On the kitchen table there is an oilcloth with the regional map of Spain. Each autonomy of a color. And around the map drawings, with the most marked monuments. It is a kitsch work that could lead you to think that the gentleman of the house is un muy español y mucho español. But don't rely on appearances.
He invites me to breakfast, and I decide to eat toast with jam in Galicia and drink coffee with milk in Andalusia. I ask him what Spain means to him. And it's hard for him to answer. Perhaps it is one of the questions that is most difficult for us Spaniards to answer. We are not even familiar with the word. And those who are, seem to have kept the name, the flag and the anthem. The day we look without prejudice at the wearer of the red-and-yellow armband, because we have overcome the idea that the red-and-yellow armband is synonymous with disguise, we will have taken a great step. I don't see him around today, because it's more comfortable in the trenches. You will see what festival in Congress with the motion or whatever. The name should be changed. Motion of those who censor.
Rodrigo's kitchen has no microwave, no Balay oven, no Thermomix, no Nespresso. What is this?, he says to me. It preserves the wood-burning stove and the Italian coffee maker that were in my parents' house. Zero luxuries, if it is considered a little luxury to be able to live where Rodrigo lives and how Rodrigo lives. With a fireplace, a garden, dog, chickens and two donkeys. And with Sergio, the man she loves.
Rodrigo changed schools four times, and each time he changed it was an opportunity for him to behave as he liked, as a male teenager with all the anxieties of a male teenager. And he tried, he hid his mannerisms, but soon his pen came out and the rumor of his homosexuality spread everywhere. Every time he was discovered, he felt like he had lost again. He went down to the yard alone, endured insults, contempt, vexation. And the teachers made him sit next to her to protect him instead of acting against the bullies who made his life impossible. They enjoyed the playground time, while the sissy was cornered, with his head down and tears in his eyes. Rodrigo's story is one of many. Also today. You will see how those in the motion of those who censure say nothing of this.
Rodrigo has been a musician all his life. Because it vibrated. Piano, tuba, municipal band, concerts in Oviedo, escape to Barcelona, street musician, squatter house, transgression, freedom. And fulfill your dream of living in the countryside. It is not a neo-rural. It has always been rural. The town is his Ithaca. His promised land. Your place in the world. He does not live in isolation. He has built his community, his social network, not in the Zuckerberian sense of the word. It is a human network, full of direct relationships, of contact, of skin. It claims courtship, the one full of poetry, verses, words where vowels are not omitted, where "I love you" is not "T'e", and love is love and not a heart-shaped emoticon.
Rodrigo doesn't stop partying for a minute. This is how he has seduced the villagers, those who visit him, or those who go to see him en masse in theaters around the world, retrieving couplets, muiñeiras, romances, tuned with electronic bases that even Bizarrap in the most inspired afternoon.
Rodrigo Cuevas wins. Rodrigo Cuevas kicks it. It makes us better as a country. Rodrigo Cuevas is our Freddie Mercury, our Gloria Fuertes, our Federico, our Dylan, our Mocedades. Rodrigo Cuevas represents Spain infinitely better than those who will support the motion of those who censure. Take advantage of the debate to play your music. You will thank me.
