Bitter sex and sweet vermut

My Barcelona writer friends help inspire the future of this newsletter

Last night I was at the Comedy Clubhouse with Asia Dawn to watch the improv troupe, Typical Adult Behavior. For a group where three of the four performers are non-native English speakers, it’s pretty great comedy, and I spent most of the 90 minutes laughing.

At the door, they give you a slap bracelet to indicate you’ve paid.

Do you remember these? Asia asked.

Of course—we both grew up in the U.S. in the 90s, didn’t we?

The slap bracelets got us 2 euros off drinks, so after the show, we walk from the Canvis Nous location (around the corner from the Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar) down the block to the larger Laietana location, where you can sometimes catch Michelle Wolf workshopping material, and we order a drink.

There’s a massive karaoke competition going on, and the place is packed. An organizer is giving a pep talk to a motley crew of amateur singers. I order an IPA, Asia a white wine. The bartender has an American accent, and I ask him where he’s from—California. Asia asks if he’s enjoying living in Barcelona.

Been here seven years. Life is just easier here, he says.

Asia and I sit and talk about our writing, about how much we leave out of our newsletters, how much is personal, where to draw the line between vulnerability and privacy. I ask about the process for her last post, which is already her second-most popular ever, right behind Italian village life is not for me.

We’re both Americans, both moved to Barcelona with an ex in tow, and both with our only children. Only I did it three years ago, and she just moved two months ago. There’s a lot to talk about.

I’m thinking about adding a new section to my newsletter, I tell her.

And I am. I think it’s going to be much more personal (and possibly only for paying subscribers). In fact, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can use this space to relate to this city, or illuminate it somehow, or at least chronicle the time. I think I can be doing a lot more. Maybe some of the things I’ve been leaving out, I should, in fact, be putting in.

Be a true artist. Don’t censor yourself, my sister said recently. She’s also a writer, also with a Substack.

I’ve also been talking about it with Brian Wiesner, my other Barcelona writer friend. Brian and I first met almost exactly three years ago on a ‘bro date’ on Calle Blai, an eight-block-long pedestrianized street in the middle of Poble Sec. Blai is well-known for its “pinchos,” i.e., one-bite offerings even smaller than tapas. It’s like in fancy restaurants, where you’re charged more for less, and it’s only sometimes better.

I wouldn’t recommend eating at most of the places on Blai—anywhere there’s a guy with a menu standing outside begging you to sit down is to be avoided—but it is a lovely place to sit outside and have a beer, especially on the kinds of endless sunny late Spring days we are getting right now.

Anyway, the first time Brian and I met, we talked newsletters and writing, but also relationships, meaning, goals, and life purpose in general. It was a successful first bro date.

Three years later (and now firmly in the AI era), we’ve been coming back to some of the same themes from that conversation. We met for so-so burgers at De Paula Hamburguesa, a block from my apartment (I’ve yet to find a burger here that rivals your average pub classic in New Hampshire), and then a few weeks later for vermut at Bardaixa, a winery on Calle Parlament.

The more I stray from my personal experience, the more I feel myself getting bogged down, I tell him. All I can do is share the experience of being me. It’s the one thing the robots definitely can’t do.

That’s what I can offer: how it feels to live here, the emotional journey of it. The smells, tastes, the crying on the streets. I don’t know much, but I know there is a Barcelona as it's performed for outsiders, and then there’s the city as it actually runs.

There are the tourist restaurants off La Rambla that charge 3€ a person just for bread and olives and add default service charges to the bill like in the U.S.—and then there’s a normal place to eat, where the food is better, there’s no paella on the menu (because paella isn’t a typical Catalonian dish), and they aren’t trying to price gouge you.

There are the trinket shops lining the medieval streets of the Gothic Quarter, and then there are the actual treasures to be found among the various flea markets and sometimes in the second-hand shops of Raval.

The chaotic mess of Mercat dels Encants

There is La Boqueria, the food market off La Rambla, and then there is every other food market in the city. There are the transient groups of digital nomads who dip their toes and leave, and then there are those who really live here.

In August, it will be three years since I moved here. That time has been a process of finding my own Barcelona. Building my community of climbers and writers and pretty much ignoring the one known as “expats.” Learning to avoid most of Gothic and El Born most of the time. Finding the bike routes that get me to the climbing gym the fastest. Going back to the local bars and small music venues scattered around various neighborhoods far from the center, discovering just how packed full of talent this city truly is.

After the beer and the wine at the Leitana clubhouse, Asia and I walk toward the waterfront. I hug her goodbye at the Barceloneta metro stop, and then head for the battery of city bikes across the street—the ones you need a local tax ID number to sign up for. I can’t find an electric one, so instead I pedal one of the heavy manual bikes along the waterfront and uphill on Parallel toward Poble Sec. It feels good to work off part of the beers in any case.

My dog has been waiting for hours, and I take him for one last walk around the neighborhood just before midnight. My brain is churning on the new section of the newsletter I want to start.

I’ve been thinking about the content and the positioning, but also the name. There’s one in particular I’ve been batting around that I like: Bitter Sex and Sweet Vermut.