Belgrade Piece

Subject: Belgrade Piece

For my Family and Friends:

1.

On the morning of Saturday, November 10, 2007, I left Belgrade, Serbia after two days there.  This was my first visit to Serbia itself, the nationality of my grandparents.  No one in my immediate family has been there in two generations allowing almost one hundred years to pass before one of us made the trip.  My grandparents spoke little English, my parents– a little Serbian. My siblings and I do not speak Serbian at all, having been raised in a small town in Illinois.

Not that I didn't wish to go.  Sometime in the mid-1990s, I awoke to the sight below my Munich hotel window of a row of NATO tanks traveling south.  The Balkans had erupted in brutality. The war and isolation from the rest of the world that followed in the next years isolated me as well from the possibility of going there.  Ten years before, when I was working with Huey Lewis, he spoke of the former Yugoslavia as his favorite place in all of Europe, for the warmth and soul of the people, and the pristine beauty of the land.  Indeed, I had heard the coast on the east side of the Adriatic was once called "The Secret Riviera".

We arrived early Thursday morning, November 8th, at the Hyatt Regency of Belgrade which is across the river from the city center. Belgrade is known as the city on two rivers (a larger version of where I was born in Ottawa, Illinois.)

We had driven after a show the night before in Debrecen, Hungary and I think I was the only one who did not return to bed upon arrival at the hotel that morning. I had slept in my bunk on the bus for four or five hours through the night.  After a brief yoga session, a shower, a good breakfast and a conference with the hotel concierge, I jumped in a taxi and headed across the Sava river.  I wondered if my mother and godmorther, best friends in Chicago since their childhood, looked at all like the two young women working together in the hotel restaurant.

2.

The sight began in the hotel, but hotels can be deceiving as a reflection of the local color. Especially in Europe when working in a hotel can be a career choice, and the staff can be of various nationalities, some interning for a a few months to train and develop their language skills.  But the young woman at the front desk was Serbian and as she described the main features of the city over a map spread out between us, I noticed things that tugged at my memory:  Kuma Yelka's (my Godmother) voice, that kind of husky and strong tone, not light and airy, and eyes and a smile that could have been related to Aunt Dorothy, for sure.

Now that the taxi was over the river and we were in the city center, there "they" were everywhere!  Uncle Dan, cousin Paul, Jovanka (Mom) and Dad!  It was strange to me, to see people that could have been uncles, brothers and sisters.  I started to feel really strange.  This was not Greece, Sicily or Turkey... Similar, yes, but this was different.  The line of the brow, the curve of the nose, the eyes,.. that certain glint in the eyes, that coded my perception into my bones and woke up my cells.  This!  These people are my family?  My real, blood lineage family?

3.

The taxi dropped me in Republic Square in the center of the downtown area, which was a circle actually– a roundabout for the traffic. The Balkan and Moscow hotels were there and a public building that looked like an opera house or theater.  My mission was to walk.  Just start out in a direction, move among the people and get a feel for what life was like on this Thursday morning.  From the description I got from the receptionist at the hotel, I knew the general direction to the walking street where the main shopping was. There also was a park with a walled fortress originally built by the Turks 600 years ago near the river.  Both those places might be full of tourists and out-of-towners, so to begin, I headed in the direction of Strahinjica Bana, a street filled with cafes, bars and restaurants.  The receptionist at the front desk said this was a good place to people-watch, and she was not the last person to mention with pride that the women are beautiful there.

The city itself was full of life, thick with traffic, crowded sidewalks, another good reason to save the walking street for another time.  There was a grime and clutter in a way that I had seen in eastern Europe and Russia before.  Some of the buildings were black from years of air pollution, and there was little rhythm or reason to the architecture other than periodic opportunistic development, like in the San Fernando Valley of LA, although in a different style. (But then, LA hadn't been a war's battlefield in less than a decade, either.)  The feeling of the people on the street was like Chicago or New York, but there was a certain pervasive hecticness, like people wanting to go forward, and get beyond the present limitations, whatever they were for each.

I hope it isn't simple narcissism that makes me say the people were fascinatingly beautiful to me. There were the older earthy character's and the striking features of the youth.  The Slavic features sometimes resemble Russian or Italian, but there is a distinctive angularity.  The fact is, I had never been in a group of Serbian people other than a few family reunions when I was very young.  At every turn and every street corner, here was a whole city full.

As I proceeded towards Strahinjica Bana, the streets started to descend downhill.  Later I heard that the neighborhood I was heading to was nicknamed "Silicon Valley". Here the neighborhood was quieter as I moved away from the shopping street and the traffic of the city center.  Strahinjica Bana was a tree-lined street just a few blocks long in the upper corner of the city, feeling a little bit like the west village in New York City.  Time for a coffee, I went in to a cafe.  The girl working the counter didn't speak much english, but everyone knows cappuccino.  I sat there sipping my coffee and listening to the people around me talk.  There was a table behind me with two young men and one old man, and a few other people coming and going.  What was occurring to me was, I hadn't been in a room with people just speaking Serbian before.  The sound of the language always had an effect on me because it was the language of my grandparents and to a small degree my parents, and at the time, I was a young boy.  Now the language's aroma permeated the room like fresh bread baking in the oven. To hear young people, old people, everyone speaking Serbian–  I was starting to feel something of being "home"?

At length a woman came in who seemed to know everyone in the place.  She sat at the counter next to me and conversed with the others.  At one point, having heard me speak english to order another coffee, she apologized in English for sitting with her back to me.  We began a discussion on what the best restaurants were.  Soon, almost the whole place was involved– the three men in the corner, laughingly offering help in translating certain words into English or the exact location of a place in question.  Without trying to impress me any which way, these folks brought a feeling that I was not out of place here, even though an obvious stranger who didn't speak the language.  When I took to the street to resume my walk, I said "Hvala" (Thank you) and everyone called, waved or nodded their farewell.

4.

This street, Strahinjica Bana, is only maybe ten blocks long, but on almost every corner and along its tree lined sidewalks are numerous restaurants, bars and cafes. I chose an Italian place for lunch that looked like it could make a good pizza and was well attended. Here people were relaxed, well dressed and animated in their conversations.  Maybe this area was nicknamed "Silicon Valley" for its location at the bottom of the hill from the city center, but it must also have to do with a sense of this part of the city being more cosmopolitan and connected to the fashion and business of life outside of Belgrade and its history.  This was the hip part of town, yet people were open and friendly.

Sitting in the corner with two handsomely dressed men, one obviously her beau, was a Liv Tyler-esque beauty, eyes hidden underneath platinum white bangs and tresses framing her strong bone structure and long neck, splashing down her shoulders. She was model material, dressed in a hippie deep purple frock, tights and high boots, but the way she conversed with her friends, there was no feminine trophy role she was playing, animated with strong opinions and a ready laughter. I'm no fashion executive, but she was too bold, too exotic for a catwalk or catalogue. Too real in a beautiful way, evidenced by the down-to-earth interaction of the three at the table, body language passionate and conversation in-depth, even though I couldn't hear their words, and even if I could, I wouldn't have understood their language.

5.

The Hyatt featured a spa and full gym, and offered a four handed massage. Doing the calculation of the currency, this was still less expensive than most massages, and included the use of hot stones which I had never done.  This involves rubbing the back with heated smooth stones and then placing them to rest at intervals, the length of the spine.  If I wasn't going to sleep this day, and with a night off, I might as well, as we say on the road, "Treat yourself lovely."  As I entered the spa area late in the afternoon after a session in the steam room, two middle-aged women met me.  All business, the massage began and progressed in a choreographed synchronism.  However, it soon became apparent that one of the women loved to laugh, and the other was the "straight-woman"!  They would whisper in Serbian– I don't know, maybe to synchronize their moves, or some joke– and one definitely had the giggles, which the other confessed was her blessing and maybe also, her curse.  Soon, we all were laughing more or less, and I had never experienced a massage like that from both the outside and the inside.  (Joe commented later that you could tell they were well trained, because they never collided the stones together in the course of the treatment.)

I learned that I received this treatment from the originators of the technique at the spa. A year and a half ago a client came in, who had only a half hour, but wanted a full body massage.  On the spot, the two of them offered to do it together, and over the months, they perfected a total treatment that now lasted seventy five minutes.  By the end, we had shared discussions on techniques, exercise, and music.  The one with the giggles was a new mother, and her husband practiced the Japanese martial art, Aikido, which I studied a bit years ago. They both were serious practioners, looking for new techniques in the healing arts.  I told them of my friend Richard in Frankfurt, and Amma, a massage technique from Japan over fifteen hundred years old, and they wanted to contact him and learn more. The music they used was very good, which I commented on, and when leaving they insisted that I take the CD with me.

6.

The dinner with Joe and the band at the Grill restaurant in the hotel was exceptionally good.  The lamb with the roasted garlic resembled my Milosevich family reunion memories.  (As a side note, before arriving in Serbia, in Slovakia I ordered for a lunch, a "regional specialty" of braised beef in a sauce with onions. When I took a bite of the morsels of meat in a paprika-ish red sauce, I couldn't believe it– "Baba's steak"!– a dish Mom used to make in my childhood, almost exactly!)  It was a spectacular meal all around, and Joe was happy and lounging uncharacteristically after the meal.

After 11PM as some of the cigar smokers retired to  the bar, I walked out of the hotel and stepped into a cab.  I just wanted to feel a bit of the night in this city– this city with these people related to my family.   At this point, everyone had stayed all day in the hotel since our arrival, which after the overnight drive the night before, sleep and relaxation were the priority. I, on the other hand, even though extremely relaxed, was totally awake.  Time was altogether concentrated into moments.  Tomorrow evening we had a concert, with an early the next morning departure.  Even for just an hour, I wanted to see, hear, taste and smell the city beyond the hotel.  The darkness still held the unknown, as my experience of the city was limited, so I wouldn't venture too far off the already-beaten track: what would Strahinjica Bana look like at night?

My cab driver dropped me on a corner in the middle of "Silicon Valley" and gave me his card, suggesting when I wanted to return to the Hyatt, to give him a call.  First, I stopped in at a restaurant I had checked out in the afternoon, to offer explanation that we had elected to eat at the hotel.  I sat and had a drink, and in the course of conversation with the hostess, learned she had been a student of karate for eighteen years.  Karate, Aikido, massage..., gave me the sense that people cultivated a spiritual side.  (This was, after all, the nationality of Nicola Tesla!)  Then heading out and down the street, a cafe-bar called "Insomnia" with its large storefront windows looked inviting.  It was full of people sitting at tables and on couches. Entering, I sat on a bar stool and ordered a beer.  The clientele seemed relaxed, like a neighborhood hang– again, shades of New York City's west village. Being alone sometimes makes it awkward to mingle.  Just as well: I was beat.  Conversation would have been a contrivance. To observe was just fine.

This was a crowd of hipsters and beautiful people. Women fashionably dressed, but not overly done. Men, relaxed and well put together, both in dress and physique. The atmosphere was jovial and lacking any aggression or overt showiness. Cool.  I knew there were other sides to  the city: the club scene with crowds come to dance and drink, but I wouldn't venture there alone, and mot without extra energy.  My waiter brought me a beer on the house, as I explained to him it was my first time in the city.  Soon after, I had the waiter give the taxi driver a call.  Had to sleep sometime!

7.

The next day in the morning, my last day before performing that night, I exited the cab again at the circle of Republic Square, this time heading into the walking street with its shopping arcade atmosphere.  It was still morning so the street was still fairly empty. Rain was in the air.  The festival of the day's business was just getting underway. Weaving into side streets and back onto the walking street to get a feel for this part of the city, I finally came to the wooded park by the river with its walled historical fortress. The main walkway into the park had stalls and vendors selling trinkets and things tourists would  buy. There were elderly folks alone or in pairs, young lovers arm in arm, packs of school children scattered and strolling through the wooded pathways. Statues and gardens at intervals throughout the grounds offered resonant moments of history, and walls with gateways yielded more open walkways through manicured lawns and trees finally coming to an overlook of the Danube river, but with further grounds and gateways beneath before the water's edge.

When leaving the park, I stopped at an old woman's cart full of religious icons for sale.  Looking at the images arrayed on shelves, one caught my eye.  Ah, something to bring away with me for this day, and this trip, my first visit to the home of my grandparents, an icon of Mary, The Divine Feminine Principle!

8.

Coming out of the park, I resumed my exploration of the shopping street and its surrounding neighborhood.  In another corner of the old city on the bluff overlooking the river, I came upon what looked like a school with art students on the bluff above the river.  Gathered in small groups on the sidewalk with bulging satchels of books and large portfolios for drawings or blueprints in hand, having a cigarette, deep in discussion, these young people hardly noticed me passing through.  (I like it that way sometimes– to go unnoticed, and so to catch a glimpse of what ordinary life is like in this place, where ever I am.)  The cobblestone streets in this part of the old city wove around houses, apartment buildings, and shops.  A woman with a dog on a leash, called out to another who just appeared from a door to the street– sounds of neighbors, in greeting and gossip, even though I don't understand a word of this strangely familiar tongue. In a side street off the main walking (shopping) street, I duck into a place that looks warm and inviting for a quick coffee.  The waiter looks like a Serbian version of Rocky and Kate's son Walker.  Four beautifully dressed women sit at the corner table by the window chatting a la Desperate Housewives.

After having lunch in Strahinjica Bana and smoking a cigar in honor of my father, who loved all things Serbian because, more than me, he was Serbian (although, in this regard I might be getting some sort of education), I set out for a final stroll in the city before returning to the hotel.  The weather started to turn however, and my umbrella, a cheap one bought months before in Barcelona, was on its last spokes.  Republic Square wasn't easy to find coming from the direction of  Strahinjica Bana.  The streets are on a basic grid, but never exactly, and after asking for help with map in hand from a passerby, (because the street names were in another script) we found that I had overshot the Square.

Noteworthy was the unfailing helpfulness of people throughout my experience in Belgrade, from taxi drivers, waiters, or people on the street.  The city in general is crowded and bustling, so from a glance or a distance people seem self-absorbed and even unapproachable.  However, upon enlisting their attention, my experience was a genuine warmth and embrace of focus that reminded me of New York City dwellers.  I found underneath the mask of stoic resolve were shining eyes and beaming smiles.

A good example was my cab ride home that day.  The Friday afternoon traffic was thickening to periodic standstills.  Finding a taxi stand on a main street, I opened the door to a Mercedes sedan and said, "Hyatt hotel."  The driver nodded his comprehension and I jumped in.  The streets in the old city have peculiar twists and turns due to a certain one way street configuration, and after five minutes, we were still not on the bridge heading towards the hotel.  I gently asked the driver again, saying, "Hyatt hotel, yes?" Now, I say "gently I asked", because this man was (as men can get to be in this region) of large physical stature– at least NFL linebacker material if not bigger.  He glanced in the rearview mirror with a smile that broke his chiseled features into laugh lines about the eyes and in good english asked, "First time here in Belgrade?"  As I was heading out of the city for the last time on this visit, I started to gush, explaining I was performing that evening in the sports arena.  We spoke of the city, of the energy there, how foreign workers come for their work and end up buying a place there, of his twelve hour shifts driving a cab, that it is hard work, but busy and he has three children to raise, of the area on the river close to the arena that in summer houseboats line the banks that turn into clubs and restaurants teeming with nightlife. At the hotel when he wrote me a receipt for the drive, he gave me his name and number, telling me to give him a call when I return to Belgrade and he could show me around, for surely, I must return.

9.

Ticket sales were good.  Better than good.  Actually the venue was packed.  They could have squeezed some more in, but it was going to be a successful night, thanks to our production who made sure the stage was ready to our standards.  With the business mentality that still prevailed in this part of the world, corners were to be cut when possible. Our production team had to struggle with the local people in charge, but we acheived our goals eventually.   No cutting corners though when it came to security, a common employment for a workforce so recently involved with things military.  There were more metal detectors in the venue than in LAX, the airport in Los Angeles.  The old bureaucracies dig in their heels, and attempt as much in other peoples' pockets, in the face of new flows of revenue, like rock concerts.

On this tour, our venues have been of two types– when the audience stands with no chairs in front, and when there is seating provided on the ground level in front of the stage. And even when the audience sits, by the last song sequence of the show people will stand.  It is rock and roll after all.  The crowd of over ten thousand was sitting when the concert began, but within MOMENTS of the start of the music, the aisles filled with people standing from the stage to the rear of the venue.  By half way through, the whole place was standing.  I noticed from the stage in a general view of the crowd, that some songs, people would applaud after EVERY VERSE in the middle of the song!

There was no lack of audience response at any time, but one moment sticks out.  Take a listen:

This response was for them, not me.  For Srbija, for the feeling altogether of renewed hope and a rising out of great difficulty and hardship, to not only partake, but to contribute to a peaceful and prosperous future, for themselves and the generations to come.  As they move from a national identity that isolated and ostracized the country as a whole in recent decades back to the depth of humanity that was characterized by a warm hospitality, generosity and spiritual sensitivity, their struggle now is a unique version of what has become unfortunately a common script in the world today– the struggle between traditional values and contemporary responsibilities.

The surprise and even shock to my system was how I came away so deeply moved by finding these human roots for me and my family.  And as nationality like the body itself, could signal separation, isolation and "otherness", in light of the wholeness of humanity and the Unity of all life I have come to know, nationality (as too, the body itself) can be a Stance in the depth of connectedness, the inherent unity of life felt even on the level of the cells, that opens the heart, lightens the mind, and loosens the throat to sing.

"The living body inherently wants to Realize (or Be One With) the Matrix of life."  – Adi Da Samraj, p.57, "Transcendental Realism"

PS– Here's an email response from an audience member:

Hi Nick,

or shall I say - Zdravo, Nick. :-) I have absolutely no idea in what language should I write this message. I will stick to English for now.  ...I love Belgrade, the atmosphere, the people...

Anyway, I wanted to personally thank you for the magic and the joy I felt last night in Belgrade when watching you play. Your performance was breathtaking.

It enriched my soul. I shall cherish the memory of it for the rest of my life.

HVALA!

Blessings,

Photos by Norbert Fimpel