What a load of crap

Barcelona is like a massive jazz piece come to life — gothic structures and art nouveau buildings, Picasso museums and erotic museums, al fresco art displays and living art pieces. And with art littered all over the place in the capital of Catalonia, do you know what struck me the most? The public displays of defecation.

Just like any Pinoy visiting a foreign country, my wife (who was then five months pregnant with our now bouncing four-month-old Buddha boy) and I wanted to immerse ourselves in authentic Spanish culture. So our first was at the SM of Spain — the ubiquitous El Corte Ingles department store.

After three hours of window shopping for the latest fall designs, we ventured out into the iconic La Rambla, a street in central Barcelona bursting with kiosks, floral boutiques, bird stalls, street performers, souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes. And, yes, even a Starbucks. We were welcomed to this kilometer-long walking street by trees festooned with lights to usher in the Christmas season along with a brightly-lit Catalan mosaic-inspired sign that read Benvinguts al carrer la Rambla (I think it said “Welcome to La Rambla street” or “Warning: This is a tourist trap,” I’m not too sure).

 During that holiday evening, the street was teeming with more people than an El Shaddai prayer rally. We had to leisurely shove our way through throngs of locals, tourists and the occasional pickpocket (or at least that’s what I assumed his hand was doing on that part of my body) so by the time we had slipped into one of the less-crowded side streets, I was afraid that I might have been pregnant as well.   

And speaking of pregnancy, it was time to feed my wife for about the 37th time that day. Fortunately enough, we found ourselves at the entrance to Mercat de St. Joseph de la Boqueria, a large public market that carried everything from fresh fruits and vegetables to herbs and spices to seafood to air-dried meats. I even passed a food stall inside run by a stocky Middle Eastern-looking man with a slightly tilted grin whose shirt read “Organic is Orgasmic – Barcelona.” I smiled back at him politely asked if I could take a picture of his shirt, then ran out of la Boqueria. 

All that running worked up our appetites, so we wove in and out the different tapas bars that lined the side streets slurping on gazpacho, munching on fried artichokes and mushrooms drowned in olive oil, nibbling on bite-sized dishes that were overloaded with sun-dried tomatoes and cheese, and feasting on pan-fuls of paella verdure (Yes, yes, I was a vegetarian in Spain. Que horror). We were chowing down on Barcelona cuisine as if we had garterized jeans. 

But our Barcelona food trip would not be complete until we gave our dentist bangungot: We, wolfed down merengue, galletas, cookies, toffee, baguettes, turrones, tarts, jellies, nougat, licorice, nougat and croissants until we were sweeter than chemically-balanced teenagers in love. But our sugar high would not be complete without chocolates. But not just your run-of-the-mill, commercially produced chocolates, mind you. We went all the way to the Museu de la Xocolata (Museum of Chocolate) where our waistlines could pay homage to the processed cocoa bean. We paid homage by wolfing down chocolate’s illegitimate unions with lemon and green tea and child and wasabi. We paid homage by wolfing down chocolate that had been sculpted into religious imagery and historical landmarks and Aztec gods. Several months later, my intestinal tract continues to pay homage. 

Some 823,000 calories later, our chocolate cravings had not yet been satisfied. After we were rolled out of the Museu de la Xocolata and loaded into a pickup truck, we went in search of the holy grail of churros in Barcelona. The first part of our pilgrimage brought us to a little eskinita called Carrer de Petritxol where we found a line that snaked around the block to squeeze into a 65-year-old churroseria named Granjala Pallaresa.  

Invoking the pregnant woman privilege, we skipped the queue and found ourselves elbow to face with other churros devotees inside the little cafe. But comfort was a theoretical concept at this point once we ordered two plates of Cataluna-style churros — churros that came in thinner and smaller pieces than its more familiar Madrid counterparts — to make sawsaw in their house specialties: a trio of Swiss Chocolate with milk, the thick and rick Spanish dark chocolate and French chocolate topped with a mountain of whipped cream (gluttony was a theoretical concept at that point as well).

But the Aztec chocolate gods churning in my stomach were still not satisfied. Granjala Pallaresa was only an initiation rite as our stomachs led us to the ultimate churroseria — a little hole in the wall called Churreria Granja Ruz. The secret of this churros bar was not the thick dollop of syrupy hot chocolate they poured into our cups (but that was divine as well), but rather it was the combination of four different varieties of churros that they served us — the familiar, crunchy churros, a puffy, munchy churros, a chocolate-frosted churros and a white-chocolate churros. Mortal men should not have derived as much pleasure as I did in consuming 104 pieces of fried crunchy dough.

But once the guilt of consuming as much chocolate as a cacao plantation produces in a year set in, my inner Catholic school boy drove me to atone for our sins at Gaudi’s magnum opus — the La Sagrada Familia church.

 When you see the works of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, the first thought that might cross you mind is “What was he on?” His architectural forms — both breathtaking and head-scratching — can be quite a psychedelic experience, especially if you grew up in a city whose buildings are as creative as a straight line. For an orthodox Catholic like Gaudi, the asymmetry of nature was his God-given inspiration while straight lines were sacrilege.

If Barcelona was a jazz piece, then Gaudi could have very well been its conductor. His frozen music all over the city was a festive mishmash of ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork, broken plates, cutlery, broken wine bottles and discarded body parts trapped in serpentine benches, undulating walls, whirling ceilings, curving columns and circular doors (I’m just kidding about the broken wine bottles). Gaudi never really drew up plans for his work but often chose to work ouido — crafting three-dimensional scale models and molding them as he was conceiving them (which sort of feels like the way the city planning for Metro Manila came about). 

But more than just being art pieces, his structures told stories —whether they were the playful Gingerbread Houses inspired by Englebert Humperdinck’s turn-of-the-century Hansel and Gretel opera or the dragon-scaled rooftops and skull-laden balcony depicting the story of St. George versus the dragon or the multi-colored tuko — este, dragon — standing guard to the entrance of Park Guell (Incidentally, the dragon is a prime example of a Catalan mosaic technique where Gaudi used glazed ceramic of different shapes and colors to create bright, gaudy patterns. It is a little-known fact but the merchandising of the Gaudi’s Park Guell dragon alone has singlehandedly supported the Barcelona economy for several hundred years).

And La Sagrada Familia is the story that Gaudi has yet to finish: a living, writhing. evolving structure that condenses different architectural styles into one structure that altogether defies categorization. When Gaudi took over the construction of the church in 1883, he radically modified the plans for what was originally envisioned to be a neo-gothic structure and gave it goliath-like proportions: One façade became three, three knaves became five, and one tower became (cross yourselves) 18. As you can see, Gaudi was not one for economy. But he definitely was one for overcompensation.

(The construction of La Sagrada reminds me of most DPWH projects: Although it is already 129 years old, it is only about halfway complete. According to my tourist guide, the church should be complete by the time my three-year-old graduates high school in 2026. But since the church’s construction schedule depends solely on the flow of donations, it is possible that the church could be completed when my three-year-old daughter enjoys her grandkids.) 

Upon taking in both facades of the church, it leaves you feeling conflicted: the oldest façade (Nativity) bursts with images that were modeled after actual people and animals and trees. In sharp contrast, the second façade (Passion) is brutally austere, with figures that appear jagged and lifeless. You can’t help but ask yourself: Is what I am seeing something that is sublime or grotesque, serious or whimsical, sacred or profane? But I hazard to guess that that feeling of inner conflict was what Gaudi wanted to achieve when the faithful gazed upon his imposing structure.

For good measure, I flagellated myself at the foot of La Sagrada Familia 666 times to exorcise all the Aztec chocolate gods curdling inside of me. And for my penance, I started to look around for a public restroom. Then, as fate (and the Aztec chocolate gods) would have it, I saw a sh&**ing log. 

No, no, not somebody sh&**ing logs (I would see that later). It was a log taking a sh&*. It even had a smiley face and was wearing a Santa hat while it was doing the deed. And I swear, I didn’t take anything that Gaudi took. You really can’t make up stuff like this. 

These logs are part of a Catalan tradition known as Tio de Nadal (“Christmas log”) or by its classier name Caga Tio (“Sh&* log”). The caga tio is an anthropomorphic log roughly 30 centimeters in length and with two stick legs glued to the front. Apparently, you are supposed to feed the log every night starting on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and cover him with a little red blanket when you put him to sleep so the cold won’t make him feel, well, cold. Then finally, when his anthropomorphic digestive system finally works on Christmas eve, the caga tio rewards its household with candies, nuts and turron.

How exactly does caga tio reward you with holiday goodies? Well, you have to beat the sh&* outta the log with a stick so that it sh&*s out the candies, nuts and turron. I sh&* you not. (For sanitary purposes, I did not buy and holiday candies, nuts and turron in Barcelona). 

On top of literally beating the sh&* out of the poor defenseless caga tio, you are supposed to sing Christmas songs while doing so to mask its screams. The song goes something like this:

Sh&* log,

Sh&**turrón,? hazelnuts

and cottage cheese,

?if you don’t sh&* well,?

I’ll hit you with a stick,?

sh&* log!

(Translated from Catalan)

I hear that the song goes very well with Jingle Bells. Then, after rejoicing about torturing logs in song, the head of the household reaches into the least favorite part of the log with an anthropomorphic suppository and extracts the (oh, goody) candies, nuts and turron. Then the process is repeated until the caga tio sh&^s the life out of him (somebody needs to report the treatment of those poor logs to Amnesty International).

But if those logs don’t do a crappy enough job for you for the holidays, then there are hundreds of anthropomorphic figures that will.   Because right alongside the caga tio booth is his crappy next door neighbor, the caganer. 

A popular figure in the Catalonian nativity scene, the caganer is a discreet little chap dressed in traditional Catalan garb squatting behind the bushes while taking one humongous crap as the baby Jesus sleeps soundly in the manger. (Yes, seriously. Now stop beating me with a stick, you’re not getting any candy outta me.)

Just how did Catalonians end up poo-pooing all over such a sacred moment? Well, aside from the caganer’s inherent humor value (a figure of anybody pooping is guaranteed to have five year old kids laughing for hours on end), Catalan folklorists suggested that the caganer’s poop symbolically fertilizes the earth and brings good luck to the household where it is on display, or that the caganer represents equality because regardless of status, gender, race or body hair, everybody takes a poop, or that the caganer makes the otherwise idealized story of the nativity more believable, and a poop-load of other justifications. But the reason behind a pooping figure in their belen that struck me the most was this: God will manifest whenever he is ready, whether or not we are ready for him. So whenever you poop, poop with reverence, my three female readers. Poop with reverence.

(And poop is revered pretty well in Barcelona. There were poop-shaped cakes, poop-shaped cake tops, poop-shaped lollipops and even — que horror — poop-shaped chocolates. I was going to have poop-shaped poop coming out of my ears.)

While we’re on the subject of poop, do you know what is the height of Catalonian honor? It is to have your unlicensed image and likeness turned into that of a caganer. Everybody who is anybody is doing the number two in this caganer merchandise booth. Barrack Obama had one. Prince William had one. Pau Gasol had one. Heck, even SpongeBob Squarepants had one. Now if President Noy doesn’t fast-track political and economic reform, he will never know the joy of having his own action figure before 2016.

Even the public displays of nativity scenes in Barcelona were being fertilized by the caganer: there were displays in public squares, mall windows and even tapas bars (ironically though, I didn’t see any caganer displays inside public restrooms). My wife and I even stumbled upon a mall show with a nativity scene portrayed by live actors! I giddily searched for the caganer in the scene like a man who had never soon poop coming out of another man’s orifice! But, much to my disappointment, they were missing a caganer.

Sigh. Oh well, looking at the bright side of things: I will always have a career as a performer during the holidays in Barcelona. As long as I get enough chocolate.

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For comments, suggestions or some nuts, candies and turron, please email ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.net. Follow @rjled on Twitter.