Fair of San Isidro Talavante reappears in the Antarctic of bravery
Cultu The extinct Madrid revives in a hidden gem of cinema
The law of the street The nights of endless revelry at Cape Canaveral on the La Coruña highway: flamenco tablao, rabbit dishes and scattering
Curro Vázquez, the legendary bullfighter from Madrid born in Linares who acts as attorney for
Cayetano
,
Pablo Aguado
and
Ginés Marín
, evokes the 1980s, the decade in which bullfighters still had a certain magnetism activated.
"I went with Chenel to Malasaña. We did it after playing fronton, in tracksuits.
We ate, we played fronton on a farm located in what is now T4 and we went out to the center"
, building the legend of urban bullfighters, the discovery of the bullfighting critic in
El País
, Jorge Laverón.
Laverón walked the streets of Madrid as if the city were the Gotham of bullfighting.
Chenel was the bullfighter to go to to breathe the gold of the time:
"La bohemia", recalls Laverón.
What is an urban bullfighter?
"I can't say exactly," concedes the journalist.
"There were a few bullfighters like Antoñete, who went very little to the countryside. They were made in the Casa de Campo, in the Retiro, in the Antonio Frutos farm in Barajas or in a fronton on the Andalusia road.
They were very urban places ".
To know more
Hotels with History (II).
Foxá 25, the favorite hotel of bullfighters in Madrid: "It was a talismanic hotel, it had magic"
Drafting: JUAN DIEGO MADUEÑOMadrid
Foxá 25, the favorite hotel of bullfighters in Madrid: "It was a talismanic hotel, it had magic"
Environment.
The Summeriana of Luis Miguel the Scrapper
Drafting: JUAN DIEGO MADUEÑO
The Summeriana of Luis Miguel the Scrapper
And leisure was spent on the terraces of the Castellana.
"When it became fashionable to go to the terraces, we went with Tano [Agustín Díaz Yanes],
who introduced us to many actors and directors and people from the cinema
. The artists approached us. He liked listening to us talk and especially listening to Chenel talk ", recalls Curro Vázquez.
The two raked the nights and days in that liberated Madrid.
"There was no complex. Almodóvar was amazed. One day he was in my room, in Talavera, seeing how he dressed me as a bullfighter
. "
When he started to fight, he reached out to the veterans.
Curro Vázquez would become famous as a good bullfighter in the Vistalegre bullring, in Carabanchel.
"The Girones played soccer in the Cerro de los Locos. There were also bullfighters like Luis Alfonso Garcés who fought in the hall in the Parque Sindical"
.
Between sports sessions, they played cards.
"To poker."
Timbas were also organized in the legendary Hotel Foxá.
"Chenel rented an apartment there.
We were going to spend the afternoons."
Curro Vázquez, in the center, with Agustín Díaz Yanes and Viggo Mortensen at Las VentasJulián Jaén
Madrid was divided by clans.
The dynasties controlled different areas, like the five mafia families in New York, and they had their office in the bars.
"In the Plaza de Santa Ana and the old ticket offices of the bullring you would find banderilleros, bullfighters and bullfighters divided by ranks.
Whoever came from town to close some posters would become drunk and with the fairs made when passing from bar to bar"
.
Marcial Lalanda used to go to La Campana.
Los
Dominguines
at the La Alemana brewery.
Welcome
to Galatea
.
And Casa Puebla was attended, among other bullfighters, by the immortal Paco
Camino
.
"The most famous bullfighting bars were also by Embajadores.
Félix Colomo was the owner of Las Cuevas de Luis Candela.
He gave me a set of swords."
-Did you go to the gym?
-The gym seemed unpleasant to us.
You were locked up and there were a lot of beautiful women.
For us, what suited us was walking and talking about bulls with the older ones.
tanned and class
For Laverón, the Madrid bullfighter has
"another way of behaving, another way of walking"
.
The bullfighter
Uceda Leal
is a banner of these intangibles.
"Generally, we bullfighters in Madrid are class bullfighters," he reflects.
Also a bit cute.
"Looking at each other in the shop windows on Calle Serrano gives us a lot of bravado.
To that we must add the acid culture medium of the province. We are seasoned. From Despeñaperros downwards, the bullfighter is more cared for, there is another sensitivity".
It is recognized in the concept of urban bullfighter.
"The city has influenced me in everything: even in my way of dressing. Our bullfighting is different.
I have done it in the Casa de Campo and in the Plaza de Santa Ana"
.
Uceda Leal flirted with the bohemian section of the profession.
Bullfighters are ascetics hooked on the early mornings.
"We went out with the flamencos to the tablao La Soleá, next to the Lucia restaurant, by the Cava Baja. That's the bad thing about Madrid. The bullfighter must live by day. Other artists do it at night.
When the bullfighter gets confused, and in Madrid it's easy to get lost, the drops come. Although it is necessary for the artist to be nurtured.
For that, the best place is Madrid".
"More asphalt than the heck"
José Miguel Arroyo
aka
Joselito ended up going to the countryside, leaving the "poblachón from La Mancha" (
Cela
) to end up on a farm near Trujillo.
"It was more asphalt than hell," he says.
"Of course he was an urban bullfighter."
The years he lived in Guindalera could have solved part of the
Barrio
script .
"In Madrid there is something... You get intoxicated with greatness. Besides, we were proud to be from the neighborhood."
The hole opened by a small square in the middle of Cartagena street "was like a small homeland."
"On one side of the street and the other we hated each other. You see, that 15 meters separated us.
It was silly but we were proud to be on our side.
We lived closer to the Avenida de los Toreros and we were poorer. They, richest." He lists the names of the friends who formed the guerrilla on that side: "Jose el Moreno, who was me, Jose el Rubio, son of a Lola Flores guitarist, Jose el Risas, son of the mechanic, el Ángel, Albert.
We fought with everything Christ to defend our small square
". Joselito found his vocation on his birthday. " I have always said that I have had the soul of an artist.
I was lucky that my father took me to the bulls."
Wanting to be a bullfighter discovered the unknown rural Madrid.
"In the Casa de Campo I began to train" and to disconnect from the rowdy gangs that swarmed around Guindalera.
Joselito went to live with his new brothers and his new family without losing the type of life-forgiving.
If the chulería were a homeland, the bills would bear his face.
"It's just that we were very macarrillas. We played golf, kid's tricks like breaking street light bulbs with the slingshot.
Damn grace, right?"
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