The paradise of plazas

Having neither the money nor the glamour to spend my nights prancing around Madrid's discotheques like a peacock, I often can be found sitting in a plaza, talking with a kaleidoscope of people until sunrise. \n Mom and Dad didn't give me their credit cards and say, "Here ya go son, drink Red Bull and Vodkas until your heart's content. Don't worry, it's on us!" So my nocturnal exploits tend to stray from the expensive confines of Madrid's trendy neon clubs. Too many parents send their collegiate sons and daughters to Europe to explore worldly views and tally up a posh repertoire of foreign travel. Which usually means the children enjoying drunken opportunities to blow money in cafes where French painters frequented. And all the stress of having enough funds is easily put of their parents' tabs. I don't live in that lap of luxury, so I favor plazas any night of the week over pricey bars. And besides, now all those historic cafes bring in great revenue from its famous past customers. Nostalgia always pigs-out at the trough of money.\nBut regardless of swine, I always feel like a leech accepting money from my parents, so I spent a healthy amount of my time this past spring blatantly neglecting academia and working; occasionally getting up at 5 a.m. so I could afford to live (not study) in Madrid for a couple of months. I'm often blamed for being cheap, but because mom and dad aren't there to pick up the bill, I can't afford to buy rounds of gin and tonics for all my new European pals, like most young Americans do. So lately, my two roommates (a couple of musicians from the Dairy State) and I usually pass the wee hours hanging out in plazas with illegal Moroccan immigrants and watching the unveiling of dawn. Last night, the Wisconsin musicians were befriended by an immigrant who lived two days in a forest without food, alluding the police. This was after he swam ashore from the ferry he jumped from, in fear of being caught. These are the kind of people you find in the plazas on any given night.\nBut like I explained (in a past column): the Moroccans don't have a relatively easy life in Spain, that is, if they make it, so tempers can flare at even the most simple disputes, often escalating into violence within seconds. As my roommates and I were entering a plaza the other night to enjoy our cans of beer, two Moroccans dashed by us on foot. The first man was in a state of pure adrenaline panic and had a bloody nose. The second man was chasing the first and simultaneously unfolding a knife. But normally we don't deal with that crowd, but if we did, any dolt knows how to behave well enough to not solicit a chase.\nIf I've fallen in love with anything in Madrid, it's definitely been the plazas. If one doesn't mind a few explicit scenes, at anytime of the day there can be found, in full cardiac rhythm, life's finest cadence: the interaction of the human race. A 24-hour fiesta of the senses -- old men trying to impress the young female "guapas" by dancing to flamenco, regulars loitering around news stands and Madrileños eating sandwiches during their siestas.\n Yet this is just by day. Once the sun goes down the plazas get a little more interesting. They are a successful combination of anarchists who don't just write their logos on walls, immigrants from every nook on the globe and young people so enticed by the brawl of life that many plazas stay crowded until sunrise. In some strange way, plazas are like 3 block bar, a peaceful riot and the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling (G.L.O.W) all rolled into one. But because of the public drinking (another unheard-of offense), revolutionary bohemians and mild violence, there is no way Madrid plazas could exist in the States. American police would have a field day if the United States were ever to adopt the plaza lifestyle! New prisons would have to be constructed immediately to house all the dangerous beer-sipping criminals.\nAnd thanks to the consequences of gentrification and urban renewal, the irresistible social flavor of plazas is a benefit that America doesn't get to taste. Because there always has to be enough room for Wal-Mart to suck customers from the sidewalk markets and hardware stores, and enough quick roads to get you there in the least amount of time. The problem isn't capitalism. The problem is that capitalism works and will continue to work until people start favoring human relations over convenience.\nThe closest thing Bloomington had to a plaza was People's Park, a place that was given a rough reputation by a lot of Brooks Brothers officials who had never even stepped foot in the park. But we all know the wrecking ball took care of those problems. The last thing Bloomington needs is some irate mother of a student demanding to know why she has to be harassed by a homeless man while sizing up tube tops at Cha-Cha on an afternoon shopping spree with her daughter. Yet the resurrection of People's Park, I fear, now lays dormant under the bulldozer. Though I haven't seen it in awhile, I'm sure the machines have flattened it enough to keep the Republicans happy. \nBut here in Madrid, community is still sacred and many don't like Texas politics, so demolishing cocoon-like plazas would be a sin beyond forgiveness. Believe me, the butterfly is that beautiful.