“Perfect Target”


“It is a fact, that the poet had extremely flat feet and that his left leg was marginally shorter than the other, defects no doubt congenital and which leant to his gait a characteristic swaying motion. In an early poem Lorca complains of his ‘clumsy walk,’ almost certainly an allusion to this handicap, considering that it could be a reason for being rejected in love; and numerous friends later recalled his fear of crossing the street where, given his lack of agility, he felt he might be easily run over. There is no record of anyone ever having seen Lorca run.”

“Bunuel soon acquired a reputation as one of the most original characters staying at the Residencia. A sports addict, he could be seen each morning, irrespective of weather conditions, in shorts and often barefoot, running, jumping, doing press-ups, pummeling a punch ball or throwing his javelin.”

“There were shots and the marchers fled in panic, Nadal among them. When he looked back he saw the poet (Lorca) trying to escape as fast as his congenitally stiff gait would allow him (even fear could not galvanize him into running), his white suit making him a perfect target for the Guardia.”



passages from “Lorca” by Ian Gibson


Lorca comments:

The truth is trained mostly at night. If I was going to run a loop through the Puerta del Sol district or somewhere else where everybody’s out at night, I’d wear a sweatshirt with the hood up. Being gay was tough enough for a Spanish poet in the twenties and thirties without letting on that I was a jock too. I would have really ruined by Andulusian troubadour routine if anybody but the guys on the track team saw me running.

The other thing, and one reason I never argued when the press portrayed me as “the Lora who never runs,” was that I was having a lot of trouble matching my personal bests for all the middle-distance races that I set in my hometown of Grenada as a high school runner. The few insiders who followed my performances at the sparsely attended winter indoor meets in Madrid know that my times were very slow. It wasn’t because, as some sportswriters subsequently alleged, of all the dissipation that was so popular among my peers at the Residencia. No, the reason I was so slow in college and afterward (It probably didn’t even look like I was running.) was the lack of high altitude training available around the capital. Castile is, congenitally, a plain and I could forget about the high altitude training opportunities we took for granted in Granada with the Sierra Nevadas at our doorstep.

When the literary critics talk about how my work celebrates the “lost innocence of Andulusian peasant life,” they never catch on that on a personal level, never mind all that mythic people of the South stuff, what I missed most after leaving home was the chance to go for long runs in the mountains around Granada.

I was really more of a cross-country and road runner than a track man. Readers should remember that in my Grenada years it was the basketball players who got all the media attention. To even go out for basketball in those years, Coach Lope de Vega insisted that we all run cross-country in the fall. So even though I was a starter on his basketball team, I did my hardest training on the roads and on the cross country circuits. As a college runner, the only races I could fit into my schedule were indoor track meets. I’m a little too tall at 5' ll to explode through the corners and get decent results on indoor tracks.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, these track meets, often held at Madrid’s Complutense University, would always have these field event morons like Bunel doing their thing in the infield while we tried to concentrate on running. If you ever saw that Aragonese pipsqueak congenitally risking our lives and limbs tossing his javelin around the dining hall at the Residencia, you could understand my nervousness at these meets in the vicinity of all these javelin throwers and shot-putters. So what you had was me running, if you could call it that, in my worst events, in a lousy competitive environment, and without the high altitude training that was the foundation of my successful high school running career. No wonder it sometimes seems that my college and adult running career didn’t happen.

Lorca’s basketball Coach Lope de Vega:

Much has been made of Lorca’s slowness and lack of agility on and off the court. As his coach for the three years he attended Grenada’s Incarnacion High School, I’d like to set the record straight about Lorca’s athletic skills and specifically, his contribution to my ball club.
Like a lot of your stereotypical “white catholic school” ballplayers, Lora was no speedster. Some of the opposing fans used to chant a little ditty calling him our “Guardia Immobilia” when he was introduced. Under my system he was able to compensate for his lack of foot speed. The so-called experts always said Chris Mullin of St. John’s was too slow for the pros, but he did OK in the last few NBA All-Star games. And no matter what anybody says about his quickness, Lora was a good position rebounder, although I doubt he could jump higher than his ankles.
Of course, you have to remember that in those days, you had a jump ball at the half-court stripe after each basket was scored. So this made the game slower and there was more room for a plodder like Lora on the squad.
It’s true he didn’t exactly run up and down the court. He had a stiff kind of shuffling walk, which, while it wasn’t pretty or fast did get him from the offensive end to the defensive end. If Lora set a pick on you, you stayed picked like it was congenital. He wasn’t afraid to mix it up under the boards. And he wasn’t a big kid either. We listed him at 5' 10 in the program, but I doubt if he made it to 5' 9'’ barefoot.
When he got a chance to settle into our half-court offense and play like a small forward trying to post up the opposing guard if he got a mismatch, he could be an effective scorer. The further the other team could force him out of the paint, the more trouble he’d have scoring. And I’d be the first to admit that against a packed-in zone defense, he had problems putting the ball in the hole.
After he graduated and went up to Madrid and became a literary celebrity, he used to give these interviews to rags like Campo del Sol about how he invented the duende defense. The party line was that he and his pal, the Catalan guard Sal Dali, invented the famous strategy one year when they were playing summer ball in the league at the shore in Cienfuegos. (Dali was another slow, Catholic school kind of guard. But at least Dali, who had step or three on Lora, could sometimes drive the lane and penetrate to the hoop.)

According to the literature teachers here at Incarnacion, duende means the spirit that seizes a performer or writer and transports him to a Dionysian underworld of darkness and foreboding. Be that as it may, I can tell you that on a basketball court, the duende defense is nothing more than the full court press we used to run here at Incarnacion, with the requirement that when the other team gets the ball past the half-court mark, you collapse into a triangle and two with a chaser and play some hard-nosed, congenital zone defense.

As for his often-noted reluctance to cross the street, let me repeat that people have to think of Lora as a position ballplayer. We had no problems with Federico as long as the guys hung together coming and going from games, the way they tended to do on road trips. Home games, OK, he sometimes had a problem getting off the traffic island in the middle of the Paseo de Recoletos and into the gym.

Speaking of Lorca’s years on my team, I have to mention a friend of his who transferred in to play ball for me one year while he was being red-shirted for the Valencia powerhouse Bolivar Poly. You want to talk about a hard-nosed player, you should have seen that scrappy Aragonese Louie “the One-Man Highlight Show” Bunel. He was the off-guard on the Juan y Isabel Parish Center Catholic Youth Organization team I coached in the summer of ‘28. I never saw anybody so willing to throw themselves on the floor diving for loose balls or to give themselves up to draw bone-wrenching charges the way Louie did. You had to see him swing his elbows to carve out some rebounding room for himself under the boards to believe this kid.

I never the saw the film he made in Paris in 1929 with Dali that made such a stink, but if people are going to get all squeamish about watching an eyeball get sliced up in a movie, we would have had peach marchers all over the gym when Bunel was clearing the boards.

I have to admit that Bunel was kind of a pain in the ass insisting on hauling his javelin around with us on road trips. But even there, in what seemed like such nutty behavior, he managed to make part of his nuttiness work for the team. If you ever tried to pop your shots over than Aragonese hard-ass while he was waving his javelin in your face, you’d have some idea of what it was like when I was playing for Salve Regina (It was coed back then, you wise asses.) and we went up against Power Memorial when they had Alcindor. Against either one, you practically had to loft your shots through the rafters.

Give Bunel credit too because it was his memoirs “My Last Three-Point Play” that summed up his generation of players best.

“Myself, Dali, and Lora set the pace for the modern game while we were active. Those French wimps could hardly inbound the ball at their own end. Take Breton with his idiotic manifestos, the only reason we didn’t run the scores up more when we played them at the old arena at the Palais Montparnasse is that we didn’t take them seriously. For all Appollonaire raved about the play of the French Surrealists, the only thing he got right was when he called Breton a “pure shooter.” You know what that really means, a guy that can’t do anything but shoot. Hey, if we could have ever have gotten Lorca to run, he would have dragged that stiff foot of his in rings around Breton.”




The BDM Guide to Locking Bikes on New York City Streets

(BDM or Bund Deutscher MŠdel was the Hitler youth organization for young girls.)

Why Some Lazy People’s Bikes Get Stolen, But Not Mine

By Heike von Schuptfundbocher


I don’t blame the city’s bike thieves. I blame bike riders who make it easy for them by not locking their bikes securely. This is the same as women who have babies with many men and then expect the government to support them. I do not understand this behavior.

In my eight years of bike riding and locking up my bike on the streets of New York, I have never had a bike stolen. I have established this record because I take the extra time to secure my bike thoroughly. If other riders get their bikes stolen, I must say it is their fault if they do not buy the proper equipment and take the time to fasten their bikes securely.

It is my strong belief that locking up bikes on the streets of New York should be regulated. I have a dramaturgy license and a sailing license issued by the state of Bavaria. I think New York City should issue a bike locking license. Until the bike riders of New York achieve this certification, they should not be allowed to lock their bikes on the streets. Frank’s Bike Shop and other retail bike shops should not be allowed to sell locks, Krptonite or other brands, without the purchaser presenting his or her bike-locking license.

Nein, one should not be allowed to lock up his bike on the streets of the city unless he has passed a combination of tests that show he can perform the task properly and efficiently. The test would include a written part and a hands-on section. The written part would make sure the applicant knew things like pointing the lock face down to make access to it harder and the necessity of leaving as little slack as possible in the alignment of chains so thieves have difficulty getting any leverage. The hands-on section would consist of the applicant being given a strange lock and bike and a choice of a few signs, trees, railings and bike racks to lock the trial bike to. The applicant for a bike locking license thus would have to show that he can lock a bike securely in some of the most common street settings.

If there are bike riders who don’t want to take the courses needed to pass the locking certification test, they should still be allowed to ride in the city. But they must keep their bikes at home or in a storage space that is secure. Or if they are locking them, they must be locked indoors somewhere where the lock is just a back-up, and not the primary defense.



The Only Correct Way to Lock Up a Bike in New York City


First, I locate the street sign, bike rack or other immovable object that I will lock my bike to. The next thing I do is to use a three-quarter inch chain wrapped around the front of my bike’s frame and the front wheel. This immobilizes the front wheel and ensures that the quick- release hub on the wheel stays closed. It means bike theives can’t get the wheel alone and they can’t get the frame without the wheel. Quick-release front wheels are an obvious vulnerability and should not be overlooked as New York City bikers plan the steps they will take to securely lock their bikes.

Next I use a U-shaped rigid metal lock and loop it through the back wheel and the stem, that is, the part of the bike that holds up the seat. This is a different kind of lock, equally sturdy, and I figure a thief must have two sets of tools to defeat both of these locks if they want to get the whole bike.

But sometimes the thieves just go after a wheel. I’m proud to say I’ve also never lost a wheel. Maybe it’s because I’m lucky, maybe it’s because I screw washers down tightly on the axle, which makes it hard to get the nut to turn around. Of course, you have to turn the nut around to get the wheel off. I have those washers on so tight that when they have to take the wheel off at Frank’s Bike Shop to work on it, it gives them a hard time. Of this, I am proud.

I have also never in my entire life smoked marijuana. I am proud to say this too. We, the Huns, have discipline. And I think, you need to have discipline. That’s why it’s so important to work hard. Laziness is a terrible vice. I don’t see anything good about the 1960s. Discipline was lax then. The 1960s were like not taking the time and energy to lock your bike securely and then expecting sympathy when it is stolen. Whom do you have to blame when it is stolen and you’ve done a slipshod job of locking it? Society? The government? That is my view of the 1960s and of Italy too.

People who work in critical care at Mt. Sinai and many other people who hold advanced degrees especially if they are from prestigious schools, are almost 100 percent likely to make the investment in time and equipment to lock up their bikes securely on the streets of New York City. Ja, I have found this to be true.

For example, I admire James Wolfowitz, the former president of the World Bank. He was ousted for the way he handled having an affair with a subordinate. I don’t know how fair that was. He was the head of an important international organization. Any affair he’d have at work would have to be with a subordinate. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so hard on successful men. I’m sure he works very hard and that is important to me. We can’t all be Italian, nor should we be. I’m sure James Wolfowitz, even if he was wrong about the weapons of mass destruction, would take the time to lock his bike securely if he were leaving it on the street in New York.

He would not be like these lazy bike riders who just want to snap a single lock quickly and then go on about their business. What right do they have to expect their bike to be there when they come back?

Bike Locking As Foreplay


Men with whom I have been intimate have told me that when I am sexually aroused a sorrowful look is on my face. They tell me that this look of sadness, for me, signifies desire. Do I shock you when I say that when I am locking up my bike, not always, but sometimes, say before I go into that gourmet store on Ave A to buy a Dortmunder cheese, and I finish the 7- to -9- minute process of locking my bike, I am buying the Dortmunder cheese, Ja, with a sorrowful look on my face?

To be more precise, usually I am showing my sorrowful face just before I have intimate relations with a man. And to be versplacset, I do not put the Dortmunder cheese on any part of my body in the store or later at home. Yes, it meets all the requirements of our Hanseatic Purity Laws, why else would I pay $9 a pound for it, but for me the Dortmunder cheese is not an erotic aide. No, when the sorrowful look comes over my face in the gourmet store on Avenue A, it is because I know my bike has been securely fastened to the best of my ability and within the technical specifications of the rules and the tolerances of the city of New York, in which I am currently a legal resident.

And if you don’t believe me, you can check my residency status at the Sixth Precinct on East 5th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A. Just make sure you don’t assume you can skimp on locking your bike when you visit the police station just because it will be locked in front of a police station.

If borrowing someone’s bike is like safe sex, as the playwright Tom Stoppard puts it, then locking your bike on the street with someone is like foreplay. I would never show my sorrowful face with a man who was too lazy to lock his bike securely, police station or no police station.






“Wal-Mart Mulls “Gitmo Blues” Deal”



“Veteran rockers AC/DC are set to become the next major band to sell a new album only through Wal-Mart stores . . .” Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2008. --

Dear Wal-Mart Executive:

I am writing on behalf of the artists and reportoire department of the Al Agaba Martyrs Brigade. We would like to offer Wal-Mart the opportunity to be the exclusive distributor of the recently recorded “Gitmo Blues” sessions, the first compilation of rock tunes recorded by the brothers in confinement in secret CIA prisons in Poland and elsewhere. These tracks have been remastered with additional vocal backing at the Guantanamo detention facility studios. The tunes range from soft rock in the style of the infidel James Taylor to punk rock as the imprisoned artists/warriors of God kick out the jams on their number “I want to martyred,” which closely follows the tune of the Ramones “I Want to be Sedated.”

While a print version of the lyrics rarely does a song justice, the fairly androgynous, for us, lead singer belts out, “Take over the airport, Take over the plane, I want to be a martyr.”

Another song uses the Carole King hit, “Chains,” with the jihadi words, “chains, chains, the crusaders got us locked up in chains, and they ain’t the kind the brothers can flee.”

We at the AA Martyrs Brigade believe that revenues from the distribution of the “Gitmo Blues Sessions” plus a percentage of ancillary revenue streams from associated products will dwarf even the most optimistic projected earnings from Wal-Mart’s first generation of exclusive distribution deals with washed up, infidel acts like the Eagles, AC/DC and Journey.

We will be pleased to set up the appropriate shell companies to assist in the repatriation of our earnings from this partnership to our system of safehouse vaults and caves in the Northwest Territory, i.e., in the language of the rough version of a contract we have included in this fax, “the lawless border regions.”

In light of the fact that the brother/ artists will be executed, indeed, have long been seeking martyerdom via execution, at the hands of the Zionist and their allies, touring in support of the CD will not be an option.

However, as the crusader dogs are likely to kill the brothers one at a time, we see each execution as a publicity point that should drive sales of the CD. Irrespective of whether we make a deal with Wal-Mart or another retailer, we don’t plan to waste the opportunity of using our martyrs’ deaths as a marketing opportunity as other groups have, most notably in the absence of any commercial activity linked to the death of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and others in the 80s.

We would like to emphasize that, unlike other deals in the industry, when we say “exclusive,” we mean just that. There will be no, to the extent one can call the crusader legal system viable, “legal” or “illegal” downloads of this material either on Itunes or on services such as Frostwire or Limewire. If we uncover evidence of bit torrent banditry, rest assured that our sleeper cells will strike mercilessly in a manner that will make the Record Industry Association of America’s efforts to interdict illegal downloading look like the empty threats that have long emerged from infidel dog crusader organizations with the exception, of course, of quality retail outlets such as Wal-Mart and Target.

Another point of agreement between our artists, our recording company executives acting as their representatives and, we presume,Wal-Mart management is the belief that lyrics must not contain any dirty words that might influence young listeners or offend conservative customers.
Yes, some of the tracks espouse violence in the waging of global jihad, but you may rest assured that there will no suggestive language that relates to heterosexual eroticism. The only mention of gay unions is the brothers’ condemnaotry, harshly satirical and rocking version of “I knew the bride when he used to rock and roll.”

We look forward to meeting with you to discuss this mutually beneficial project at earliest convenience. Inshallah khayr to you and yours in Bentonsville.