Jair Domínguez: "I'm bothered by the Corporation's lack of courage; we're in a very Spanish frame of mind."

BarcelonaHis parents didn't want ordinary names for their children, so he chose Jair, who knows if inspired by Jairzinho, the right winger of the Brazilian national team in the 60s and 70s. These days it's in the news because the program The bunker, which he co-hosts with Peyu and Neus Rossell, is coming to an end despite strong ratings. But Jair Domínguez confesses that he gets tired of some things quickly. We spoke with him about fatigue, court cases, his latest book, and the supernatural powers his youngest son possessed.

You're a regular at the courts. How are you doing?

— It's incredibly lazy, so I'm glad I don't frequent them much these days. I do have a trial to attend, on April 14th of next year, which is the last open case I have.

It's Vox's: they're asking for two years in prison for saying that fascism is fought with punches. What will you base your defense on?

— My dear lawyer, Jaume, says it's a matter of reducing everything to the maximum ridiculousness. He says we might have to end up going to the European Court of Human Rights, because they have a never-ending machine, and their goal is to make both my lawyer and me waste time, money, and effort on this nonsense. What they're after is exhaustion, to keep you under control and scared.

Maybe the procession is going on inside, but don't plan to be scared.

— No, no, it doesn't scare me anymore. I'm scared of many things, but not this one. It's simply wasting your time like crazy and making you come down to Barcelona or Madrid. Both my lawyer and I take it philosophically and with a laugh, but in the end it's absolutely insane. Going to court is like going on holiday abroad, because they always speak to you in Spanish, and it's that somewhat hoarse thing. You always have to tell the judge the same thing: that I didn't intend to incite violence, that it makes them very nervous, and that it was all... animus yocandi. With theanimus yocandi You're absolutely spared from everything in that country. Except when Vox governs, when all we can do is ask if we can choose our path.

There's a song lyric: "Your Honor, condemn this child / who doesn't see that he only wants us badly / condemn him now or you'll regret it." Do you remember how it ends? You sang it a thousand years ago with your group Caridad Humana.

— Gosh, I don't remember!

"This madman is a national danger." You sang that song long before you had all these problems.

— I'd already had a few, but it's true that I was interested in the whole issue of the Prosecutor's Office and how it acted, sort of like a fool, as I've always felt.

There is a before and after in your public projection as a result of the program Illustrated bestiary, when you shot a toy shotgun at portraits of King Juan Carlos, Fèlix Millet, and Salvador Sostres. This landed you straight on the cover ofThe WorldHow do you remember that episode?

— It didn't affect me at work or in my family, which are the pillars of any person's life. But it did affect colleagues like Bibiana Ballbè and Mai Balaguer, who were in charge of the program, because they suddenly got rid of him. Man, my father got scared when he saw me on the cover ofThe World, and not exactly for having won the Nobel Prize for Literature. That commotion opened my eyes quite a bit.

In what sense?

— I felt completely abandoned by the Catalan institution, if such a thing exists. Suddenly, I saw how our politicians made a huge comedown in the face of pressure from Spain. It's not that I didn't know; I'm not an idiot, but seeing how they suddenly come out to demand your head... You think, "Let's make a real mess of it."

Can that wrinkle be seen today as a premonition of what would happen with the Process?

— Yes, yes, absolutely. It's a Catalan way of being, an institutional one, which is how it is and continues to be: the lowering of one's pants, the being very afraid of what Spain might say. We don't know how to stand up to them. We don't know how to be strong, nor do we have the intention of being so, which seems quite ridiculous to me.

If it were to be done again Illustrated bestiary, they'll invite you back and they'll plant a toy shotgun in front of you again... Who would you target, thirteen years later?

— I took on people who I felt had squeezed the country and made it go in places I didn't like at all. Who would I screw up today? The current king, for example. This one always, by default. So, who are Millet's heirs? It's very complicated to say. But I would screw Abascal, for sure. And as a Catalan, Ramon Espadaler, because he symbolizes everything I hate about Catalonia.

Returning to the Vox complaint, you mentioned punching people in the mouth. Wasn't that message a call to violence?

— Not directly, which is what I'll have to tell the judge. But violence is a tool that we humans have had since we were born. And, damn it, against a section of the far right that uses force against us, how foolish it would be not to be able to return with the same force. Why should we be different? Why should we be good and turn the other cheek? If we have to throw stones, it's because they've left us no other option, and there comes a time when people express their helplessness as best they can. If we can't say that we must fight Nazism with our fists, if necessary, then we're very trapped.

The bunker Catalunya Ràdio's show ends this June, and they say it's a bittersweet ending. You and Peyu have stopped understanding each other.

— Oh, no, that's not true. We understand each other so well that we've already said everything. And we already had that feeling when we broke up. Bricoheroes. We've told and repeated all the anecdotes we have a thousand times. I love the idea of letting go before anyone says it's an outdated format. I get tired of some things very quickly and feel like The bunker we left it at a fantastic moment.

You complained about the time change, from nights to midday.

— There are many things that haven't gone well, yes. I argued with the director of the house about the time change, and I told him it didn't make sense, and that I didn't want to do it because I was convinced it would lead to self-censorship, that they would return the parliamentary questions asking why we say "fuck Spain" at 1:00 p.m. And I don't feel like going through that. I already have a hard time doing other things at the Corpo, precisely because of that. The bunker It was born to be a nighttime show, and, well, it's not a program that arouses much sympathy among certain sectors. I don't want to be in a place where I'm not given the 100% support I should have, considering it has a good audience and has won awards.

Do you have any radio projects in progress?

— No, I want to take a break from radio. For me, radio was about doing The bunker And if not, I wouldn't have done more. I've had a fantastic time, and that's precisely why I don't want to replace him for anything. It'll be great for us if we each follow our own path. Peyu and I don't have anything halfway done, and we both have different attitudes. I'm more on my own, and he has a production company that he needs to maintain and keep creating.

The bunker It's also where you met your current partner, Neus Rossell. Who made your first approach?

— I don't remember!

Hmmm... Who would have thought it was Nieves who made the first guess? Because, if you're doubting it, it was probably Nieves.

— We knew each other a lot because in The bunker We always chatted about each other. We started out as close friends who'd known each other our whole lives. And this rarely happens, because normally you feel a physical or intellectual attraction, but in this case, we started out as friends.

We've seen you two share a lot of moments together on social media, but you're also a father, from a previous relationship, and you don't share this aspect at all.

— Yes, I have two children: one 12 and one 15. I'm quite discreet in that aspect of my personal life.

I'm curious to know how you see yourself, as a father.

— I do what I can! I try to talk to them a lot, because I'm pretty good at dialectics and, above all, because they're six feet tall and, therefore, could destroy me at any moment. They don't yet know they can kill me, and that's why I try to stay in shape. But as I've talked, I've gotten them to tell me their things and want to talk to me, and I really like that. And that's it, I do the typical things all parents do: don't do drugs, don't smoke, don't hang out on the balcony...

You've explained that you gave up alcohol and other substances. I don't know if it was so you could lecture the children with a minimum of authority...

— It's been a year and eight months since I quit, and I remember them being kids who knew I drank. I'd come home and they'd say, "Don't you want a beer?" And that phrase was devastating and terrible. Now there's no alcohol in the house. We drink water and everything's fine. You know what's happening? Because of TikTok and Instagram and all this, there's an exaggerated cult of the body, and so, for them, healthy living is like a totem.

Has quitting alcohol and drugs affected your creativity?

— Yes, because I'm much better now.

Therefore, you also debunk the myth of the genius of the tortured artist.

— I've written under the influence of many things in the wee hours of the morning, and it wasn't as good as what I do now, when I write in the morning, calmly, after breakfast. I read things I wrote back then and think, "How did you get here?"

The book's jacket says, "He has made his living writing for film, radio, and television, and doing things he's not so proud of." Which ones?

— We've all had scary jobs. I used to come and play garden gnomes in Empuriabrava or dress up as a water park mascot, but I ended up fighting with some kids. I also made wedding videos, which paid very well because it was all under the table. And when I wasn't playing a duck at the water park, I was playing... flyers on car windshields. It was horrible, in that infernal heat, but it made me think, "Wow, you have to do something other than that. See if you can write in front of a computer with the air conditioning on." And look, I finally managed it.

But I guess books are a tiny percentage of your total income.

— Yes, it's anecdotal. I work in well-paid jobs in television and radio. Making a living from writing in Catalan is impossible: two or three people can do it, and congratulations to them. For me, being a writer is a way of being and living. I've written all my life and will continue to do so all my life.

Bru, the protagonist of your latest book, The cypressesHe sees the future, but this ends up being his doom. To what extent do you project yourself into this character?

— Bru and I have practically nothing in common, but perhaps we both view the world's misfortunes with a certain detachment. He sees that there's going to be a tsunami and doesn't give it any importance, while the rest of the world sees it as something horrifying. Life and death are things that concern me relatively. In fact, Bru is more related to my youngest son, because he has the power to see the future, which is something I really like. And he has the power to see the present. My youngest son, when he was very young, was quite connected to all this and could see the future, like many other children, by the way. He had imaginary friends and would say things like "this boy will hurt himself" or "Mom will fall down the stairs," and these things happened.

I think you're saying all this to me quite normally.

— He was born with a heart condition, and they had to operate on him right after he was born for a very complicated heart problem, so I guess at some point he was in the dark and saw the light. He was in touch with someone, and as a child, he was always extremely connected to this whole world. I was quite scared of the things he predicted, until I learned to live with them normally. Over time, he's lost that fear, which, incidentally, reassures me a lot. Little children are magical, and I wanted one of those magical children as the protagonist of the book. In the first part of the book, the protagonist is a very handsome, charming child, and when he becomes an adult, he's a complete disaster as a person, and then I would identify with him a little more.

Do you have religious beliefs?

— I have beliefs. I mean, I believe in an all-powerful God, but he doesn't take the form of a lord in a robe and white beard. Rather, he's a very powerful creative force, capable of creating universes and life, and also of destroying everything, which gives me a sense of well-being. I'm very interested in Buddhism, I'm interested in reincarnation... I'm interested in all religions and what they propose. I'm not religious, because I never go to mass and I'm not even baptized, but I'm very much in favor of studying religions in school. After all, we live in a world controlled by religions, wars come from religions, and the one with the most viewers in the last year has been the white smoke of the new pope. It's been around for 2,000 years and hasn't lost viewers, it hasn't lost share!

The day after death, then...?

— With a bit of luck, we'll be reincarnated in other things, because I think it's absurd that all the learning on the planet and everything we're doing doesn't resonate beyond. People who don't believe in anything, who think we're born and die and then there's an infinite darkness... This causes me a lot of anxiety, and I don't want to live with that anxiety.

What mark would you like to leave?

— I suppose books. I consider it a very solid, very powerful element. Leaving a book is much more than leaving a program. When doing radio, I've always had the feeling that, when it's over, it's all air lost. Maybe now with the podcast it's changed a bit, but I remember leaving after doing The second hour to RAC1 and think, "Yeah, I had a great time, but what's left?" There's something very powerful about writing, like you're engraving something in stone.

And when someone from the future examines your stones, what would you like them to say about you?

— Ah, I couldn't care less, but I would like them to read something, or feel something I've done, and for it to do them good: to have made them laugh, have a good time, or simply think. Normally, the things readers tell you are the best in the world, because they're spectacular brain teases, much better than what you'd written.

Your previous book, Allegro con fiocoIt seemed like revenge against the audiovisual world. What do you hold against it?

— I don't want revenge for anything, much less for the thing that has fed me and allowed me to pay the mortgage these past few years, but so many things bother me about...

How now?

— I'm bothered by the lack of courage to embrace new talent, or by the fear of not wanting to do things for the country. We have a very Spanish mentality. This affects not only the Corporation, but the entire country: we do things thinking about whether they'll be liked in Spain.

Is it a question of money?

— It's a question of a lack of desire and courage, above all. There's no one in there right now who wants to make brave decisions. They make them out of fear; no one wants to be responsible for a mistake or for having given voice to some crazy person.

Let's see if that speech will now leave you without the television program that brings in the bulk of your income.

— Look, it can happen at any moment. I work in a place where we're aware that a political change can mean having to leave. I can't say I feel controlled, because I say more or less whatever I want, both on Catalunya Ràdio and on TV3, without censorship. But I don't like having to put up with people telling you things like, "We're all paying for this, why is this bastard signing?" There are days when I'm a pro-Cuba party, sometimes I'm a Junts supporter, sometimes I'm a pro-independence party, sometimes I'm too Spanish... Or sometimes I'm a Zionist and other times I'm too pro-Palestinian... Well, people say what they want.

When Albert Om interviewed you, you told him that you had voted for all the pro-independence parties.

— Yes, yes, I voted for them all, indeed. I don't have any left.

Does this include the Catalan Alliance?

— I haven't had the chance to vote for them yet, I think! Oh no! I could have voted for them in the last election. But I haven't, no: they're very far from my concept and what I care about for the country. Too far.

Before I finish: among the visible tattoos is an ace of spades. Why?

— I really like the ace of spades, because it represents many things: luck, death... And it represents a song I really like by Motörhead. Well, and I like poker! I'm pretty bad at playing it, but I used to be pretty good, so now I don't remember much about how to play it... And on the other arm it says Sic itur ad astra, which means "This is the way to the stars." It is a phrase from theAeneidIt's not one of my favorite books because it's quite dense, but we were made to study it in high school, and I remember it fondly.

Would you like to reach the stars, then?

— Yes, we will all arrive.

Some can do it in their lifetime. If you had infinite money, would you pay for a space trip like Jeff Bezos offers?

— No, not at all. I like living here, in the troposphere. I don't want to go too high; I'm afraid of heights. But I try to overcome that fear by climbing and going up mountains. It terrifies me. No rockets or anything like that: if I had a lot of money, I'd invest it in buying works of art, better to have them at home than in a museum.