I have on my feet the second pair of Velcro tennis shoes I have ever had. The first pair met an abrupt and tragic end. I was young, strapped into the baby seat in the back of my family's Oldsmobile. I don't remember if it had fake wood paneling down the sides, but I hope so. My folks tell it like this: I had really wanted Velcro shoes because I could put them on and take them off all by myself. This was a really exciting proposition to a young boy who's chubby and uncoordinated fingers had yet to master the subtle art of shoelaces. So my parents gave in and bought me some snazzy new Velcro sneaks. A couple days later the three of us were driving along one of Eastern Washington's many high and dry bluffs, along a road that skirted around the top of a low valley. My father always drove, and at the time did not believe in using toxic conveniences such as AC, so all the windows were down. My mother looked behind her into the back seat just in time to see me, grinning from my car seat, throw one of my new “I took off my shoe all by myself!” sneakers out the window and down into the canyon below.

Needless to say, my parents never bought be another pair of Velcro sneakers again. This has not exactly left a whole in my heart. Or even left behind some kind of dull consumer ache. But I always coveted them. When I was old enough to request another pair I never did. I just wasn't courageous enough. Being that weird gangley kid hovering friendless in the back of the class was awkward enough without wearing the thick soled plastic shoes typically designed for severely handicapped. I wanted them because I thought they looked snappy and made fun noises. To me they are a throwback to very specific old fashioned genre of science fiction: When all the space ships were large and bulbous, the sci-fi damsels wore high boots and short skirts, and the sci-fi hunks wore tight one piece track suits that hugged thick shoulders and rumps. Needless to say, this shameless desire was put on the back shelf for some time. Years passed and I was only reminded of this odd affection by the odd Velcro shoe that happenstance passed my pay. This all changed a month ago.

There is a large squat in an abandoned arboretum around the corner from where I live. Inside there is a wagenplatz (a community of people living in wagons) there full of Poles and on Tuesdays we play soccer in a big dirt field up the road. I only brought my big steel-toed work boots to Barcelona, so I would always try to find or barrow shoes to play in. I have come to realize, to my annoyance, that Spaniards do not share my shoe size. One Tuesday after one of the games three toes from each foot were sticking out of the front of the shoes. Another Tuesday had me clomping around the field in my shitkickers. It was the third time I played that send me to a store. I had pushed my feet into shoes that were just too small. It hurt a bit to run, but I figured it was better then my boots. Until some big Pole and I decided to both kick the soccer ball in opposite directions at the same time. I thought I broke my big toe, but all that happened was a lot of bruising and bleeding underneath the nail. So I broke down and decided to look into buying some new shoes. Which was something, really. I have made a policy for myself to not spend any money here (with some very necessary exceptions of course : pens, beer, tobacco, bike lock, things hard to recycle). The cheapest shoes I could find were 6 euros, in the basement of some big sporting goods store. And wouldn't you know it, they were my new shinny white Velcro sneaks. Well, they were new and shinny and white. They were mine, and it itched a scratch that was decades in the making. And my toenail fell off a few days ago while I was swimming. Its a rather particular feeling, like a fresh circumcision.

Now, in the present, there is a special tenderness and sensitivity to every step I take. I walk forward into my destiny, but the shoes and that unguarded fleshy toe I walk with are always bringing me back to the past. Which is special. Thats why I included pictures of these things for you to see.

Our house, in the middle of our street

Excuses excuses: A kitchen full of food and people. A kitchen like the carcass of a gazel. If you don't join the circle of hyenas and get your snout in it then all that'll be left is the gristle. And these other hyenas are good folk: two stoic Finnish, one sassy French Canadian, a disgruntled and drunken Australian, a mum Pole, a young Slovak runaway, and a dashing and daring Minnesotan with a wry sense of humor bred from the long cheerless winters of the high prairie country. You might notice one glaring absence from this laundry list: Our house has a lack of that thick Catalan and Spanish blood. Well, its not my fault.

Our house is a large cumbersome old thing. Empty for at least twenty years, its only crime is inefficiency. The largest construction company in Barcelona bought it up to tear it town. Soon its footprint will be like the rest of this city: a boxy five story apartment building wall to wall with neighboring five story apartment buildings that look almost exactly alike. The ground floor is divided into a large business space that might have been used by a mechanic and a massive kitchen thats the best room in the house, with more gleaming white counter space then in right. I think it was rebuild for restaurant use. The business space with the large doors to the street is walled off from us, and is so full of rubble and boxes and metal and furniture we just can't bring ourselves to clear it out. We have the only back yard on the block, and it to was overwhelmingly crowded with trash, but we tackled it good. Green space in this part of town is so rare it would be a real shame to let it waste away under tons of debris. There are a couple shacks out back that have become bedrooms, and we have the best tiki-lounge this side of the Mississippi. Surf boards, hanging chandeliers, christmas lights, a burn barrel, and palm fronds. Thats right. Palm fronds.

The upstairs has five bedrooms and lots of holes in the floor covered with wood. People tried to squat this house a year ago and got thrown out the next day. Some beefy construction guy thought that if he punched some holes in the floor and made a huge mess that nobody would want to squat it. If he had done that to the roof, he would have been right. But a shovel, a broom, and some well laid boards foiled his poorly laid plans. The upstairs upstairs is a delicious sunny patio.

It is big, it is dirty, but it is ours. Except for one small balcony. That is still the pigeons.

/ D Am Em G / / B F#m C#m E / /

Our house, was our castle and our keep
Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, that was where we used to sleep
Our house, in the middle of our street (3X)

/ C Gm Dm F / / D Am Em G / / B F#m C#m E / /

NATO Maintains Control of Situation

In classic Yes Men style, NATO arrived in full force at an otherwise peaceful separatist rally in Gent. The preparation was minimal: copying 1,000 fliers the day before, and the morning of putting together the

amazing NATO banner, turning the van into a Police paddy wagon, and getting into the camo. But the effect was massively uncomfortable and awkward to the max. We rolled up on the steps of city hall, dropped the banner, and The General gave his speech.

A little back story.

The Flemish (north) region of Belgium has been on a conservative nationalistic streak. Politicians have been pushing an anti-immigrant platform and non-dutch speakers have felt an increase in racist sentiments. The more liberal Gent sits smack dab in the middle of all

this,and decided to secede from the rest of Belgium and become its own city state. Of course this was all in jest: Somebody's bright idea that the media jumped on and turned into a citywide joke. A big rally was planned downtown with a all day concert featuring Belgian bands. In the spirit of things NATO decided to step in to ensure the safety of everyone and the continuation of the ethnically diverse union that is Belgium. The url www.nato-press.com was purchased and set up to look just like NATO's official site (www.nato.int). Our NATO spokesman contacted lots of local media about our planned presence, and told them to contact us threw the website.

The guy who set the site up still has charges against him for doing a similar stunt last year. He set up a Belgian government website and issued a bunch of fake press releases to the effect that the Belgium was withdrawing from NATO. That got a lot of publicity and people were calling NATO and Belgian politicians for weeks. There is actually a long and proud history of these types of hijinks. The Yes Men (www.theyesmen.org) have a fake WTO website and they receive invitations to speak as representatives of the WTO at conferences all around the world.