Remember the Cumbia de la Influenza? The AH1N1 virus had scarcely become a Twitter trending topic and some tipos had already written and recorded a song about Indiana Jones rescuing Chilangolandia. Couple that anecdote with the fact that on any given night in Mexico there’s a DJ somewhere playing “Rock With You,” or “Beat It” for a rabid crowd of Michael Jackson fans and you shouldn’t be surprised that a Sonoran Norteño group, Los Picadientes de Caborca, have already come up with a purely Mexican version of MJ’s classic, “Billy Jean.”
Since I couldn’t be in Los Angeles to pay my respects, this is how I will thank the man who inspired my first awkward gabacha dance moves:
I’ve been working on a profile of a candidate who ran for a municipal election, so on Sunday it was off to the polls. (That man in the picture is not the candidate. He’s part of the 30 percent of the population that turned up to vote.)
I was told by the campaign manager to arrive for a press conference at 11am on election day. Silly chilangabacha that I am, I believed him. I showed up right on time and was told to come back at 1pm. I decided to wander around aimlessly and happened upon a dusty little book store. You know how in cartoons an old lady will put a pie in a window and a “finger of aroma” will reach out and grab Bugs Bunny by the nose? That’s kinda what happened to me, but with Alan Riding’s excellent novel, Distant Neighbors. Instead of pie smell it was musty pages that drew me in.
The timing of picking up the book, an essential guide to Mexican culture and history, couldn’t have been better. The 11am press conference got pushed back to 1pm, then 4pm and finally 8pm. During my nine-hour wait, Riding taught me that, “arriving an hour or more late for a dinner party does not merrit an apology; to the contrary, it is arriving on time that is considered rude.” Oops.
Distant Neighbors also outlines Mexico’s turbulent and colorful political history in such a way that after two years of living here I think I finally get the gist of the political timeline of the past century. So the PRI ( Partido Revolucionario Institucional) are the dudes who ran the country from 1929 until Vicente Foxy Fox won the presidential election in 2000 under a dual ticket of Mexico’s Green party (PVEM) and the right-wing PAN (Partido Acción Nacional)Foxy’s successor was Felipe Calderon, also known as Fe-Cal (you know, like caca) by some of his detractors. Why the stinky nickname? Well it depends on who you ask. Some members of the PRD (Partido Revolución Democrática) claim that Calderon stole the 2006 presidential election from their man, Manuel Lopez Obredor, a la George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000 – only Lopez Obredor is still out there contesting the vote while Al Gore is making movies about sweaty penguins.
Are you still with me? Basically, there are as many political parties as there are saint’s days in April in this country, and everybody wants a swing at the piñata.
This wasn’t a presidental election, but the race for Congressional seats, governorships and state and local seats was nonetheless interesting.The old school PRI gained footing in places DF suburbs like Ecatepec, Neza and Chalco thanks to the fancy footwork of its new star, Enrique Peña Nieto, a guapetón widower with a telenovela girlfriend. PAN fell flat in several of its favored districts and the PRD had predictable less-than-hair-raising results. The real stars of the show were the 10 percent of voters who chose to nullify their votes by putting a giant “X” through the entire ballot.
If all of these acronyms have your head spinning, you can either go track down a copy of Distant Neighbors, or watch the following video of the press conference that finally happened nine hours after I showed up.
The “rr”s started rolling into “l”s on the flight from Mexico City to Panama. “Bienvenidos a boldo,” said a flight attendant named Frank, who’s gelled hair was approaching Daddy Yankey helmut-head status. I even comprehended all of the captain’s warnings before they were translated into English, which is nothing to sneeze at considering two years ago I thought Juanes was saying goodbye to someone named “Lepido.”*
The rest of the transition from Mexican to Puerto Rican Español was gradual, as though a handful of syllables parachuted from the plane at each 1,000-mile mark across the Caribbean. By the time my connecting flight from Panama had reached San Juan, “como estas” only had enough syllables for “o as.” Still, when I arrived at San Juan’s Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, I tried to forget the fact that it usually takes me about a month to translate a Calle 13 song. (”Quitate el esmalte” se dice “take off your nail polish” i.e. let your hair down.)
I’ve been living in Mexico City for a year and have had to perform all kinds of important tasks - everything from getting my tooth pulled to cursing out a dude who cut in front of me in the Banamex line – in Spanish. I wasn’t going to be intimidated by a regional accent. Not this Chilangabacha.
Alas, I was gobsmacked by my first opportunity for on the ground communication. “Cuanto cuesta un taxi al Caribe Hilton?” The tipo with the huge cubic zirconia studs in his ears looked at me like I was dragging around a dog on fire instead of luggage. “Uhhh, what?” I continued the rest of the exchange in English, with my ego deflated.
I guess I should have looked at this list of slang before I arrived because these types of interactions happened througout my five days in San Juan. I caught on a little bit, but my confidence was definitely knocked down a couple of notchesI finally felt better when I ran into a Chilango in the “jugo chino” line. “Que pedo con esa pinche idioma, guey,” he said. That, I understood.
* The song is actually called “A Dios Le Pido” or “I ask God.”
Have you ever wondered what fuels Mariachis on their all night Cielito Lindo binges? You thought it was the spirit of Mexico, didn’t you? It turns out, no. These musicians make it through their work day the same way millions of other Chilangos do – with a burnt ass cup of Oxxo coffee.
Also, notice how the people sitting at the Oxxo tables pay them no mind. They’re too busy enjoying their yummy rubbery hotdogs and coca cola products to notice the harbingers of culture standing right next to them! And no, the mariachis didn’t ask for requests. Oxxo is a place of convenience, not debauchery!
I’m not saying this to hate on Oxxo. Yes, they’re kind of the epitome of evil, but they were also the glue that held this city together during the H1N1 outbreak. During normal, non-swine flu times Chilangos go there for everything from cacahuates japoneses to personal lubricant.
I wonder what else the mariachis had on their shopping list that day.
So Chilangabach@s, I’ve been extremely apathetic lately. Maybe its the heat, maybe its because I’m trying to take advantage of the days before I have to give up my Cablevision. I keep staring at my empty WordPress page and the words just don’t come! But today, I have been urged to write again about a subject very near and dear to my corazon – flour tortillas. I don’t care if one of their main ingredients is lard, I love them so much, I could write a dissertation about it – too bad these guys already beat me to it.
If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed that I’m listed as a “flour tortilla fan.” I added this tidbit as an homage to my California roots and I’ve been surprised by the responses that statement has elicited. “Flour tortillas are for wimps,” read one, “corn or nothing!” read another, and each of them were like daggers to my lard-arteried heart!
But why do I care so much?whyyyyyyy? (insert childhood montage a la Wonder Years. Grandma holding dusty rolling pin floats by, a young Chilangabacha and sister attempt to make peanut butter and jelly burritos). Like a hipster crying into his Pabst Blue Ribbon , I now realize that flour tortila love is a big part of my So-Cal identity, and I’m not the only one. One of my high school classmates took his love of tortillas all the way to Buenos Aires where he opened a franchise called California Burrito Co. Homeboy has lines for miles! My informal research revealed that 9 out of 10 Chilangabach@s throw a flour tortilla on the burner at least once a week.
Yes, I do concede that corn tortillas have been a food staple since Mexosaurus Rex times. However, that was like a conquest and two revolutions ago. Since then a lot of ish has gone down, including the introduction of flour mills to northern Mexico and the United Statesian border. Somewhere along the line abuelas in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas started feeding them to their pocho grandkids and a comfort food was born. Every time I made an apocolypto-prep run to the market during the swine flu outbreak I instinctively picked up at least three bags of tortillas, so I could have something warm and lardy to cling to when the three horseman arrived. By the time the scare was over I had enough to make burritos for weeks. That reminds me, I think some of them are turning green on my shelf. Time to stop clinging.
I don’t have anything against corn tortillas, corny folks or even Great Cornholios. I just loves me my burrito wrappers and I’ll defend them furevur, rolling pin in hand.
Felipe Calderon says its time for all of us in the tourism industry to tighten our Teva straps. He’s unveiled a new plan, Vive Mexico (Mexico Lives), to help bring bodies back into hotel rooms. The plan involves getting big time celebrities to talk up the country like it was their favorite plastic surgeon or yoga instructor.Here’s an excerpt from the Vive Mexico press release:
I invite everyone to let visitors from abroad know that coming to Mexico is a great experience, that Mexico is not only a beautiful country, but also a strong country, capable of dealing with and overcoming the greatest adversity and that we welcome them to our beaches, cities and towns,” he said.
The people of La Gloria, the so-called epicenter of the epidemic, were way ahead of Fe-Cal on this one. They may not have Bono or Shakira, but they have their own little gel-haired rock star, Edgar Hernandez. Locals don’t see Hernandez as “Patient Zero,” like the rest of the world paints him, but as the strong little boy who was the first to survive the virus.And you better believe them dudes was all over his notariety like miel de maple on hotcakes. Not even a month has gone by since H1N1 mania, and the local artisans have already completed a bronze statue in his likeness.
Local authorities say the statue, which depicts Edgar holding a frog in one hand as a symbol of the biblical plague, will do wonders for attracting tourists. I concur!Not only did little Edgar survive (both the flu and the subsequent media storm), but he lived on to become his own statue! He’s an inspiration for us all. I don’t know about ya’ll, butI’m booking my tickets to La Gloria today.
Just picture it: A little five-year-old Chilangabacha (probably wearing an outfit very similar to the ones I wear today- t-shirt jeans, tennies- except instead of a ponytail, really long trenzas) chillin’ in the living room in the Inland Empire with Chilangamama. Before you could even say Rancho Cucamonga, the room starts swaying enough for me to get my nose out of a coloring book. Me and moms take refuge in doorway, but we can watch still our local news broadcasters, Christerpher Nance and Chuck Shocknek, keeping it real on KCBS.
I couldn’t find specific video of the dynamic duo squealing like little girls and ducking under the news desk, but I did find something even better – old school David Letterman making fun of Nance and “Aftershocknek.” My favorite part of the whole thing is Cristopher Nance’s face. Yeah, it made me laugh, but I’m sure it’s pretty close to the grimmace I had this afternoon when we were rocked by a 5.7 earthquake. Gaaah! (Note to earthquake gods, can you please hold off until like 2010 for your next little surprise?)
I was on the other side of the country when Northridge happened, but all of my classmates talked about having slumber parties interrupted and copies of Nancy Drew flying off the shelves.
So, these last couple of temblors in DF have been somewhat new to my adult self. The little kid in me still wants to laugh and think of good old aftershockneck.
So I overslept this morning and missed my first Zumba class. I’m going to write about it to make up for it. I’ll totally burn the same amount of calories sitting here on my ottoman drinking a coffee.
Just finding a decent gym in this town is its own workout. One place had like a hundred year old lady chain smoking and guarding the front desk, another on the first floor of a building provides a show every Friday night for a crowd of skeevy men who line up on the curb to spy in on the bouncing booties and bosoms of Zumba class, then there’s the yoga place located on the border of the Doctores neighborhood, not a place you’d want to be walking around wearing lycra after dark. I went with the lesser of all gimnasio evils – a lugar directly above a taqueria where espinning, zumba and tae bo classes cost 25 pesos a pop.
The first class I tried was the aforementioned espinning (spinning). When I saw my classmates, I’ll admit I thought I would kick all their asses and totally beat them on our fake race on our fake bikes. But I’m pretty sure those ladies could put even Lance Fuertebrazos in his one-balled place. I had to keep taking breaks and one time the pedals kept going on without me and nearly arranca’d my sneaker off.
The whole time we were spurred on by house music and by the wafts of tacos al pastor that enividably crept in through the windows. Finally, we had spun to our destination – Crunchtown. I hate me some ab workout! Alas, I soldiered on and crunched through more house music. After about a million agonizing sit-ups it was time for the cool down, which consisted of laying on the floor. I’ve been to my fair share of random aerobics classes and the cool down is always a key insight into the mind of the instructor. Just what does he or she find relaxing? Back in the states its usually some form of Budha Bar new age chime orchestra. So, what did our instructor – a sweatsuit wearing 30-something male- choose to play? Dido? Nope. Los Cranberries? Nah. How about a rock ballad from Mexican superstar Alejandra Guzman? Sure, what the hell.
Lyrics to Volverte a Amar (Loving You Again):
Porque siempre caigo rendida cuando tu me llamas/ Porque siempre a cada minuto te vuelvo a extrañar/Eres para mi desde que te vi/ No te dejo de pensar. /Y es que tengo tanto miedo de volverte a amar.
Because I always grow weak when you call me/Because every moment I go back to missing you/ You’re a part of me since I first saw you/ I won’t stop thinking about you/ The thing is I’m very scared to love you again.
Uh, that song about taking your lover back didn’t make me wanna cool down. It reminded me of my feelings for the greasy tacos calling me from the floor below. Osea, I’m scared to love them again.
Symptoms of the H1N1 virus may include: vacant hotel rooms, out of work taxistas and lonely dolphins.
Dolphins swimming all alone.
When the H1N1 virus sprayed down like a giant estornuda over Mexico, I expected my Skype to go on overload with messages from friends and family begging me to come to the states. Well.. not so much. Instead I got an inbox full of emails from every random person I’ve ever kind of met – long lost high school lab partners, a friend of a friend of my third cousin, my neighbor’s eyebrow waxer – either telling me they were cancelling the all-expense paid trip to Cancun they won on Wheel of Fortune, or asking me if they were going to die if they breathed Mexican air, even if it was a breeze from the turquoise waters of the Caribbean coast.
My answer to these inquiries: Ownt Know (shoulder shrug)
As luck would have it, I just so happened to have a research trip planned to the Riviera Maya last week and I wasn’t about to cancel it. So what was it like on the ground?
Freaking awesome for me. Pretty crappy for anyone involved in the tourism industry – which in this corner of the world, means just about everyone.
While I was enjoying a $30-a-week (plus tax and insurance) rental car, crowd-free beaches and 50% off just about everything, Hoteliers were shutting down their properties indefinitely, taxi drivers waited at the airport for passengers who would never arrive and celebrity chefs at the fancy resorts in Cancún’s Zona Hotelera got unexpected vacations.
So, what’s my conclusion? Should you cancel your vacation. I might be a little bit biased, but I’m gonna have to go with a big fat “No.” Any time you make a journey from your safe haven of home, you’re putting yourself at risk. When you go on a cruise you risk gaining 10 pounds from the unending food, the Eifel Tower could collapse on your Parisian getaway, or you could get your hair braided in the Bahamas and get laughed off the airplane.
These risks are what define adventure and all great travel includes a few bumps in the road.
