Spain hates me

I had an assignment in Malaga/Marbella Spain. To photograph a dude the Americans think is evil.Unfortunately due to the new restrictions i am no longer able to take my cameras with me on the plane but have to check them in.Which I duly did and what happens.......my bags did not arrive for 2 days.I have already had a failed assignment in Spain this year in which my subject never arrived. Now My bags had not shown up. the first night i spent in the first hotel i saw in Malaga. It looked really cool from the outside. old and colonial. (though in spain it technically cannot be colonial) it was cheap. 30 euros. but i soon realized it was the kind that you go to to fuck your mistress, girlfriend, gay boyfriend...etc etc....i was surrounded by people fucking. i could hear it. no tv nothing, just a big bed in my room which was ok because one of my worst habits is watching tv until i fall asleep in foreign hotels. so i tried to read my john irving book until i fell asleep amid the sounds of pleasure......the next night i upgraded to a better hotel after sitting at the airport all fucking day and again no bags. i decided to go buy some toiletries to wash my butt with and then headed out to malaga town center, which was beautiful and hopping with night life on a tuesday night. I had a great paella and a really nice walk. Its nice walking in a city at 1am with the streets still full of people.. my bags arrived on wednesday noon, then i rushed to Marbella where my subject was and do my shoot. my subject is on a list of 41 people that the USA and Iraq government say is bankrolling the insurgency. he claims he is innocent. he lives in a fucking huge villa bought with the proceeds of a lifetime being an arms dealer. he was also tried and found innocent of bankrolling the Achilles Lauro (Laro?) cruise liner highjacking in which a guy in a wheelchair was shot and thrown overboard. needless to say he is no boy scout. his house is filled with photos of himself with a who's who of the arab nationalist cause....saddam hussein, his son Uday, arafat, abu abbas, assad, mubarak, every gulf royal, qaddafi and best of all Kenny Rogers. he gave me 15 minutes and said not to get the pics on his walls in the photo. (people might get the wrong idea he said).The photo posted is the worst from the shoot and its soft.

so with the shoot complete, i headed off to Marbella. Stayed in a really really nice hotel next to the beach. Met with the reporter Aram Roston who works for NBC nightly news but has been freelancing more as a writer ( he is up for 2 Emmys on Monday) we went to the seafront for dinner and Marbella is the Monte Carlo of Spain. huge mothefucking yachts in the harbour (as opposed to the parking lot), way way underdressed women either arm in arm with a really old man or with a loud obnoxious young guy who reeked of never having worked a day in his life. we chilled out in a restaurant with a sea side table for us to people watch....we also had a view of the road along the seaside and people were cruising...ferraris, range rovers, dodge vipers, convertibles of all types. the only difference was no cops harrasing them.

after re-arranging my flight twice i finally went home of thusday afternoon. I tried to change my flight at the british airways office but even though they lost my luggage they said it was not their problem and i would have to buy a new ticket. after yelling at them telling them it was their fault i was stuck in spain, i stormed out and called the BA press office in London, told them my heartbreaking story of a photographer without his cameras and underwear and they agreed to give me an open return ticket. So when I showed up at the airport to go home I was startled as i was checking in, my name flashed up in their screen. the worried look on their faces made it seem that I was on some watch list like Senor Atta. Someone knew I met a susppected rich terrorist. I was being watched!!! but no...It was a message from head office to please upgrade Mr. Antonio Humberto Zazueta Garcia Olmos to first class.

Summer Part 2.....

Summer's highlight was the visit of my mother and Andy, her partner/husband whatever. A good excuse to hang out with my family for 2 weeks..

we spent most of it sightseeing for Andy's benefit as he had never ever been to europe. I think it was an eye opener to be in a place that is becoming in many ways so different from the ever changing American Culture of cars and tv and mass consumerism. Well I hope it was.

we were in Paris as well. beautiful city. never get tired of it but some of its madness became very apparent to me now that Pablo was in my life. The world is full of dangers and i think you learn to tune them out but with a child they rear their ugly head. Crowds, traffic and anybody remotely weird become very obvious.

I miss my mother and sisters very much. London becomes more and more permanent every year. America seems less attractive too as the years go by. having a child re-awakens the need to have family close at hand, not just because they would help quite a great deal but because it helps to teach your child that they are part of something bigger than themselves....family.