Small table seen from above, the table is situated in the bar of a small village in the north of Spain, the hand you see is that of Brian, big stocky Canadian whose feet are covered in blisters from a great deal of walking with sandals.  We had stopped there for a coffee and a cigarette, I usually smoke green Golden Virginia but that day I had to settle for red Pall Mall, which is too strong for me, while Brian always smoked red Marlboro, even though, from time to time, he would ask me to roll him a cigarette, usually when we had gone dancing somewhere and he’d run out of fags.  I remember the strange atmosphere in that bar, the village only counted a few hundred souls and the bar furniture had stopped at the Spanish sixties, and if I have to tell the whole truth it wasn’t that clean either and the coffee sucked, but after more than a month travelling those places you get used to it and drink coffees that range from “drinkable” to “disgusting”, so much that when I eventually found a bar managed by Italians and drank a proper coffee, it felt like I had never drunk anything better, 2007, inkjet print on photo paper, 9×6,5cm

  

A “futbolin”, still in the same bar as before, in the same Spanish village.  Brian and I wanted to play, but the manager told us it was broken and the balls wouldn’t come down, and anyway it would still take “pesetas”, and looking at it we realised the table  had a hole in the middle, the barman only kept it as a memento of the bars golden years, when in 1982 the football world cup was held in Spain, and all the children gave the men of their team the names of Spanish and Italian players.  Eighty-two was the year of Italy’s victory and the Tardelli’s scream, but 1982 was also the year of: Blade Runner, First Blood (Rambo), Attila Flagello di Dio, E.T., Amici Miei Atto II, Rocky III, The Thing (la cosa), Pink Floyd – The Wall, Conan the Barbarian, Pierino Torna a Scuola, Grand Hotel Excelsior, Bingo Bongo, 48 Hours, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (una commedia sexy in una notte di mezza estate), Creepshow, Tron, Vado a Vivere Da Solo, Io Chiara e Lo Scuro, Airplane II: The Sequel (l’aereo piu’ pazzo del mondo e’ dell’80), Amityville Possession, Death Wish II (il giustiziere della notte II), and more that I can’t remember now, but not only that, still in the same year Sonic Youth invented Noise Rock, while Franco Battiato’s La Voce Del Padrone reached a million copies sold, there appeared Duran Duran, The Cure’s Pornography was released, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, Iron Maiden’s The Number Of The Beast, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which has sold 104 million copies since, not to mention CCCP’s debut album, Eros Ramazzotti, Madonna, The Smiths, Violent Femmes, and yet in that year, The Yes, The Blondie and The Eagles disbanded, and the legendary John Belushi died, for an overdose at 33, and teh jazz pianist Thelonius Monk, at 65. And if I remember well Sony and Philips marketed the first compact discs, 2007, inkjet print on photo paper, 9×6,5cm

The same small table in the same bar, in a Spanish village, Brian is not there though. He had gone to take a dump, he hadn’t felt well for a couple of days already, maybe for something he’d eaten, and anyway, everyone knows that coffee and cigarettes have a laxative effect, 2007, inkjet print on photo paper, 9×6,5cm