I am often blasted in the Catalan forums when I propose a dramatic downsizing of the government, free enterprise, reduction of the welfare benefits for those who are healthy, but simply do not want to work. I still think that the government should provide a cushion for the needy, senior citizens, children and sick people, but that's it.
But today I will not elaborate about my political views, I will do that step by step, today I want to talk to you about a missed opportunity.
When in December 2005 I was in my room at the MGM hotel in Vegas, I had a dream. I looked trough the window and I saw the flashing hotels superimposed to the desertic background. It reminded me of Los Monegros. I used to cross Los Monegros when I was a kid. We visited, from time to time, my mother's relatives who lived near Saragossa. I still remember crossing the Monegross when I was 4 or 5 in my father's olive green Seat 600. It was in August and the car was literally boiling. The temperature outside was 110 degrees and inside 120. My father stopped at the roadside, somewhere between Alfajarin and Bujaraloz. The Guardia Civil stopped shortly after. My father told them that we had a problem in the car, it was hot as hell. The police inspected the car and found the problem. I had activated the heating. There was a lever to activate the heating under the passenger seat. While playing in the rear seat, I had turned it on. In the 1960's kids did not wear safety belts, just played around without any restrictions.
I also remember that when the Americans made it to the Moon, my grandmother used to tell me that it was all a sham, that she heard that American military film crews based in Saragossa had been seen filming in the Monegros, months before the Americans landed in the Moon. I was a kid and I believed her.
I also remember that in my mother's village, they would call us catalanufos or something similar and they tried to hurt our feelings by saying that we spoke a dialect. They did not offend me (they would now), I thought they were village people and I was coming from the civilization. For a strange reason, my mother always talked to me in Catalan. Most probably because she thought that I would have more possibilities of success if I was bilingual. Almost everyone spoke only Spanish in the 1960s Hospitalet de Llobregat where I grew up.
From the MGM hotel I imagined that I was back in Los Monegros and I thought it would be a great idea to encourage Catalan businessmen (and women) to invest in Los Monegros to set up a Las-Vegas-like leisure complex. I also encouraged them to set up a bullfighting rink, since I was sure that bullfighting would be banned in Catalonia with the new Estatut. In March 2006, I published a post with my recommendations, it was called Las Vegas II.
Unfortunately, no one in Catalonia followed my advice. We could have made millions. It would been the ideal complement to Catalonia, like Vegas is to California. The reality is that a group of International investors has recently unveiled its plans to start a Las-Vegas-like leisure complex in Los Monegros, exactly as suggested by me. Since I proposed the idea two years ago in my blog and my blog was licensed under a Creative Commons Attibution, do you thing I have rights to some royalties? I will check with my lawyer.
