ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 114

I left Madrid on 23 May 1992 with 24,000 pesetas in cash. I left 981 pesetas in my account (I imagine worth about £3 at the time), I wonder if my money is still there and if it has earned any interests during the past 28 years.

On the first page of the booklet it says that the branch was at Plaza Lavapies, 8. Found it on Google maps, it’s now called “Bankia”.

I lived just off Plaza de Lavapies, I think it was Calle Del Ave Maria in a flat that belonged to Angel and Jean-Michel. I was there about 8 months and I made some really good friends: Angel, Jean-Michel and Mari-Carmen and Carmen (also called Mari-Carmen). My big regret is that I never stayed in touch and the more time passed the more awkward it would be to get back in touch.

I have so many memories (good ones) from my brief time in Madrid.

Jean-Michel took me to most gay bars in Madrid which was quite an experience although I found the darkroom a bit too much. The very late nights in lovely bars with Angel, Jean Michel and Carmen and Mari-Carmen.

Becky and Big Dan made a surprise visit from Reading: it was early morning and the intercom buzzer rang, I answer “Hola?” “It’s Becky” “Quién es?” “Open the Fucking Door!” Becky, do you remember the night the guitarist (who used to play with James Brown) came back to our place? And those incredibly strong cigarettes? He played for us all night, Becky and I were paralysed but I remember Danny saying “good chord change” every now and then. I remember I promised him that I would put him in a cab at 5am as he had a plane to catch but at 5am, when he asked me, I couldn’t answer him and I remember him saying “Fuck” and leaving. I wonder what his name was. He had a gig at a jazz club near Anton Martin and he was advertised as having played for James Brown.

Anyway, the story I want to tell now is about a cockerel. I can’t remember when Grant came to stay, maybe february 1992? We didn’t have much money (I taught English using a Fawlty Towers book and Grant had some emergency dollars which were running out) and we decided to do comedy magic tricks in El Ritiro. We joined up with a guy, I can’t recall his name but we called ourselves “The three Ignacios from Finland”.

we had two main tricks:

the first one was where Grant pretended to be an American tourist in the crowd. I had a deck of cards (all the cards in the deck were the three of golds), I would tell the audience that everyone has telepathic powers. I would pick someone at random (Grant) and ask him to pick a card. He would (obviously) pick the three of golds. I would tell him to visualise the card and try to mentally transmit it to the rest of the audience. While Grant would be pretending to communicate that card to the audience I would show the audience (behind Grant’s back) a giant three of golds card. I would then ask the audience what the card was and they would say “three of golds”. Grant would then pretend to be amazed by his his telepathic powers and the audience would be laughing at the American tourist. Some people gave us some money but we didn’t quite cover the cost of buying 30 decks of cards.

Back to the cockerel.

Our other trick was quite straight forward: we made a table with a big hole on the top. We also had a big hat with a big hole, big enough that a cockerel could pass through it.

The third Ignacio from Finland (the Spanish guy) had friends who had a farm just outside Madrid who would lend us a cockerel. He collected it and kept it on his balcony (on the fourth floor), the cockerel jumped out and sort of flew all the way down to the street. The cockerel was unharmed.

The next morning, in El Retiro park, we attempted the trick but realised that it wasn’t going to work. The hole would have been big enough if the cockerel cooperated but it was too cruel to force it through the hat so we aborted. We had to return the cockerel the following morning, the third Ignacio refused to take it home again as it was too dangerous to keep it on the balcony again and his mother wouldn’t allow the cockerel to stay in the house.

So the cockerel stayed at our place. I feel bad because I have never (until possibly now) told the truth to Angel and Jean-Michel. Everything was going well, it was probably around midnight and Grant, the cockerel and I were just about to fall asleep and I had a very bad idea.

By complete coincidence, my alarm clock was in the shape of a cockerel; In the morning it would go “cock-a-doodle-doo, cock-a-doodle-doo” and when you tapped it on the head it would go “buenos dias”. I thought it would be funny to set my alarm off. The cockerel woke up and started crowing. I was in hysterics. At two in the morning it was still crowing, it kept on going all night.

Around 8am I get up, there was just no point trying to sleep. As Grant and I looked in dismay at all the shit it had managed to produce that night I said “imagine if Jean Michel saw this” Jean Michel liked things to be tidy and clean. At that moment the buzzer rings, it was Angel and Jean-Michel. “we are just passing by, shall we come up for coffee? “NO! We’re out of coffee, let’s have coffees and churros, we are on our way down.”

Anyway, all good at the end. We cleaned up the flat and Jean-Michel never knew about the cockerel and the shit (until now, possibly) and the cockerel was safely back in his farm with many stories to tell.

I know that this might sound all made up but it’s all true, ask Grant.

23.4.2020.

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