Que vayas and the Sad Second Act of the International Festival´s Cristina

Last night they took the last statue of Franco in the city down in the dead of the night without prior warning. Of course, in the dead of the night, no one in Madrid is asleep, so there was a rally between the hardliners and those who were happy to see it go. My family, needless to say, is not happy. They don´t exactly view Franco as a heroic figure, but they think the manner in which the statue was removed was cowardly at best, and an attempt to wash over history at worst. I kind of agree. I realize that for some people the image of him is revolting and brings up horrible memories, but I can say the same thing about Bush, but that doesn´t mean I´m going to whitewash his existence. If anything, I think the statue should stand as a reminder of what Spain once was so that it never has to return to that.

In other news, there are some really horrible street/subway performers here. The Latin American men who play the guitar and sing sad sad songs are actually quite good, and sometimes I even give them a shiny fifty céntimo piece. However, there´s this one woman whom I´ve encountered thrice in three days. She dresses all in one tone denim, carries around a portable karaoke machine on wheels and sings the same two songs...badly...really badly. The first song I thought maybe it was a weird atonal pop piece, very avant garde, but by the time I figured out that the second song wasn´t some Yoko Ono screed, but instead was the lovely bolero Bésame Mucho, I wanted to wretch. As anyone who´s been to one of my karaoke parties knows, I´m no Frank Sinatra, but I do have some inkling of pitch control, and I know this broad just ain´t got it. It´s actually embarrassing, and I think someone should tell her. You´d think she´d get the message when she walks up and down the metro car without a single person depositing a cent. She actually reminds me of this really bad performer on this field trip I went to in high school called the International Festival. I think this might be the Cristina of legend, fallen on hard times. Yesterday, I saw this woman again, and today I thought I had escaped her as I hadn´t seen her on the subway and was already at work, typing away, when I hear out of the window, the chirping of this J.Lo wannabe. I never thought I´d say this, but honey, J.Lo has it, and you don´t. God, I can´t believe I just admitted that J.Lo was more talented than ANYBODY, but that is the level of this street performer.