Barcelona, cloudy Friday.
Drinking coffee in a square close to home, I find the children coming out of school amusing.
Today they wear special disguises: here I see a ballerina with butterfly wings passing by, there a junior pirate with a bag of glitter, ahead a row of mini-hoodies in red à la Casa de Papel.
It takes me a while to call me that it’s Carnival, wafer!
It is difficult to focus on the liberating-cathartic-playful-reflective character of the parties, considering the war that has just erupted, the pandemic that still spies, the fear of the future.
But – come to think of it –
I finish my coffee, reach out to pick up the white pompom wand of a fairy that skims the side of my table from the floor. I return his target instrument with a smile, almost with tears welling up in my throat, from China, from beyond. We looked at each other for a brief moment she won’t remember. I do.
***
As Spain hastily rescues hundreds of Spaniards from Ukraine, I think of the shock I received recently (= this week) when I read a crazy story about the Russian president’s supposed youth.
I arrive late, because the report is from 2017. A dear friend of Texan bluesman, synchronized with the things of life and the imminence of war, is the one who led me to him.
It was published in diary/confession form on a website called Daily Kos by an alias called “freewayblogger”. The title, literally: “In 1982, I was selling acid at Jim Morrison’s tomb and that’s how I met Vladimir Putin.”
Pan.
At the time, overnight, this revealing first-person text went around the world, attracting the attention of readers, the mainstream press, and even assorted moguls from Hollywood and elsewhere like Michael Moore, Time-Warner and Netflix, eager to buy the story and transform it. in a movie or series.
Excellent text, crazy story. I even sent it to some journalist friends. Without digging too hard.
Basically, the author recounted having bumped into a young Putin and his folk guitar in front of Jim Morrison’s tomb, in Paris’ Père Lachaise, mecca of hippie and post-hippie pilgrimage.
“Vlad” already had “that look… that way of looking through you, into an unknown and distant beyond”. His ethereal presence and musical talent would have won over the author, who invited him to hang out at his house while the flatmate was away.
Putin, a romantic, who played Donovan and Leonard Cohen like angels. Who would say. His interpretation of “Let It Be”, says the author, was chilling. Curly hair, few words. A circumspect, sensitive and magnetic aura.
A photo, published along with the diary, allegedly shows the such:
I must have been staring at this photo for a good few minutes. In my big head Vlad looked like Garfunkel. He is-not-is-who-will-be. Strange feelings.
The young man would have even picked up a girl in his brief stay in Paris, Lisbeth. The only thing he didn’t do was take psychedelics.
Until the day the author convinced him. And then…. I won’t tell anymore, so as not to spoil the story. Read, read.
***
The author of the report, Patrick Randall, is a visual artist and pacifist-progressive-anti-GOP/anti-Republican activist (he calls himself a “left-wing Protestant”) who is dedicated to sticking combative slogans on bridges, roads and other public places. of high visibility in the outskirts of LA, confessed in his own hand that the story was fake.
(Patrick Randall poster. Reproduction – freewayblogger.com)
Not only was I deceived: all the aforementioned and chains like ABC were also believers at one point that the hippie president’s story was real.
Of course, some details don’t match. Like the date of the events, which makes us think – well, 1982, Putin would have been 30 years old, kind of old for a teenage hippie, right? (without prejudice, but take a good look)
Also the idea of Putin having a candy is, sorry, too much.
Randall himself confessed that he wrote the text without imagining all this repercussion. His original idea was to create a satire, not a collective hoax.
But, seeing the comments on the networks, you can understand why many get carried away, even a little.
We share similar feelings: hey, I wish it were real. We cheered. The famous m’engana that I like. “Vlad should read this,” wrote one reader. “Somewhere there is a path not taken in his life…”.
With the war, this Absurd, gaining ground, more than ever the nostalgia of what was not and can never be hurts in the heart. I wish Putin had had a candy bar, married Lisbeth and released an album à la Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Ah: the guy in the photos, of course, is not baby-Vlad, but a longtime friend. When the story went viral, Randall says he thought, “It blew up: if ABC found it, it means the Kremlin did too… I had that flutter in my stomach you get when you realize things are getting out of hand.” Luckily, he says, the friend’s name doesn’t appear anywhere. And Randall, if he’s since been hacked or investigated, is still free and loose. Pheeew.
***
Before the fairy left, I asked her to do some magic.
What magic do you want?
A white bunny.
Thoughtful, she rolled her black eyes. She ended by saying: aaaah, I can’t do that.
Then another order. Just one more.
U what.
May today be a beautiful day.
She nodded, pleased, if with a hint of doubt. She brandished her wand and finished off the magic with the pompom on my head, plim.
Ready!
Thanks!
You’re welcome – and gone with the morning. Bye, fairy, light of the morning, biography in construction. Until the next chance, and be happy.
