As he gets set for the summer and the opening of Plastik Beach on Playa D’en Bossa Colin has been at it again. This time the Butt of his ramblings are David Guetta and Rosetta Stone…
SAINT GUETTA?
Anyone who has spent any length of time in Ibiza or in Spain will know how much they love a Saint’s day here. There is in fact a Saint’s day for every day of the year, although even the Spanish can see the flaws in making all 365 of these public holidays. For a start, how would the Brits working in ski resorts be able to fly over and collect their dole money in the winter, right?
One unofficial Saint’s day that few people know of is that of San Genaro. In the 1920s in León on the mainland, an old boy called Genaro Blanco used to celebrate every Maundy Thursday by going on a crawl around all the local bars and brothels, usually ending about 6am with him being happily pissed and leaning against a lamp post, in no fit state to go to the ecclesiastical Good Friday celebrations.
In 1929, he was killed after his crawl when he was run over by the city’s first ever refuse truck.
The following year a group of four locals decided that Genaro should not be consigned to the garbage truck of history and started an unofficial Saint’s day in his honour, where they would follow in his footsteps around all the bars and end up in a similarly inebriated state come dawn. This grew in popularity and it wasn’t long before thousands were paying this unique homage to ‘San’ Genaro. They went on to attribute four miracles to San Genaro, including one of the prostitutes he visited finding redemption and a local passing a kidney stone whilst having a piss on the very spot Genaro was killed.
The church eventually put a stop to the celebrations via dictator General Franco because the whole town got so wrecked on the Thursday that no-one was turning up for the Good Friday service. After Franco’s death in 1975, San Genaro’s day was re-instated and it now attracts some 15,000 visitors, more than any official saint’s day.
This got me thinking that in Ibiza we have our very own hero in David Guetta, so maybe it is time we petitioned for a San Guetta Day, also to be held (obviously) on a Thursday?
Rather than a bar crawl as they have in León, San Guetta’s day could be celebrated by a club crawl. Starting at Pacha, there would be a normal 70€ish entrance fee. In recognition of San Guetta’s influence on the island and what he’s helped do to the scene there would be a 50€ increment as people move to subsequent clubs (i.e. 120€ to get in Amnesia, 170€ Privilege, etc.), ending back at Pacha again where naturally another entrance fee would be paid, by which time it should be up to in excess of a very reasonable 500€. F*** Me I’m A Saint T-shirts would be on sale too (price to be confirmed).
Of course, whilst there wouldn’t be a drink included in any of these entrance fees, in a highly symbolic gesture, followers would be presented with a piece of cheese as they enter each club, with the cheesiest bit of cheese being reserved for the Pacha finale, where a choral tribute would be performed of a specially commissioned hymn made up of two notes and with a US star contributing a heartfelt and meaningful middle 8 rap like, “Long live St. Dave, he’s the king of Rave (yo!)”.
We could also attribute San Guetta with miracles. Well, actually just one miracle, namely how the f**k did he become the most important individual in the world’s music scene? Can’t think of any miracle that could surpass that.
So, San Guetta’s Day: I think it’s got quite a nice ring to it. Of course, the only problem is that to be canonized the potential saint in question normally has to be dead and usually that death has to be something pretty horrific.
Hmm… the idea is growing on me more by the minute.
ROSETTA STONE
I’ve been here long enough now to actually feel embarrassed at not speaking fluent Spanish. I’ve had a few attempts including one in Costa Rica, unsuccessful largely because I think the course I enrolled on was for midwives – I can think of no other reason why I’d need to know the Spanish for amniotic sac!
Rosetta Stone boasts that governments and large corporations use it when employees are seconded to a different country. So why the f**k is it that even if I type in www.rosettastone.co.uk or change the language option to English, it keeps re-directing me to the www.rosettastone.es address and insist on the home page being in Spanish? Yes, I know THE REASON is that’s where my IP address tells them I am but I can’t be the only one who’s living in a country and wants to learn that country’s language, especially as that seems to be the general thrust of their marketing?
F**k it, I’ll just have to take up midwifery…