efateí interview
Vietnam War was very bad, Nixon was completely in control, the
newspaper had a very conservative edge and I just couldn’t take it
anymore so I just went back to university, this time to the huge state
University of South Carolina. (USC).
I wanted to study Media but the USC Media Arts department had
not been accredited yet, so you couldn’t earn a Master in Media Art,
you had to be affiliated with the Education department. And, once
again, here I am, by no great Life Plan not only getting a M. ED.
(Master in Education) degree, but also getting a Masters in Media.
The subtitle of the degree is “teaching as a performing art,” you
know, to marry education and media.
Subsequently, I got a job at SCETV (South Carolina Educational
Television) which was a series of television stations all over SC
with connections in the public schools as well as broadcasting to the
general public. Even when I was working post production video,
I was still working in education. In a nutshell: I have taken those
“peculiar travel suggestions” all my life and don’t regret it.
Serendipity, or however you want to put it, ended up with
me coming here, and it was one of the best professional/personal
decisions in my life, so far.
Did they say “Spain” and you just . . . ?
It’s very hard for an American to get a job in Europe so I would
have taken any job anywhere just to come back to live in Europe.
When I was 11 years old, my father was a Lt. Colonel in the US
Army and we lived in Germany and I fell in love with Europe and
from that age until 40 years old it was always my wish there was a
way I could go back to live and work in Europe. It was a matter of
qualifying for a job, getting a chance and then going for it.
So, there was really no hesitation on my part: when the job was
offered, I took it!
After I had been here three months, I had a friend who lived in
Tossa de Mar and I was there for Christmas, it was one of those
winters that aren’t really cold, and I was sitting on the beach, looking
at the ancient castle, the sunset and everything, and I wrote a letter
then to the coordinators in USC, mostly saying, “oh, can I please stay
another year?” I just knew I had come to the right place for me.
Which were the things that impressed you the most?
Mostly everything, because then there was no English anywhere
and even in public areas, the Spanish was mixed with Catalan.
I’d say probably, the first thing and still one of the most important
things, are the people, absolutely, the kindness and generosity of the
people I have met and I know here and just what I see in day to day
on the street.
I joke about it, but I felt pretty much like a “political refugee,”
because in 1987 the US was still trapped in the Yuppies and
egocentricity of the Reagan presidency. From my Furman days
onwards I had always thought Socialism was a good solution to
governmental problems I still do), and that has never, even now, been
acceptable in the States, although Obama has probably changed a lot
a minds about the viability of a more socialized system of government
in the US.
When arrived, I was delighted to find that it was just the expected
norm of government. Nobody died because they couldn’t pay for
health care, for example. Yes, of course the health care system we
have here is far from perfect, but it was an enormous difference from
the situation in the States, both then and now.
Also, I have to comment on the sense of humor, the generosity
and the kindness that I encountered both then and now, every day. It’s
a cliché, but especially back in the late 80’s in the States you “live to
work” and here, thank God, most people “work to live. “
What has teaching at the UAB meant for you?
There’s an expression called the “late bloomers”. This means
people who come into their real vocation later in life. I never really
had any plans to be a teacher, I just took all these things so I could
have a car, so I could get the media degree, and the television I

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worked at was also educational television but I never really had any
goal to be an academic per se. A late bloomer is like the flowers that
don’t come out until the very end of the season, and at 40 years old,
I am definitely a late bloomer.
The ‘peculiar travel suggestions’ were absolutely dancing lessons
from God, because once I got on my feet and saw how we were
teaching and what we were teaching... well, as I say, after three
months here I wanted to stay. And after two years I had to submit
to a concurso and got a place. All through dumb luck more than
anything.
There are few places where I am happier than when I’m in front
of a FTI class and it’s all ticking over like clockwork. That is for me a
fabulous feeling. I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing
at life, and that’s a very lucky thing. Some people might go through
their whole lives and never find it.
I’ve worked in private academies, I’ve given private classes,
I even taught for two years in a children’s camp, (“never again”),
just whatever I could find. I worked for Coca-Cola during the
Olympics, and also I’ve taught at several of the more exclusive
private universities. But my heart was always here in FTI, because
I feel very, very strongly that this Faculty has a special reason for
being. Communication is the answer and I’m always impressed by
the students here because there are so many gifted students that who
come here because they want to be able to communicate with a wider
world and understand how the world works. They make it an absolute
joy to teach.
And the only advice I would give to you students would be “just
keep looking for the right job, the right place for you to be.” I realize,
of course, that now, in this terrible economy, you have to do whatever
it takes to earn your money, obviously, but it doesn’t mean you have
to do ‘whatever’ to make money your whole life. Because it’s just
such a sure thing: if you enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll do it well.
And if you’re lucky and you do it well, you’ll get rewarded, be it
spiritually, or, hopefully financially, or at least you’ll know you are
doing what is best for you to do.
Do you plan on retiring to the U.S.?
I am retiring to the States. But it’s a very strange feeling! The best
I can compare it to is your last year in high school, or your last year
in University. You’re enjoying it, you might be good at what you’re
doing and it’s going well, but you know the end is coming. And as I
get older, I find I don’t have the energy I used to have I mean, that’s
just how it goes.
And I know that I’m going to miss this place terribly but I really
don’t think I can do it much longer and keep the level that I myself
expect my teaching to have.
The reason I am going back to the States... there’s lots of reasons.
When you get older, you need to be near your family. My family and
group of US friends are getting older. I have been through several
tragedies and mirror tragedies on the part of my family and friends
in recent years that have really torn me apart, especially since I had
nobody to share it with. People can be sympathetic, but if people here
don’t know the person who died or the person who is having serious
surgery, they’ll never have the same sympathy as someone who feels
about them the same as you. I’d rather be closer than thousands of
miles, with a six or seven hour time difference.
But finally, I miss my beach, my mystical, crazy Folly Beach,
SC. But this doesn’t mean I’m turning my back on this place at all:
there’s Skype, there’s the Internet, and there’s also airplanes I think
that there’ll be many times coming back here, and hopefully people
coming to visit me, as long as my health stays good, and thank God
it has been.
I’m going to be as much of a “stranger in a strange land” now in
the US as I was when I came here to Spain. For 25 years now, this has
been my home country. So going back is pretty exciting, it really is,
because everything is new. Just like Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the
Rings, I believe I am very ready for yet another adventure.