Kepa Junkera

Published by DEIA, Nov. 17, 2011

Rightly or wrongly we all try to stretch the most of our youth. Health, energy and, above all, the illusion that surrounds us are the hallmarks of it. Not many years ago a 60 year-old person was considered old and was beginning to cease certain daily activities. Today, I guess it could be because of our way of living but also for other reasons, the elderly have to face an abrupt cessation of activity. And as it is, reading a very surprising article I found about a mountaineer.

Carlos Soria was born in Avila in 1939, which lived through the war, and since then he has never stopped dreaming of the mountains, one of his great passions in life. This upholsterer worker, always linked to mountaineering, ascended his first eight thousand at 51 and since then has carried out a series of expeditions until this spring, and with his 72 years, has been able to crown the Lohtse. Next March he wants to try the Kanchenjunga, Annapurna and then finally closing the Dhaulagiri mountains.

Anyone who reads this article would think Carlos is a lucky man, and yes it is true, it is. But also we must make a second reading of history, Carlos’s knees hurt, his back bothers much, and until he retired he couldn’t live intensity his passion.

To carry out his Everest expedition he had to borrow money from the bank, demonstrating a strong personal involvement in what he wanted. A friend of mine says “do not look at my achievements, let’s analyze my efforts.” We usually always stay with the outcome of things without realizing what the person betted and lost on the way. Every dream, every achievement carries a price we have to pay and are the ones who decide to go ahead with it or not. Moreover, in the case of Carlos, this is all possible by keeping your mind young, as I have always said, it is there, where things are born, die and coexist all that we can do or not.

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Published by DEIA, Nov. 10, 2011

Hamburg is a beautiful city. No one would imagine at first glance the state it was after the Second World War; we can still see traces of that period remembering the moments of total barbarism that are experienced in the course of any war. But these people were not content in accept the suffering and the devastation but worked hard to achieve what it is today, a city with fascinating cultural attractions.

On Tuesday, November 8th, we played in a room called Fabrik, which is a magical place. This building, now transformed into a concert hall has hosted bands such as Nirvana, Steel, Radiohead … The funny thing about this place is that at the time of the First World War it was a munitions factory  and now has established itself as one of the best live music venues in Hamburg. When I go on stage in places like this, my imagination goes beyond trying to figure out the life it had in that old factory or what would had exactly at same place where I’m playing, dim lighting with a pilot light blue. Often when people talk about protecting and restoring our heritage, whether it is in the form of wonderful places, art, traditions, etc.., I think that it ignores this type of legacy, perhaps not as nice or valuable, that industrialization has left us in the form of factories, flags, etc… Although usually underestimates the importance of industrial heritage, I think that it is part of our way of life, a way to evolve within an established order, and no doubt the result of the efforts and the dedication of the people.

Ending the concert… a unstop ringing in my imagination of the metallic percussion of the machines, workers’ voices … and all of that accompanied our music to accompany, now more than ever, sounds like a definite future in the past, that is, in the present.

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Published by DEIA, Nov. 3, 2011

How many of us listen to music, read poems, watch movies, etc… and see ourselves reflected in those stories and adventures in which are narrated in them? In many concerts people have told me what a song of mine has made them feel or personal experiences to relive again with my music.

The other day, listening to some vinyl that I have around, I went back to enjoy one of the iconic songs in rock history, Layla, Eric Clapton. The story of a man who falls in love with a woman who loves him in her heart but can not reciprocate. I remember when I discovered this song that I always thought that I would be dedicated to any friendly Layla of Eric, but at the end I discovered that he talked about Pattie Boyd, George Harrison´s wife at the moment, the ex-guitarist of the Beatles. Eric, one of the greatest guitarists of all time, felt a great attraction to the wife of whom was also his friend George. The Londoner was not oblivious to the stares and attention of the guitarist and between them they started to reach a special type of complicity.  In Pattie’s own words, Clapton was not easy to express his feelings if it was not by stanzas or verses, and in one of those occasions when they were meeting, the musician presented this song, which is a kind of rhythmic declaration love for her. After a difficult period of encounters and disagreements, they separate taking different roads and that’s when Eric takes refuge in drugs and alcohol. But this story has a happy ending, because Clapton eventually managed to conquer Pattie´s heart and married in 1979, fulfilling a dream long cherished by the nickname of God. I ‘m a big fan of Eric Clapton, his way of caressing the notes, to become one with his guitar. But how much suffering there is to experiment to unite in marriage the talent and the desire of oneself? What strange reason lies in that people empathize more with a theme that expresses the intimacy of its author? I hope to explain in my next album.

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Published by DEIA, Oct. 27, 2011

Some times am thinking on how controlled that we all are. I remember some science-fictional movies in which in the nape of the neck of the human beings a chip is inserted in the minute they are born in order to have them controlled.

The thing is true that today it is not so exaggerated but definitely I stop to think: We’re born and they catalog our blood type, we are registered in the Department of Certification of Birth, we are obligated to provide evidence of our identity by means of an ID card, and from there on a constant control on behalf of the society across-the-board, and even they can locate us geographically by the GPS on our cell phone. But at the same way that I feel controlled personally, I discover that as to a cure of diseases, something in which I really indeed think it would be usefully  taken a census of,  goes and not only that we are not, but besides who wants it has to take his own initiative .

Janire is a Biscayan of 31 years that’s been fighting a 4 year disease so-called Bone Marrow Aplasia  consisting in the disappearance of the bone marrow cells, spongy mass that is within the bones where the blood is generated, producing red, white blood cells and platelets.  Due to the lack of them Janire he gets tired easily, she has palpitations, dizziness, headaches, hemorrhages and a great risk to a lot of infections of which some are mortal. All these symptoms condition her life and the only way out to this disease is finding a compatible donor, in which is very complicated because… Who of us know something about their bone marrow?  How is it that we do not have an extensive record of our DNA and of any necessary information taken from our birth to try to heal suchlike diseases?

Only the man can cure man and only the generosity of some, or would even say to the civism, can offer hopes of a new life that needs it. These lines are to encourage all of us to get ourselves up to take an insignificant test and see if we can or cannot be a donator, of Janire or of anybody else.

Good Luck Janire!

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Published by DEIA, Oct. 20, 2011

As always, and in the most normal way, the most incredible discoveries take place. A fan of botany took a bicycle ride by the proximities of the mountain “Cabezos del Pericón” belonging to the town Tallante in the providence of Murcia. While he enjoyed the day he noticed of a very weird and unknown plant, the Astragalus nitidiflorus or Tallante’s Garbancillo, is a species of legume in the Fabaceae family considered in critical danger of disappearance, since the only place known all over the world is located in Tallante.

All this took place in the year 2003, when it was believed that this plant had been already extinct for almost 100 years ago, and ever since the scientists have been accomplishing uncountable studies in order to protect the project of recovering this species.

Each living being has created there own strategy to face its survival. In general there are two types: Or you play in the edict of the generalist or in the ones of the specialists. If you belong to the first ones you are more adaptable and eclectic, at the same time of feeding yourself as in locating a place to live, etc…  If on the contrary you belong with the seconds, you are much more demanding regarding nutrition and to the habitat. Equilibrium underlies everything, in its absence all that is generated hinders and destroys the surroundings.

Constantly in the land the equilibriums and unbalances have followed and in a epoch with hegemony of the first is close behind with control of the second.

The ways of life that have bear stoically of the previous periods indicated before are the ones that reach a maximum level of development, taking sometimes advantage of, as in the case the human being, almost conquering and molding a whole system upon its way of life returning to break off that hoped-for equilibrium.

The more species that disappear more difficult it will be for the ecosystem to work correctly, because each and everyone of them are basic in order that life works as we know. So it is basic to protect the maximum of the biodiversity as a whole and not as I con-join of isolated species.

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Published by DEIA, Oct. 13, 2011

There is a much extended movement because of the professional prestige’s activities we often use a very farfetched and difficult vocabulary that entangles and obscure our understanding of it. Often it is thought that the people, the less they know about our profession it seems to be more difficult to learn, to carry it out and therefore gives me a false prestige in a social level. I have never understood it but it is of course, its happening and happens if we look for some example of it, the computer technology is the most characteristic of them. Last week Steve Jobs perished, one of the company founders of Apple and the thinking head, or better yet the imaginative, of the entity. A lot one has been talked of his person and of his disease but I would highlight his capacity of knowing by intuition which way without any doubts where things had to go. Steve Jobs not only did he not get carried away from what the whole world went; instead he opened a different way to a new way of understanding of the new technologies. He abandoned the university just in the beginning and he moved on more by this talent and innate imagination of what he assimilated of the others. He revolutionized the world, not only of computer technology, but also the cell phone and the way to listening music, always from the point of view of elaborating elements that made it easy to approach. The iPhone, iPad or even the iMac have marked a before and after in their respective markets and are the true reflections of what somebody as Jobs wanted to achieve. Disciplined, brave, perfectionist, demanding and most of all one advanced in due time, is how I would define this genius of the imagination more than of computer technology. They say that a hardworking resourceful life is far better than a long life and the truth is that, although it is difficult to assimilate that at any time it can end, it is so. To finish I will use a phrase of his that demonstrates the marvelous essence of this man.

“The design is not only what you see or what you feel. The design is how it works”.

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Published by DEIA, Oct. 6, 2011

I remember my friend’s parents all thrilled explaining me the difficulties that they had to go through just in order to get to school.  They had to pass a river by boat, climb some stairs and from there, walk a few kilometers to get to school. This was in the 1940´s in Orio, Gipuzkoa.

I, while they were telling me their story, was thinking that road they had to make, in which little time was there for them to be in school…,, certainly made a difference, the desire of those young people in wanting to learn, very different from ours, that what we wanted was to escape in the obligation of attending class if it was possible.

Something similar to that, but in a much more exaggerated way, are the children who have to struggle, the protagonist of this article.  Around 30 children are obligated to cross swimming the river twice a day in the province of Quang Binh, Vietnam, in order to go to school.

The reason is that authorities do not count on enough budgets to construct a bridge that joins both sides and the children they have to cross a river that, depending on the weather, they can have more than three in-depth meters, in addition to an impressive current.

Children, from around 6 to 12 years old, arrive at the side, they get undressed, put their clothing into plastic bags and they jump into the water, not to swim which is impossible, but to let themselves get carried away by the enormous current using the plastic clothing bag as floater, with the hope of crossing the 20 meters that separates them from the other side as soon as possible. Just to let you see how strong that current is that the people from there tried last year to cross the river by boat, but they failed because it ended up getting carried away by the current.

Certainly, it is maddening to see the children in front of the other side of the river, draw the clothing from the bags and to return to get dressed knowing full well that hours later they will have to make the same trip but the other way around.

Why do these children that have to surpass such big difficulties to attend school, do they see anything fascinating in it and, on the other hand, do we associate it to the effort, to work, to obligation?  Will it be that always more that the one who wants to the one who can?

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Published by DEIA, Sept. 29, 2011

EVERY TIME that something new happens, bringing to us a new discovering, normally it is to contradict a previous one, in that dictated the laws of physics, chemistry, philosophy, psychology, etc. Through our history thousands of examples follow in which, with a new finding, is thrown away what was thought to be before true.  What proves to be odd is that today, after having experimented what has been mentioned before, in infinity of occasions we continue giving for certain what we know and we continue being surprised of what we discover as if it was the very first time that this has happen to us.

This last week all the media voiced a piece of news that surprised the world but again it is to be another case among many. An experiment carried out by CERN affirms that they have been able to detect tiny particles of matter, calls neutrinos, travelling superior to the velocity of light. The dimensions have not been able to been precise because, perhaps, our technology is not yet at all fully-developed but, if this is true, the truth is that this clue that has come from this experiment can be a new view point toward understanding a totally different universe in which today reigns, opening in front of our eyes a fascinating panorama.

Nothing can evolve on an unmovable base. I do not know why we always have the obsession of thinking that we know everything and that our knowledge is perfect and unalterable. What’s indisputable should make us feel prisoners of our own laws but on the other hand it makes us feel secure and wise. How curious in the equilibrium we always find the two extremes of a same nature in equal shares.  Or isn’t it true that the wise man that knows is the one that knows nothing?

In this world everything is relative, Einstein already said it, and even after listening to him we continued to be stubbornly determined in which we know it all and we dominated everything, when in reality, every time that we have discovered something and we have taken a step forward, the same always has proceeded a process of doubt, because to doubt is to exist.

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Published by DEIA, Sept. 22, 2011

Looking back I see some little boys with pans on their heads, and a lid on their backs, some sticks in their hands and the overflowing imagination. Some defend a small hill, others were attacking it and then the shouts, the wooden blows against wood and even one pan hits against another, which aroused the burning sensation of those created illusions for avid warriors to emulate big medieval exploits.

In most of the occasions we, the adults do not take the children’s games seriously but a little while ago I discovered an activity that, after careful consideration, is not more than a prolongation of our infantile adventures but taken more to its extreme. It is a festivity, so-called Rusborg that celebrates towards the middle of summer, in which all those fans participate in the historic reconstruction of the IXth to the XI century.  All-comers split into two parties, one of them defends a little small fort while the other one has to attack it and, of course, trying to conquer it. The flamboyance of this festivity is than everything, and when I say everything, it is everything, what is used in this sort of complex game itself is constructed and manufactured with the same materials and the same way that in days gone they were made by: dresses, swords, arrows, shields, food, beds, stores etc., they are manufactured as in the Russian Middle Ages. On the other hand, in addition to the battles, in those encounters the craftsmen and all the Russian’s musicians participate and the people live, breathes and tries to experience the sensations that their forefathers had 11 centuries ago. “Here you can feel the past, touch it and even taste it”, says Yakov Vnukov, one of the organizers of the event.

I believe that the sensations that the people live there have to be fascinating because there is an inside tendency in every human being to admire the people before them had to face life and their destiny. And talking about destinies, today that we travel so much physically, for us to rest our mind, flying around 1000 years ago wouldn’t it be a way to achieve the same thing? Certainly, there is no scare of trajectory.

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Published by DEIA, Sept. 15, 2011

All the results from the people’s group activity that concentrate in a determined place call our attention. To me markets, the turmoil of the stores, the bargaining or the people’s conversations in the different stands produce a sensation of life for me, of well-being that I have even tried to materialize in my last album “Ultramarinos & Coloniales”.  At the end they are so many stories, so many memories, which everything is engraved deep inside of us.

In the world there are many markets and it is difficult for me to just highlight ones from others because each one has his own charm, but the other day I saw a peculiar one, I’m not sure in saying it is fascinating or just crazy.  It is about The Death Market, situated in a small town of Samut Songkhram, around 100km from Bangkok, Thailand. It is an open market (flee market) in which, when you discover its secret, you cannot believe it.  It is in the middle of a railroad! Several times a day the train goes right through the middle of this unique bazaar obliging the salespeople to move their stands just in time so the train can pass, then replacing the stock again in its place to sale as if nothing has happen. Everything happens in a normal way, without a lot of hassle, because the salespeople of The Death Market have an incredible ability to set and remove their stands, so when the train comes close they have to clear the track for the monster that every day makes his way literally over all their products.

The capacity that we have from adaptation in our environment is incredible and how when we value something we make good use of it, to its maximum. And it is a pity that when something is abundant or easy to achieve it loses all our interest and even we throw it away. In this case the space is a scarce good and I ask myself:  What wouldn’t these people do in one of those giant-sized shopping centers that we visit continuously and that have corridors and stores with so ample spaces?

The man’s imagination is able to derive benefit from what almost does not exist and I say almost because all that is imagined already has one way or another its existence.

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