Acustica

I've never written a song though I imagine the experience is about as cathartic as reaching the fourth act of a greek tragedy. Hubris gone there's only passion and witty speech left to enlighten the reader (listener) as to the complicated details going on, not in the characters' mind but on the writer's tribulations.

Standing here wishing this musical musings would drive pen to pentagram and drive a chromatic scale to new unmet bounds of glory. But wishing does as little for music as squishing an ant does for cleaning my room. Remember it's a butterfly that's important.

I'd write a song to my peeps. The ones made of human flesh and not confectionary sugar meant to fulfill a tiny desire locked away deep in our frontal lobe. It wouldn't be an indie version of things with one stanza of ambiguous lyrics and an abstract word like "coldness-city" or "peaceful-ighty" to be repeated constantly throughout.

I'd model my song after the greats attempting to cover a lifespan of a story in a few choice words crammed into tiny lines meant to fit into the little squares of printed paper inside a CD. A song written not for glory or riches but for guts and soul.

Choosing the genre would be difficult and so I would probably opt for a mash-up. The type that mixes happy go lucky songs with sentimental heart-throbs of decades past and a sprinkling of thug-thumping hip-hop born and raised in streets where warriors wear Air Jordans and hope to god they make it home before their light goes out.

Eyelids closed.

The song you play on repeat for days at a time and you skip through all the other tracks on the cd. The song you and all your (my) friends nod and smile to on road trips. Constantly played at the end of nights out and memorializing your wedding I hopefully toasted and playing in the background of your musical life.

My friends. It's as simple as Do. Re. Mi.

Craving.

I sometimes crave things like chocolate and pickles. As often as not the cravings come separately and at least a week apart from each other. Sometimes I crave for singing birds, golden rings and the salty sea breeze feeling of being under a palm roof.

I've craved a hug received for a while now. The type where you can pull your arms in, tuck your head between your shoulders and fall into it. For some reason I have images of a mechanical hand closing in for the hug, me standing in the middle of it all calmly taking in the whirring noises as I get my hug. It's safer to think that the analog controls within the machine couldn't possibly turn on me like a swarm of hornets or an angry person.

A wiser man than me told me he was always looking for something new. He's been looking for what I think is 40 years but what very well may be 50 or 29 - this business we've gone into has a glory or guts attitude towards aging.

A new voice. A new beat. A new garage band feel that reminisces with the 80s, embraces the modern chemical nature of cooking but also remembers what a mixed tape feels like.

Not the plastic casing or the crackling in the first few second where you cleared your throat for a dedication  and the proceeded to stumble across something wrought in care.

2 sides, maybe 12 songs, vinyl scratching in the background.

See, what worries me is that I spent too long on that mix tape and then forget why I started it. Or wonder why the mix tape has to be one and I can't hold a conversation instead that transmits the thoughts running all over my head. Borrow all that bottled glory.

Maybe I should just talk. Maybe I should write down my thoughts and attempt an explanation that doesn't sound like an excuse. But all I want to do is start afresh with the memories that brought brilliance to the past. One full of late nights, tortellini and graceful dancing to middle school dancing.
I miss the "at home" feeling of wooden spoons, simmering pots and morning, freshly brewed coffee.

9:48

An interesting thought in audiovisual sensory overload reminded me of a new cult-classic in the making. One less involved with faux leather overcoats and more involved in an eclectic mix of waking life, eternal sunshine and the time traveler's wife.

2+2=5

Funny how traders are fond of saying that 1+1=1/2

Like all things, it was/is all relative. A walk down the block in humid, thick as amazonian air, heat feels like a mile ran alongside a chilly schuykil night.

I'm no longer a part of philly. Or as much a part as I could ever have been without having been born there or lived a particularly large portion of my life there. Though proportionally it'll come to roughly 20% if I ignore the next 50 years.

I wish we could aggregate years in number to something being more like years experienced rather than years lived. That we could tell people we were a certain age and everything else would fall into context.

tbc....

Truth is complicated.

But truth is golden.

And this weekend wasn't one that started with the end of a week. It started on a Thursday with a presage of better things to come or of worse things past. Either way it was an allowance, a permission for excess and revelry involving beach-sipped crowns and limes. Lobster, steak and ragu.

Some french tunes thrown in by the 60 year olds in the crowd that rang particularly well with my old bones and august soul.

And on Friday I worked on a model, not the photographed kind but one equally elegant and complicated in the insightful righteousness of their eyes (i's).

And I've thought of filial connections a lot as of late. I once contributed to a piece of collective thought called brosperity. The almost too-collegiate-for-writing word inspires in me a feeling of home and success, the idea that behind the frattiness and ice and tanks and boat shoes lies a stronger connection that is always tangible if only rarely visible. Vineyard vines tie stronger bonds than the knots on a 25 foot skiv.

Bro. Bros.

Term does not only apply to guys. It has a broader context that allows it to refer to anything, friend, best friend, co-worker, cousin.

I met a lot of them this weekend and even though my night ended before Jimmy appeared in the picture, Timmy did make a solid A.

A bottle of russia sneakily hid in the scoops bag (Tostito's of course) and failed to surprise its target who instead calmly reached for it, failed to adopt the one knee stance and instead popped the cap and sipped happily.

Jose also made friends that night, even after a couple of Maggie's on the rock and an insufferably hot spell on Mexico's rooftop we hid in the dungeon-like coolness of the first floor of my home.

The truth is that familiar settings like this are rare and far between. Throughout the years the bros around me (of all flavors) have followed a sinusoidal wave of closeness. Never farther than one but only touching at one brief instant near zero. And though I find myself finding a y=0 equation, or nearly so, I find other experimenting with the scatter plot around me.

Some follow a tri-asymptotic curve I didn't know it was possible.

For now Ill revel in those I still have and consider to be a part of my filial family in a country that keeps my two different life's apart.

Adios.

The subject line matters

Often as an afterthought I let my fingers float above the keyboard in a half second that is comparable only to the moments leading to the release of a jump ball as a basketball game starts.

I read a new source today that spoke of character development and theories.  A move from sometimes angry feminist literature to a maturity of a character willing to tackle everything from sex to broad political hot topics. The kind that a certain Cajun talks about and not the middle America mall outlet with ironic people who claim they feel the pain that their retail experience inflict upon their undying soul.

I'm just saying.

I'm saying that today was a sunny day with a variety of sports and seashells and glass types and sizes. A nice 20something incited me to jump into a pool fully clothed with the ever effective technique of chanting a name repeatedly until it becomes one big mush of magical incantations. Abracadabra was definitely a sentence before it degraded into what it is today. It was probably a result of the need to hide one's magical self and mutter it under one's breath.

The inquisition burned practitioners of magic - or those accused of it. The government attacked communists for a time - or those accused of it.

One of them even worked in a capitalistic machine.

Im charged with energy after an exhausting day. A feeling I'm sure my pillow could smother and one that will eerily escape me tomorrow the moment I hit the midday wall.

So for now, and in Ricky Bobby style, Clam and BAKE.

Shuffle

The truffle one. Or the cupid one? Maybe it's just Jobs' thing.

Today at work I realized that I'm the kind of guy that thinks that every time a pretty person laughs angels get their wings.
And that process is magical and painless and there's not gut-wrenching noise of muscle, bone and skin tearing out of their shoulder blades and stretching out in one satisfying creak.

I'm the kind of guy who thinks every time a corny line is used and meant on a girl, we add value to our race.
I saw relatives all over the place this weekend, from my brother Jimmy to her sister Billy.

I saw one of my favorite bros and met a couple of his relatives.

I mean relatives in the most loose adaptation of the word. Relatives are those we get to pick if we're lucky. They are the friends - bros, GIRLfriend! (screamed in a high pitch squeal), friends and best friends - we surround ourselves we. Life throws  a countless number of people in front of us everyday and we get to click with personalities.

Strangely nice ones in the subway who want to tell us nothing more than their life lessons and how we should conduct our life's from here on out. Her name was Ashley and she told us to do something between college and the real world - like teach in France. Her friend Alix (pictured in the same frame here) was proof enough that it was worthwhile. She then commented on a perfectly matched height situation and yelped FRIENDS!

One or two or three of them might be your friends friends. A good enough standard by which to measure most enough yields the discovery of great friends. And then they fight about how good oreos are and they offer kit-kats with devilish grins on their faces because they hope you'll say no because all they really want is to enjoy the chocolatey/caremely/cookiesh goodness of the candy bar.

One of them will tell you she really likes her shirt because it's like she's naked.

And the bonding continues over a multi-colored fish bowl of happiness that stands as a stark contrast to the army of black-cloth-clad youngsters lining up around the block for a Japanese artist who may or may not be the next big thing. Only in NY.

Meet friends and have a pickle.
A fried pickle.

Frickles.

Remember sunlight?

It comes from the windows brightly shining in the dark.

It's in a basket and in the form of two alkaline batteries powering a flashlight.

It's in the middle of a battlefield and it flickers eerily every other beat. The other beat is the rat-tat-tat of a gat.

According to a certain man's band it's in the smile of a pretty girl.

As of late I've thrown myself, like I've done some times before, head first into waters unknown. Head first, arms holding my sides and nose and my feet pointed - low profile. Or low key as some west coasters would be inclined to say. But it's different know because someone is swimming already.

I've been delving in this coward old world (if only to make a play on a well known piece of literature).

The nice man at the Chockful'o'nuts knows that when I walk in I'll have a large, skim, 2 splenda french vanilla latte...and a red bull. And today I discovered a secret recipe behind the energizer bunny's brilliant drumming: a drink, one part coffee and three parts coke zero. Saying it's a rush of caffeine to the head would barely do it justice. Saying it makes me the life of the party, the shadow-caster in the room (a positive no matter how negative it sounds) or the big kahuna - would be an understatement. I made two new friends this way - their eyes equally wired in a similar stasis of sugar and raw, FDA approved POWER.

But enough about the fast pace of the week and more of the gentle lapping of the east river.

Picture a suburban town with an urban feel and a hipster vibe. The major of the town wear skinny jeans, pointy shoes, wears a fedora and carries an old SRL leica. His clothes are vintage.

And then there's a stage awkwardly placed so that you face the conundrum: stage or view? Because behind you, quite quite quietly, like a cobra before striking, stands New York - boldly proud. Rand would have been proud. In front are 4 men sporting various degree of facial hair reminiscing about equine ways.

The choice is simple, go with the beard.

Visibility

Hundreds of people breeze past the sad duo every day. They both sport the prerequisite bright green shirt with company logo and carry a clipboard or a binder in a death grip that makes you wonder how much they are charged if they ever lose it. ***Note to self: interesting career choice. Snatcher of binders from the street solicitors.*** I wonder how many people they actually touch with the meaning[fu(l)]ness of their message.

Hi do you have some time today for [Insert Reasonable cause like saving Baby Whales or Protecting the Ecosystem of the blue footed armadillo in the Mississippi Delta as a result of the spill]? 

Yes! Thank you! I often stroll the streets hoping to pass the time with perfect strangers in an engaged conversation neither of us want to have. I'm so glad there's always two of you and you face opposite directions of the street so you don't have to miss people like me! Yes I was reading about the family news in my email on my blackberry but psha! that can be saved for later. 

There are very few times when I find myself at the right place and time - whenever I find "them" I know it'll be a good day.

I wonder how the delivery men who bring my food nearly daily now get by speaking such rudimentary english. Then again, I wonder how they got a work visa and how uncomfortable that interview must have been with the official. 

Name? Blank (stare). Purpose of request? The applicants eyes quietly but expressively reflect a deep desire to make Food Delivery Systems that will blow the minds out of the average Domino's technician who tracks your pie from creation, to baking, to en-route, to in-yo-face. Do you have a job here? Giggles. A sigh, I'm not sure from who, and a stamp later and he's on the pursuit of happiness. 

-"Hi...Delivery...Food...Here?"

-Thanks. I'll be right down."

Elevator Music

I had a man in combat boots, soviet issue army fatigues and white bandana offer me 40 dollars in the elevator if I could name the actor, winner of two Obie awards, born today some time ago.

I said I couldn't, not even for a hundred dollars. The rain maker in me considered a Monte Carlo approximation to it figuring out how many name combinations I could spew in the time the elevator travelled from the fourteenth floor to the third floor laundry room. The exercise was futile. Instead I went with the awkward nodding of the head as I muttered something lacking in words in an attempt to convey NO.

A banker today showed me what it's like to be boss. Not in the Hugo Boss kind of way. Not in the "Olivia! Fetch my coat and hat - I'm due at the Waldorf in 10 minutes" way. In the nerdy kind of I've done this particular lecture enough times to know what you will ask, how you will ask and when you will ask it. He also showed prodigal skill at hot key shortcuts.

In a matter of seconds he formatted and linked and hyperlinked things on screen without taking his eyes off of his audience in a quiet, passive challenge.

BRING IT.

I suppose this is how people in the real world. Wake up in the morning, go play with hundreds of millions of dollars and notional amounts of trillions and then go home and grill (for) the kids.

And now I get to spend afternoons dissecting seconds and interpreting verses written 10,20,50 years ago. The building I'm standing on has a shell that's ancient but an inside that hollow and sparse but the window outside looks at my second home - lit up for the night.

Often I travel so far away from the two little blocks I know as home to enjoy a taste of the tobacco continent only to hopscotch to a city of soup (Alphabet please) and then non-chalantly stroll through a village (or two if you walk for long enough. A place where you can run into friendly were-once's and sit on a stage while eating brunch. The elevated platform just enough to comfortably allow for one's imagination to fit in an idea that we are VIP.

And at the end of the day I get New York the way I liked it best.

Dark, gloomy and rainy while it holds my hand.

Pigeons

I'm allergic to them but I'd use them in a pinch if I had to send a message.

In so many ways the advent of the text message and the bbm and the email have allowed me to express myself best - though I rather enjoy the conversation I end up having with friends and friendly strangers.

But those who know me know that I've never been a fan of speaking on the phone. The cold feeling of plastic pressed up against my ear or barking at a loud speaker sized conversation have never appealed to me. Skyping is barely tolerable and most my conversations are quick splinter cell operations:

 Hi! How are you? Stated purpose of phone call. Ciao!

But as of late I find myself hoping to call. Hoping to get a call and hear the angsty screams of Caleb drive me to the phone.

What's worse? From the moment the sometimes bad connection based on poor reception in the new york subway allows me a breath of voice I smile.

And then I find myself speaking. No... Talking. On the phone. And as I walk past other people I'm not the Wall Street type clearly angry both at the phone and the entity behind it. I'm enjoying a conversation with a person and I get to laugh and be silly like I usually do when I'm in person.

I like 215.

Jitters

Jeepers creepers
Goosebumps
Translated from Spanish: chicken skin
And then there's the heebiejeebies

I imagine a chilly breath of I don't know what that makes me arch my back - cat-like.

The soft graze of a hand on my chest or an arm lazily draped around your shoulder.

Everywhere you look in this city is anything you could ever want.

One moment I have a portobello mushroom stuffed with fresh provolone and toasted to perfection exploding at first bite and the next one I have a nice gentleman dressed in a button down and slacks threatening to urinate on my face. Yes! Hello! And Thank you VERY much!

And then there's the helpless family of 5 with all three children safely tethered to the mothership and a confused father, fanny pack and all looking at a MAP completely bewildered by the brightly colored metro lines. The problem is he's never heard the words courier bag and man used in a sentence that heightens the sexuality of the male. He needs to make it in the big town for that.

We sat at a place - McSorley's - where the sawdust on the ground, the gray vested all-male employees and the track broadcasting on the TV indicated that this wasn't a place for music. Two drinks offered: light or dark. No more questions asked although their specialty in fare is crackers with mustard. I wish that last part was a joke.

The place reeks of musty humidor and foam and history. And you meet strangers who either shyly or proudly tell you they work for the machine (a bank) or joyously tell you they've been flying regional jets since age 18. They have a family back home and enjoy conquering their fear of heights by controlling a flying tube. There was a nice man from Long Island with a compelling story of the Mexican Chrysler General Manager asking him to fly down to Mexico with a gift of canned peanuts. He was very eager and would constantly lie flat across the table in order to introduce himself and the rest of his adoptive entourage if only briefly and quite drunkenly.

His wife later dragged him to a show.

And when you're ready to wrap up and get either a late night dinner or go trolling around the town you close your tab with Scott (great man who refers to his customers in a loving voice as - F****ers). One look and then.

I'll bring you one more round so you finish at an even 100.

Suburbia, USA

Cities are built differently in every country.


Sometimes public transportation has to pass through the wealthy neighborhoods to allow for the "help" to come in in the morning. In some cases, public transportation is kept away from the rich neighborhoods lest it be too easy for the mob to invade the small castles built on their foundation.


People can't wait to live in the city and experience all the excitement. Up to a point. Then you get a house out in the country and mock the hicks mercilessly as you realize you also enjoy Friday nights filled with PBR and dip.


In Some Cases WE FAIL to understand WHY it iS thaT we crave living in a shoebox.


Or read in mild shock about Hoovervilles - the cardboard cities that are all pervasive in the third world. I know my government hides them by planting tall and meager trees to prevent drivers from appreciating the magical delight they represent. Engineers and architects could attempt to build such tittering structures safely and they wouldn't be able to match the ingenuity and creativity of master builders.


It's cardboard and mortar and tin and sheets of plastic. It's city planning where city is a substitute for destitute and planning is in place of living. 


The streets are dirt - packed hard by hundred of feet and pickup trucks (the kind that carry 20 people in the back for 5 pesos a head). The government has spewed patches of pavement here and there.


Those are my suburbs.


Suburbia existed inside the city and behind high, electrified fences. They'd have security guards and outposts so as to better simulate the sense that we lived in a safe first world country - if only for an isle.


Except here instead of a melodrama based around murder and desperate moms we have the very real force of green. And no. We don't recycle.


Swat style and armed to the teeth with 20 year old Kalishnikovs that jam in the middle of the night the army rushes into one of the house on any given day with the hopes of arresting the ultimate businessman. 9 out of 10 they won't get the right guy or the right house will be empty having been alerted.


The largest industry in Mexico has powerful businessmen with families and vested interest in protecting their little slices of heaven.


Now that we have LV and Cartier in Mexico - they don't even need the visa.

Taco Tortilla Grill

It saddens to see my compatriots so downtrodden and lacking that general sprit de corps that characterized our nations in the younger political years where ideas were supported by weapons and impassioned speeches by half-educated pseudo-religious catholic priests with a penchant for women and something akin to honey mead. 

We've named our cultural embassies whatever string of stereotypes we can fit onto a billboard. In some cases we've forgotten the idea of Mexican food and gone with the Mexican inspired salads, baby-sized burritos and something called "hard" tacos.

But this isn't a tirade against a particular brand of restaurant which I love which doesn't carry the namesake sauce. 

This is about the cosmo part of cosmopolitan. It's about the tomato, lettuce, cucumber, onions, raisin, tofu and oil and vinegar mixed in the salad bowl I'm living in right now. Perhaps I should see it as my castle with a moat to keep outsiders funneling through the tunnels - drawbridges - in which they transport their wares from the outskirts.

I stand upon a hill, Murray's actually. But I'm caught next to a piece of flat metal triangles and place they call Grammercy. 

I walked back from the 70s in a time traveling machine all they way down the 20s. Throughout it I saw flappers and pant suits that would have made American Dreams shed a tear of happiness. But I also saw hot little pencil skirts paired with running shoes and flipflops. A man wearing camo shorts with cowboy boot and a tank escorting a nice little emo girl with an obvious desire to become vampire.

In a building for a minute. Then a storm that lasts but 5 minutes. Then out again as you paddle your own little canoe into this curious stream where I'm learning how to set the rhythm. I don't like the swinging arms, burrowed brow and slight hunch of back that some of them sport. I don't have the swagger that some sport accompanied by track jackets, 3/4 basketball shorts and shinny Dwayne Wade's. The power walk characterizing the suits is intimidating but easily replicated - a sense of purpose without one. The leisurely tourist pace seems to taunt everyone behind them as they fly in concord formation.

The place around the corner is called the American Dream. Apparently it involves grimy windows and yellow artificial light.

TBC.

Incommunicado

and the uncertainty of guessing.

It would be great if I could reveal some insight into a city that for a very long time has held a place of awe and inspiration in my mind. My day was consumed by a trip uptown, a trek through a jungle from the East to the West (in what I'm sure will be seen by historians as my second expansionist movement), Zabar's and an expression of new york sparkle.

Seems to me that it would be fitting for me to write about berries and how to pluck, harvest and make into a sweet sweet tasting smoothies of communication.

Because I want to walk down Madison
Yelling into my phone
SELL! SELL YOU MORON WHAT DO I PAY YOU FOR!!!!!
Follower by a series of expletives
Like 3rd rater
Monkey
Arse
(All three of those for warm-up)
And run over an old lady
not bothering to excuse myself
f'get about it!
I am young and hip
and executive and associate
and analyst and a wannabe MD,VP
Hear me meow!

But rather than do that, I stand in a clinical white bathroom with a nice lady waiting outside the door. I imagine her ear is plastered to the door with a cup to amplify her hearing, ready to barge in swat-style with her stethoscope and rectal thermometer to accuse me of turning the water on.

And the truth is I'd rather whisper stories of my youth and hear thoughts often left unspoken but brought forth by request and giggle () about the silly things we might say.

LML

101

Most religions on this green earth end in a somewhat similar tale - the idea that we leave our earthly bounds and provided we were decent human beings who never approved of genocide, stupidity or jay-walking we will go to a better place in the afterlife (or come back in a position > than the goose we were two lifes ago).  The getting in through the pearly whites is a little more complicated, sometimes there's a saint, a boat with a man requiring the payment of two coins or a dragon guarding the entrance.

JC! Sup homie!

I would use the term "true understanding" in what is about to follow but that would be a paradoxical phrase to the idea of "faith". How can we, despite what Thaler and Sunstein might want us to believe about the predictability of irrationality, understand the irrational? Nash found patterns in the social movements of doves in the university courtyard - he understood them, but those movements weren't random. The moment we begin predicting the drunk stumbles of a half-crawling college students will be the day I ammend this thesis.

A grasp on the concept of "happily ever after" in religion and a true faith should allow us to grapple with death rather well. It would allow us to deal with ti in the same fashion as births, a terminally ill patient healing or a rock statue weeping. With celebration (and papal judges) where we'd hope for those around us to rejoice and celebrate and slap each other in the back at their good fortune.

I don't understand why'd we say losing someone. No. Someone has left and taken a part of you with them and that's why even the most methodical and precise analysis of religion falls through here. The bioethics committee my parents once ran would be proud at my vulcan approach to the final days.

When a person is in pain and the childhood solution - band-aids - is no longer sufficient, when the JV encouragement to "WALK IT OFF!" isn't likely and the doctors don't get to say - fortunately we caught this on time - it's the logical illogical that takes precedence.

But now the binary says 101 with a character of 5.

This isn't angry, it isn't sad. It's a confused mapping of ideas that circle around the idea of a lot of questioning beings.

I wonder what answer the agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac arrived at.

Castillos de Mexico

En tiempos de antaño y más que nada en Europa la mayoría de la gente vivía en humildes chozas de algo parecido al adobe y techos de paja y Madera. Los nobles ricos así como los no tan nobles pero igualmente venditos por el poder divino del dinero construían castillos, pequeños y grandes a la semejanza de los reyes.

Pequeñas construcciones palaciales con torretas, torres y murallas que los defendieran del mundo exterior. Bloques de piedra y gigantescos troncos de Madera viajaban cientos de kilómetros con el poder loco motivo de bueyes y mulas para construirle un techo digno a la gente con el poder adquisitivo necesario. Está claro que esto solo sucedía en tiempos buenos cuando las cosechas no fallaban y no había impuestos adicionales del reino y no había ni guerra ni iglesia que destruyera los planes de los simples mortales.

Y hoy en día miles de turistas viajan a los bosques de Europa donde se esconden estas estructuras que a la vez inspiran melancolía y respeto.

Lo bueno es que México está en proceso de convertirse en la nueva Europa – estamos atrapados en la edad media Europea donde la iglesia es gobierno aunque el Cardenal y Fecal digan lo contrario. Ah! Y la ley también dice lo mismo.

Lo que sucede es que por todo México surgen mansiones por no decir palacios en zonas exclusivas que si no son boscosas son costosas. Del día a la mañana aparecen docenas de albañiles listos para trabajar y hay material como si estuviéramos en remate de aseguradoras. Los permisos para construcción fluyen del gobierno y nadie le pregunta al prestanombres de donde viene el dinero porque el dinero contesta.

Pero son empresas majestuosas de colores chillantes mexicanos con pilastras donde no hay lugar para pilastras y cúpulas árabes que no van con el concepto pseudo vanguardista que los líderes de la más grande industria Mexicana buscan reflejar. Lo mejor de todo es el horror que les ha de dar a los diseñadores contratados a quienes se les indica que dejen este cuarto para el altar de la virgencita – porque ella nos protege – y que por favor le pinten el techo verde obscuro con estrellas DORADAS. De los balazos y las mordidas.

Bardas muy altas, como de 3 pisos para que nadie los vea (y el gobierno no se les meta) con la mayor protección que aprendieron en su pueblo – botellas rotas incrustados en el cemento a lo largo de todo el perímetro de  la barda. Al fin que ni a los genios se les ocurriría usar guantes.

Ya acabadas llegan las picops (pick-ups) de rines altos, llantas anchas y las Navigator para que la señora se vaya de Chopin (shopping). Quien quita y la casa este abandonada dentro de un ano. 

Dry-Freeze

Picture a house of the sort that is common in Allende or Safon books - a house sort of frozen in the past with crumbling adobe walls, corners filled to the brim with dust and a lost cat or two that make us think of deja-vu.

These houses are always abandoned relics of yesteryear in neighborhoods that saw better days when the Spanish (or the French or the English) ruled over a country now ruled by indigenous left-wing zealots that make up for their lack of education with misguided idea(l)s. The next door cafe - once a sign of progress and richness with a bottle or two of fine wine still left - pleads the passerby for a momentary glance that's teased out of them with a plate of delicately crafted charcuterie.

I walked into such a place but it wasn't frozen; it was alive in its stillness. Because of the memories gathered in the form of forgotten matchbooks and restaurant coasters as well as pictures of the sort you buy on a cruise and that is poorly glued to a laminated piece of fancy looking plastic you could have thought the owner had left the place in a hurry one lazy afternoon and had never come back.

A piece of me lives there.
And that's a poetic way of saying a family member is very much alive in it.

A woman who projects more life than she actually has.

Consider the technological marvel of the project. A small, lightweight box of black magic that makes tiny images - for they must be tiny to pass through those skinny cables connecting it to the computer - into huge high definition pieces of art that would have made 12th century European artists ooh and aah with marvel. We've come a long way since human statues.

Though examples in Paris and Puerto Vallarta might suggest otherwise.

She moves carelessly through a clutter precariously balancing her past and present with no obvious consideration for the future. A yell erupts from her in frustration as she looks for the notebook she is holding and searches desperately for the glasses she has calmly sitting atop her head. Of course it makes sense for the crows' footsteps all over her face to be stretched tight by a magical combination of pigs something or other, blended platelets (her own thank god) and ozone and Co2.

She's obviously found the fountain of youth.

Prescription:
Though the reader might be inclined to finish reading this and perceive a sense of dripping sarcasm I would hope that the melancholy of the beginning be kept throughout.

Maybe we'll all grow up to be whatever age we're supposed to be.

Brecha

A common term used for a road that is not a road. It's more of a path but to call it one would be an exaggeration. A flat (sort of) rocky piece of sinewy way meant for mules but used by cars - the sort of road where you wouldn't be surprised if you had to drive past a creek or two to get to your final destination.

The views are inevitably beautiful and precarious as your soccer mom van teeter totters over a 50 foot cliff with little more than a sand bank between you and that beautiful weightless feeling that led us to explore the skies. People say it's part of tradition, that it's part of a Mexico that's fading into nothingness and that the youth will sorely miss 10 years from now.

The youth 10 years from now will wake into a world where internet has always existed, where we pop a morning pill to protect us from the penetrating UV rays because the ozone hole is now just the hole. Where communication could travel at faster than light speed and everyone has flying cars and last names like Jetson. And yes, robots work for us and follow Asimov's laws except that in this movie they don't go psycho on us.

We even put a stopper on death for a while.

Saramago has detailed a thesis on just this topic and the results are not pretty. As much as we would like to extend our brief instance on this earth nature (like England) prevails.

And as always I digress down a brecha myself only to get to my point (insert a sardonic remark here).

The brecha is the last bastion of true Mexican expression; ignoring of course all of the artisan work that the indigenous populations hock in flea markets around Mexico as well as the family run businesses selling everything from hand-made corn tortillas to spicy chillied candy of unclear origin.

A piece of road that washes away two or three times a year during raining season - a road that would be better of if it were only cobblestoned or paved. It's always a quick fix and a hopeful prayer that leads to the reconstruction and people like. Curves so tight and lanes so narrow so as to only let a car pass at a time - and the local farmers will never cease to park on the banks as well as host entire fiestas completely unaware of how horribly they disturb Mexico.

I love it here.

3 colors

Not on a flag or a three piece pimp suit.

Three colors on my wrist - one the tan the sweet sweet Mexican sun gifted me. Another the tender white of the underhand of my hand. The last one is splashed here and there in the form of freckles - sweet little dots of genetic pattern that make me unique.

Take this as an apology I don't know how to phrase.

My friends know that I'll go to the end of the world if they really need me to. Sometimes even to my own detriment. I'm always up for a hug, or a snuggle or a kind word or a good venting wall when you need it and I hope you know that.

The kind of friend I think I am or that I hope I am.

I'd get a phone call sometime in the next 10 years only to hear your voice for the first time in a couple months as you let me know you are now engaged. I make plans to meet up with you at once and celebrate and organize a bridal shower or a bachelor party as appropriate. I'll pick up your parents at the airport on the day off and keep you cool, calm and collected on the outside even if you feel like dying a little inside and you're not sure if that's a good thing or not.

I'd get a phone call sometime after that around the middle of the day as you tell me you're having a baby boy or girl (though I really know that you're hoping for a girl). I'd rush over - hitchhike across the country all the way to Frisco via Denver - if only to pick you up (even though I know you hate it) and give you a heartfelt congratulations.

I'd be in the hospital waiting room or in your room or holding your hand as you bring forth what I could only consider one of the luckiest kids in the world; perhaps even history.

Down the road I'd like to grab coffee with you and reminisce about the times we were young and I was stupid.

And then we'll turn 65 and wonder where the last 40 years have gone and think to ourselves that we started out in the big city and then progressively grew away from each other only in distance. I learned to consider the gap between us only in time zones and not in driving time or flying time or Amtrak time. This way I could be in Chicago and you could be in NY and the distance between us would only be an hour.

This is the friend I hope I am, hope to be and I aspire to be.

I'm sorry.

Meaning of Names

It would be self serving to quote Shakespeare and talk about roses or analyze the greek (sometimes latin) root of words. The latter I leave to spelling bee geeks and champions.

It’s just I find myself in sideways building hurtling through space at hundreds of miles and hour in a system no one truly understands and that is more likely to fail than to succeed. Planes…hmpf!

I’m on my way to sandy beaches, sand sculptures of the Virgen de Guadalupe and whole Fish deep fried with garlic and spice. A place where the Marimba plays in the town square, where rules are lax but the laws exist. It’s a beautiful place corrupted by its residents. It’s a Utopia gone wild. Like a well maintained pond invaded by the Asian Carp.

But the problem here is names – of things, of people, of places of time and thought.

It comes to mind that the movie Jaws would sound silly in Spanish. That a movie called 12 monkeys would sound like a terror flick in German. Maybe it’s just that the expression for kiss in French also has darker and dangerous implications.

And you wake up one morning from the comfortable unconscious that is every memoery before the age of 5 and realize that you have a name – a meaningful one. But so do dogs that are pets and ficticious characters impersonated by an enthusiastic fan at a football stadium. You either like your name or you don’t. You either have a middle name that you will hide from the world, use in a I-have-a-name-but-go-by-JC,JP,LT,etc Maybe it’s a silent tribute your parents decided upon in memory of a distant aunt you’ll never meet or a name your mother read in a magazine while she waited at the beauty salon one time.

I look out the window and I see the ocean.

Tuesday was named Tuesday because that was the day it was rescued.

Buck took the nickname (yet another confounding variable in this study) of “you big ugly beast you”.

And a nice homeless man baptized every man he met, by the mere effect of calling out to them, Jack.

So what do they mean and do they shape us? I’m working on a list organized by names with a map of traits and character strengths and weaknesses in search of a pattern. I’m looking for a revelation that’s a needle in a haystack.

La-sha.