’s song Remember When is a great depiction of the ups and downs of what a relationship really is. And how could all that be decided while walking around and looking with my lustful eye at beauty, measuring personality by little hints in fashion or mannerism, gauging whether I fit in certain social classes, noted by the places where the women drink and how they sit.

I’m not saying I agree with it at all, but I understand the struggle certain groups of Muslim people went through to arrive at such a fucked-up custom as covering women’s bodies. It’s more an admittance of no self-control on the part of the man, than anything else. As if the man couldn’t get his dick to shut up and butt out, so he had to cover all that excited him. If women were left uncovered, how could a man trust his neighbor knowing how he thinks and what he thinks about when he sees the female body. It’s all so complicated. If you’re walking around to enjoy yourself and reflect on life, all this materialism and consumption gets in the way. It’s a festival of the ego and an individual crusade of pleasure and satisfaction. It’s a distraction, a misstep, and the illusion is that everything is obtainable, even other people. But if you’re out to imbibe and have a good time and fulfil all your carnal desires, this is exactly how it’s supposed to be. There is so much strife in this psychological mindfuck of a Freudian consumer society. Maybe instead of covering the females, I should just gouge out my eyes, guard my heart, and retreat to the seclusion of an all-male cloister with the monk back at the monastery. I laughed to think I’d last about 3 days and sorely miss my sight. Is this what natural selection feels like? Had I been phased out by the gene pool? Would there be any “little savages” in my life?

I picked up my stickers, bought a few more bottles of sparkling water and headed back to the hotel. I’d get to bed early and head out for a long day tomorrow. Who knows how far I’d make it? Checking in with the WhatsApp messages from the Camino Family, I learned that Heiko, Johnny and Micha were all separated now and ahead of me due to my rest day. I was alone again in the Camino. Nothing but possibilities ahead of me. Sitting in the plaza to the bar across the street from the Catamaran hotel with an early dusking nightcap, I scribbled a little poem, maybe a future lyric, in my notebook. After all was said and done, I’d walked 7 miles around the city. My blister had subsided, but I covered it with some Compeed to be safe.

A rising tide floats all boats
The sun shines on the darkest soul
On every head the rain does fall
We’re only human after all

Unable to fall asleep for some time, I ventured back out to the nighttime plaza and sang a few songs under an alcove with my guitar case open in front of me. Singing Jason Isbells Cover Me Up, Merle’s Today I Started Loving You Again and Bob Dylan’s rendition of The Boxer in succession, the few straggling passersby managed to come over and throw a few euro coins in my case. I nodded to each of them in a gesture of appreciation as they continued on to where they were headed, like two ships passing in the night.

“I can’t lose,” I thought, “I’m not even really trying. What’s changed? Things are totally different now. My life is totally different. I’d been practicing Seal’s Kiss From A Rose, but refrained from giving it a go and instead sang my version of Hallelujah only to hear the clinking of a few more coins added to my lot.

The sea breeze was nice and chilly, but it wasn’t cold out. The streetlamps lighting the harbor cast shadows over the water and made the tiny fishing boats look monstrous against the backdrop of nothingness that went on forever. I counted my winnings. 11 euros. “Wow, 20 minutes and 11 euros. That’s got to be my best ever,” I think to myself almost out loud with an obtrusive excitement. Clicking my heels, I walk over to one of the bars with some younger guys hanging out front and order an Orujo. It’s a digestive. They say, “You don’t drink it cause you want to, but because you need to.”

I sipped the neon green liquid and managed to scribble out another line or two while puffing on a spliff and then going back to bed a second time.

I’m a trail blazer
I leave ashes where I go
Just a smoke cloud on the road
Burnt all the blood off of the tracks
Red hot steel fades to black
And I’m so cold
Trail blazer on the road