Café Crem: “Let us talk about us”

By Miki & Kevin

After girding our collective loins to make the long trip into Almeria City for some music spares for me, and some prospective sketching in public for Miki, we were devastated to discover that today, 28th. February (my son´s birthday) was also Andalucia Day, and a Public Holiday here in that part of Spain that gave the world Flamenco.

The shops, of course were closed. It´s pretty hard to find them open in Spain on a normal day, but on a public holiday-forget it. Add to this the fact that it´s not a tourist city, and the very few pavement cafes that there are, sit resolutely in the shade like immovable hippopotami. So cafe-sans-soleil was all we were getting.

What brightened the day somewhat though, was the peculiar gatherings of same-sex peformers up and down the paseo de mediterraneo, the wide, tree-lined boulevard that bisects this sprawling southern city.

As you can see from the pictures, mindful of our theme, the boys wore blue and the girls wore pink!

Copyright by Dan Iordache (Ion Vincent Danu), 2005

{my wife Nathalie and I}

Introduction

I have come into a knowingness that I want to share with you.
Just knowing

I have heard the sound of suffering, imagined the chaotic interplay of simple minds, and
experienced the freedom only the Lord can grant me. Illuminated by acceptance of what is
and the awareness of “just knowing” I trust in Divinity and pray to my God for the totalitarian
institutions that enslave humanity. Man was born in the likeness of God and by involuntary
breath therein lies our own truths, each of us must see it first then accept. Man’s denial of
this “Sacred” breath is his misfortune, dooming not only himself, but polluting the very air
others breathe in his immediate surroundings.

The “quest” to save humanity is The Holy Grail immortalized by Merlin’s stories of Camelot
and its Knights of The Round Table. Every Knight that sought the Holy Grail at one point was
in immediate presence of it and in plain view. However holy this quest was in Intent it was
belief, or more precisely faith much lacking within their physical and spiritual selves, that
prevented them from seeing it. The Holy Grail metaphor is mans shackled existence.

The elegance and beauty of Divine Inspiration, exceedingly of the most noblest design,
nurtured and cared for by the highest authority is constantly put to the test by men of intent
and affliction brought on by their tragic existence, choices made, their own free will, all
consummated to produce the equivalent of just another creature roaming this heaven on
earth and doomed to suffering and pain.

I plead my case to anyone to see this reality and to seek personal redemption through acts of
faith reaching towards the heavens gloriously in harmony with mans eternal co-existence with
nature.

Oh, I have seen the Holy Grail and the Beauty of Nature, and then as if by instinctive action
turned my gaze inward to find peace and truth. This simplicity is my Divine source of all of my
personal creative power and I act only as observer and use the written word to express it’s
magnificence, my words a most humble attempt, but a noble one at that.

For I believe in sight and sound and touch and write about what I have seen, touched and
heard without questioning the origin of my trusted thoughts. Inspired by a simple walk in
nature I have consumed fully and rested peacefully afterward, awakened by the music of the
vast forest around me and it is there I wrote down my own truth.

Just knowing.

Kindest and lovingly,
Michael

By Miki

This morning, we were sitting in our favourite cafe by the beach, under the Spanish sun -yeah, it´s back!- having a big creamy cafe con leche, donuts from paradise… Kevin reading, me sketching people … life was great!

While I was sketching I was thinking of our wonderful Cafe Crem, how it started, and of all of you, the authors, and I suddenly felt the urge to buy 2 new coffee cups! I instantaneously abandoned my sketch book and Kevin and ran to the nearest pottery shop. Quite automatically, without thinking, I chose a blue cup for Kevin, a red one for me. On the way back I was thinking:

“Here we are again… the difference between men and women… the colours!”

In fact, from the moment we are born, we are stigmatized with colours corresponding to our sex: blue for boys, pink for girls. Has somebody an idea where this comes from? Why are these colours associated with girls and boys? I would be very interested in any theory about it…

Concerning myself I can definitively say that I much more prefer warm colours, red, orange, yellow, pink… and most of the men I met preferred the cold colours, blue especially.

How is it with you? And with the persons you know?

I was listening to the public radio station when these odd book titles caught my ear. The bookseller.com is doing a poll or something. Since three of them seemed to relate somewhat to our topic, I thought I’d share them here and then go out and see if I can find the premise behind them. Or maybe you’ll beat me to it.

To make it fun, which of the titles involving women or sex would you want to read first?

Diagram Prize: Vote for the Oddest Title of the Year

I thought it was time, dear readers, to venture forth with another in my series of (lighthearted) male perceptions of the female condition.

As Miki and I are about to go off in the motorhome for a couple of days, I’ll light the blue touch paper of female indignation, and run for the hills. To illustrate my point, I have to go way back into the mists of time, to what I like to call “The Dark Ages”. In other words, my marriage.

My ex had raised being houseproud to an artform. If you sat still long enough in our house, you would be sprayed, polished, and possibly exchanged for a new one. Everything had to be new, and not only new, but new ALL the time. This meant that perfectly serviceable carpets were up for replacement a mere two years after being laid in the first place. Carpets got laid in our house more often than Gene Simmons. One time, a nice cream carpet was chosen to reside for the blink of an eye in our lounge. I was constantly harangued about wearing shoes in the house, and was perfectly reasonable about it, asking for a pair of slippers for Christmas, to circumvent this particular marital landmine. So, slippered up, I would, of an evening, try and grab an hour or two in front of the TV (trying to look invisible so I didn’t get shamed into doing this, that, or the other, job) I am greeted by a self-righteous scream -”look what you’ve done to the carpet!” the said carpet, which she assumed after a couple of months of no dirt whatsoever, had needed a shampoo, was still damp and had thoughtfully mingled the dye from my slippers with its fibres. So, no shoes in the house, no slippers, another new carpet….

This “new” obsession stretched to cars. You would think this a male domain, but oh no. It had to be new. Every two years. This is a mental strategy. It means you not only have a naff car, because GOOD new ones are stupidly expensive, but you lose thousands the moment you drive it off the forecourt. I would beg for the chance to get a two year old Audi with all the toys, instead of a bottom of the line Citroen baked bean can, all to no avail. it was VITAL to have the latest registration plate. It’s called ” Keeping up with the Jones’s”. Otherwise known as “let’s burn two thousand pounds for no sane reason.”

Now we come to shelves. Shelves are not allowed. Shelves show THINGS, and collect DUST. I was not allowed to display any CDs or books of any kind. I was not allowed to display any musical instruments of any kind, or have any music related posters, memorabilia, or photos of any kind on the walls. Remember - I am a musician. The final straw came when she capitulated and offered to let me have a photo of me with a well-known TV personality hung in the toilet. Oh, yeah, I knew my place. Needless to say, I declined the kind offer and began to make plans for my escape.

Wake-up call: houses are to be LIVED IN, not stared at like something from “lifestyles of the rich and famous!!!” There was a time when, as a teenager, my father told me that couldn’t grow my hair long , and I looked at him and told him that this was a bad idea, because the moment I was free to do so, I would grow it to extraordinary lengths, and that is exactly what I did. Following my relocation to Spain, singledom, and my own apartment, my walls became festooned with every goddamned poster and picture I could find. I had guitars on stands and everything. Heaven!You may think being with Miki may have brought a new set of these problems, but no, she helped me frame all my posters, and hang them properly, and in our place in Albir, allowed me to screw guitar hangers to the wall, so my favourite axes are displayed in all their glory. She relinquished a section of her art gallery so I could set up my sound studio. She even INSISTS on having our books, DVDs, and CDs on display. That’s my kind of woman!

{dropping knowledge} inspires social transformation through innovative projects and multimedia.

from vodpod.com posted with vodpod

I cannot stand by.

The world has gotten too violent, too poor, and woman are not part of the process, yet, in a world dominated by men.

What if the differences between men and woman are in fact what the leadership of the world is missing?

Would that make a difference?

How would our world look?

I cannot stand by any longer.  If woman are to be “equal” with men, then we address sustainability, poverty, nuclear threat, and inequality.  Woman this prominant man says to paraphrase him can make their contribution as equals.  It is started in the nuclear family in underdeveloped countries with much resistence at first, but later men find themselves to be more happy and woman have certain qualities which have allowed them to be the change needed in the world today.

Vive la difference?  Of course and it is the differences between that make all the difference in this world.

Kindest,

Michael

You know the old adage “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”….well, I’d like to examine in this post, the possibility that the phrase could be amended to “hell hath no fury like a woman, full stop.”, because, although statistics tell us that female serial killers have got a long way to go before they outstrip the men (conveniently forgetting Myra Hindley and Rosemary West) I do believe that women are capable of being genuinely scary creatures.

I, for one, have learned to develop a healthy fear of them.My reasoning is as follows; whilst men are more likely to snap first, and perhaps fly into a rage, this usually dissipates very quickly, and in the male psyche, life resumes its normal service. The male is always at a loss to understand why the female does not comprehend this. A woman on the other hand, is a complete stranger to the phrases, “let sleeping dogs lie” and “let bygones be bygones”. they are far more likely to align themselves with the not so well known phrases “a genital for an eye” and ” I wonder how he’ll like his car with paint stripper all over it?”

A man, if he really puts his mind to it, could probably be fed up with someone for a couple of days, tops. But for women, holding a grudge is an Olympic event, and every opportunity to set a new world record is grabbed with both hands. A grudge will never be held quietly. it will be telegraphed to the man for maximum effect. This is usually done in a number of ways:

1) Uneccesarily loud closing of doors and/or banging of crockery

2) Monosyllabic, non-commital replies to perfectly reasonable offers of a cup of tea.

3) “The look” - Real women have this down to perfection, and have developed “the look” into something of an artform. a query from the man, such as “Fancy going for a drink tonight?” need only be met with a practiced sideways derogatory glare, and the man instantly knows he’ll be drinking alone.

4) Arguing black is white. seemingly an impossible premise, but for a woman, this is second nature. the man has no hope in the face of this inverted logic. Studies from the past show that even producing an encyclopedia to prove a point is all to no avail. The stilleto heels are dug in, always figuratively, sometimes literally.

One can only hope that the advent of the internet and ready access to a vast database of knowledge may help man to convince woman that white is not in fact this years black, and nor do they have to buy shoes that are more expensive than their house, “because they match their handbag” (which cost more than their car).

I’ve come up with a few guidelines that I hope will avoid bloodshed;

Forgetting to wash the dishes is not an offence punishable by castration, or death.

Leaving the toilet seat up is not a sign of the end of civilisation as we know it. If it offends you, take a firm grip on the seat, and lower. There. All better now? do not worry that the man will come and moan if the toilet seat is down when he needs to go. He will simply lift it and get on with life, it’s not an issue to him.

He understands there is a speed limit. he understands there is a risk that he may get a small fine if he is caught. The car is perfectly capable of doing 100 mph , the speedometer goes even higher, its designed to go that fast, let’s see what she’s got. If you want to go slow, take the bus.

I hope these few pointers will lead to a greater understanding between us.

humbly,

Kev Moore

I was watching a TV drama on a Pakistani sky channel, and watching a part where a girl comes home to visit her mum, the day after her wedding, and she’s talking of how disappointed she is with the ideot she married and says ”times have changed, the bride has become the groom, she takes home the man as her ”bride” and lifts up his veil to reveal the true identity of the man she married”.

On the wedding night, the couple share an-age-old tradition where the man bestows an expensive gift upon his new bride and drops a couple of rehearsed cheesy poems, so that she can allow him to life up her veil and reveal her ”beautiful” face, in most cases the poor guy has a fright when his bride is err.. not so beautiful. Back in the day, there were a lot of arranged marriages where the couple never saw each other pre-marriage nuptials, I’m glad its an OLD tradition, I could never imagine it working out now!

But, my point was, I think that TV script hit home. Women are far more ”manlier” and I know many, that brought their own houses prior to getting married, so their husbands can live there with them and we all work so we can provide for ourselves (and maybe him too), so really, I think she was on to something. Of course there are always exceptions.   

I realize upon re-reading this that I did not write it very articulately, or respectfully - I meant to say that I hope the nasty looking woman posted by Miki was enraged about womens’ issues such as the photo I sent of the battered woman…